Hamas said Wednesday it had agreed to a cease-fire with Israel in Gaza to halt the biggest outburst of violence between them since 2014. Israel's military struck dozens of militant targets in the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory overnight as militants fired rockets at communities in southern Israel early Wednesday, before a tense calm took hold. Tensions have been high along the border in recent weeks as Palestinians protested an Israeli-Egyptian blockade imposed after Hamas took power in 2007. Israeli fire, mostly during the Hamas-led protests, killed more than 110 Palestinians. "If it will be quiet, we will respond with quiet," Israeli Cabinet minister Arieh Deri said.
Source: The Associated Press Philip Roth, one of the most prolific and celebrated writers of his generation, died Tuesday. He was 85. A close friend, Judith Thurman, said the cause of death was congestive heart failure. Between his first collection of stories, Goodbye, Columbus (1959), and his final novel, 2010's Nemesis, Roth won two National Book Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, the Man Booker International Prize, two National Book Critics Circle awards, and three PEN/Faulkner Awards. He is best known for 1969's Portnoy's Complaint, and his literary explorations of sex and life as an American, a Jew, and a man. Many of his protagonists were thinly veiled versions of himself — Nathan Zuckerman, Alexander Portnoy, David Kepesh — and his work explored and blurred the lines between truth and fiction.
Source: The New York Times Editor's Note: I know so many of you were shocked to hear Philip Roth had died. Seriously though, I feel like they are truly looking for certain numbers to publish. Just so you know, and to be clear, I get most of these stories from Ten Things You Need to Know Today, from The Week magazine. So, according to them, we need to know this. See also: futile.work/ten At least 11 people were killed and dozens more injured when suicide bombers targeted three churches in between services in Surabaya, Indonesia, on Sunday. The attacks have been claimed by the Islamic State and were perpetrated by members of a single family, the mother and two daughters at one church and the father with three sons at the other two. At least three of the attackers were killed; early reports do not make clear the status of the other four or the ages of the children involved. The explosions were timed within one minute of each other at different locations. This is the deadliest terror attack in Indonesia since 2005.
Source: The Wall Street Journal, BBC News Armed bandits killed at least 45 people in an attack on a remote village in northwest Nigeria, authorities said Sunday. The dead included women and children. The government deployed 200 police officers to the area in response to the attack. Bandits frequently target villagers to steal their cattle and other property. President Muhammadu Buhari has approved dispatching a permanent battalion of the Nigerian Army to the area to deal with the problem. The local government has been lobbying the national government for help dealing with the attacks.
Source: CNN, The Associated Press A bombing at a mosque in the eastern Khost province of Afghanistan killed at least a dozen people and wounded 33 more on Sunday, local officials reported. The mosque was being used as a voter registration center for an upcoming parliamentary election. A suicide attack on another voter registration location in Kabul last month left at least 57 people dead. While Sunday's attack has yet to be claimed by the Islamic State or the Taliban, the April incident was claimed by ISIS.
Source: BBC News, The Associated Press NASA launched its InSight spacecraft from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California at 4:05 a.m. local time Saturday, sending the unmanned vessel on a six-month journey to Mars. Unlike the Curiosity rover, InSight will not travel around the red planet once it arrives. Instead, the craft's mission is to use seismic waves to learn about the interior of Mars — the thickness of the planet's crust and the size of its liquid core. InSight is equipped with a probe that can burrow 16 feet into the surface of Mars to take temperature readings.
Source: The New York Times, Forbes Eighteen House Republicans on Wednesday sent a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee formally nominating President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of his effort to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. "Since taking office, President Trump has worked tirelessly to apply maximum pressure on North Korea to end its illicit weapons program and bring peace to the region," said the letter, led by Rep. Luke Messer (R-Ind.). "His administration successfully united the international community, including China, to impose one of the most successful international sanctions regimes in history." Messer announced his plan to nominate Trump after last week's summit between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who next plans to meet with Trump.
Source: The Hill |
About This BlogCertain numerology has a strong connection with occultism. Various numbers from time-to-time appear in news articles, and one has to wonder if there isn't some occult significance behind this story. Archives
May 2021
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