The Guardian, International
Israeli forces appeared to have launched what sources called “limited ground operations” targeting Hezbollah inside southern Lebanon, US and other officials said late on Monday.
“This is what they have informed us that they are currently conducting, which are limited operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure near the border,” the state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, told journalists.
Heavy shelling into Lebanon was taking place along the boundary in the area north of Kiryat Shmona, in an area where Israeli armour and infantry advanced into Lebanon during the
2006 war. Airstrikes continued in Beirut and in at least 10 locations across the south of the country, according to Lebanon’s state news agency.
Reports of a cross-border operation came after Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant, told community leaders that the “next phase of the war against Hezbollah will begin soon”.
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C/NET
If you've had trouble using Verizon's network on Monday, you're not the only one. The carrier has confirmed to CNET that it has been working to fix some problems that have led to a service outage for some of its users.
"We are aware of an issue impacting service for some customers," a Verizon spokesperson said in a statement Monday morning. "Our engineers are engaged, and we are working quickly to identify and solve the issue."
In an updated statement from 4:53 p.m. ET, the carrier confirmed the issue was still ongoing.
"Verizon engineers are making progress on our network issue and service has started to be restored," the company tells CNET. "We know how much people rely on Verizon and apologize for any inconvenience some of our customers experienced today. We continue to work around the clock to fully resolve this issue."
BBC
Mount Everest is 15-50m taller than it would otherwise be because a river is eroding rock and soil at its base, helping push it upwards, according to a new study.
Loss of landmass in the Arun river basin 75km (47 miles) away is causing the world’s highest peak to rise by up to 2mm a year, University College London (UCL) researchers said.
“It’s a bit like throwing a load of cargo off a ship,” study co-author Adam Smith told the BBC. “The ship becomes lighter and so floats a little higher. Similarly, when the crust becomes lighter… it can float a little higher.”
Pressure from the collision of the Indian and the Eurasian plates 40-50 million years ago formed the Himalayas and plate tectonics remains the major reason for their continued rise.
Al Jazeera
Israel has warned that it will use “all the means” at its disposal to attack the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah amid growing fears of a ground assault on Lebanon.
“The next phase in the war against Hezbollah will begin soon,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told a meeting of local council heads in northern Israel on Monday.
He said the next stage of the war would support the aim of returning Israelis who have fled Hezbollah attacks during nearly a year of border warfare.
Earlier, Gallant told troops that Israel would “use all the means that may be required … from the air, from the sea, and on land.”
Hezbollah began low-intensity strikes on Israeli targets a day after Israel launched its assault on Gaza last October in response to an attack by the Palestinian group Hamas.
Al Jazeera
The death toll in the wake of Hurricane Helene in the southeastern United States has risen to at least 100, according to authorities, with a senior official saying the there could “be as many as 600 lost lives” as a result of the storm.
Liz Sherwood-Randall, the White House Homeland Security Adviser, gave the grim account during an update on the storm on Monday.
“The current data we have is that it looks like there could be as many as 600 lost lives,” she told reporters, adding the administration does not have confirmation of that.
“We know there are 600 who are either lost or unaccounted for,” she said.
For his part, US President Joe Biden described the impact of the storm as “stunning”. Speaking to reporters on Monday, he pledged his administration would “continue to surge resources, including food, water, communications and life saving equipment”.
Deutsche Welle
The man accused of attempting to assassinate Donald Trump at the former president's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida pleaded not guilty on Monday.
Ryan R. entered the federal courtroom in West Palm Beach handcuffed in a tan jumpsuit and waved his hands at reporters gathered to watch the proceedings. With shackles on his wrists and ankles, the suspect answered "yes, your honor," when the judge asked him if he was aware of the charges against him.
He requested a trial by jury.
The case has been assigned at random to Judge Aileen Cannon — a Trump appointee who threw out criminal proceedings against the former president earlier this year over his retention of classified documents at his private residence.
Deutsche Welle
The UAE has blamed the Sudanese armed forces for the attack on the home of its ambassador in Khartoum. But the military has blamed the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia, which it claims is backed by the UAE.
The United Arab Emirates on Monday blamed the Sudanese armed forces for bombing the home of its ambassador in Khartoum.
The UAE's foreign ministry said in a statement that the attack on its ambassador's residence in the Sudanese capital had caused extensive damage to the building.
The Sudanese army rejected the accusation, putting the blame instead at the door of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary outfit Khartoum says has been backed by the UAE amid Sudan's civil war that has engulfed the country for the last 17 months.
The Guardian Europe
Russia is to increase its spending on defence by 25% to its highest on record, as Vladimir Putin vows to continue his war efforts in Ukraine and further escalate his standoff with the west.
