Global Pulse

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  • Women given shorts at Oktoberfest to prevent upskirting

    Women given shorts at Oktoberfest to prevent upskirting

    MUNICH — As the world-famous Oktoberfest beer festival draws its 16-day run to a close this weekend, a longstanding beloved attraction at the event is at the center of a growing debate over digital privacy, gender-based harassment, and gaps in German legislation targeting invasive upskirting filming.

    The Teufelsrad, or Devil’s Wheel, is one of Oktoberfest’s oldest surviving attractions. The spinning circular ride works by accelerating faster and faster until centrifugal force throws riders off the platform. The constant rotation and sudden shifts in speed routinely lift the hems of the traditional dirndl dresses many women wear to the festival, creating an opportunity for bad actors in the crowd to capture invasive footage.

    In recent years, thousands of these voyeuristic videos have been uploaded to social media platforms, where some have racked up millions of views. Investigations by local broadcaster BR uncovered that a coordinated network of content creators, including professional YouTubers from Ukraine and local creators from Bavaria, have profited heavily from these clips. One single video reportedly earned its poster upwards of €9,000 (£7,650). According to Munich-based newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, at least 32,000 invasive videos of Teufelsrad riders are currently in circulation online. Many of the videos clearly show women’s underwear, and some have even been digitally altered to add fake nudity, BR reports.

    While filming upskirts is already illegal in Germany, carrying a maximum penalty of two years in prison, advocates and observers argue that existing law does not go far enough to address this growing crisis. Elisabeth Polaczy, the 80-year-old operator of the Teufelsrad, has taken matters into her own hands. For three years running, she has offered free cycling shorts to women and girls riding the attraction while wearing dresses, to protect their privacy.

    “At this year’s Oktoberfest alone, I’ve distributed more than 100 pairs,” Polaczy told the BBC. “I want to do everything I can to make people feel secure.” She added that while providing the free shorts is not cheap, the effort is worth it for her own peace of mind. The ride’s venue is posted with prominent signs in German and English, alongside official police notices, warning visitors that non-consensual filming is illegal. Still, Polaczy acknowledges that it is impossible to police every visitor with a smartphone, leaving gaps in protection that she is trying to fill. Even some Oktoberfest waitresses have started adopting the practice, wearing cycling shorts under their work dirndls to avoid similar harassment.

    Bavarian police have stepped up their own efforts to crack down on the practice, launching a targeted public awareness campaign at the festival starting in 2025. This year alone, officers have already arrested a 45-year-old Swiss man for allegedly filming under a woman’s dirndl with his phone. Police made 10 upskirting-related arrests in 2025 and seven in 2024.

    But Josephine Ballon, head of the German non-profit Hate Aid which supports victims of digital gender-based violence, said current legislation fails to cover key scenarios that leave women vulnerable. Ballon explained that existing law only applies to intentional upskirting, not cases where a skirt lifts naturally from the motion of a ride and is still captured on camera. She added that new compact recording devices, such as hidden camera glasses, also create new loopholes that current law does not address. Ballon is pushing for harsher penalties for anyone who non-consensually shares intimate images of women online, as well as for platforms that host the content. Drafting for a new updated law is already in the works, according to Ballon.

    City officials in Munich have also taken steps to regulate commercial content creation at the festival. New rules ban unpermitted live streaming from Oktoberfest grounds, and require all professional content creators and influencers to purchase a filming permit in order to capture and monetize footage at the event. Hundreds of permits have been issued to influencers this year, who typically earn revenue from brand sponsorships and product placements posted to their channels.

    As the festival closes, the steps taken by Polaczy and city officials highlight a growing recognition of the need to address digital harassment and invasive content creation that disproportionately targets women in public spaces.

  • US road rage killer’s sentence quashed because AI video of victim was shown in court

    US road rage killer’s sentence quashed because AI video of victim was shown in court

    A landmark legal ruling in Arizona has reshaped the boundaries of artificial intelligence use in criminal court proceedings, ordering that a convicted road rage killer must receive a new sentencing after an appeals court found an AI-rendered impact statement from the deceased victim was improperly presented to the original trial court.

