Global Pulse

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  • Ivory Coast into World Cup knockout round for 1st time as Pépé scores twice in 2-0 win over Curaçao

    Ivory Coast into World Cup knockout round for 1st time as Pépé scores twice in 2-0 win over Curaçao

    PHILADELPHIA – In a historic night for West African football, Nicolas Pépé delivered a masterclass performance, scoring in both the first and second halves to lift Ivory Coast to a 2-0 victory over Curaçao on Thursday, punching the Les Éléphants’ first-ever ticket to the World Cup knockout stage.

    This breakthrough marks a milestone for Ivory Coast, which had failed to exit the group stage in its three previous World Cup appearances. The team’s path to the knockout round followed a tense Group E campaign: it opened the tournament with a dramatic 1-0 win over Ecuador at this very same Lincoln Financial Field stadium, then suffered a defeat to Germany in its second group match. Heading into Thursday’s decisive fixture, a draw was all Ivory Coast needed to advance, but the side came out firing from the opening whistle, never letting Curaçao gain a foothold in the match.

    Pépé, currently plying his trade with Spanish La Liga side Villarreal, killed any suspense of a Curaçao comeback just seven minutes into the game. The opening goal came from a Curaçao defensive mistake: the Caribbean side failed to clear a loose ball, which 19-year-old Yan Diomande – a prospect who moved to the United States four years ago speaking no English – intercepted and slotted through to Pépé, who tapped it easily past Curaçao goalkeeper Eloy Room to open the scoring.

    Buoyed by a raucous, home-like crowd at the NFL Philadelphia Eagles’ arena, Ivory Coast held onto its lead through the first half and extended it in the 64th minute. Pépé struck again with a clinical left-footed finish from the far corner of the box, sealing the three points and the historic qualification. Three minutes after his second goal, Pépé was substituted off to rest ahead of Ivory Coast’s upcoming knockout fixture, which is scheduled for June 30 against the runner-up of Group I – either France or Norway. The substitute striker received a standing ovation from the crowd of 68,324 fans, a number that equals roughly 40% of Curaçao’s entire population.

    Curaçao entered the match needing a full victory to advance, and came close to reaching a historic milestone of its own: a win would have made it the smallest nation by population ever to qualify for a World Cup knockout round. The autonomous Caribbean territory within the Kingdom of the Netherlands counts only around 156,000 inhabitants, and its national squad is made up almost entirely of players born and raised in the Netherlands. The Blue Wave came into Thursday’s fixture with momentum, after 37-year-old Room notched 15 spectacular saves against Ecuador to secure a 0-0 draw – the first World Cup point in Curaçao’s history – just three days prior.

    Ivory Coast’s strong connection to the Philadelphia area likely contributed to its warm welcome from the crowd. The team set up its pre-tournament training base in nearby Delaware, held practice sessions at the suburban home of Major League Soccer’s Philadelphia Union, and even played a friendly against the Union’s reserve squad during preparations. This local presence earned the side a growing group of adoptive fans, many of whom packed the stands in Ivory Coast’s iconic orange kit and erupted in celebration after each of Pépé’s goals.

    In team notes, Ivory Coast striker Elye Wahi, who is currently under investigation for alleged betting offenses during his time at French club Nice, came off the bench in the second half after being held out of the starting lineup for the Germany match. When the final whistle blew, Pépé was named Man of the Match for his decisive two-goal performance, capping off a historic night for Ivory Coast football.

  • Ecuador advances to World Cup knockout rounds, beats Germany 2-1 on Plata’s 77th-minute goal

    Ecuador advances to World Cup knockout rounds, beats Germany 2-1 on Plata’s 77th-minute goal

    In a thrilling, unexpected Group E showdown at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium on Thursday, Ecuador pulled off a dramatic second-half comeback to secure a 2-1 victory over four-time World Cup champions Germany, punching their ticket to the tournament’s knockout round for only the second time in nation’s history.

    Germany, who had already locked in first place in the group with back-to-back wins to open the competition, got off to a blistering start. Just 110 seconds into the match, Leroy Sané netted his 18th international goal to put the European giants ahead early. The play unfolded after Aleksandar Pavlović collected a chested pass, found Florian Wirtz in open space, and Wirtz played a perfect centering pass to Sané inside the penalty area. Controversy briefly surrounded the opening goal, as Sané appeared to make contact with Ecuador’s Pedro Vite off a throw-in, but American referee Tori Penso allowed the goal to stand, despite loud protests from the Ecuadorian side.

    Ecuador did not let the early setback deflate their momentum, and answered back just seven minutes later. When Germany midfielder Felix Nmecha gave away possession cheaply in central midfield, Vite pounced on the mistake and slid a pass through to Nilson Angulo. The young winger dribbled toward goal, and fired a precise strike from just outside the 18-yard box that beat German goalkeeper Manuel Neuer at the far post, scoring Ecuador’s first goal of the 2026 tournament and leveling the score at 1-1.

