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US President Joe Biden has been interviewed as part of a probe into his handling of classified documents after he left the vice-presidency in 2017. Mr Biden met voluntarily with Special Counsel Robert Hur at the White House over two days, officials said. Mr Hur was appointed after a separate investigation was launched into secret documents found at Donald Trump's home. Mr Biden has not been charged with any crime. It is not unusual for presidents to be interviewed by investigators. Ian Sams, a spokesman for Mr Biden, said in a statement that the interview was conducted over the course of Sunday and Monday. It was personally carried out by Mr Hur, who was chosen by US Attorney General Merrick Garland to lead the investigation. He added that the interview had "concluded" by the end of Monday. "As we have said from the beginning, the President and the White House are cooperating with this investigation, and as it has been appropriate, we have provided relevant updates publicly, being as transparent as we can consistent with protecting and preserving the integrity of the investigation," Mr Sams told reporters. "We would refer other questions to the Justice Department at this time." The documents were discovered by aides to Mr Biden in an office he used after departing the vice-presidency, and before he launched his bid for the White House. FULL STORY

The Gaza Strip could be on the brink of a new humanitarian crisis if supplies are not allowed in, authorities say, as Israel responds to the Hamas attacks. On Monday, Israel declared a "complete siege" on the territory, saying electricity, food, fuel and water would be cut off. According to residents, aid has not reached the enclave since Saturday. BBC footage shows deserted streets covered with rubble from collapsed buildings following Israeli airstrikes. Nearly 700 people have died in these attacks and thousands more are reported to have been injured. The area is home to about 2.3 million people in total - 80% of whom rely on humanitarian aid mainly due to the ongoing hostilities with Israel. It is ruled by Hamas militants but Israel controls the airspace and its shoreline. It also restricts who and what goods can cross its borders. Neighbouring Egypt strictly controls what or who can pass through its border with Gaza too. Gaza hospital deluged as Israel retaliates with strikes Explained: What is Hamas, what is happening in Israel and the Gaza Strip and other questions Since the attacks began on Saturday morning, Israel has stopped all supplies entering Gaza, including food and medicine. Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN secretary-general, said more than a dozen healthcare workers had been killed or injured and at least seven medical centres had been damaged. Meanwhile, many people are currently without electricity and internet, and could soon be out of essential food and water supplies. FULL STORY

Rescuers are digging for survivors of a powerful earthquake that flattened whole villages in Afghanistan, killing more than 1,000 people. The 6.3-magnitude quake struck Saturday morning in Herat province, a barren landscape dotted with mud brick homes. Villagers are still using shovels and bare hands to search for more than 500 people missing, the UN says. Aid, delayed by blocked routes and communication lines being down, only started to trickle in on Monday. There are fears the death toll could be much higher. The quake hit Zindajan, a rural district some 40km (25 miles) from Herat city, where "100% of homes are estimated to have been completely destroyed," according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). FULL STORY

On Saturday morning, people in Gaza celebrated after Hamas fired thousands of rockets into Israel and launched deadly cross-border attacks. A day later, the picture was very different. After non-stop Israeli shelling, people were staying indoors. Explosions continued throughout Sunday. The sound was terrifying. Clouds of black smoke engulfed buildings across the Gaza Strip. The Israeli army says it has hit more than 1,000 targets in Gaza. These include military positions, the homes of the Hamas's leaders, as well as banks run by the militant group. One of the more significant Israeli strikes on Sunday morning targeted the Watan Tower, which serves as a hub for internet providers in Gaza. More on Israel-Gaza attacks Follow live: Latest updates Hostages: What we know about Israelis taken by Hamas Analysis: Israel blindsided, says Jeremy Bowen Explained: What's going on in Gaza and Israel, and why now? Palestinian health officials say more than 400 people have been killed in retaliatory Israeli air strikes on Gaza. Most areas are without electricity as Israel has stopped supplying Gaza with power. Gaza's own supplier can only provide 20% of the electricity needed. Food and water supplies have also been cut. Driving through the Gaza city centre on Sunday morning, I saw rubble blocking roads. Shops were closed, except for a few bakeries where long queues had formed. The escalation has made Gaza's dreadful humanitarian situation even worse. FULL STORY