    The case dates back to 2021, when 55-year-old Gabriel Paul Horcasitas shot and killed 37-year-old Christopher Pelkey during a violent confrontation that erupted at a red light in Arizona. A jury found Horcasitas guilty of the killing, and he was initially sentenced to 10 years in prison following a 2025 sentencing hearing that would spark a national legal debate over AI in the judicial system.

    In a move never seen before in Arizona courtrooms, Pelkey’s family built an AI-generated video of the victim to deliver a posthumous impact statement ahead of the sentencing. Drawing from existing voice recordings, personal video clips, and photographs collected over Pelkey’s life, his sister Stacey Wales worked with AI tools to reconstruct a digital version of her brother. The rendered Pelkey, wearing his signature gray baseball cap, delivered a measured statement that surprised many in the court: he expressed regret for the hostile encounter, noted that the two men might have been friends under different circumstances, and emphasized his long-held belief in forgiveness and divine grace.

    At the original sentencing, trial judge Todd Lang openly praised the use of the technology, noting that the message of forgiveness came across as authentic despite its AI origins. “I loved that AI, thank you for that. As angry as you are, as justifiably angry as the family is, I heard the forgiveness. I feel that that was genuine,” Lang said at the time.

    But Horcasitas’ legal team launched an appeal, arguing that the trial judge had violated judicial precedent by allowing the fabricated AI video to be shown to the court. Last week, the Arizona Court of Appeals sided with the defense, ruling in a Wednesday decision that the AI-generated statement crossed legal lines and warranted a new sentencing.

    In their written ruling, the appeals court justices explained that unlike traditional evidence or pre-recorded statements that capture a victim’s actual words and likeness, this AI clip was a creation built from the imagination of Pelkey’s sister, rather than an authentic documentation of the victim’s own thoughts. “Rather than document an event or recording a particular moment, the AI video presents a depiction of the victim and his thoughts created from the imaginings of the victim’s sister,” the ruling read.

    Neither side has issued public comment following the appeal decision: Kristen Reller, Horcasitas’ defense attorney who argued the appeal, declined to speak with reporters, and Jessica Gattuso, an attorney representing the Pelkey family in the case, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

  • Green Party members to vote on declaring Zionism a form of racism at conference

    Green Party members to vote on declaring Zionism a form of racism at conference

    On the southern English coast of Brighton, the UK Green Party’s annual conference has kicked off, opening just 48 hours after the ruling Labour Party wrapped its own annual gathering. At the top of the agenda is a historic and deeply polarizing vote that could make the Greens the first major British political party to codify Zionism as a form of racism as official party policy, with the ballot scheduled to take place this coming Sunday.

    Internal party sources and organizers backing the motion say the proposal is poised to pass, pointing to broad grassroots support across the party membership. The motion’s lead author, British-Palestinian activist Lubna Speitan, emphasized the urgency of confronting the ideological framework that she argues normalizes the displacement and marginalization of Palestinian people. Speitan noted that the motion was drafted collaboratively by Palestinians and a cross-faith, cross-community coalition of allies, with the goal of sparking broader conversation across British civil society, trade unions, and other political groups after the conference vote.

    The proposal also calls for the establishment of a single democratic state across historic Palestine, with full equal rights for all ethnic and religious groups residing in the territory. Prominent Holocaust survivor and Jewish activist Stephen Kapos has publicly endorsed the measure, arguing that as a child survivor of the Nazi genocide, he views Zionism — both as an ideology and in its current practice — as an inherently harmful movement that lacks legitimacy and must be rejected.

    The text of the motion clarifies that its target is the political ideology of Zionism, which it defines as an ethnonationalist project that established and maintains a Jewish state in historic Palestine through the exclusion and domination of non-Jewish populations, not Jewish people as a religious or ethnic group. “Not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists are Jews,” the motion reads, adding that the material outcome of Zionist policy has been decades of ongoing dehumanization, displacement, dispossession, and disenfranchisement of Palestinian people. A supplementary booklet distributed by the motion’s backers frames the ethnonationalist core of Zionism as incompatible with global anti-racist principles, drawing comparisons to calls for ethno-exclusive states in Europe that would be universally rejected as white supremacist.

    But despite this backing, the motion has drawn fierce condemnation from senior current and former figures within the Green Party itself. Caroline Lucas, the party’s long-serving former sole Member of Parliament, warned on Friday that the proposal carries severe risks of deep division within the party. Lucas argued that there is no universally accepted definition of Zionism, and that regardless of the proposers’ intentions, the motion could reasonably be interpreted as signaling that Jewish members and supporters are not welcome in the Green Party.