    The game remained deadlocked through the first half, and an early second-half moment of drama tested both sides. Less than 30 seconds after the restart, Penso initially awarded Germany a penalty after Joel Ordóñez brought down Kai Havertz in the box. But a lengthy VAR review overturned the call, after officials spotted an earlier foul by Sané on Vite in the build-up to the play, wiping out Germany’s chance to retake the lead from the spot.

    The defining moment of the match came in the 77th minute, when Gonzalo Plata—who had already taken a hard blow to the head during Germany’s opening goal—delivered the match-winning strike. After Vite swung in a corner kick, Kevin Rodríguez flicked a header on toward the goal line. Neuer, the 40-year-old German veteran who came out of international retirement to feature in this World Cup, came off his line looking to claim the loose ball. But Plata got a toe to the ball before Neuer could wrap his hands around it, poking it into the empty net to put Ecuador ahead 2-1.

    The upset send Ecuadorian players, staff and the majority of the 80,666-strong crowd—most dressed in the nation’s iconic yellow kit—into wild celebration. Ecuadorian head coach Sebastián Beccacece even ran straight into the stands to share the moment with traveling fans after the winning goal.

    With the three points from the win, Ecuador finished the group stage with four points, enough to claim third place and advance to the knockout round. This marks just the second time Ecuador has moved past the group stage in World Cup history, with their first advance coming back in 2006, when they reached the round of 16.

    For Germany, the loss snapped an 11-game winning streak, leaving the side one win short of tying the national team record set between 1979 and 1980. Germany will now face off in the round of 32 on Monday at Foxborough, Massachusetts, with their opponent expected to be one of Paraguay, Australia or Sweden.

    Thursday’s match also helped the 2026 World Cup set an all-time attendance record. With the crowd at MetLife Stadium, the total tournament attendance through 56 games hit 3,587,539, surpassing the previous record set by the 1994 United States World Cup, which hosted 52 matches and drew a total of just under 3.58 million fans.

  • Trump wants $87.6 billion to pay for his war in Iran, etc.

    Trump wants $87.6 billion to pay for his war in Iran, etc.

    WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a Wednesday submission to Capitol Hill, the Trump administration has formally requested $87.6 billion in emergency supplemental funding, with the largest share of the package earmarked for ongoing war-related operations in Iran and a wide array of additional federal priorities spanning agriculture, global health, infrastructure, and national security. The request has immediately run into partisan friction, as leading Democratic lawmakers have signaled strong opposition, arguing the package bundles unrelated pet projects for the Pentagon alongside funding for a conflict they frame as an unwise choice by the White House.

    Under the terms of the proposal, the largest allocation – $67.15 billion – is directed to the Defense Department to cover urgent operational needs tied to the Iran conflict. The remaining $20-plus billion is spread across 11 other federal agencies, covering priorities that range from domestic infrastructure to international public health. White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought outlined the scope of the request in a formal letter to Congress, noting that beyond defense needs, the package includes resources to support the U.S. response to the ongoing Ebola outbreak, financial relief for American agricultural producers, and investments in national nuclear security administered by the Department of Energy. Additional allocations include infrastructure projects in the nation’s capital, a $1 billion contribution to the modernization of New York City’s iconic Penn Station, pension benefit boosts for a group of retired Delphi Corporation workers affected by General Motors’ 2009 bankruptcy, upgrades to the World War II Memorial in Washington D.C., and classified operational funds for federal law enforcement and homeland security agencies.

    The request faces a uncertain path to passage, as it requires Democratic support to clear Congress. Senate Appropriations Committee’s top Democrat, Patty Murray of Washington, issued a sharp rebuke of the proposal in a public statement. Murray argued that the request is not merely a funding measure for the administration’s conflict in Iran – which she labeled a “disastrous war of choice” – but also a maneuver to secure tens of billions of dollars for unrelated Pentagon priorities that should be vetted through the regular annual congressional appropriations process. Murray noted that she would conduct a full review of the request and prioritize support for U.S. military service members, but made clear she would not approve the package without scrutiny. “I will not rubberstamp tens of billions more for this disastrous war of choice,” she wrote.

    Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, took a more measured tone, announcing that she would conduct a thorough review of the proposal and planned to convene a full committee hearing to allow lawmakers to question senior administration officials directly about the funding request.

    The debate over the emergency funding comes on the heels of a recent development on Iran war policy: just ahead of the funding request, two Republican lawmakers flipped their votes to block a resolution that would have reined in the administration’s war powers for the Iran conflict, keeping the administration’s operational authority intact.

  • James doubtful for Panama but England hopeful on Rice

    James doubtful for Panama but England hopeful on Rice

    As England prepares for its decisive final Group L match of the 2026 FIFA World Cup against Panama, two key first-team players have missed the squad’s pre-match training session, casting uncertainty over their availability for Saturday’s kickoff. The most pressing question hangs over 26-year-old starting right-back Reece James, who sustained a hamstring injury during England’s goalless draw with Ghana on Tuesday.