Public inquiry into alleged actions of SAS units to begin amid victims’ families pleas for truth to be uncovered A public inquiry into allegations that 80 Afghans were summarily killed by members of three different British SAS units begins on Monday amid pleas from victims’ families to uncover the truth behind the deaths. Mansour Aziz, whose brother and sister-in-law were shot and killed while sleeping by British elite forces during a night raid on 6 August 2012, said he hoped the inquiry would establish why his home had been targeted. Two of their children were also shot and injured, and Aziz said he and the surviving family members wanted “to know the truth”. In a statement released via his lawyers, he said: “We are asking for the court to listen to these children and bring justice.” Leigh Day, the firm representing Aziz and other victims’ families, said that while there were Afghan news reports of civilians being killed or injured at the time, it was still not clear whether the incident was investigated internally by the SAS, then commanded by Gen Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, or the Royal Military Police. Afghans were repeatedly found killed at or near their homes following night raids by the SAS, often after allegedly producing weapons when separated from their wider family by British soldiers. In five incidents, lawyers representing victims say the number shot dead exceeded the number of weapons found. Despite years of concern about the incidents, the public inquiry was granted only late last year after years of legal challenges and investigative journalism, during a period in which some Conservative ministers had sought to dismiss the accusations. Judicial review proceedings were brought by the Saifullah and Noorzai families in 2019 and 2020. They claimed that the deaths of their family members were a consequence of a policy of extrajudicial killings that were subsequently covered up by the SAS and in Whitehall. FULL STORY

Former President Trump said Sunday that Hamas’s attacks on Israel and the Russia-Ukraine war would “never have happened” if he were president. “THE HORRIBLE ATTACK ON ISRAEL, MUCH LIKE THE ATTACK ON UKRAINE, WOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED IF I WERE PRESIDENT – ZERO CHANCE!” Trump wrote Sunday in a Truth Social post. Trump’s comments come one day after Hamas, the militant and political group that rules Gaza, launched the largest attack on Israel in decades early Saturday. Forces invaded multiple Israeli towns by land, sea and air and launched a barrage of rocket fire in some parts of the country. More than 1,100 people on both sides have died in the violence, while thousands of others were left injured. Hamas forces also captured multiple Israeli soldiers and civilians, according to The Associated Press (AP). Trump has lauded his own record helping Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his time in the White House, pointing to policy actions like support of Israel’s claim to Golan Heights as well as his administration’s recognition of Jerusalem as the country’s capital and relocation of the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. The moving of the embassy was seen as a risk to the tensions in the region that went against years of U.S. policy to avoid establishing an embassy in the contested city, according to The Washington Post. On the day the U.S. Embassy opened in Jerusalem in May of 2018, dozens of Palestinians were killed by Israeli soldiers during mass protests at the boundary fence with Gaza. The Trump administration later blamed Hamas for the deaths, which marked the deadliest day there since a war between Hamas and Israel in 2014. Trump and Netanyahu shared a generally positive relationship during Trump’s time in the White House, though tensions flared up towards the end of his administration in 2020. In the months that followed the 2020 election, Trump reportedly blasted the Israeli leader, accusing him of disloyalty for his congratulatory message to President Biden. And late last year, Netanyahu railed against Trump’s dinner with white supremacist Nick Fuentes and Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, calling it “wrong and misplaced.” While speaking at an event in Waterloo, Iowa, on Saturday, Trump spoke on Hamas’s attacks, claiming they are the result of the U.S. being seen as “weak and ineffective.” “The Israeli attack was made because we are perceived as being weak and ineffective and with a really weak leader,” Trump said in an apparent swipe at President Biden. Biden was quick to offer his unwavering support to Israel in the hours following the attacks, telling Netanyahu the U.S. is prepared to offer “all appropriate means of support” to Israel. On Sunday, Biden informed Netanyahu that “additional assistance” was on its way to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), which is expected to arrive in the coming days. Trump’s latest comments on the Russia-Ukraine war do not come as much of a surprise, as the former president has repeatedly claimed Russian President Vladimir Putin “would have never gone into Ukraine” if Trump were president. Pointing to his seemingly positive relationship with Putin, Trump in August said he was the “apple of his [Putin’s] eye.” FULL STORY From Social Media.......