    Adrian Ramsay, the party’s former co-leader, echoed these concerns, noting that adopting the motion would contradict the party’s 2024 general election manifesto position, which he ran on and that explicitly supports equal rights for both Israelis and Palestinians. Ramsay added that it would be fundamentally wrong for the party to adopt a policy that could be seen as rejecting the right of both peoples to statehood.

    Even current Green Party leader Zack Polanski, who is Jewish, has called for substantial amendments to the motion ahead of Sunday’s vote, a position he laid out weeks before the conference. Polanski has pushed for language that explicitly safeguards Jewish members of the party, arguing that opponents of Israeli occupation, apartheid, and what he describes as genocide in Gaza should not face discrimination within the party even if they identify as Zionist.

    Polanski also pushed back on the motion’s call for a single Palestinian state, arguing that it is paternalistic for a British political party to unilaterally dictate the final outcome of negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. “My job as leader of the Green Party, the Green Party’s job, is to maintain justice and equality both for Palestinians and Israelis,” he stated. Last week, he clarified his nuanced position: if Zionism is defined by the displacement and harm inflicted on Palestinians, as it has been practiced, then it is unquestionably racist, but the lack of a clear, shared definition creates avoidable division within the party.

    As delegates prepare to vote on both amendments and the full motion on Sunday, the Green Party’s leader used his opening address to the conference on Friday to pivot to domestic priorities that the party plans to center in the upcoming Holborn and St Pancras by-election, scheduled for 8 October, where Polanski is the party’s candidate. In his speech, Polanski focused on the ongoing UK cost of living crisis and the country’s deepening housing affordability crisis, urging Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s Labour government to implement a three-year emergency freeze on private rents — a policy Labour has already ruled out. Polanski argued that voting Green pushes the governing Labour Party leftward on key issues, from domestic policy to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, telling delegates: “Vote Green and watch Labour move.”

  • The vanishing world of India’s street magicians

    The vanishing world of India’s street magicians

    ### Fading Magic: The Slow Death of India’s Traditional Street Performance Tradition

    In a cramped, modest home in Delhi, 55-year-old Ishamuddin Khan, one of India’s most celebrated street magicians, still can pull off the legendary illusion that made him an international name: making a rope appear to levitate and rise skyward. For decades, he has toured the world performing this trick, once dismissed as nothing more than myth, and keeps mementos of his fame—yellowed newspaper clippings and faded photographs—in his home. Today, however, the days of packed public performances are long behind him, and he spends more time reminiscing about his glory days than practicing his craft.

    “Street magic is dying a slow death. It is on a ventilator,” Khan observes, a bleak assessment that mirrors a widespread crisis across India’s community of traditional street performers. For generations, magicians, jugglers, puppeteers, and acrobats earned their living drawing crowds in busy public squares and marketplaces. But shifting cultural trends, evolving entertainment habits, and growing regulatory restrictions have gutted their audiences, pushing countless artists to abandon their ancestral crafts entirely.

    Khan hails from the Madari community, a ethnic and cultural group with a centuries-long lineage of public performance rooted in Indian folklore and mythology. While there are no official government counts of remaining Madari performers, community records indicate roughly 400 Madari families still reside in Delhi, with hundreds more scattered across Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Telangana. As historian Ashok Mathur explains, the performance skills of the Madari people have been passed down orally through family lines for countless generations—a tradition that is now at risk of breaking.

    Like his ancestors before him, Khan learned the art of magic from his father and uncles, giving his first public performance at just 12 years old. By his early 20s, he had mastered the iconic Indian rope trick, an illusion long written off as an impossible myth: the trick involves making a rope rise vertically into open air, after which a young boy climbs the suspended rope before disappearing. After six years of relentless practice, Khan debuted the trick publicly in 1995 near Delhi’s iconic Qutub Minar monument. Two years later, he performed it for a crowd of 30,000 on a Karnataka beach, a performance that caught the attention of international media and opened doors for performance tours across the UK, France, Germany, and Japan.