    James, a Chelsea star and a core fixture in manager Thomas Tuchel’s preferred starting eleven that has featured him in both of the Three Lions’ opening two World Cup matches, did not join his teammates for Thursday’s penultimate training session at England’s base in Kansas City. It is still unclear whether the defender will be fit enough to take the field against Panama, either in the starting lineup or as a substitute option when the two sides meet at New York New Jersey Stadium, with the match scheduled to kick off at 22:00 BST.

    Joining James on the absentee list from Thursday’s session was 27-year-old midfield anchor Declan Rice, who left the matchday stadium following the Ghana draw with medical strapping wrapped around his left calf. However, insider sources close to the England camp have indicated that Rice’s fitness status is far less of a concern than James’.

    Even with relatively minor fitness concerns, Tuchel still faces a selection dilemma over whether to start the Arsenal midfielder. Rice currently sits at risk of suspension for the knockout round of 32 after picking up a yellow card in the Ghana match, a factor that could push the manager to rest him for the final group fixture to avoid a suspension before the knockout stage.

    Heading into the final group match, England holds a narrow advantage at the top of Group L. The Three Lions sit above Ghana on goal difference, and hold a one-point lead over Croatia, the side they defeated 4-2 in their opening World Cup fixture. A positive result against Panama will secure England’s place in the knockout round, making fitness updates for the squad’s key stars all the more important ahead of the clash.

  • Two Republicans flip votes, blocking Iran war powers resolution

    Two Republicans flip votes, blocking Iran war powers resolution

    In a dramatic late-night reversal that capped a day of intense White House pressure and partisan friction, two Senate Republicans who had previously backed a measure calling for a withdrawal of U.S. forces from the ongoing conflict in Iran flipped their votes Wednesday, bowing to aggressive public and private berating from former President Donald Trump. Trump had lashed out at GOP lawmakers who supported the earlier resolution, branding them “losers” who were offering what he called “aid and comfort to the enemy.”

    Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who was reported to have engaged in a shouting match with Trump over the Iran policy during a closed-door GOP lunch earlier the same day, ultimately joined nearly all other Senate Republicans in opposing the war powers resolution pushed by Democrats. Just one day prior, Cassidy had backed a separate, non-binding symbolic measure that called for the removal of U.S. troops from the Iran conflict. The second Republican, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, also switched his position, moving to vote “present” after direct urging from the president.

    The hastily scheduled late vote was organized explicitly by Senate Republican leaders to placate Trump, who had publicly fumed over the initial symbolic resolution that passed the upper chamber earlier in the week. Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, the lead Democratic sponsor of the resolution that Republicans successfully blocked Wednesday, called the entire process nothing more than an effort to appease what he described as Trump’s “temper tantrum.”

    Kaine argued that after both chambers of Congress, when previously led by Republican majorities, took the historic step of voting to affirm that any expanded war against Iran would be illegal without explicit congressional authorization, Trump traveled to the Capitol to intimidate Republican senators who had upheld their constitutional oaths of office. Kaine emphasized that Wednesday’s flipped votes do not erase Congress’s formal stated position that further military action against Iran cannot proceed without a formal congressional vote of approval.

    Following the successful block of the resolution, Trump celebrated the outcome in a late-night post on his personal social media platform. He thanked top Senate Republican leaders and specifically highlighted the vote reversals by Cassidy and Paul as a key victory. Notably, Cassidy, who lost his re-election bid last month, had publicly stated just hours before the vote that he would not be bullied by the administration. After flipping his position, he said the White House had provided him with a thorough national security briefing on Iran that addressed many of his core concerns. Multiple reports indicate Trump called Cassidy a “lunatic” during their private confrontation at Wednesday’s lunch.

    Wednesday’s vote unfolded against the backdrop of fragile diplomatic negotiations between the U.S. and Iran, aimed at reaching a peaceful resolution to the conflict that Trump launched in late February. The military campaign has killed thousands of Iranians, disrupted global economic activity, and driven up consumer prices across the United States.

    Earlier on Wednesday, the White House formally submitted a request to Congress for an $87.6 billion emergency supplemental funding package, nearly $70 billion of which would go toward covering operational military costs incurred during the Iran war.

    Democratic lawmakers across the chamber have uniformly rejected the funding request, framing it as a waste of critical taxpayer resources that could be directed toward domestic priorities. Rep. Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, said in a statement that the tens of billions in military spending requested by the Trump administration could instead be used to shore up American healthcare, provide food assistance to hungry children, and ease the financial burden working families face covering basic daily needs. Boyle added that Trump is forcing American taxpayers to continue paying for a reckless, unnecessary war that has pushed gas and consumer goods prices sharply higher, put U.S. military personnel in unnecessary danger, and done nothing to improve security in the Middle East.

    Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democratic appropriator in the Senate, said she would refuse to rubber-stamp tens of billions more in funding for what she called a disastrous, unnecessary war of choice. She argued that the president tells the American public there is insufficient funding for core domestic priorities like healthcare, affordable housing, and childcare, while simultaneously claiming there should be unlimited taxpayer money for an unpopular war most Americans do not support.

