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Trump ends shutdown, faces backlash and makes surprise Epstein move amid chaotic week

Trump ends shutdown, faces backlash and makes surprise Epstein move amid chaotic week

The 42nd week of his second administration was another busy one for President Donald Trump. This week, Trump signed legislation ending the longest government shutdown in history, backed using H-1B visas to hire foreign workers, announced plans to order the Justice Department to evaluate ties between convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and other U.S. figures and issued pardons to those accused of seeking to overturn the 2020 election.  Here’s a look at what happened.  On Wednesday evening, Trump signed legislation that the House and Senate passed earlier in the week to fund the government again as consequences of the lapse in funding started to mount, such as missed paychecks for federal workers and airline delays due to air traffic controller staffing shortages. TRUMP CANCELS $4.9B FOREIGN AID, PUSHES DC DEATH PENALTY, TOUTS KIM TIES The bill maintains funding for the government consistent with fiscal year 2025 spending levels through Jan. 30 to provide a window for lawmakers to nail down a longer appropriations measure for fiscal year 2026.  The measure also allocates spending for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which more than 42 million Americans rely on, through September. The program supports non- or low-income individuals or families to purchase groceries with a debit card. Additionally, the measure reverses layoffs the Trump administration set into motion earlier in October and pays employees for their absence.  Trump also conducted a sit-down interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that aired Monday and Tuesday, in which he said bringing foreign workers to the U.S. on H-1B visas is important to “bring in talent” to the U.S. After Ingraham claimed that the U.S. has talent at home, Trump disagreed.  “No, you don’t. No, you don’t. You don’t have, you don’t have certain talents, and people have to learn,” Trump said. “You can’t take people off an unemployment line and say, ‘I’m gonna put you into a factory where we’re gonna make missiles.’” LONGEST GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN IN HISTORY NEARS LIKELY END AS HOUSE MOVES ON FUNDING BILL H-1B visas permit U.S. companies to hire highly skilled foreign workers for up to six years.  It’s an issue that has remained controversial among MAGA supporters. Those who back the program claim it is critical to U.S. competitiveness, but opponents say that the visa holders are taking away jobs from Americans.  Trump’s statements earned him criticism from those who make up his base. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., rebuked Trump’s statements afterward and said that she is “America First and America Only.” “I believe in the American people,” Greene said. “I am one of you. I believe you are good, talented, creative, intelligent, hardworking, and want to achieve. I am solidly against you being replaced by foreign labor, like with H1Bs.”  TRUMP SIGNS BILL ENDING LONGEST GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN IN US HISTORY In response to the criticism, the White House pointed to the Trump administration’s announcement in September that would require a $100,000 annual fee for companies seeking to obtain an H-1B visa. Plus, the White House noted that the Department of Labor launched Project Firewall in September in an attempt to ensure employers don’t abuse the H-1B visa process.  Separately, Trump also defended previous statements supporting allowing up to 600,000 Chinese students to come to the U.S. in his interview with Ingraham and asserted they must study in the U.S. so U.S. colleges don’t “go out of business.” Former Trump U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley said doing so would be a “massive mistake.”  “That would be a huge gift to China and a threat to the United States,” Haley said in a post on X Thursday.  Additionally, Trump announced Friday he would order the Justice Department and the FBI to probe financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s relationship with others, including former President Bill Clinton and Larry Summers, the former treasury secretary, among others.  The announcement came after Democrats and Republicans on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee released thousands of documents Wednesday related to Epstein, including emails that mention Trump. However, the documents do not allege wrongdoing from Trump and simply show Epstein mentioning him. “This is another Russia, Russia, Russia Scam, with all arrows pointing to the Democrats,” Trump said in a Truth Social post Friday. “Records show that these men, and many others, spent large portions of their life with Epstein, and on his ‘Island.’ Stay tuned!!!”  Clinton has denied that he ever visited Epstein’s island and wrote in his 2024 memoir, “Citizen,” that he wished they’d never met. A spokesperson for Summers did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.  Late Sunday, the Trump administration announced the president had issued pardons for more than 70 people accused of seeking to overturn the 2020 election results.  But presidential pardons only apply to federal charges, and those involved don’t have any federal charges leveled against them, meaning the move is primarily a symbolic gesture. Those pardoned include Trump allies like Rudy Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and the president’s former personal lawyer who claimed that the 2020 election was “stolen” from Trump. Giuliani is caught up in a case in Arizona in which he faces state charges for election interference for those statements.  Other prominent figures pardoned include former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Trump lawyer Sidney Powell.