Sunday should have been the start of the working week and the return to school in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, with the end of the Jewish high holidays. Instead, the streets were virtually empty. Just a day ago, some of the hundreds of Palestinian gunmen who from Gaza were at large here and shocking events have continued to unfold nearby. Social media video shows Israeli forces pursuing militants who had stolen a car. They were killed in a dramatic shootout on the roadside. The only small crowds we encounter are by the Barzilai Medical Center. Weary medics stand by the entrance to the emergency ward. They have treated more than 400 patients because of the surprise attack by Hamas, the militant group which governs Gaza. "It was very difficult, a lot of casualties have been brought one after one, one after one very quickly," says the hospital's general director, Prof Hezi Levy. "I am very experienced, but I haven't seen in my life such a scenario." One 30-year-old man having a cigarette looks badly shaken. He tells me he is a medical worker from Tel Aviv but is here as a patient after joining an overnight dance party in the fields near Gaza which ended catastrophically on Saturday morning. He asks that I do not use his name. He has been shot in the hand, losing a finger, and has wounds on his head. "In the morning, the rocket fire started. Everyone got scared and started running towards the road to drive home. As we got on the road, the gunfire began. It was really shocking. People were murdered, there were car accidents," the man says. "I called the police. Nobody could help us. For an hour and a half, we sat inside a battle, helpless. Eventually I got into the car with some people. I'm a medic so I tried to evacuate two wounded. As I reached a junction I saw people in army fatigues - but they weren't military - they started firing at me." 'Like a horror movie' - festival-goers fled in hail of bullets Many Israelis I meet are shocked at how their powerful security forces were overwhelmed by the scale and complexity of the Hamas operation. Now there are complaints of a lack of help from the authorities. FULL STORY

The US says it is moving an aircraft carrier, ships and jets to the eastern Mediterranean and will also give Israel additional equipment and ammunition. It follows the Hamas attack on southern Israel, which President Biden called an "unprecedented and appalling assault". The US was also working to verify reports its citizens were among those killed and taken captive, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. Israel says more than 600 people have been killed and 100 kidnapped. In Gaza, at least 313 people have been killed following retaliatory Israeli air strikes, according to Palestinian officials. US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, a missile cruiser and four missile destroyers were heading to the region. US fighter jets would also be sent. Further military aid to Israel would be sent in the coming days, the White House said, adding that the US was working to to ensure that Israel's enemies would not try to seek advantage from the situation. Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi has expressed support for the Hamas attack, saying Israel needed to be held to account for endangering the region. Hamas has said assistance from Iran helped it carry out its attack, which involved rockets, drones and militants on paragliders and saw hundreds of fighters break through Israeli border fortifications around the Gaza Strip. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US had not seen evidence of direct Iranian involvement, but that Iran had been helping the Gaza-based group for years. "Hamas wouldn't be Hamas without the support that it's gotten over many years from Iran. We haven't yet seen direct evidence that Iran was behind this particular attack or involved. But the support over many years is clear," he told US TV. FULL STORY