  • Things to know about the Venezuela earthquakes

    Things to know about the Venezuela earthquakes

    On Wednesday, a rare and powerful double earthquake event, formally called an earthquake doublet, devastated northern Venezuela, leaving at least 188 people confirmed dead, more than 200 trapped under rubble, and over 1,500 injured. Thousands more are currently unaccounted for, with rescue officials warning that the death toll is almost certain to rise as search operations continue through collapsed infrastructure. One of the hardest-hit areas is La Guaira, a coastal region located just north of the capital city Caracas, where dozens of buildings have been completely leveled.

    According to data from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the two major seismic events struck just 39 seconds apart along the San Sebastian fault on Venezuela’s northern Caribbean coastline. The first, a 7.2-magnitude foreshock, originated 22 kilometers (14 miles) deep, 170 kilometers (105 miles) west of Caracas near the coastal town of Morón. Barely half a minute later, a stronger 7.5-magnitude mainshock hit 10 kilometers (6 miles) deep, just 16 kilometers (10 miles) southwest of Morón. USGS experts confirmed that the back-to-back quakes, classified as a doublet due to their similar magnitude, close timing and proximity, resulted from shallow strike-slip faulting along the complex tectonic boundary between the Caribbean and South American plates. The event ranks among the most powerful seismic activity recorded in Venezuela in more than a century.

    Acting President Delcy Rodríguez has declared La Guaira, which sits around 165 kilometers (103 miles) east of the mainshock’s epicenter, a full disaster zone. Authorities have deployed all available rescue resources from across the country to the region, where civilian volunteers and first responders have worked around the clock to pull survivors from crumbled concrete. Footage from the scene shows survivors covered in dust and blood emerging from rubble, while distraught families grieve outside flattened homes. Grief-stricken residents have posted hundreds of missing-person flyers with photos of lost loved ones, and shared handwritten lists of unaccounted-for names across social media and community boards in a frantic search for information.

    Widespread damage extends far beyond La Guaira, reaching all the way into the capital Caracas and triggering evacuations as far away as Brazil’s Amazon region, more than 1,700 kilometers (1,050 miles) from the epicenter. In downtown Caracas, hundreds of residents spent the first night after the quake huddled in open public spaces including parks and parking lots, terrified to return to damaged, unstable structures for fear of aftershocks. Large swathes of the capital lost power and cellular connectivity immediately after the quake. Caracas’ main international airport sustained significant structural damage and has been closed to all traffic, subway operations across the city have been suspended, and natural gas service has been shut off as a safety precaution. Local officials have canceled classes at all schools for several days, repurposing the facilities as emergency public shelters and donation collection centers. In response to the disaster, Rodríguez announced the government has established a $200 million reconstruction fund to repair damaged hospitals and residential buildings.

    The disaster comes as Venezuela faces already severe political and economic challenges, adding an unprecedented new crisis to Rodríguez’ tenure. Rodríguez, a former vice president, assumed office in January after former President Nicolás Maduro was captured by U.S. authorities. Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores are currently jailed in New York City awaiting trial on drug trafficking charges. Rodríguez inherited a nation that has struggled with crippling economic turmoil for more than a decade, and her government already faces deep political division: large segments of the Venezuelan population reject the legitimacy of her ruling movement, even as some of her former loyalists have criticized her leadership and recent diplomatic warming toward the U.S.

    International support has already begun mobilizing to assist Venezuela’s response to the disaster. The U.S. government announced Thursday it would deploy two specialized urban search and rescue teams to the country, alongside $150 million in humanitarian aid distributed through independent nongovernmental organizations and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The United Nations confirmed that international search and rescue teams are expected to begin arriving in the country within hours of the announcement. Additional aid pledges have come from Qatar and Mexico, among other nations. Meanwhile, the large Venezuelan diaspora in the U.S. — which counts more than 770,000 people, with large concentrated communities in Florida, Texas and Utah — has moved quickly to organize grassroots donation drives to support disaster survivors.

  • Archbishop of Canterbury vows to help Palestinians achieve ‘freedom you deserve’

    Archbishop of Canterbury vows to help Palestinians achieve ‘freedom you deserve’

    During a high-profile visit to the occupied West Bank, the head of the Church of England, Archbishop Dame Sarah Mullally, has publicly committed to using her influential position to advocate for the peace and freedom that Palestinians are inherently owed, while framing the daily acts of persistence amid occupation as powerful examples of “faithful resistance”.

    Mullally delivered these remarks in a sermon this past Sunday at St Peter’s Anglican Church, located in Birzeit, a Palestinian Christian community in the West Bank. She told gathered worshippers that this quiet, faithful resistance does not always take dramatic forms: it can be seen in the everyday efforts of parents who navigate the complex, restrictive network of Israeli checkpoints every day just to earn a living to support their households, or to get their children to school to build a better future. It is also visible, she added, in the simple act of congregating week after week in this church to share communion together.

    “All these acts of faithful resistance point to our hope in Jesus Christ and reflect your ongoing struggle for freedom and dignity,” Mullally told the congregation. She acknowledged the profound gap in experience between her own life and the reality of Palestinians under occupation, noting that she takes for granted basic privileges that are out of reach for most people living in the territory: the ability to cross borders and checkpoints without obstruction, to gather freely with neighboring communities, and to travel to Jerusalem without restriction.

