2 months ago
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians in Gaza make the difficult choice every day between digging into garbage dumps for combustible materials to help cook their meals or crowding around the territory's scarce charity kitchens.
The Kahlout family has tasked their 12-year-old son, Omar, with walking daily to a nearby dump to collect plastic and other material they can use as fuel. He digs with his bare hands and fills a worn-out sack, then carries it back to the tent where he lives with his family of eight.
They live close to the dump. Rats swarm their tent. This is life for many of Gaza's 2 million Palestinians who still languish in displacement camps and war-ravaged buildings, 10 months after a fragile ceasefire was reached between Israel and the Hamas militant group.
Families expressed doubt on the progress of talks that aim to end the war. "The truce is only in the media," said Omar's father, Adam. He said the family survives on food from humanitarian aid packages and charity kitchens.
And yet Palestinians say the food at the kitchens is not enough. Each family is allowed one piece of fish with rice. May people leave with their pots empty, even as Israel's government has said it is allowing enough food into the territory that remains largely cut off from the world.
#palestinians #dump #enough #deir
The Kahlout family has tasked their 12-year-old son, Omar, with walking daily to a nearby dump to collect plastic and other material they can use as fuel. He digs with his bare hands and fills a worn-out sack, then carries it back to the tent where he lives with his family of eight.
They live close to the dump. Rats swarm their tent. This is life for many of Gaza's 2 million Palestinians who still languish in displacement camps and war-ravaged buildings, 10 months after a fragile ceasefire was reached between Israel and the Hamas militant group.
Families expressed doubt on the progress of talks that aim to end the war. "The truce is only in the media," said Omar's father, Adam. He said the family survives on food from humanitarian aid packages and charity kitchens.
And yet Palestinians say the food at the kitchens is not enough. Each family is allowed one piece of fish with rice. May people leave with their pots empty, even as Israel's government has said it is allowing enough food into the territory that remains largely cut off from the world.
#palestinians #dump #enough #deir
2 months ago
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Kansas City Royals' quest to move to a new downtown ballpark cleared a major hurdle on Wednesday when the Kansas City city council approved a $600 million commitment to help make it happen.
The club announced in April that it planned to partner with Hallmark Cards on a $3 billion project to create a mixed-use development, with the new stadium as the centerpiece.
The city council's decision sets the general structure for how the city will finance its share of the investment, though there are still several more steps to navigate. The city could approve the creation of a tax increment finance district that would redirect a portion of the tax revenue in the district back into redevelopment in the area.
The Royals have pledged to pay for $760 million of the estimated costs. The club and the city will also try to secure an additional $540 million from the state government.
"This step advances what will be the largest public-private economic development project in Kansas City," Royals chairman and CEO John Sherman said in a statement. "It will bring Royals baseball to the center of our city, creating jobs, housing and year-round economic activity, advancing Kansas City's terrific momentum."
#kansas #club #economic
The club announced in April that it planned to partner with Hallmark Cards on a $3 billion project to create a mixed-use development, with the new stadium as the centerpiece.
The city council's decision sets the general structure for how the city will finance its share of the investment, though there are still several more steps to navigate. The city could approve the creation of a tax increment finance district that would redirect a portion of the tax revenue in the district back into redevelopment in the area.
The Royals have pledged to pay for $760 million of the estimated costs. The club and the city will also try to secure an additional $540 million from the state government.
"This step advances what will be the largest public-private economic development project in Kansas City," Royals chairman and CEO John Sherman said in a statement. "It will bring Royals baseball to the center of our city, creating jobs, housing and year-round economic activity, advancing Kansas City's terrific momentum."
#kansas #club #economic
3 months ago
(Corrects paragraph 4 to show the Israeli settler appeared to be holding a code book of Jewish law, not a Torah)
By Pesha Magid, Ammar Awad and Sinan Abu Mayzer
QUSRA, West Bank, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Palestinian American Loui Ridi raised a giant American flag over his West Bank home, hoping it might deter militant settlers besieging the property. But it wasn't enough to stop one of them from walking onto Ridi's land on Tuesday, during a tense face-off.
Ridi arrived in Qusra late on Monday after traveling from the U.S., fearing he could lose the property to Jewish settlers who have encircled three Palestinian homes in the village for more than a week, prompting U.S. condemnation.
Ridi, who grew up in the village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was taking a morning walk among his cherry and fig trees on Tuesday when a settler approached from the hill above, in an encounter filmed by Reuters, the only media outlet present.
