Good morning.
Israeli troops backed by tanks have expanded their operations in Gaza amid reports of fierce air and artillery strikes in the enclave’s north, as nearly 40 trucks entered through the territory’s southern border yesterday.
The Israeli air force says it has attacked about 600 targets in the past day, including “in the area of al-Azhar University” from where it said an anti-tank missile was about to be launched. It also said “weapons warehouses, hiding places and gatherings of Hamas operatives and anti-tank positions” were targeted.
Hamas confirmed it was engaged in “heavy fighting” with Israeli troops in northern Gaza on Sunday, as besieged residents were again warned by Israel to flee southward.
Palestinian media reported early on Monday that Israeli airstrikes hit areas near the Shifa and al-Quds hospitals in Gaza City, and Palestinian militants clashed with Israeli forces in a border area east of the city of Khan Younis, in the enclave’s south. The Guardian was not able to confirm the reports.
What do we know about the operations? Israel’s self-declared “second phase” of its three-week war against Hamas militants has largely been kept from public view, with forces moving under darkness and a telecommunications blackout cutting off Palestinians. Hamas said its Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades were “engaged in heavy fighting … with the invading occupation forces”.
What has Joe Biden said to Benjamin Netanyahu this weekend? In a call with the Israeli prime minister yesterday, Biden “underscored the need to immediately and significantly increase the flow of humanitarian assistance to meet the needs of civilians in Gaza”, the US said.
Judge reinstates gag order in Donald Trump’s federal election interference case
Donald Trump was once again bound by a gag order in the federal criminal case charging him with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results, after a judge on Sunday reinstated restrictions prohibiting him from attacking prosecutors, court staff and potential trial witnesses.
The US district judge Tanya Chutkan denied the former president’s request to suspend the gag order indefinitely while his lawyers appealed.
Trump had been granted a reprieve when the judge temporarily lifted the gag order while she considered that request. Prosecutors argued last week that the order should be reimposed after Trump took advantage and posted a slew of inflammatory statements.
The statements included Trump’s repeated attacks on the special counsel Jack Smith, whom he called “deranged”, and Trump’s comments about the testimony that his former White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, had provided to the grand jury during the criminal investigation.
What have the prosecutors said? “The defendant has capitalized on the court’s administrative stay to, among other prejudicial conduct, send an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case,” they said in their brief. “Unless the court lifts the administrative stay, the defendant will not stop.”
What did Trump say about Meadows? Prosecutors complained about Trump’s post on Meadows that questioned the credibility of Meadows’ testimony and suggested that anyone who testified against him under limited immunity from prosecution – such as Meadows – were weak or cowardly.
‘Bloodiest prison in the US’: children detained in Louisiana’s Angola prison allege abuses
A federal class-action lawsuit has – for now – halted Louisiana’s practice of housing underage detainees at its harshest penitentiary. The case started after six minors escaped from a juvenile detention center in Bridge City, Louisiana, outside New Orleans, last summer.
They were able to get out because of the center’s lack of adequate staff and dilapidated building conditions. Louisiana’s outgoing Democratic governor, John Bel Edwards, announced an internal investigation into the facility’s security failures – but in the meantime, more than 20 youths at the lockup deemed to be the most violent were moved to a vacant former death row at Angola.
July court filings – backed by the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project and other civil rights attorneys – revealed that the youths housed in Angola had extended periods of solitary confinement, without access to clean water, adequate food and air conditioning.
After a seven-day hearing, the US district judge Shelly Dick ordered the removal of teens from Angola’s facility due to the “intolerable” conditions.
What did the plaintiffs say? In the federal class-action lawsuit, the 17-year-old plaintiff Charles C stated: “My cell is incredibly small and I have no room to move. I can’t drink the water out of the faucet because it has a color, tastes bad, and would make me sick. I worry about my mental health because I’m forced to be in these cells.” During the record-breaking heat this summer, the former death row did not provide air conditioning, Alex A, another 17-year-old plaintiff, said.
In other news …
A mob in Russia’s mostly Muslim region of Dagestan has stormed the airport in Makhachkala in search of Jewish passengers arriving from Israel. In the past day, local people have besieged a hotel and stormed the airport after reports emerged that a flight from Tel Aviv was arriving in the city.
At least eight people are dead and more than 50 others injured after multiple shootings across the US over the Halloween weekend. The country continues to grapple with high levels of deadly gun violence – a complex public health crisis driven by easy firearm access and poor gun control.
Mike Pence’s surprise withdrawal from the Republican presidential nomination race on Saturday was part of natural winnowing of the crowded field, rivals of the former vice-president said yesterday – and one that could help the quest of candidates vying to wrestle the nomination from the overwhelming frontrunner Trump.
The US national security adviser has spoken of the “deep sadness” over the death of a Iranian girl, Armita Geravand, who had been in a coma after an incident on Tehran’s metro. Surveillance footage aired by Iranian state television showed Armita being pulled from a train on 1 October.
Don’t miss this: ‘An alcoholic from the age of 14’ – Matthew Perry’s troubled life and foreshadowed death
Matthew Perry was a friend to all, known the world over as Chandler Bing, always seconds away from a great wisecrack and a show-stopping grin. But he was also an addict. That was the “big, terrible thing” Perry referenced in the title of his memoir last year, giving it equal weighting with the TV series, Friends, that made him an indelible celebrity, long after he had largely retreated from screens.
He called himself a just-add-water addict, hooked on painkillers after a jetski accident. In his shockingly frank memoir, detailing ferocious substance abuse and on-set drinking, he seemed resigned to an early death.
Climate check: New ‘forever chemicals’ polluting water near North Carolina plant, study finds
At least 11 new kinds of PFAS “forever chemicals” are polluting the water around a North Carolina Chemours plant that manufactures the toxic substances, a study shows. The discovery, made using a novel testing method, was evidence that the environment around the plant was more contaminated with PFAS than regulators had found, the researchers said.
“This means there are a lot more PFAS that people are being exposed to than they know,” said Erin Baker, a University of North Carolina PFAS researcher and co-author of the peer-reviewed paper. “That’s because [regulators’ testing] is missing the PFAS because no one knows how to target them.”
Last Thing: Claims about genuine age of Bobi, world’s oldest dog, to be investigated
The death of Bobi, the Portuguese mastiff, at 31 was history-making – no dog before had ever reached such a grand old age. But awe soon turned into scepticism as vets wondered whether it was biologically possible for a dog to live for the equivalent of 200 human years. Now, the Guinness World Records has said it is investigating whether the claim that the animal lived to 31 years and 165 days is genuine. Alongside widespread media coverage of the secrets to Bobi’s longevity, there has been intense scrutiny online of images of Bobi in 1999, in which he has different coloured paws to the dog that died in Portugal on 21 October.
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