    “I will use my role as archbishop to seek the peace you desire and the freedom you deserve,” she stated. Mullally also emphasized that the global Christian community has not forgotten Palestinian people, adding: “The church is called to rejoice with those who rejoice and to weep with those who weep. The church stands with you in your right to live in freedom and dignity.”

    As part of her regional tour, which also included stops in Jerusalem, Nazareth and Bethlehem alongside Hosam Naoum, the Anglican Archbishop in Jerusalem, Mullally met with 26-year-old Palestinian Christian woman Layan Nasir, who has been detained by Israeli authorities three times over the past five years. After being welcomed by Nasir’s family in their home, Mullally said she would hold the family in her prayers, and ask for divine blessing and healing for Layan following what she described as the terrible trauma of her imprisonment. She also extended her prayers to all people held in what she called unjust detention across Palestine, Israel, and the entire globe.

    Mullally noted that the core purpose of her visit was to create space to listen directly to the experiences of local communities, to hear both their hopes and their anxieties, their moments of joy and the enormous challenges they face daily, and to join them in praying for justice and peace that can bring healing to both people and the land.

    This visit comes amid growing concern from senior Church of England leaders over the deteriorating situation in the occupied Palestinian territories. Last year, four senior bishops from the church called on the British government to take immediate action to address escalating Israeli settler violence, warning that the ongoing aggression is eroding Palestinian life and putting the long-standing Christian presence in the Holy Land at severe risk. In their statement, the bishops highlighted that as the war in Gaza continues, conditions in the West Bank have deteriorated rapidly, with rising levels of settler violence and intimidation—including direct attacks on land and church properties in Taybeh, another Christian-majority West Bank town.

    Just earlier this year, the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, shared his own firsthand experience of occupation during a visit to the region, recounting that he was stopped at checkpoints and intimidated by armed militias who barred him from visiting Palestinian families in the West Bank. “It was sobering for me to see this wall for real on my visit to the Holy Land, and we were stopped at various checkpoints and intimidated by Israeli militias who told us that we couldn’t visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank,” Cottrell said.

    The warnings from Church of England leaders align with recent alerts from Palestinian church affairs officials. Just last month, a delegation from Palestine’s Higher Presidential Committee for Church Affairs told European Union officials that long-standing Israeli policies pose an existential threat to the centuries-old Palestinian Christian community in the Holy Land.

  • Blood, Sweat & Tears rocker David Clayton-Thomas dies at 84

    Blood, Sweat & Tears rocker David Clayton-Thomas dies at 84

    The world of music is mourning the loss of one of jazz-rock’s most influential voices: David Clayton-Thomas, the Canadian lead singer of Blood, Sweat & Tears, has passed away at the age of 84. His publicist Eric Alper confirmed that Clayton-Thomas died peacefully on Wednesday at a hospital in Toronto, with no immediate cause of death released to the public.

    A inductee of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Clayton-Thomas leaves behind an unparalleled artistic legacy defined by chart-topping hits and a genre-bending sound that redefined 1960s popular music. Best known for his soulful, powerhouse vocals on era-defining tracks including *You’ve Made Me So Very Happy* and *Spinning Wheel*, the singer-songwriter amassed global record sales exceeding 40 million across his decades-long career. His journey from street performing in Toronto to headlining iconic festivals like Woodstock cemented his status as a transformative figure in the fusion of jazz and rock.

    Clayton-Thomas’s early life was marked by hardship that ultimately forged his artistic path. As a teenager, he experienced homelessness and spent time in a series of correctional facilities and youth detention centers, where he taught himself to play guitar and discovered his love of music through performances for fellow inmates. It was not until 1968 that he joined Blood, Sweat & Tears, stepping into the role of lead vocalist and quickly becoming the creative backbone of what would emerge as one of the decade’s most commercially successful and critically acclaimed groups.

    The same year he joined the band, their self-titled second album made industry history: it sold 10 million copies globally, held the number one spot on the Billboard 200 album chart for seven consecutive weeks, and took home five Grammy Awards, including the coveted Album of the Year—beating The Beatles’ legendary *Abbey Road* for the honor. The record spawned three top-charting singles that all reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100: *You’ve Made Me So Very Happy*, *And When I Die*, and *Spinning Wheel*, a track written by Clayton-Thomas himself.

    In 1970, the band made political as well as musical history, becoming the first rock act to tour behind the Iron Curtain in Eastern Europe at the invitation of the U.S. State Department. A 2023 documentary titled *What the Hell Happened to Blood, Sweat & Tears?* later revealed that the Nixon administration had issued an ultimatum to Clayton-Thomas, who was a Canadian citizen living in the U.S.: complete the tour in exchange for permanent residency, or face deportation. The collaboration with the Nixon administration drew significant backlash at the time, particularly from anti-Vietnam War activists who criticized the band’s ties to the government.

    Clayton-Thomas departed Blood, Sweat & Tears in 1972, citing physical and mental exhaustion from years of non-stop global touring. He went on to build a successful solo career, releasing more than 12 independent albums and headlining his own tours across North America, before rejoining the iconic group in the early 1980s.