The latest planned increase in spending will take Russia’s defence budget to a record 13.5tn rubles (£109bn) in 2025, according to draft budget documents published on Monday on the parliament’s website. That is about 3tn rubles more than was set aside for defence this year, which was the previous record.
Taken together, spending on defence and security will account for about 40% of Russia’s total government spending – or 41.5tn rubles in 2025.
The 2025 budget suggests Putin has embraced what economists have dubbed “military Keynesianism”, marked by a significant rise in military spending, which has fuelled the war in Ukraine, spurred a consumer spending boom and driven up inflation.
The Guardian, US
A Georgia judge on Monday struck down the state’s six-week abortion ban, ruling that the ban is unconstitutional and blocking it from being enforced.
In a 26-page opinion, the Fulton county superior judge Robert McBurney ruled that the state’s abortion laws must revert to what they were before the six-week ban – known as the Life Act – was passed in 2019. The ban was blocked as long as Roe v Wade was the law of the land, but went into effect after the US supreme court overturned Roe in 2022.
Abortions are now legal in Georgia up until about 22 weeks of pregnancy.
Many women, McBurney wrote, do not even know they are pregnant at six weeks.
“For these women, the liberty of privacy means that they alone should choose whether they serve as human incubators for the five months leading up to viability,” McBurney wrote. “It is not for a legislator, a judge, or a Commander from The Handmaid’s Tale to tell these women what to do with their bodies during this period when the fetus cannot survive outside the womb any more so than society could – or should – force them to serve as a human tissue bank or to give up a kidney for the benefit of another.”
NPR
A tiny town in North Carolina that’s just been devastated by hurricane Helene could end up severely disrupting the global supply chain for microchips and solar panels.
Nestled in the Appalachian mountains, the community of Spruce Pine, population 2,194, is known for its hiking, local artists and as America’s sole source of high-purity quartz. Helene dumped more than 2 feet of rain on the town, destroying roads, shops and cutting power and water.
But its reach will likely be felt far beyond the small community.
Semiconductors are the brains of every computer-chip-enabled device, and solar panels are a key part of the global push to combat climate change. To make both semiconductors and solar panels, companies need crucibles and other equipment that both can withstand extraordinarily high heat and be kept absolutely clean. One material fits the bill: quartz. Pure quartz.
NPR
In the early days of the AIDS epidemic, back in the 1980s, the virus was seen as a threat mainly to gay men.
South African husband and wife researchers Salim and Quarraisha Abdool-Karim changed that narrative with their ground-breaking research. They discovered that in South Africa, young women had a high rate of HIV. And then they did something about it.
The couple met at university over a temperature-controlled ultracentrifuge and fell in love. It was a whirlwind romance: A week later Salim was headed to Columbia University in New York. They persisted with a long-distance relationship and just months later were married, with Quarraisha going on to join Salim at Columbia.
Last week, after decades of partnership, in and out of the lab, the epidemiologists received the prestigious Lasker Prize — often referred to as “America’s Nobel” — for their life-saving HIV research.
Reuters
Sept 30 (Reuters) - U.S. East and Gulf Coast port workers are set to go on strike in less than 10 hours with no talks currently scheduled to head off a stoppage threatening to halt container traffic from Maine to Texas and cost the economy billions per day.
The labor contract between the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) union representing 45,000 port workers and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) employer group expires late Monday, with negotiations at an impasse over pay.
"All signs are that there will be a strike," said Rick Cotton, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey at a press conference on Monday.
He said the gates of the marine terminals will close at 5 p.m. ET (2100 GMT) and nearly 100,000 containers will remain stored at the port until the strike is ended. Another 35 ships are expected to arrive at the port over the next week and they will remain at anchor during the strike.
Reuters
WASHINGTON, Sept 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration on Monday said SpaceX must investigate why the second stage of its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket malfunctioned after a NASA astronaut mission on Saturday, grounding the rocket for the third time in three months.
After SpaceX on Saturday launched two astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA, the rocket body that had boosted the crew further into space failed to properly re-light its engine for its "deorbit burn," a routine procedure that discards the booster into the ocean after completing its flight.
The astronaut crew carried on to the ISS safely,
docking on Sunday as planned. The FAA said there were no injuries or property damage linked to the booster mishap.
The malfunction caused the booster to fall into a region of the Pacific Ocean outside of the designated safety zone that the FAA approved for the mission.
SpaceX said the booster "experienced an off-nominal deorbit burn. As a result, the second stage safely landed in the ocean, but outside of the targeted area."
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