sg777 app for android Bluesky takes bite out of X, as global users flee social media giant: analystHouse holds moment of silence for American Omer Neutra killed by Hamas on Oct 7, 2023. A bipartisan group of lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday night held a moment of silence for American-Israeli Omer Neutra who was determined this week to have been killed by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, after it was believed that he had been alive for more than a year. Neutra, 21 years old, was a tank platoon commander in the 7th Armored Brigade’s 77th Battalion in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and was among the first to respond to the Hamas attack that ultimately killed some 1,200 people and initially saw the abduction of more than 250 men, women and children. His parents, Orna and Ronen, who spoke with Fox News Digital just days prior to the tragic development, believed their son was still alive after the IDF had long assessed that he, along with Nimrod Cohen, another soldier from his tank, were taken hostage into Gaza and remained alive . An image of Omer Neutra is displayed at his memorial service Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024 at the Midway Jewish Center in Syosset, N.Y. (AP Photo/Philip Marcelo) (AP Photo/Philip Marcelo) 7 US HOSTAGES STILL HELD BY HAMAS TERRORISTS AS FAMILIES PLEAD FOR THEIR RELEASE: 'THIS IS URGENT' "For 420 days Omer’s parents and his brother Daniel have done everything they can with the love and support of hundreds of thousands of others to free their son from captivity," Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., who represents the Neutra family’s district, said from the House floor. "Every day they soldiered on through alternating deep sorrow and brief bursts of hopefulness. They went from crushing anxiety to steely determination. "Just a few days ago we learned that this courageous young man, this bright light, this courageous idealist, made the ultimate sacrifice," Suozzi continued. "Omer had not been alive for the last 422 days, he was murdered on Oct. 7." Footage from the attack on Omer’s tank showed the commander, as well as three others, Shaked Dahan, Oz Daniel and Nimrod Cohen being pulled from the military vehicle by Hamas terrorists and being taken captive . Daniel and Dahan had previously been assessed to have been killed following the attack, and according to the IDF, intelligence now suggests Omer, a descendant of Holocaust survivors, was also killed on Oct. 7. 2023. Syosset, N.Y.: Daniel Neutral, brother of Omar Neutra, surrounded by father Ronen Neutra and mother Orna Neutra at the Midway Jewish Center on Dec. 3, 2024 in Syosset, New York speak during a memorial service for Omer Neutra, an Isaeli-American who was killed by Hamas militants. (Howard Schnapp/Newsday RM via Getty Images) AMERICAN FATHER OF HAMAS HOSTAGE ITAY CHEN PUSHES US, ISRAEL ON ‘PLAN B’ AS NEGOTIATIONS FALTER The Israeli military has not said how they came by this new information and the fate of Cohen remains unknown. In a memorial service held for Omer on Tuesday in the Long Island synagogue where he reportedly celebrated his bar mitzvah years earlier, Omer's father Ronen, said the news had left them "breathless and empty." "For over a year now, we’ve been breathing life into your being, my beautiful boy," Orna said through tears, according to reports. "With the hope and love of so many, we kept going and going and going, keeping you alive, speaking your name from every outlet, pushing any hint of despair, not stopping to breathe or to take in the deep pain of your absence." "Now things are clear," she said to the reported 1,500 attendees at the service. "But not as we’d hoped." Onra and Ronen have described their son as loving, a good friend and an athlete, but they also highlighted his ability to lead and how his actions on Oct. 7, 2023 saved lives. Omer’s body is believed to still be held by Hamas along with the six other American hostages, only three of whom are still assessed by the IDF to be alive at this time, including Edan Alexander, Sagui Dekel-Chen and Keith Siegel. Hersh Goldberg-Polin's body was recovered after he, along with five others, were discovered to have been murdered by Hamas in the tunnels in Gaza in August. These are the American hostages who were taken by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023 and held in Gaza, only Hersh Goldberg-Polin (Left) has been returned to Israel after the IDF found him and other hostages killed by terrorists. Pictured next to Hersh is Itay Chen, Sagui Dekel-Chen, Edan Alexander, Omer Neutra, Gadi Haggai and Judi Weinstein Haggai and Keith Siegel. (Fox News Photo) CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP There are still 100 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza following the recovery of Itai Svirski’s body on Wednesday, an Israeli hostage taken during the attack on Kibbutz Be’eri on Oct. 7, 2023. The IDF confirmed he "was murdered in captivity by his captors, and his body was held hostage in the Gaza Strip." Caitlin McFall is a Reporter at Fox News Digital covering Politics, U.S. and World news.