    He is survived by his two daughters, Ashleigh Clayton-Thomas and Christine Graham. Per a statement from his publicist, a memorial concert honoring Clayton-Thomas’s life and decades of musical contributions will be held at a future date, with all proceeds going to Peacebuilders Canada—a peace organization Clayton-Thomas supported deeply.

  • Drones and decomposing babies: What’s in UN report on Israel’s genocide of Palestinian children

    Drones and decomposing babies: What’s in UN report on Israel’s genocide of Palestinian children

    The United Nations’ leading independent investigative body focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict released a landmark 88-page report this week, concluding that Israeli security forces have systematically and deliberately targeted Palestinian children as a central component of alleged genocide in the Gaza Strip. The inquiry, conducted by the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, documents widespread harm against children across Gaza and the occupied West Bank dating from October 7, 2023, stretching past the October 2025 ceasefire.

    Srinivasan Muralidhar, chair of the commission and an experienced Indian jurist, stated that the weight of collected evidence irrefutably confirms that Palestinian children have been intentionally targeted and killed by Israeli forces. Muralidhar emphasized that violations have persisted despite the ceasefire agreement, noting that Israel continues to disregard both the truce terms and its obligations under international law to protect Palestinian civilian children.

    This latest report builds on the commission’s earlier finding that Israel bears responsibility for genocide in Gaza, detailing two distinct pathways through which children have been targeted. The first involves direct strikes using precision weaponry, including military quadcopters and sniper rifles. The second is an indirect, systemic campaign to destroy the basic conditions required for children to survive.

    The inquiry’s compiled casualty data underscores the scale of child harm: between the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack and October 7, 2025, Israeli military operations killed at least 20,179 children and injured an additional 44,143 across Gaza. These figures account for 30% of all total fatalities and 26% of all injuries recorded during the period. Children under the age of five made up at least 5,031 of those killed, including 1,029 infants under one year old and approximately 420 newborns. The commission estimates an additional 5,160 children remain trapped and buried under rubble from Israeli strikes, and notes that the true death toll is almost certainly higher, as many deaths have gone unrecorded amid the breakdown of civil governance and health infrastructure.

    Investigators documented a repeated pattern of intentional targeting of children with precision weapons, collecting testimony from 17 Gaza-based medical practitioners who described treating large numbers of children with single gunshot wounds to the head and upper torso, inflicted by Israeli snipers or drone operators. One doctor told the commission that the consistent pattern of injuries indicated Israeli soldiers were engaging in what amounted to “deliberate shooting teenage boys in a game of target practice.” Forensic analysis of 15 of these cases confirmed that 12 of the victims suffered single gunshot wounds consistent with the accounts of intentional targeting.

    The report includes detailed accounts of multiple specific, verified cases of deliberate child targeting. On January 29, 2024, Israeli forces from the 401st Brigade, 162nd Division shot and killed five-year-old Hind Rajab in the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood of Gaza City, alongside six of her family members. When two Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics traveled to the area to rescue the child, Israeli forces shelled their ambulance, killing both first responders. The commission concluded Israeli forces deliberately shot the family and intentionally obstructed the medical rescue mission.

    Less than a week earlier, on January 24, 2024, Israeli soldiers from the 98th Division operating in Khan Younis shot and killed a 15-year-old boy who had exited his family’s home carrying a white flag after receiving an Israeli evacuation order. When the boy’s 20-year-old brother ran to his aid, soldiers shot him as well. The commission ruled the shooting was deliberate.

    Additional cases include an April 12, 2024 strike by an Israeli quadcopter operator on a 10-day-old infant who was being breastfed by his mother inside a shelter tent in the Nuseirat refugee camp. The commission confirmed the operator had a clear, unobstructed view of the interior of the tent before opening fire; the baby survived but now experiences permanent seizures. On August 24, 2024, another quadcopter operator shot a four-year-old girl in the head while she ate with her family in a Khan Younis tent. She survived but was left permanently paralyzed on her left side, with the inquiry confirming she was deliberately targeted. Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, the commission documented more than 100 additional child killings and hundreds of injuries in the weeks immediately following the truce. One high-profile post-ceasefire case involved two brothers, ages nine and 10, who were killed by a drone strike from the Israeli Kfir Brigade while gathering firewood for their wheelchair-using father near Bani Suheila in southern Gaza. Israel claimed the boys were armed suspects crossing a newly established Israeli demarcation line inside Gaza known as the “yellow line,” but the commission dismissed the claim as baseless: the boys were more than 300 meters from Israeli positions, were visibly children engaged in collecting firewood, and the drone operator had an unobstructed view before firing.