    Khan had hoped his newfound fame would shine a lasting spotlight on India’s endangered traditional performing arts, and for a brief period it did. But public interest quickly waned, and as opportunities for public performance dried up, even skilled magicians with generations of family training found it nearly impossible to make a sustainable living. One of those who left the craft is 40-year-old Imam Khan, who now earns roughly 200 rupees ($2 USD) a day collecting recyclable waste from Delhi’s streets near a large municipal dump.

    Industry analysts and cultural researchers point to multiple interconnected factors driving the decline of street performance, with the changing nature of public spaces at the top of the list. Anurupa Roy, founder of the Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust, explains that many public spaces have become increasingly restricted: closed municipal parks and gated residential communities that bar outside visitors have eliminated many of the most popular performance spots for street artists. Researcher and performer Komita Dhanda adds that heightened security measures in dense urban centers have also crowded out performance opportunities, noting that even well-established street theatre groups like Jana Natya Manch, where she works, regularly face bureaucratic barriers to staging public shows.

    Compounding the issue of limited space is the lack of a clear national regulatory framework for busking in India. Unlike the United Kingdom, which has a standardized federal system for street performance, India leaves regulation of public performance up to individual states. Performers must navigate a patchwork of inconsistent local rules around public order, noise pollution, obstruction of public land, and anti-begging laws—since the line between voluntary donations for performance and public begging is often left undefined. As lawyer Kaushik Mitra notes, this legal ambiguity means street performers regularly face penalties and crackdowns from police and municipal authorities.

    The global COVID-19 pandemic delivered a final, devastating blow to an already struggling industry. When India implemented national lockdowns in 2020, all public performances came to an abrupt halt. Many out-of-work performers returned to their rural home villages, and large numbers never came back to urban centers to resume their craft. “We saw a sharp decline in public performances after this period,” Dhanda says. “The brunt was especially harsh for street magicians and performers, many of whom did not return to cities.”

    For the performers who did stay and continue their trade, challenges have only grown worse. Forty-two-year-old Shahim Khan still performs on Delhi’s streets, sometimes bringing his 12-year-old daughter Alia along with him. But where he once could stage four or five shows a day in busy central areas and earn 1,000 to 1,200 rupees, he is now confined to out-of-the-way industrial parks, barely managing two shows a day for just 200 to 400 rupees in earnings.

    The rise of short-form digital entertainment has also eaten into the audience for traditional street performance, as modern audiences increasingly turn to social media and streaming platforms for leisure. Dhanda notes that shifting cultural tastes have also changed what India showcases to the world, with decades-old international fascination for iconic tricks like the Indian rope trick having faded almost entirely.

    For Ishamuddin Khan, the loss is far more than economic—he fears that a centuries-old cultural tradition will disappear entirely if no new generation takes up the craft. “A trick can survive only if someone learns it,” he says. His own son Altamash performed alongside him as a teenager, but has now left the craft to work decorating parties with balloons. Years without consistent practice have eroded his skills, and he admits he is slowly forgetting the tricks his father taught him. Altamash says he always knew he would never match his father’s fame, but never imagined that street performance would become an unviable profession entirely. “I knew I may not achieve the fame my father has, but I did not think there would come a time when performing would not remain an option,” he says.

  • Pretorius breaks Gayle’s T20 record score

    Pretorius breaks Gayle’s T20 record score

    South African cricket prodigy Lhuan-dre Pretorius has etched his name into the record books of T20 cricket, breaking the 11-year-old record for the highest individual score in men’s T20 cricket with a stunning unbeaten 188 in the CSA T20 Challenge held at Bloemfontein’s Mangaung Oval.

    The 20-year-old international, who already has Test, ODI and T20 caps for South Africa, delivered a masterclass in power hitting to anchor his side Titans’ innings, facing just 79 deliveries to reach his historic total. His knock included 13 towering sixes and 15 clinical fours, ending with a blistering strike rate of 237.97 that kept the scoreboard ticking at a relentless pace.

    Pretorius’s innings was a study in controlled aggression from the first ball. He brought up his half-century off just 24 deliveries, then accelerated even further to reach his century in only 40 balls – 16 additional deliveries after his fifty. He crossed the 150-mark in 58 balls, surpassing the previous record of 175 set by West Indian legend Chris Gayle in the 2013 Indian Premier League, where Gayle hit the score for Royal Challengers Bangalore against Pune Warriors.