More details emerge of Israel’s ‘brutal’ treatment of Palestinian detainees

More details emerge of Israel’s ‘brutal’ treatment of Palestinian detainees

Dozens of Palestinian prisoners are being held indefinitely in an underground Israeli detention facility, deprived of sunlight and subjected to extreme violence, Palestinian lawyers say, as more reports of abuse emerge from the devastation of Israel’s war on Gaza. Lawyers for Palestinians held at Rakevet, an underground wing of the Ramla (Nitzan) prison complex in central Israel, said their clients have been assaulted, starved, and denied medical care despite serious injuries. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list “When the prisoners arrive for the interview [with their lawyer], their faces show what they’ve endured,” lawyer Nadia Daqqa told Al Jazeera. “Particularly in this prison, prisoners are afraid to talk. The [interview] room is one square metre and the guards refuse to leave.” Despite that, Daqqa and other lawyers have collected testimonials from prisoners held at Rakevet. One detainee, referred to by the initials YH, had a broken jaw, shoulder and ribs, yet had received no medical treatment. Another, known as KHD, said Israeli prison guards punish the prisoners “by breaking their thumbs”. The reports are the latest to detail wide-scale abuse in Israel’s prison system, as the country has ramped up its arrests of Palestinians amid its two-year genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. More than 9,200 Palestinians are currently detained in Israeli prisons, according to the latest figures from Palestinian prisoner rights group Addameer. The majority are in what’s known as administrative detention, held without charge or trial. Advertisement Scores of detainees from Gaza have also been held in a notorious Israeli military detention camp known as Sde Teiman, where reports of killings, torture and sexual violence, including rape, have been rife since the Gaza war began in October 2023. While the Israeli authorities have denied allegations of abuse, Palestinian prisoners who were recently released from the facilities as part of last month’s Gaza ceasefire deal described harrowing abuses. The bodies of slain Palestinian detainees returned to the coastal Palestinian enclave under the ceasefire agreement also showed signs of torture, mutilation and execution, with some returned with ropes still tied around their necks. Several human rights groups in Israel have described the country’s prisons and detention facilities as a form of torture and cruel and unusual punishment. “Human rights organizations documented widespread abuses, including physical beatings, sexual violence, harassment, and threats – pointing to systemic and deliberate mistreatment,” the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) said in June. The wave of abuse also comes amid a push from within Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government to harden its policies towards Palestinian detainees. Earlier this week, the Israeli parliament advanced a bill that would impose the death penalty for so-called “terrorism” offences based on “racist” motives against Israelis. The move, which rights groups have condemned and said would exclusively target Palestinians, has been championed by Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian civilians, which have been burgeoning in the occupied West Bank and are carried out with impunity and often backed by the Israeli military, would not apply. “The enactment of a new law imposing the death penalty exclusively against Palestinians marks a new episode in the ongoing series of oppression and constitutes a grave escalation in Israel’s widespread violations against Palestinians, including hundreds of extrajudicial executions,” Addameer said on November 9. Basil Farraj, a professor at Birzeit University in the occupied West Bank, said the underground Rakevet facility is just one part of this wider system of abuse. “This secret centre is in fact a symptom of the broader phenomenon of Israeli carcerality, where Palestinians continue to be treated in a violent and, in fact, an extremely brutal way that denies and negates all of their rights,” Farraj told Al Jazeera. Advertisement He explained that many Palestinians have been arrested under Israel’s so-called “unlawful combatants” law, which allows the authorities to detain them indefinitely on security grounds without having to prove any allegations. “The fact that you are held without trial adds another layer of psychological abuse and psychological torture,” Farraj said. “Not knowing why you are being arrested … adds to these layers of violence and torture that Israel has entrenched over the past two years.” Adblock test (Why?)

Thousands march for climate action outside COP30 summit in Brazil

Thousands march for climate action outside COP30 summit in Brazil

Indigenous and other climate activists say they need to ‘make their voices heard’ as UN conference hits halfway mark. Published On 15 Nov 202515 Nov 2025 Click here to share on social media share2 Share Thousands of people have marched through the streets of the Brazilian city of Belem, calling for the voices of Indigenous peoples and environmental defenders to be heard at the United Nations COP30 climate summit. Indigenous community members mixed with activists at Saturday’s march, which unfolded in a festive atmosphere as participants carried a giant beach ball representing the Earth and a Brazilian flag emblazoned with the words “Protected Amazon”. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list It was the first major protest outside the conference, which began earlier this week in Belem, bringing together world leaders, activists and experts in a push to tackle the worsening climate crisis. Indigenous activists previously stormed the summit, disrupting the proceedings as they demanded that Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva take concrete action to ensure their territories are protected from growing threats. Amnesty International warned in a recent report that billions of people around the world are threatened by the expansion of fossil fuel projects, such as oil-and-gas pipelines and coal mines. Indigenous communities, in particular, sit on the front lines of much of this development, the rights group said. Thousands of people took part in the climate march in Belem, Brazil, on Saturday [AFP] Branded the “Great People’s March” by organisers, Saturday’s rally in Belem came at the halfway point of contentious COP30 negotiations. “Today we are witnessing a massacre as our forest is being destroyed,” Benedito Huni Kuin, a 50-year-old member of the Huni Kuin Indigenous group from western Brazil, told the AFP news agency. Advertisement “We want to make our voices heard from the Amazon and demand results,” he said. “We need more Indigenous representatives at COP to defend our rights.” Youth leader Ana Heloisa Alves, 27, said it was the biggest climate march she has participated in. “This is incredible,” she told The Associated Press. “You can’t ignore all these people.” The COP30 talks come as the UN warned earlier this month that the world was on track to exceed the 1.5C (2.7F) mark of global warming – an internationally agreed-upon target set under the Paris Agreement – “very likely” within the next decade. If countries do as they have promised in their climate action plans, the planet will warm 2.3 to 2.5C (4.1 to 4.5F) by 2100, a report by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) found. “While national climate plans have delivered some progress, it is nowhere near fast enough, which is why we still need unprecedented emissions cuts in an increasingly tight window, with an increasingly challenging geopolitical backdrop,” said UNEP chief Inger Andersen. Despite that urgency, analysts and some COP30 participants have said they don’t expect any major new agreements to emerge from the talks, which conclude on November 21. Still, some are hoping for progress on some past promises, including funding to help poorer countries adapt to climate change. People hold a giant Brazilian flag reading ‘Protected Amazon’ during the march [AFP] Adblock test (Why?)