    Beyond Gaza, the inquiry documented widespread child targeting in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Between October 7, 2023, and October 20, 2025, Israeli forces killed 213 Palestinian children in the West Bank, with investigators confirming a systemic pattern of labeling boys as “terrorists” or “future terrorists” to justify targeting. One case details the January 25, 2025 killing of a two-year-old girl, shot in the back of the head by soldiers from the Menashe Brigade while the child ate dinner with her family in southern Jenin. She is the youngest child killed in the West Bank since the start of the current conflict. Another case records the January 28, 2025 shooting of a 10-year-old boy by soldiers from the Ephraim Brigade during a raid on his family’s home in Tulkarm. CCTV footage confirmed the boy was unarmed; Israeli forces delayed an ambulance transporting him to care for 30 minutes, and one soldier openly told the boy’s father, “I am the one who shot your son. God willing, he will die.” The child succumbed to his injuries on February 7, 2025.

    The report also documents widespread violence against children carried out by Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Between January and June 2025 alone, settlers carried out more than 1,000 attacks across 230 Palestinian communities. Specific incidents include the April 2025 knife-point abduction of two siblings under five years old who were playing outside their home; settlers dragged the children to an olive grove and tied them to a tree. In August 2024, armed settlers abducted two 15-year-old boys who were herding cattle, beat them, sexually assaulted them, and fractured one boy’s leg, with one settler urinating on the victim.

    Mistreatment of detained Palestinian children is another core finding of the report. Since October 7, 2023, Israeli forces have detained more than 1,655 children in the West Bank, 600 of whom were arrested in 2025 alone. As of December 31, 2025, 51% of all detained children are held under administrative detention—imprisonment without charge or trial—the highest share ever recorded. The commission collected consistent testimony of abuse: children are beaten, blindfolded, forced into painful stress positions on sharp gravel, terrorized by attack dogs from the moment of arrest, and denied food, water, and medical care by prison authorities. Multiple accounts confirm systemic sexual violence against detained boys, including rape by prison guards. One 17-year-old boy from Ramallah died in March 2025 at Megiddo Prison; Israeli authorities had been aware of his head trauma, severe malnutrition, and weight loss since December 2024 but failed to provide any medical care. A post-mortem confirmed he died from prolonged, severe starvation, with the commission ruling his death amounts to the war crimes of torture, inhuman treatment, and wilful killing, and that Israeli prison authorities are directly responsible.

    The report also details the systematic destruction of Gaza’s child-serving infrastructure, including hospitals and schools. All three of Gaza’s major pediatric hospitals were attacked and forced to close within the first two months of hostilities. Before October 2023, Gaza operated 178 incubators across eight neonatal intensive care units; Israeli attacks and the ongoing siege reduced that number to just 54 by November 2024, forcing medical staff to place three or four infants in a single incubator. At Al-Nasr Paediatric Hospital, Israeli forces cut power, gave staff just 30 minutes to evacuate, and blocked evacuation efforts for remaining patients. When a ceasefire allowed investigators access weeks later, four dead babies were found decomposing in the neonatal unit, still connected to non-functional life support machines. At least 15 newborns died of preventable hypothermia between December 2024 and February 2025, a direct result of the conditions created by the Israeli siege. Israel’s blockade and attacks on reproductive healthcare have pushed miscarriage rates up by as much as 300% since October 2023, and by October 2024, Gaza women were three times more likely to die in childbirth than before the war. As of March 2026, 70% of all newborns in Gaza are premature or underweight.

    In the education sector, Israeli forces hit 459 of Gaza’s 564 school buildings between October 2023 and October 2025, with more than 97% of all schools suffering damage or complete destruction. More than 668,000 school-age Gaza children have missed three full academic years and been locked out of formal education. The inquiry documented multiple cases of Israeli soldiers filming themselves during controlled demolitions of schools and posting the footage online. In one video, a soldier can be heard saying, “In my childhood, I’ve always dreamed of blowing up my school. Today I’m blowing up a school. Wow.” In another, a soldier mocks Palestinian students, saying they will “not be engineers any more.” The commission confirmed the 252nd Division carried out deliberate demolitions of at least two UN-run schools in Beit Hanoun in November 2023, and that Israeli forces have seized dozens of other schools to use as military bases, weapons storage, and barracks.

    Systemic starvation of children has been another key tactic, the report finds. By October 2025, UNICEF had recorded 151 child deaths from malnutrition caused by Israel’s siege and blockade, with July 2025 seeing 24 children under five die from starvation-related causes. The blockade also derailed a planned fourth round of polio vaccinations for 600,000 Gaza children scheduled for April 2025, allowing polio to re-emerge in Gaza in August 2024, 25 years after the disease was eradicated from the territory.

    Investigators also documented a widespread pattern of dehumanization of Palestinian children, with at least 35 instances of Israeli soldiers filming themselves destroying or mocking children’s toys, schoolwork, and personal belongings in wrecked Palestinian homes, schools, and public spaces, then posting the footage to social media. The commission concluded these are not isolated incidents, but reflect an institutionalized culture of dehumanization across Israeli military units, with no disciplinary action taken by commanders against soldiers responsible for the acts.