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Israel: Gunmen from Gaza kill at least 22 in major attack At least 22 people have been killed in Israel after a major surprise attack with militants crossing into Israel from Gaza during heavy rocket fire. There are unconfirmed reports that a number of Israelis have been taken captive back into Gaza. Israel has launched waves of air strikes on targets in Gaza in response. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is "at war" has vowed that Hamas, Gaza's rulers, will "pay a price it has never known". The militants crossed the perimeter fence just after dawn, as barrages of rockets were launched from Gaza. The Israeli military has said that dozens of fighter jets are carrying out air strikes on Hamas sites in Gaza, and that it has mobilised tens of thousands of reservists. At least one Palestinian has been killed in the strikes, local health officials say. The rocket barrages from Gaza began just after dawn on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath and the day of the festival of Simchat Torah. As sirens sounded across Israel, the IDF announced that "terrorists" had infiltrated Israeli territory "in a number of different locations". It told civilians in southern and central areas to stay next to shelters, and inside shelters in the area surrounding Gaza. Footage posted online appeared to show a group of heavily armed Palestinian militants dressed in black fatigues driving around Sderot in a pick-up truck. In one video, the same militants seemed to be exchanging fire with Israeli forces on the streets of the town, which is only 1.6km (1 mile) from Gaza. There are also unconfirmed reports in the Palestinian media that a number of Israelis have been taken captive by militants and footage circulating of Palestinians in Gaza driving Israeli military vehicles. FULL STORY

Summary "We are at war," says Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu, after a surprise Palestinian attack saw hundreds of rockets hit Israel from Gaza Dozens of gunmen from the Islamist militant group Hamas appear to have infiltrated southern Israel About 545 people have been injured in the attacks, with at least 22 Israelis dead, according to Israeli officials A senior commander from Hamas claims thousands of rockets were launched from Gaza into Israel Mohammed Deif says the Palestinian militant group had "decided to say enough is enough" The Israeli military says it has begun striking targets in the Gaza strip in response "to the barrages of rockets" FULL STORY

Post removed. Please do not use facebook links. not everyone has facebook to be able to read whatever you are referring to. Its also not good etiquette to post a link without atleast some explanation or detail as ot what it is, a stand alone link will invariably just get removed.

I think the chemistry those original 3 had will never be replaced. It struggled on but everyone new it was doomed.

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Top Gear producers 'looking for other work and considering action over loss of earnings' amid reports the show will be axed after 46 years on screen following Freddie Flintoff's horror crash - as the BBC insists final decision 'will be made in due course' Top Gear producers are said to be looking for other work and considering legal action over loss of earnings amid reports that the show will be axed after 46 years following Andrew 'Freddie' Flintoff's horror crash. The former England cricket captain was 'lucky to be alive' after his open-topped three-wheel 130mph Morgan Super 3 car, which had no air bags, flipped over on December 13 last year, leaving him with severe facial injuries and several broken ribs. The Ashes hero had to wait an 'agonising' 45 minutes for an air ambulance - with the BBC later giving him an apology. The Corporation has faced huge questions since Flintoff's crash, especially when it emerged the father-of-four had raised safety concerns with the Top Gear crew on the day of the stunt. But insiders have told The Sun that nearly ten months on, production staff have now been told to look for other work, likely bringing the curtain down on the much-loved car show which first launched in 1977 with Angela Rippon as host. In response to reports of the show having already been axed, a BBC spokesman told MailOnline: 'A decision on the timing of future Top Gear shows will be made in due course with BBC Content.' FULL STORY

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Late onset hypogonadism, sometimes likened to a ‘male menopause’, occurs in 2.1% of men who are almost exclusively over the age of 65. This week brought reports that “male menopause” policies are in place at several NHS trusts, with some HR managers suggesting staff could receive up to a year of sick pay if they experience symptoms. This is despite the NHS itself saying male menopause is not a clinical condition and that it is not national NHS policy to offer leave for it. We take a look at the science behind the term. What is meant by the “male menopause”? The male menopause, also known as the andropause, is a term often used to refer to a cluster of features seen in some men in their late 40s to early 50s, such as depression, loss of sex drive, mood swings, erectile dysfunction, problems sleeping and loss of muscle mass. However the NHS notes this is not a clinical condition. Rather, it says, it is an “unhelpful term sometimes used in the media”. So this isn’t a male version of what women go through? In a word, no. FULL ARTICLE