#jewish #american
By Pesha Magid, Ammar Awad and Sinan Abu Mayzer
QUSRA, West Bank, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Palestinian American Loui Ridi raised a giant American flag over his West Bank home, hoping it might deter militant settlers besieging the property. But it wasn't enough to stop one of them from walking onto Ridi's land on Tuesday, during a tense face-off.
Ridi arrived in Qusra late on Monday after traveling from the U.S., fearing he could lose the property to Jewish settlers who have encircled three Palestinian homes in the village for more than a week, prompting U.S. condemnation.
Ridi, who grew up in the village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, was taking a morning walk among his cherry and fig trees on Tuesday when a settler approached from the hill above, in an encounter filmed by Reuters, the only media outlet present.
#jewish #american
4 months ago
After the U.S. vowed to punish Iran for killing two U.S.forces in Jordan, another service member has been killed in action in northern Iraq. Officials say they have also recovered unidentified remains at the site of a deadly attack in Jordan where U.S. service members were killed. NBC News' Keir Simmons has the latest.
4 months ago
DAKAR, June 30 (Reuters) - Congolese health authorities are tracing people potentially exposed to Ebola in two provinces not previously affected by the latest outbreak, amid fears the virus could spread further, a health ministry report and a senior health official said.
The outbreak, declared on May 15, has so far infected 1,307 people and killed 377 across the eastern provinces of Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu, according to government data released on Monday.
In Tshopo province, health workers are tracing people who may have been exposed to the body of a pregnant woman who died of Ebola in Ituri's Niania health zone, according to a health ministry report dated June 29 and reviewed by Reuters.
The woman fell ill on June 18 and died on June 27, the report said. Her body was transported by motorcycle about 300 km west to the city of Kisangani in neighbouring Tshopo province, where a sample taken at a morgue tested positive for Ebola.
The report said the body's journey through several health zones before the diagnosis was made created a high risk of transmission. Authorities have launched contact-tracing efforts across the province.
The outbreak, declared on May 15, has so far infected 1,307 people and killed 377 across the eastern provinces of Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu, according to government data released on Monday.
In Tshopo province, health workers are tracing people who may have been exposed to the body of a pregnant woman who died of Ebola in Ituri's Niania health zone, according to a health ministry report dated June 29 and reviewed by Reuters.
The woman fell ill on June 18 and died on June 27, the report said. Her body was transported by motorcycle about 300 km west to the city of Kisangani in neighbouring Tshopo province, where a sample taken at a morgue tested positive for Ebola.
The report said the body's journey through several health zones before the diagnosis was made created a high risk of transmission. Authorities have launched contact-tracing efforts across the province.
4 months ago
The deaths of three U.S. government firefighters in a Colorado wildfire are casting a spotlight on the Trump administration's creation of a new federal fire service and its revival of a previously discredited policy to stomp out all wildfires quickly.
One of the killed firefighters worked for the U.S. Wildland Fire Service, established this year without customary congressional approval by drawing personnel from four agencies within the Interior Department. The victims were part of an elite, helicopter-based crew that got trapped Saturday in a fast-growing wildfire near the Utah border as they attacked the blaze on the ground.
Five firefighters, including the ones who died, tried to shield themselves by deploying tentlike emergency shelters as flames overran their position. The two survivors were hospitalized with burn injuries.
The consolidation of thousands of personnel into the fire service has sown confusion among some firefighters about who their bosses are and what their responsibilities should be, according to former government officials.
And the administration's focus on "full suppression" of new fires marks a sharp reversal from a decades-long trend toward embracing flames as a tool — to burn off old vegetation and growth that acts like fuel and lessen the risk of catastrophic blazes being stoked by a warming planet.
One of the killed firefighters worked for the U.S. Wildland Fire Service, established this year without customary congressional approval by drawing personnel from four agencies within the Interior Department. The victims were part of an elite, helicopter-based crew that got trapped Saturday in a fast-growing wildfire near the Utah border as they attacked the blaze on the ground.
Five firefighters, including the ones who died, tried to shield themselves by deploying tentlike emergency shelters as flames overran their position. The two survivors were hospitalized with burn injuries.
The consolidation of thousands of personnel into the fire service has sown confusion among some firefighters about who their bosses are and what their responsibilities should be, according to former government officials.
And the administration's focus on "full suppression" of new fires marks a sharp reversal from a decades-long trend toward embracing flames as a tool — to burn off old vegetation and growth that acts like fuel and lessen the risk of catastrophic blazes being stoked by a warming planet.