    By the end of Titans’ 20 overs, the side had posted an imposing total of 267 runs for the loss of just three wickets, putting Knights under enormous pressure from the start of their run chase. Knights could never recover from the high required run rate, being bowled out for 143 in 17.2 overs, with top scorer Patrick Cloete making 39 off 25 deliveries. Medium-pacer Ferreira was the pick of Titans’ bowlers, taking three wickets for just 16 runs, to help seal a dominant 124-run victory for the franchise.

    Already a established member of South Africa’s national setup across all three formats, Pretorius has already hit a century in both Test cricket and T20I cricket for the Proteas, adding this domestic record to his growing list of career achievements at just 20 years old.

  • Lapid says young Israelis told him ‘even babies’ in Gaza should be killed

    Lapid says young Israelis told him ‘even babies’ in Gaza should be killed

    A stark warning about deepening radicalization among young Israelis has been issued by former Israeli prime minister Yair Lapid, who recounted alarming conversations with youth that exposed dehumanizing views toward Palestinians in Gaza amid the ongoing military campaign in the enclave.

    During a Wednesday interview, Lapid described a recent, emotionally charged meeting with a group of young Israelis, where he encountered extreme rhetoric that shocked even the veteran centrist politician. He told reporters that participants in the meeting openly embraced the idea that there are no innocent people in Gaza, and that all Palestinians there should be killed. When Lapid pushed back and asked whether this belief extended to infants, the group responded that even two-week-old babies should be killed, arguing the children would eventually grow up to become threatening to Israel, Lapid recounted.

    In the wake of these revelations, Lapid drew a sharp line between the radical views he heard from the youth and the core values Israel claims to stand for. “So, Hamas won,” he stated, emphasizing that these extreme positions directly mirror the violent, dehumanizing standards of the militant group Hamas. “That’s what it wanted. For us to become like them.”

    Lapid, who currently leads the centrist-right Together party alliance and held the prime ministership for five months before Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power in late 2022, placed much of the blame for this dangerous ideological shift on the current Israeli government. He argued that the administration has failed to condemn or discipline far-right ministers and officials who have openly called for the starvation of Palestinian children, creating a vacuum of moral leadership that allows extreme views to spread. This failure, he said, has caused deep internal damage to Israel, eroding the country’s long-stated commitment to upholding distinct values that separate it from the violent groups it fights.

    The former prime maker also criticized the government for severely damaging Israel’s global standing over the past three years, a trend he said has accelerated sharply amid the Gaza war. While Lapid affirmed that he views Israel’s current military campaign in Gaza as a just war against Hamas and dismissed accusations of genocide as unfounded nonsense, he stressed an uncompromising moral principle: “children shouldn’t die in grown-ups’ wars, period.”

    Lapid’s comments arrive against a backdrop of mounting data and polling that confirms a measurable rightward shift among younger generations of Jewish Israelis. A recent poll conducted by prominent Israeli outlet Channel 12 News found that 74% of Jewish Israelis between the ages of 18 and 22 identify as right-wing or center-right. Fifteen percent of these young respondents explicitly back far-right parties, including Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit and Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party – two factions that openly advocate for the forced expulsion of all Palestinians from the occupied Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank.

    Independent anecdotal evidence from last month echoed these polling findings. A student mock election held at a Ramat Gan high school saw the same three far-right groups – Otzma Yehudit, Religious Zionist Party, and the new far-right faction Amcha Yisrael – capture nearly 15% of the student vote. This represented a 10 percentage point jump in support for far-right candidates at the school compared to the last mock election held in 2022.

    Another high-profile incident from last month also highlighted the spread of extreme anti-Palestinian sentiment among youth. Lior Schleien, a left-leaning Israeli comedian who has traveled across the country interviewing young people about their political views, was forced to delete a viral social media video featuring a young Jewish Israeli openly calling for the mass murder of all Arabs. In the clip, which was removed after the young man’s shocked parents requested its deletion, the youth told Schleien: “Give me a knife, I’ll murder them. Every Arab.” When questioned, he doubled down, claiming every Jewish Israeli should be armed to kill as many Arabs as possible.