In Pictures: Jimmy Carter continued campaigning long after leaving powerFourteen years ago, Don Spicer opened a Twitter account. It was a useful tool in in his professional life. “When I was with public safety, I would engage with citizens,” said Spicer, a retired police officer who worked in media relations. Spicer also used Twitter to follow local news, but he eventually became less active on the social media platform, which was renamed X in 2023. “Over the last year or so I guess, it was getting increasingly negative, and I like to surround myself with more positivity,” said Spicer, who last week left X and switched to Bluesky, a platform that is new to the social media world and is now exploding in global popularity. “I found much of the content I went to Twitter for is starting to show up there, and I’m seeing more local flavour, and it’s more respectful.” Bluesky is billed as a platform where users can create custom content feeds, and control what they see while avoiding what they don't want to see. “We're always focused a lot on trust and safety, making sure that users have an ability to have an experience that's, you know, free from bots and harassment and spam,” said Bluesky CEO Jay Graber. Previous competitors have tried and failed to take a bite out of Twitter/X. Technology analyst Carmi Levy said it appears Bluesky has legitimate growth momentum in the U.S. and elsewhere, and could be a significant threat to X. "We are seeing some reports of about 100,000 accounts closing per day on X and we are seeing numbers from Bluesky, that traffic is up 500 per cent and they have doubled their size in the past two months,” said Levy. “They've just hit 21 million followers." The trends Levy cited are worldwide. No data specific to Canada was available, so information available to analysts is focused on global activity. According to Levy, the last two weeks have seen the largest exodus from X since Elon Musk purchased Twitter in 2023. Levy suggested Musk himself has also turned off some X users. “Elon Musk essentially used X as a giant megaphone for his views and those who follow his views essentially amplified that as well," said Levy. It should be noted, as Bluesky grows, X remains a very popular social media giant, with more than 500 million active accounts. Bluesky’s audience remains relatively small in comparison, The Associated Press reported last week. Digital anthropologist Giles Crouch told CTV National News that X’s future will come down to one thing. "Is it too big to fail? Absolutely not. The big judge of all this, as it is with any technology, is culture." Crouch said X will have to change some of its online negativity if it hopes to stop the recent exodus. "Twitter or X can survive, but it may become shell of itself," said Crouch, who added if that were to happen, it could lead to even more of an opportunity for Bluesky to continue to attract new members who are leaving X in large numbers.

Despite a resounding defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan in 1980, the Democrat forged a new path promoting causes such as electoral probity abroad, social justice and drives to rid the world of medical conditions. His first foreign visit as president was to the UK where then prime minister James Callaghan, as well as the usual visits in London, took his guest to the North East with a visit to Newcastle, Sunderland and Washington – the village bearing the name of the first ever president. Mr Carter delighted crowds in the North East by saying “Howay the lads” during a speech to the assembled throng. He also received a miner’s lamp from 12-year-old Ian McEree in Washington. The 39th US president also carried out more traditional presidential duties, including meetings with western European leaders during his time in London while the Cold War was still ongoing. The practising Baptist continued his globetrotting ways after leaving power, even without Air Force One as his vehicle. He was also part of the Elders, a group of experienced statesmen and women drawn from all corners of the world.Aden Holloway explodes as No. 5 Alabama rolls over South Dakota State

When Anura Kumara Dissanayake was elected President of Sri Lanka in September, and his National People’s Power [NPP] alliance swept the general elections on November 14, most international news headlines stamped the winners as ‘Marxist’. The tag was hardly positive or even neutral with its connotations of wild-eyed radicalism. The insinuation was that Sri Lanka’s ongoing programme with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would derail, and economic stability and recovery would be disrupted. President Dissanayake, through his November 21 policy statement to the new Parliament, that he will take forward the IMF framework and the aligned debt treatment plans — finalised by his predecessor — tried to allay these fears. President Dissanayake, through his November 21 policy statement to the new Parliament, that the IMF framework and the aligned debt treatment plans with bilateral and private creditors — finalised by his predecessor — will go ahead, tried to allay these fears. So where does this ‘Marxist label’ on Sri Lanka’s new government come from? The NPP is an eclectic social coalition of some 21 groups, including political parties, youth and women’s organisations, trade unions and civil society networks. But one political party forms its political, if not ideological, core — the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP or People’s Liberation Front). In fact, it was JVP leader Mr. Dissanayake who created the NPP in 2019 to widen the party’s appeal beyond its traditional cadre base and boost its chances at the polls. His political enterprise, which has now secured a massive victory, has turned a new page in post-colonial Sri Lanka, where politics has been dominated by just two parties and their offshoots, and the five elite families controlling them. The JVP’s office in Battaramulla, a suburb about 10 km east of Colombo, is located close to parliament, although the party has rarely been close to power in the six decades of its existence. Three large