Author: KnowledgeHippo
Gazans accepted the scale of the destruction in their old neighborhoods and Israelis awaited news of three recently freed hostages as a truce between Hamas and Israel resumed on Monday.With the 15-month war at a standstill, Palestinians have returned to parts of the Gaza Strip they had fled, picking their way through vast swaths of rubble and scrambling to salvage what they could – a couch, a mattress, a chair or a cage – from the debris of their former homes.”People can barely recognize the ruined places where they used to live,” said Montaser Bahja, an English teacher, a day…
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is likely to get office space in the West Wing, bringing him closer to President Trump as Mr. Musk is leading a project that aims to cut up to $2 trillion in government spending, two people with knowledge of the planning said Monday.Mr. Musk was expected to be in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, which is on the White House complex, but not in the West Wing. But for several days now he has been asking about his level of access, signaling a desire for closeness to Mr. Trump, according to the people.Mr. Trump…
Many leaders and tech companies have courted President-elect Donald J. Trump in recent weeks. From Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, they visited Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, flattered him at the X and donated to his inauguration fund.But TikTok has taken these methods to the next level.As the Chinese social networking app fights a federal law banning it from the United States unless it is sold, it publicly reported and then thanked Mr. Trump for his support in statements and videos since Friday. She even built her flattery right into the app so its 170 million US users…
Maricruz Salgado got her diabetes under control. Thanks to a federal program that allowed health clinics serving poor people to buy drugs at deeply discounted prices, she was able to pay less than $75 for all five of her diabetes medications every three months.But in July, the cost of three of those drugs skyrocketed. Ms. Salgado, who has no health insurance, suddenly faced hundreds of dollars a month in costs. He couldn’t afford it.Her doctor switched her to cheaper drugs. Within days of taking one of them, she experienced dizziness so severe that she said she could barely keep up…
The long drive from the international airport to the city of Yogyakarta on the Indonesian island of Java at least has the virtue of easing a jet-lagged traveler through a liminal zone of rice paddy plains and jungle hills. Then the bustling metropolis shuts down, and all is business and hot tropical urban mayhem. The streets buzz with many scooters in what was once called “kota sepeda”, the bicycle city.Only a small percentage of the millions who flock to hyper-touristy Bali make a side trip to Yogyakarta. It is a place of cultural and intellectual ferment, thick with universities, run…
Three hostages were freed in the first phase of a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel.The hostages, all women, were released into Red Cross custody in Gaza on Sunday and handed over to Israeli forces, who took them to meet their mothers, the Israeli military said.About 100 hostages, alive and dead, are believed to still be held in Gaza, most of them taken in the deadly Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023. Thirty-three of them will be released during the initial six-week phase of the ceasefire. of fire, including military and civilian women, children, men over 50, and…
Chinese social media app RedNote is full of cute, heartwarming moments after some 500,000 American users took to it last week to protest the US government’s impending ban on TikTok.Calling themselves ‘TikTok refugees’, these users paid the ‘cat tax’ to join RedNote by posting pictures and videos of cats. They answered so many questions from their new Chinese friends: Is it true that in rural America every family has a big farm, a huge house, at least three children and many big dogs? That Americans have to work two jobs to support themselves? That Americans are terrible at geography and…
My mother is hypercritical of my brother’s wife, to the point where she blames my sister-in-law for my brother’s “failures” (not getting a better job, not taking better care of his health, etc.). It has gotten worse now that there are grandchildren. My mother constantly criticizes how my sister-in-law is raising the children, who are wonderful and adore their grandparents.Although my mother occasionally criticizes my sister-in-law and brother, I am mostly her audience.I have a great relationship with my sister-in-law and when my mother gets into a fight with one of her rants, I stand up for her. I tell…
The sounds of celebrations replaced those of explosions in the Gaza Strip on Sunday as a fragile truce came into effect after 470 days of war, allowing some hostages to return home to Israel, Palestinians imprisoned in Israel to be freed and displacing the Gazans are looking for what was left of their homes. Under the terms of the acrimonious deal, fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas fighters stopped at 11:15 a.m., raising hopes for a more lasting end to a war that has plunged the Middle East into fear and uncertainty.The first hostages – three women taken when…
TikTok resurged in the United States on Sunday after President-elect Donald J. Trump said he would issue an executive order to end the federal ban on the app.The abrupt change came hours after major app stores pulled the popular social media site and it stopped working for US users as the federal law took effect on Sunday. The company said in a post on X that “in agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service.”Mr. Trump said in a Sunday morning post on Truth Social that he “will issue an executive order on Monday to…