Steve Coogan’s take on the serial sex offender is astonishingly spooky. But questions remain as to whether it should have been made – and whether the BBC has given itself too easy a ride There were no cameraphones when Margaret Thatcher spent Christmas Day at Chequers with Jimmy Savile in the 1980s. But the BBC’s controversial and much anticipated Savile drama The Reckoning serves as a sort of historical Instagram, bringing vivid and intimate pictures from the kitchen and halls of the prime ministerial retreat. With Steve Coogan’s cunningly unctuous Savile and Fenella Woolgar’s icily strategic Thatcher matching each other for full body-capture acting, these superb scenes in the third of the four hour-long episodes illustrate how the prime minister so fell for Savile that she placed a serial sex offender in charge of Broadmoor psychiatric hospital. Bookended by reality interviews with four Savile survivors (Darien, Susan, Sam and Kevin), the four episodes cover the years from 1962 to 2011, requiring the 57-year-old Coogan to age down 21 years and up 27 to portray Savile from northern dancehall DJ to corpse. FULL STORY

President Biden’s decision this week to move forward with border wall construction that Democrats have long denounced shocked allies and immigration advocates. The stunning reversal came just days after administration officials participated in an immigration roundtable at the Capitol featuring Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) members and immigration advocates. The administration’s participation in the roundtable drew praise from CHC members; administration officials did not mention plans to restart border wall construction. CHC leaders called the decision “disappointing” Thursday. “While this border wall funding was signed into law by President Trump under Republican leadership, this decision is not in line with the current Administration’s commitments to end border wall construction. Republicans remain committed to building border walls that are ineffective, a poor use of taxpayer funds, and a strain on the local environment, endangering families and children who are fleeing from dangerous conditions and that seek legal asylum in the United States,” CHC Chairwoman Nanette Díaz Barragán (D-Calif.) said in a statement. A notice posted on the Federal Register on Wednesday waived a series of environmental and historical protection laws to allow for wall construction in Starr County, Texas, using funds appropriated in 2019 for that purpose. Biden told reporters Thursday that his administration moved forward with the waivers and construction to comply with a legal obligation to use the appropriated funds. “One question on the border wall: The border wall, money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate, to redirect that money. They didn’t. They wouldn’t,” Biden told reporters in the Oval Office. FULL STORY

The world is breaching a key warming threshold at a rate that has scientists concerned, a BBC analysis has found. On about a third of days in 2023, the average global temperature was at least 1.5C higher than pre-industrial levels. Staying below that marker long-term is widely considered crucial to avoid the most damaging impacts of climate change. But 2023 is "on track" to be the hottest year on record, and 2024 could be hotter. "It is a sign that we're reaching levels we haven't been before," says Dr Melissa Lazenby, from the University of Sussex. This latest finding comes after record September temperatures and a summer of extreme weather events across much of the world. Climate change played major role in Libya floods Antarctic ice at 'mind-blowing' low alarms experts UN calls for radical changes to slow warming When political leaders gathered in Paris in December 2015, they signed an agreement to keep the long-term rise in global temperatures this century "well below" 2C and to make every effort to keep it under 1.5C. The agreed limits refer to the difference between global average temperatures now and what they were in the pre-industrial period, between 1850 and 1900 - before the widespread use of fossil fuels. FULL STORY

Voters in Germany's largest state, Bavaria, choose a new parliament on Sunday, after a very nasty election campaign in which populist upstarts have rattled the status quo. The far-right AfD, tied in second place, is hoping for a big result. Its leaders say they are being physically attacked or threatened. But their opponents accuse them of twisting the truth for political gain, by playing into a narrative of victimisation. Either way the debate is unusually toxic. Days before the vote, Tino Chrupalla, the co-leader of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), was taken to intensive care after feeling unwell during an election rally in Bavaria. The party describes it as a "physical attack" and AfD supporters on social media are convinced that Chrupalla was injected with a toxin. Police are investigating, but so far say they have no evidence he was poisoned. Mr Chrupalla is now out of hospital, but it could take another few days for the results of tests to be confirmed, during which time speculation is only growing. In September, the AfD's other co-leader, Alice Weidel, was taken by Swiss police from her home in Switzerland to a safe house because of security concerns. The party says there was a risk of an attack against her and her family. A few weeks later, she delivered a speech to a rally via video link rather than in person because, according to the AfD organisers, "she wasn't allowed out of the safe house" for her own safety. In fact she was on holiday abroad. On the same day as the rally, she was spotted in a beach restaurant in Mallorca with her partner. FULL STORY