Sudan’s army captures two areas in North Kordofan as RSF burns more bodies

Sudan’s army captures two areas in North Kordofan as RSF burns more bodies

RSF is burning and burying bodies near a university, mosque, camp for the displaced people, and hospital in el-Fasher, Yale University researchers say. The government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) have recaptured two territories in the North Kordofan state from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), as the paramilitary group continues burning and burying bodies in Darfur’s el-Fasher to hide evidence of mass killings. Footage circulating online this week showed army soldiers holding assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades celebrating their takeovers of Kazqil and Um Dam Haj Ahmed in North Kordofan, the state where intense fighting is expected to rage over the coming weeks. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Kazqil, which had fallen to the RSF in late October, is located south of el-Obeid, the strategic capital city of the state in central Sudan, which the paramilitary group is trying to capture from the army. أبطال القوات المسلحة من داخل ” كازقيل” بولاية شمال كردفان#السودان #السودان_ينتصر pic.twitter.com/wVflEodHK5 — Sudan News 🇸🇩 (@Sudan_tweet) November 15, 2025 The fighting between the two rival generals leading the army and the paramilitary group, which started in April 2023, has increasingly turned east over the past weeks as the RSF solidifies control over the western parts of the war-torn country, now in its third year of a brutal civil war. The fighting, fuelled by arms supplies from the region, has created what the United Nations has called the largest displacement crisis in the world. More than 12 million people have been forced from their homes, and tens of thousands have been killed and injured. The UN has also confirmed starvation in parts of the country. Advertisement The RSF said last week it accepted a ceasefire proposal put forward by the United States and other mediators, with the announcement coming after an international outcry over atrocities committed by the paramilitary group in el-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state in western Sudan. But the army has refused to agree to a ceasefire under the current battle lines, and both sides have continued to amass troops and equipment in the central parts of the country to engage in more battles. The RSF launched an offensive against the Kordofan region at the same time as it took el-Fasher late last month, seizing the town of Bara in North Kordofan state as a crucial link between Darfur and central Sudan. The army had recaptured the town just two months earlier. Satellite images reveal mass graves More than two and a half weeks after fully capturing el-Fasher from the army, the RSF has continued to dispose of bodies in large numbers. An analysis of satellite imagery released by Yale’s Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) on Friday exposed four new locations where paramilitary fighters are disposing of bodies in and around el-Fasher. Activities consistent with body disposal are visible at the University of Alfashir, a structure on the edge of Abu Shouk camp for internally displaced people, a neighbourhood near al-Hikma Mosque, and at Saudi Hospital, where RSF forces massacred hundreds. The HRL could not conclude how many people the RSF had killed or how quickly, but it said the observations are alarming, given the fact that the whereabouts of many civilian residents remain unknown. 🚨ATROCITY ALERT🚨@HRL_YaleSPH has identified four new locations where the RSF is disposing of bodies in and around El Fasher. #KeepEyesonSudan 🛰️@Vantortechhttps://t.co/y5gaMRlBm2 pic.twitter.com/OsCVb1ihTf — Humanitarian Research Lab (HRL) at YSPH (@HRL_YaleSPH) November 14, 2025 Nathaniel Raymond, the lead researcher of that report, said an estimated 150,000 civilians are unaccounted for, and daily monitoring of city streets shows no activity in markets or water points, but only RSF patrols and many bodies. “We can see them charred. So the question is, where are the people and where are the bodies coming from?” he told Al Jazeera. Raymond said the evidence also includes numerous videos released by the RSF fighters themselves, who are “the most prodigious producers of evidence about their own crimes”. Adblock test (Why?)