    In its final conclusions, the commission ruled that there are reasonable grounds to confirm Israeli authorities and security forces have continued to commit genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Gaza, and war crimes in the West Bank. On the charge of genocide, the inquiry notes that the deliberate targeting of children is a key piece of evidence establishing genocidal intent: as the bearers of Palestinian biological and social continuity, targeting children is a deliberate strategy to destroy the Palestinian people as a group. The commission named specific Israeli military units responsible for documented killings, urged the International Criminal Court to prioritize crimes against children in its ongoing investigation into the situation, and called for full accountability for all commanders bearing responsibility for the violations. Israel did not respond to any of the commission’s 13 requests for information or access to Israeli territory for the investigation.

  • What to know about earthquake early warning systems

    What to know about earthquake early warning systems

    A string of significant seismic events stretching across three continents has put modern earthquake early warning (EEW) systems in the spotlight, demonstrating how mobile technology is buying vulnerable populations critical extra seconds to reach safety when shaking begins.

    Over a single week in early June, seismic activity triggered alerts for millions of people across North America, South America and Asia. The sequence opened with a moderate quake rocking parts of California, United States, and closed with two powerful back-to-back earthquakes measuring 7.2 and 7.5 magnitude striking northern Venezuela — one of the most intense seismic sequences to hit the South American nation in more than 100 years. The events came just weeks after a magnitude 6.5 quake near Mindanao in the Philippines claimed 37 lives. Even in nations without a national public EEW infrastructure, consumer mobile technology stepped in to deliver advance warnings to at-risk residents.

    Today, more than a dozen nations and territories operate formal public EEW programs, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), including the U.S., Mexico, Japan, Turkey, Romania, China, Italy and Taiwan. While Venezuela does not maintain a national system, many of its Android phone users still received advance warnings of the recent powerful quakes through Google’s crowdsourced Android Earthquake Alerts platform. For 39-year-old Caracas-based writer Pericles Sánchez, that advance notice meant enough time to get his entire family outside to safety before shaking reached his neighborhood. “It wasn’t until we were already outside that we started to feel it,” Sánchez said, adding his family’s home escaped structural damage.

    On the U.S. West Coast, the USGS runs a dedicated EEW platform called ShakeAlert for California, Oregon and Washington, which distributes alerts through multiple channels including the state-run MyShake mobile app. When the recent moderate quake hit California, more than 4 million users received advance alerts through the interconnected system, according to USGS scientist Robert de Groot.

    Though modern EEW technology is saving lives today, it remains a relatively new innovation that continues to evolve rapidly. The world’s first public EEW launched in Mexico in 1991, and the country now disseminates large quake alerts through broadcast networks, mobile apps and public alarm systems, alongside regular nationwide earthquake response drills to prepare residents. After the 2011 magnitude 9.0 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that killed more than 22,000 people and triggered the catastrophic Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdown, Japan dramatically expanded its EEW infrastructure to include offshore monitoring. Its cutting-edge Seafloor Observation Network for Earthquakes and Tsunamis (S-Net) uses thousands of miles of undersea cables and sensors to monitor activity along the offshore subduction zone where destructive quakes often originate. The system, widely regarded as the most sophisticated in the world, has added an extra 20 seconds of warning time for most quakes and cut tsunami alert delivery times by as much as 20 minutes. California’s MyShake app, launched in 2019, has pushed out 6.8 million alerts for 194 separate seismic events to date, state data shows.

    All EEW systems operate on the same core scientific principle: earthquakes generate sequential waves that move at different speeds. Faster, lower-intensity P-waves arrive first, followed by far more dangerous, slower S-waves and finally the most destructive L-waves. Most traditional public systems use a network of ground-based seismometers to detect initial P-waves, rapidly process data to estimate the quake’s location and magnitude, and push alerts to at-risk regions before destructive shaking arrives. Alerts are distributed through multiple channels, including national Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) systems, dedicated mobile apps and regional public warning networks. Having overlapping distribution channels creates critical redundancy in case one system fails, de Groot explained. “It’s always good to have more than one way of getting alerts. It’s the reason why you carry a spare tire in your car or carry some small bills in your wallet because the ATM may not work,” he said.

    Google’s Android system uses a different crowdsourced model that leverages built-in accelerometer sensors already included in every Android device — the same sensors that rotate a phone’s screen when the device is turned. When multiple stationary phones in one region detect P-wave activity, the data is sent to Google’s central processing center, which confirms the seismic event and pushes alerts to nearby users. This model allows EEW coverage to extend to nations that lack the funding or infrastructure to build a traditional national seismometer network.

    Because alert signals travel at the speed of light — far faster than seismic waves move through the Earth’s crust — warning time correlates directly with distance from the quake’s epicenter. People closest to the epicenter typically get the shortest warning windows, sometimes only a few seconds or no warning at all before shaking begins, while people further away get more preparation time, almost always less than a minute. The level of detail included in alerts also varies by distribution channel: standard WEAs are limited to 90 characters broadcast directly from cell towers, while app-based alerts from platforms like MyShake or Google often include extra context such as the distance to the epicenter and estimated magnitude. All official alerts, regardless of format, include the universal safety instruction to “drop, cover, hold on.”

    This reporting was compiled from contributions by journalists across the U.S. and Mexico, with on-the-ground sourcing from Venezuela and California.