    While these extreme comments drew widespread attention online, data shows that the core belief that there are no innocent people in Gaza is already widely held across Israeli society. A poll conducted last year found that 64% of all Israeli adults agree with that statement. Academic research from 2024 further reinforces the trend of rising hawkishness among younger Israelis, concluding that the current generation of young Israelis “have increasingly displayed more hawkish attitudes than older generations, coupled with a stronger inclination towards right-wing identification”, alongside rising levels of religious observance compared to older cohorts.

  • King’s Caribbean tour will not shy away from ‘darkest days of our past’

    King’s Caribbean tour will not shy away from ‘darkest days of our past’

    Buckingham Palace has confirmed that King Charles III will not avoid confronting the “darkest days of our shared history” during his upcoming eight-day tour of the Caribbean, a visit that comes as growing demands for a formal apology and reparations for Britain’s role in the transatlantic slave trade hang over the royal trip.

    Kicking off on October 27, King Charles and Queen Camilla will first travel to Antigua and Barbuda to attend the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, before making official stops in the Bahamas and Guyana. The tour has emerged as a pivotal moment for the British monarchy, as Caribbean nations continue to push for accountability for the harms of colonialism and chattel slavery that lasted centuries.

    During the visit, royal sources confirm the King will face renewed public and official calls to issue a formal state apology for the UK’s participation in the transatlantic slave trade, as well as answer questions about potential financial reparations for the intergenerational harm of the system of enslavement. Multiple sources familiar with the planning, reporting via PA Media, confirm that the UK government has not advised the King to issue an apology or commit to reparation payments, aligning with the existing official British position on the issue.

    This is not the first time the King has addressed the legacy of slavery. In previous public remarks, he has openly shared his “personal sorrow” over Britain’s role, calling the transatlantic slave trade an “atrocity” that “forever stains our history.” A spokesperson for Buckingham Palace reiterated this stance in their official statement, noting that ongoing conversations about colonial legacy and the lasting impact of enslavement are both critical and necessary.

    “While these are primarily matters for Governments to address, His Majesty’s previous statements on them have been unequivocal,” the spokesperson added. The palace also clarified that the tour will center heavily on the “vibrant present and promising future” of each Caribbean nation the couple visits, framing the trip as an opportunity to strengthen modern ties between the Commonwealth partners.

    For years, nations across Africa and the Caribbean have organized collective calls for formal accountability and reparations from Western countries that amassed wealth from the transatlantic slave trade. Most recently, in September 2025, the Jamaican government announced it would formally submit a reparation petition to King Charles, who remains the ceremonial head of state for the island nation. Jamaica’s Culture Minister Olivia Grange explained that the petition will request the King refer three key legal questions about the legality of the enslavement of African people in Jamaica to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the UK-based court of final appeal for many Commonwealth nations.

    The UK government has repeatedly rejected calls for reparation payments. A Downing Street spokesperson reaffirmed this position just last month, acknowledging that the transatlantic slave trade was “abhorrent” while restating that the UK would not offer financial compensation for the historic injustice.

    As the King prepares for the tour, the conversation around slavery reparations remains one of the most pressing issues facing the modern Commonwealth, with the trip widely seen as a test of the monarchy’s willingness to acknowledge and address its historic ties to colonial exploitation.

  • Ex-US congressman sentenced to 10 years in prison for $50m lobbying scheme

    Ex-US congressman sentenced to 10 years in prison for $50m lobbying scheme

    In a landmark federal corruption case that stretches across U.S.-Venezuela diplomatic tensions, one-term former Republican U.S. Representative David Rivera of Florida has received a 10-year federal prison sentence after being convicted of two serious felonies: money laundering and acting as an undeclared foreign agent on behalf of the Nicolás Maduro regime.

    The 61-year-old ex-lawmaker, who held his congressional seat from 2011 to 2013, was found guilty by a jury in May following a seven-week trial that laid bare a covert $50 million influence campaign orchestrated through his private consulting firm. Prosecutors laid out that the contract was issued by Citgo, the U.S.-based subsidiary of Venezuelan state-owned oil giant PDVSA, at the direct direction of Maduro’s government during 2017 and 2018, a period of extreme diplomatic friction between Washington and Caracas under the first Trump administration. At that time, the Trump administration had imposed sweeping economic sanctions on Venezuela in response to its authoritarian political shifts.