Jockeying to be the next Speaker of the House is in full swing after Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) shocking ouster, with the two declared candidates — Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — lobbying for support and lawmakers beginning to pick sides in what is expected to be an intense race. Endorsements are rolling in for each of the candidates, and both are making the rounds to various groups within the GOP conference to earn support. A clear front-runner has yet to emerge. And some lawmakers are wondering if any candidate will be able to garner enough support to win the gavel. “From having gone through the Speaker fight in January, I don’t think there was a path for Scalise to get the votes then and talking to colleagues I don’t think there will be a path now. And right now it’s not clear that Jim has a path either,” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), who endorsed Jordan, told The Hill Thursday. That could give way to a dark horse third option like Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.), the chairman of the Republican Study Committee and a newcomer in Congress compared to the other two. Hern has not officially entered the race and is working on contacting every member of the GOP conference before announcing his decision, according to a source familiar with his strategy. “They don’t want the status quo, they don’t want somebody that’s been around 10, 15, 20 years, proceeding forward doing the same thing that we’ve seen time and time again,” Hern said on Newsmax Wednesday night. FULL STORY

A novel UK satellite has returned its first pictures of heat variations across the surface of the Earth. HotSat-1 carries the highest resolution commercial thermal sensor in orbit, enabling it to trace hot and cold features as small as 3.5m across. In the initial imagery, a Chicago train is observed moving through the night and the flame fronts of Canadian wildfires are precisely mapped. London operator SatVu plans to launch seven additional spacecraft. This will increase the volume of data it can acquire but also reduce the time between passes over particular locations, meaning changes in a scene can be detected more rapidly. HotSat-1, with its mid-wave infrared camera, was assembled by Surrey Satellite Technology Ltd (SSTL) in Guildford and launched in June on a SpaceX rocket flying out of California. Morocco earthquake movement mapped from space Movies capture lightning spectacle across Earth The spacecraft manufacturer is due to complete its in-orbit testing and commissioning phase in the next week. "At that point 'we get the keys', so to speak, and we'll then be able to task the satellite ourselves and get the data down for our customers," Tobias Reinicke, the chief technology officer at SatVu, told BBC News. HotSat-1's heat maps - still imagery and short videos - should have wide application, but especially in climate-related matters. They'll permit urban planners, for example, to see roof tops and walls. This will enable them to understand the temperature profiles of individual buildings, offices and factories. It's information that can identify infrastructure that's wasting energy and is in need of better insulation. full story and videos

The BBC has witnessed Chinese vessels blocking Filipino supply boats to an outpost in the South China Sea. The incident took place as two Philippine coast guard ships - one of which the BBC was aboard - and two tiny commercial boats made their way to the Second Thomas Shoal. They were met by a ship marked as the Chinese Coast Guard that was five times bigger than the commercial boats. The encounter between the two sides lasted several hours. Tensions between Manila and Beijing remain high after the Philippines coast guard cut China's barriers in disputed waters last month. Manila resupplies its outpost in the Second Thomas Shoal, in the Spratly Islands, every month to reinforce its economic rights to waters that are both rich in fish and mineral resources. Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea, including the Spratlys, which is also claimed in part by the Philippines. 'Dangerous manoeuvres' in China and Philippines cat-and-mouse sea chase What is the South China Sea dispute? The incident took place on Wednesday, the second day of a three-day mission to the Second Thomas Shoal. The journey proceeded in rough seas due to a then-oncoming typhoon and the seasonal monsoon. A little past dawn, the Filipinos were met by what appeared to be the Chinese Coast Guard, as well as two blue militia vessels with Chinese markings. FULL STORY