"You must be a legal resident of Iowa and the precinct you live in and bring a photo ID with you to participate," the state Republican party said on Friday in a post on the social media platform X.

The party is scheduled to hold local gatherings, known as the Iowa Caucus, on Jan. 15 in which participants will vote for their choice for the Republican candidate to run in November’s presidential election. U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to be the Democratic Party’s nominee.

The state Republican Party posted its reminder after Casey DeSantis, appearing on Fox News with her husband, the governor of Florida, called on women from across the country to join the gatherings, saying, “You do not have to be a resident of Iowa to participate."

The UN warns that half the population of Gaza is starving and nine out of ten people there can't eat every day - as Israeli bombardment of the territory continues

A hospital boss in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, says his team has "lost control" over the numbers of dead and wounded arriving at the facility

The city is surrounded by Israeli tanks on two sides; the Israeli military says it's fighting from house to house

The death of an Israeli hostage - Sahar Baruch, 25 - has been confirmed by his kibbutz and a hostages' group, following reports of a failed Israeli rescue operation

On Friday, the US blocked a resolution at the UN Security Council calling for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, arguing this would be dangerous and unrealistic

Musicians including Cave and Imelda May performed several of MacGowan’s songs during the service, including a rousing rendition of “Fairytale of New York” led by Glen Hansard and Lisa O’Neill that had the congregation dancing in the aisles.

But in 2018, Racine’s suburban sprawl on the edge of Lake Michigan became a source of high caliber weapons for one of Mexico’s top fentanyl trafficking gangs, the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG), U.S. federal arms-trafficking investigators allege.

The cartel exploited permissive federal and state-level gun control rules to buy some of the most powerful weapons available to American civilians, according to two former agents with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and two other sources, all with knowledge of the investigation.

Members of a local family, working with a cousin in Mexico, enlisted friends and relatives who bought guns on their behalf in Racine and transported them to California and south across the border, according to an indictment from Wisconsin’s Eastern District Court unsealed in February.

The traffickers in Racine and two connected cells in other locations bought more than $600,000 of high-end military-style firearms in under a year, internal ATF documents reviewed by Reuters allege. It seemed like an unprecedented shopping spree, said Tim Sloan, the other former ATF investigator. Sloan was the first to trace a CJNG gun to Racine.

Trudeau has made immigration his main weapon to blunt Canada's big challenge of an aging and slowing population, and it has also helped fuel economic growth. That drove Canada's population up at its fastest clip in more than six decades this year, Statistics Canada said.

But now a reversal of that trend is gradually taking hold. In the first six months of 2023 some 42,000 individuals departed Canada, adding to 93,818 people who left in 2022 and 85,927 exits in 2021, official data show.

The rate of immigrants leaving Canada hit a two-decade high in 2019, according to a recent report from the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC), an immigration advocacy group. While the numbers went down during pandemic lockdowns, Statistics Canada data shows it is once again rising.

While that is a fraction of the 263,000 who came to the country over the same period, a steady rise in emigration is making some observers wary.

“With the current law in place, I will tell you, I wake up fearful of my pregnancy and what it would mean for my children, my husband and my parents if something happened to me and the doctor cannot perform lifesaving measures,” she told her fellow lawmakers last February, her voice faltering as tears threatened.

Rehfeldt was a stroke survivor and her pregnancy put her at high risk for blood clots and heart issues that could kill her. The state’s ban made abortion a felony unless it was “necessary to preserve the life of the pregnant female.” If Rehfeldt developed complications, doctors told her, the law didn’t make clear how close to death she needed to be before they could act.

“When can a doctor intervene? Do I need to have my brain so oxygen-deprived to the point that I am nonfunctional?” she asked the room.

The American Civil Liberties Union said Thursday that the Saucon Valley School District had agreed to pay $200,000 in attorney’s fees and to provide The Satanic Temple and the After School Satan Club it sponsors the same access to school facilities as is provided to other organizations.

The ACLU filed the lawsuit in March after the district rescinded its earlier approval to allow the club to meet following criticism. The After School Satan Club, with the motto “Educatin’ with Satan,” had drawn protests and even a threat in February that prompted closure of district schools for a day and the later arrest of a person in another state.

Saucon Valley school district attorney Mark Fitzgerald told reporters in a statement that the district denies having discriminated against The Satanic Temple, its club or “the approximately four students” who attended its meetings. He said the district’s priorities were education and the safety of students and staff.

The Iran-backed Houthi rebels said they hijacked the ship over its connection to Israel and took the crew as hostages. The group warned that it would continue to target ships in international waters that were linked to or owned by Israelis until the end of Israel’s campaign against Gaza’s Hamas rulers.

“All ships belonging to the Israeli enemy or that deal with it will become legitimate targets,” the Houthis said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office had blamed the Houthis for the attack on the Bahamas-flagged Galaxy Leader, a vehicle carrier affiliated with an Israeli billionaire. It said the 25 crew members had a range of nationalities, including Bulgarian, Filipino, Mexican and Ukrainian, but that no Israelis had been on board.

The Cole County, Missouri jury found on Friday that Bayer's Monsanto business was liable for claims of negligence, design defects and failing to warn plaintiffs of the potential dangers of using Roundup, according to court documents.

Valorie Gunther of New York, Jimmy Draeger of Missouri and Daniel Anderson of California were awarded a combined $61.1 million in compensatory damages and $500 million each in punitive damages. Each was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma that they alleged was caused by using Roundup on their family property. Draeger's wife Brenda was awarded $100,000 for the harm she allegedly suffered from her husband's disease.

The punitive damages could be reduced on appeal as it exceeds U.S. Supreme Court guidance.

The allegations against L.B., made by an anonymous caller at 4:45 a.m. that day, were false. These included that she was a stripper (she worked at a home for people with disabilities); that she used drugs (none were found, and a drug test was negative for all substances); and that an abusive man lived with her and that she owned “machine guns” (after an exhaustive search and interrogation, both claims were deemed baseless).

In fact, L.B. has never been found to have committed any type of child maltreatment, ACS and court records show.

Yet the anonymous caller, whom L.B. believes to be a former acquaintance with a grudge, has continued to dial in to New York’s state child welfare hotline. Each time, this person or possibly people make outlandish, often already-disproven claims about her, seeming to know that doing so will automatically trigger a government intrusion into her domestic life.

And ACS obliges: Over the past three years, the agency either has inspected her home or examined and questioned her son at school more than two dozen times. Caseworkers have sought a warrant for only three of these searches, most recently in August. All of those requests have been rejected by judges, according to court records.

Gerald M. Rosberg, senior executive vice president of the university, informed the University Senate on Friday that university administrators had revised the policies without the knowledge of the senate, according to Columbia Spectator.

"I know I am going to be living with this for a long time to come," Rosberg said at the meeting according to the student newspaper.

In a new op-ed in the Washington Post on Saturday, US president Joe Biden said that the Palestinian Authority should govern Gaza and the West Bank following the war between Israel and Hamas.

Biden writes:

As we strive for peace, Gaza and the West Bank should be reunited under a single governance structure, ultimately under a revitalized Palestinian Authority, as we all work toward a two-state solution.

Biden also said that a two-state solution is “the only way to ensure the long-term security of both the Israeli and the Palestinian people”, adding that Gaza “must never again be used as a platform for terrorism”.

Link to op-ed