black-and-white portraits of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin adorn the white wall of the main meeting room. Party cadre, regardless of position or prominence, make and serve tea to their guests. Above the reception desk at the entrance is a photograph of the party’s founder and charismatic leader Rohana Wijeweera, an infallible icon for its cadre. His mane, cap, and beard suggest Che Guevara-inspired self-styling. Wijeweera began what became the JVP in 1965, exactly three decades after Ceylon’s left movement birthed the country’s oldest party, the Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP), consequent to serial fractures within the Left. The LSSP split during the Second World War, leading to the formation of a pro-Moscow Communist Party. The cracks within the CP in the 1960s, triggered by the Sino-Soviet dispute, and internal tensions over the parliamentary road to socialism would, in turn, lead to the formation of the JVP, as a revolutionary party with Marxist-Leninist orientation. ‘Five classes’ Attracted to Maoism in his student days in the Soviet Union, Wijeweera joined the Communist Party (Peking wing – CP) of Sri Lanka in 1964, and became a youth leader. He challenged the party’s leadership, on their interpretation of class politics and revolution, and was subsequently expelled in 1965. His independent faction morphed into the JVP. Wijeweera and his comrades held political lessons for rural Sinhala youth, called the “Five Classes” that analysed Sri Lanka’s social and political order; Indian hegemony; the reformist left and coalition politics; and the parliamentary road to socialism. As part of preparation to achieving their objective of seizing state power, they trained in the use of shotguns and put together explosive devices. The story of the JVP’s rise in the late 1960s and fall in the next two decades unravels in the backdrop of two major changes in Sri Lanka — President J.R. Jayewardene’s open economic reform in 1977 and the beginning of a full-blown civil war after the 1983, state-sponsored anti-Tamil pogrom that he falsely attributed to Left parties, including the JVP. The JVP’s first insurrection in 1971 came out of frustration that the left-wing Sirimavo Bandaranaike-led government was not doing enough to meet the aspirations of educated but unemployed young people, and in changing the social, economic and political order inherited from the British. The discourse was anti-imperialist and socialist. The insurgents attacked dozens of police stations, to capture weapons and ammunition. The second insurrection, from 1987 to 1989, roughly coincided with the party’s embrace of Sinhala-nationalism; its fierce opposition to Tamil self-determination; and to the signing of the India-brokered 1987 Accord aimed at ending the war, with boots-on-the-ground in the form of the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF). To Tamils in the far north of the island, the JVP appeared as Sinhala chauvinist instead of progressive, although the party never directly engaged in anti-Tamil violence. In both insurrections, where the JVP took up arms against the state, its representatives, supporters, and dissidents from the Left [in the second insurrection], the state’s counter-insurgency response was many times more lethal, resulting in the death and disappearance of tens of thousands of Sinhala youth. Wijeweera himself was executed while in state custody in 1989. Somawansa Amarasinghe, the only politburo member to survive the repression of the 1980s, escaped to India and subsequently to Europe. After a few years of underground existence, the surviving cadre resurrected the party, even as the country was increasingly preoccupied with massive human rights violations in the south and the raging war in the north-east. The JVP tentatively contested in the 1994 general election through another party, winning one seat. Within the next few years, the JVP warmed up to the political mainstream, winning more seats in parliament between 2000 and 2004, and four Cabinet-level ministerial portfolios in 2004–05, in a short-lived coalition with the Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga government. Two splits The new course of the JVP is defined by two consequential splits, linked to the party’s proximity to Mahinda Rajapaksa who began dominating the political scene from the early 2000s. They were also fuelled by internal differences on the dilution of leftism for “patriotism” (Sinhala-Buddhist nationalism), versus emphasis on Wijeweera’s socialist ideology and the party distancing itself from Mr. Rajapaksa and his pro-war stance. Since the breakdown of the 2001-03 ceasefire, the JVP unambiguously backed Mr. Rajapaksa’s hawkishness in delivering a political solution to the Tamil question, and the military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), with scant regard to Tamil lives. The JVP’s differences with Rajapaksa were more to do with their unease over ‘family-rule’ and his socio-economic policies rather than his militaristic response. However, its parliamentary group leader and reactionary politician Wimal Weerawansa disagreed, and broke away with a quarter of its legislators, forming the Jathika Nidahas Peramuna or National Freedom Front in 2008, that until recently firmly planted itself in the Rajapaksa camp. Four years later a Marxist faction within the residual JVP also split from it, criticising the party’s unconditional support to the Rajapaksa regime on the handling of the war, and its complete surrender to electoral politics. This group led by Kumar Gunaratnam formed the Frontline Socialist Party in 2012, the chief critic of the JVP today, from the left. In 2014, Mr. Dissanayake was named leader of a party that had to stabilise itself, after shedding both its racist right-wing and its dissenting left-wing. The splits allowed the JVP to refashion itself, blurring its past profiles, and making a reputation for itself inside and outside parliament, as a bold critic of corruption and nepotism, and as an upholder of the rule of law and liberal democratic norms. The party, till date, is wary of clearly defining its position on the unresolved ethnic question. It also evades the language of class politics. In an interview to The Hindu in December 2023, Mr. Dissanayake said: “Labels have always given wrong perceptions. Left politics is not a bad thing, it is a good thing. Some people demonise this. That is why we say we are focussed more on working for the majority of our people, rather than on labels.” Published - November 24, 2024 04:00 am IST Copy link Email Facebook Twitter Telegram LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit Sri Lanka / national elections / The Hindu Profiles / The Hindu Explains