    Court documents and trial testimony revealed Rivera and his co-defendant, long-time political consultant Esther Nuhfer, were contracted to lobby sitting members of Congress and senior White House officials to push for softer U.S. policy toward Venezuela. Among the targets of their lobbying efforts was Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who was then serving as a U.S. Senator from Florida and had once shared a home with Rivera. Another high-profile target was former senior White House advisor Kellyanne Conway.

    Both Rubio and Texas Congressman Pete Sessions testified during the trial that they had no knowledge of Rivera’s hidden ties to the Venezuelan government, and neither has been implicated in any wrongdoing. Defense attorneys for Rivera and Nuhfer mounted a case arguing that the pair did not have a legal obligation to register as foreign agents, because their lobbying contract was formally with Citgo, the U.S. subsidiary, rather than the Venezuelan government directly.

    That argument failed to sway the court, however. At Friday’s sentencing hearing, U.S. District Judge Melissa Damian made clear that the origin of the funds was not in question, stating “There’s no dispute this money came from the Maduro regime.” In addition to the 10-year prison term, Rivera was ordered to forfeit all of his owned real estate properties in the state of Florida as part of his sentence. Nuhfer, who was also convicted alongside Rivera on the same charges, is scheduled to receive her sentence at a later date. The case marks one of the highest-profile convictions for undeclared foreign lobbying involving a former member of Congress in recent years.

  • Hawaii’s iconic 550-year-old Hōlei Sea Arch collapses

    Hawaii’s iconic 550-year-old Hōlei Sea Arch collapses

    One of Hawaii’s most photographed natural landmarks, the 90-foot-tall Hōlei Sea Arch, a lava rock formation carved by coastal erosion over 550 years, has officially collapsed into the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. National Park Service (NPS) has confirmed.

    Though the exact moment of the collapse was not captured, NPS officials confirmed the structure was still standing intact along the Volcanoes National Park coastline on September 23. By September 27, the entire arch had disappeared into the surf.

    Park managers have anticipated this event for years, noting long-standing signs of instability along the cliffs flanking the iconic arch. As early as 2021, NPS publicly warned that the fragile formation would eventually crumble, a prediction that has now come to pass.

    Nestled at the southern end of the Big Island’s Chain of Craters Road, Hōlei Sea Arch has been a bucket-list stop for tourists and landscape photographers for decades, drawing thousands of visitors annually to capture its dramatic lava silhouette against the Pacific.

    Investigations into the collapse point to a combination of long-term geological damage and recent extreme weather as the driving forces. Officials believe the arch fell during the temporary closure of Volcanoes National Park last weekend, when Tropical Storm Nolo brought large swells and powerful storms to the Hawaiian islands. This event capped years of incremental damage: the 2018 Kīlauea eruption and subsequent summit collapse left major structural weaknesses in the surrounding cliffs, and 2020 tropical storm waves already broke off a large segment of rock from the arch’s base. In response to growing safety risks, NPS closed the original close-up viewing area in January 2020 and opened a new overlook at a safer distance several months later.

    In a statement following the collapse, NPS framed the event as a natural part of the ever-evolving coastal landscape of Hawaii. “This formation is beautiful, but temporary, and has a limited life span,” the agency reiterated in comments echoing its 2021 warning. “The sea arch will eventually crumble into the sea. However, others will replace it as the cliff slowly migrates inland.”

    News of the arch’s disappearance has sparked widespread reflection on social media, where thousands of users have interacted with NPS’s official announcement. Visitors have shared personal memories of visiting the landmark and posted their own photos of the now-vanished formation, with many commenting on the transient nature of natural wonders. One Facebook user summed up the widespread sentiment: “Nothing and no one is here forever. Millions of years from now the sun will die. Appreciate the good, the beauty, now.”

  • World’s largest nursing union cuts ties with Israeli drugmaker Teva

    World’s largest nursing union cuts ties with Israeli drugmaker Teva

    The Royal College of Nursing (RCN), the largest nursing union globally with a membership of nearly 600,000 healthcare professionals across the United Kingdom, has formally terminated all commercial ties with Teva UK, the regional subsidiary of Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva — the world’s largest producer of generic medications. The decision came in response to sustained grassroots campaigning by two pro-Palestine healthcare advocacy groups, Nurses for Palestine and UK Healthcare Petitions to Royal Colleges (UKHPRC), which spent months pushing the union leadership to cut the corporate partnership.