NEW YORK -- Police don't know who he is, where he is, or why he did it. As the frustrating search for UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s killer got underway for a fifth day Sunday, investigators reckoned with a tantalizing contradiction: They have troves of evidence, but the shooter remains an enigma. One conclusion they are confident of, however: It was a targeted attack , not a random one. They know he ambushed Thompson at 6:44 a.m. Wednesday as the executive arrived at the Hilton for his company’s annual investor conference, using a 9 mm pistol that resembled the guns farmers use to put down animals without causing a loud noise. They know ammunition found near Thompson’s body bore the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose,” mimicking a phrase used by insurance industry critics . The fact that the shooter knew UnitedHealthcare group was holding a conference at the hotel and what route Thompson might take to get there suggested that he could possibly be a disgruntled employee or client, NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said. Police divers were seen searching a pond in Central Park, where the killer fled after the shooting. Officers have been scouring the park for days for any possible clues and found his backpack there Friday. They didn’t immediately reveal what, if anything, it contained but said it would be tested and analyzed. On Sunday morning, police declined to comment on the contents of the backpack, or on the results of the search in the pond, saying no updates were planned. Investigators have urged patience, saying the process of logging evidence that stands up in court isn’t as quick as it looks like on TV . Hundreds of detectives are combing through video recordings and social media, vetting tips from the public and interviewing people who might have information, including Thompson’s family and coworkers and the shooter’s randomly assigned roommates at the Manhattan hostel where he stayed. Investigators caught a break when they came across security camera images of an unguarded moment at the hostel in which he briefly showed his face. Retracing the gunman’s steps using surveillance video, police say, it appears he left the city by bus soon after the shooting outside the New York Hilton Midtown. He was seen on video at an uptown bus station about 45 minutes later, Kenny said. With the high-profile search expanding across state lines, the FBI announced late Friday that it was offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction, adding to a reward of up to $10,000 that the NYPD has offered. Police say they believe the suspect acted alone. Police distributed the images to news outlets and on social media but so far haven’t been able to ID him using facial recognition — possibly because of the angle of the images or limitations on how the NYPD is allowed to use that technology, Kenny said. Late Saturday, police released two additional photos of the suspected shooter that appeared to be from a camera mounted inside a taxi. The first shows him outside the vehicle and the second shows him looking through the partition between the back seat and the front of the cab. In both, his face is partially obscured by a blue, medical-style mask.MADRID (AP) — Kylian Mbappé missed a penalty kick again and Federico Valverde gifted a late goal as Real Madrid lost ground to Barcelona in the Spanish league after a 2-1 loss at Athletic Bilbao on Wednesday. Mbappé had his penalty saved by Athletic goalkeeper Julen Agirrezabala in the 68th minute, and Valverde lost possession on defense to allow an easy winner by Gorka Guruzeta in the 80th. “We knew that he is a good penalty taker,” Agirrezabala said of Mbappé. “He missed the last one and I believed that he was going to choose the same side and luckily that’s what happened.” Valverde had control of the ball but gave it away while trying to get past a few Athletic players instead of passing it to a teammate, leaving Guruzeta with an easy run into the area for his goal. Álex Berenguer had put the hosts ahead in the 53td and Jude Bellingham equalized for Madrid in the 78th. Mbappé had also missed a penalty in Madrid's 2-0 loss at Liverpool in the Champions League last week. He didn't take the one for the club in a Spanish league match on Sunday, but he scored in the 2-0 win over Getafe to ease some of the pressure on him and the club. But it was another lackluster outing for Mbappé, who continues to struggle in his first season since finally joining the Spanish powerhouse. “I won’t evaluate the performance of a player because of a missed penalty. Obviously he is sad and disappointed, but you have to move on,” Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti said about Mbappé. “He is not at his best level, but you have to give him time to adapt. You have to give him time to be able to do better.” The defeat left Madrid four points behind Barcelona, which on Tuesday ended a three-match winless streak in the league with a 5-1 rout at Mallorca. Madrid, which has a game in hand, had won three consecutive league games since a 4-0 loss at home in the “clasico” against Barcelona. Madrid has lost five of its last 11 matches in all competitions. Athletic moved to fourth place with the victory, its fourth consecutive across all competitions. Both matches on Tuesday and Wednesday were moved forward in the schedule because the clubs will be playing in the Spanish Super Cup in January. AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer