LEBANON - In an operation of quite astonishing boldness and professionalism, the Israelis have struck a telling blow at their long-term enemy Hezbollah. Yesterday, at approximately 13:45 BST, pagers which had been distributed by the terrorist organisation to its members and supporters began to explode, in an almost simultaneous series of events which lasted roughly half an hour. Complete confusion ensued in Lebanon and parts of Syria as multiple individuals – presumably all associated in some way with Hezbollah, – were wounded and otherwise incapacitated as the electronic devices exploded in their hands, pockets, waist belts, and shopping bags.

VATICAN - The redoubtable Archbishop Charles Chaput has offered fraternal correction to Pope Francis, urging him to hold to the basic tenets of Christianity. The former archbishop of Philadelphia was responding to the pontiff’s off-the-cuff remarks to youth in Singapore on Friday, in which the pope told his listeners that all religions are paths to God, seeming to suggest that none is superior to the others.

EUROPE - While Americans have been focused on the election, the European Union has been in the process of passing a new law. It’s called the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive, and its reach will go far beyond European borders. In fact, “It’s going to impact every single American,” Justin Haskins, author and editorial director of the Heartland Institute, tells Allie Beth Stuckey. “Essentially, what it does is create ESG social credit scores for companies... These ESG scores are designed to transform the way companies operate, the kinds of products and services that they can sell, and then, by extension, transform societies around it,” Haskins explains.

USA - The Federal Reserve on Wednesday enacted its first interest rate cut since the early days of the Covid pandemic, slicing half a percentage point off benchmark rates in an effort to head off a slowdown in the labor market. With both the jobs picture and inflation softening, the central bank’s Federal Open Market Committee chose to lower its key overnight borrowing rate by a half percentage point, or 50 basis points, affirming market expectations that had recently shifted from an outlook for a cut half that size. Outside of the emergency rate reductions during Covid, the last time the FOMC cut by half a point was in 2008 during the global financial crisis. “The Committee has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably toward 2 percent, and judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are roughly in balance,” the post-meeting statement said.

USA - According to the latest Treasury Department data, the national debt now exceeds $35.3 trillion. The amount of money required to service the US debt has reached levels that exceed Medicare expenditures, the military budget, etc. For the first time in history, interest on US debt surpassed the $1 trillion mark, becoming the second greatest government expense, trailing only Social Security expenditures ($1.5 trillion). But according to economists, it is only a matter of months before the interest on the debt exceeds $1.6 trillion and brings the US economy to its knees. This is a national crisis and isn’t even discussed at the national level (and wasn’t even mentioned in the presidential debates).

USA - Shrinking islands, vanishing polar bears, collapsing coral reefs — the media loves a good climate scare story. There’s just one problem, says Bjorn Lomborg in the New York Post: all of these have turned out to be false. At the start of this century, the polar bear was the emblem of climate apocalypse. Protesters dressed as polar bears, while Al Gore’s hit 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth showed us a sad, animated polar bear floating away to its death. The Washington Post warned that polar bears faced extinction, and the World Wildlife Fund’s Chief Scientist even claimed some polar bear populations would be unable to reproduce by 2012. And then in the 2010s, campaigners just stopped talking about polar bears. Why? Because after years of misrepresentation, it finally became impossible for them to ignore a mountain of evidence showing that the global polar bear population has increased substantially from around 12,000 in the 1960s to around 26,000 in the present day. (The main reason? People are hunting a lot less polar bears.)

USA - The world is hanging on the edge of a major escalation with unpredictable consequences, as Ukraine relentlessly pushes for the US to make decisions that can have unpredictable consequences. All around the world, peace-loving people who can see the danger ahead are cautioning the western NATO powers – notably the US and the UK – not to take this irresponsible step and instead take a path for peace. Former Presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr is one of these people. He has now urged the Biden administration not to give Ukraine the green light to use American-supplied long-range weapons to strike at targets deep within Russian territory. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky keeps insisting that he needs the long-range capabilities, as well as air defense ‘to protect the life of his people’.

MIDDLE EAST - Nine people were killed, including a child, and 2,800 were wounded when pager devices belonging to Hezbollah members exploded across Lebanon and parts of Syria on Tuesday, Lebanon's minister of health said on Tuesday. No group has claimed responsibility for the explosions, but suspicion immediately fell on Israel's intelligence services. Hezbollah accused Israel of being responsible for the explosions and said in a statement that it was going to respond. The group said that after an investigation, it places full responsibility on Israel "for this criminal aggression that also harmed civilians and caused deaths and injuries." Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had previously urged members of the group to stop using cellphones for security reasons. On Monday, US envoy Amos Hochstein visited Israel and warned Netanyahu that initiating a war against Hezbollah in Lebanon could have disastrous consequences.

ISRAEL - Hamas’s 24 battalions have been almost completely “shattered,” and the terror organization has been reduced to a “guerrilla” force, according to Israeli government spokesman David Mencer in a media briefing on Thursday. Mencer was commenting on the report Wednesday by Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant that Israeli soldiers had recovered a memorandum from a dead senior Hamas commander to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in which he said that the terrorist group had been reduced to 25% of its former capacity, that it was running out of rockets, and that it was losing support from the Palestinian civilian population, whose morale had been shattered by the war over time.

ISRAEL - More than 11 months into the war, Netanyahu chairs a discussion about the situation in the North and decides it can no longer continue; Israeli officials believe the American diplomatic effort is futile and war is a matter of time. "The situation in the north cannot continue. We need to change the balance and must return the residents home. This will not be done without changing the balance vis-à-vis Hezbollah. The IDF must prepare for a broad campaign in Lebanon," Netanyahu told his Security Cabinet. Netanyahu's words at the cabinet' meeting on Thursday night, more than 11 months after Hezbollah joined Hamas in attacking Israel, were said even before Hezbollah launched dozens of rockets into Israel over the weekend. On Saturday night, the IDF attacked Hezbollah's ammunition depots both in southern Lebanon and in the north, more than 150 kilometers from Israel's borders.

YEMEN - Yemeni terror organization takes responsibility for ballistic missile launch and threatens further retaliations as October 7 anniversary approaches; missile traveled 2,040 km (1,267 miles) in 11.5 minutes. The Houthis claimed responsibility on Sunday for launching a ballistic missile toward central Israel, asserting that it was a new hypersonic missile. "We carried out a high-quality military operation targeting a military target in the Tel Aviv area," Saree said. "The operation was carried out using a new hypersonic ballistic missile that successfully reached its target. The enemy’s defense systems failed to intercept it. The missile caused fear among the Zionists. More than two million Zionists fled to shelters for the first time in history. A hypersonic missile travels at speeds five times or more than the speed of sound," Saree added.

ISRAEL - Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that Yemeni Houthi rebels will pay a "heavy price" after a ballistic missile struck central Israel for the first time on Sunday. A Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said the "hypersonic ballistic missile" traveled 1,270 miles in just over 11 minutes. He said the rebel group was targeting a "military target" in the Tel Aviv area. The Houthi missile strikes come amid rising tensions between Israel and Iran, as Tehran continues to expand its influence through proxy forces across the region. The rebel group has long been involved in a protracted civil war, but has recently ramped up its rhetoric and actions against Israel, claiming solidarity with Palestinian factions.

ISRAEL - After months of waiting, it appears that an all-out war in the Middle East is now very close. It is being reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes that an “all-out confrontation with Hezbollah” has become inevitable, and he has instructed the IDF to prepare for a “broad campaign” in Lebanon. There are approximately 100,000 Israelis that have been unable to return to their homes in northern Israel for months, and Netanyahu has become convinced that the only way that they can be safely returned to their homes is to force Hezbollah out of southern Lebanon. But of course Hezbollah will not go willingly. In fact, Hezbollah has warned that there will be “all-out war” if IDF forces attempt to enter southern Lebanon. The truth is that Israel isn’t just going to be fighting Hezbollah. Israel will be fighting an alliance of Islamic nations and terror groups, and more fighters are pouring into the region with each passing day.

USA - Millions of residents in the Los Angeles area were rattled by a 4.7 magnitude earthquake that hit early on Thursday morning and came as the region continues to battle multiple wildfires that have yet to be brought under control. The quake’s epicenter was 4 miles north of Malibu, according to the US Geological Survey. The tremor unleashed boulders onto a Malibu road, visibly shook Santa Monica’s historic 1909 wooden pier and jolted people from bed. No injuries or damages were immediately reported. The shaking was felt as far as 45 miles (72km) away in Orange county, where people reported items moving in their homes, and was followed by several smaller aftershocks. A live camera at the 115-year-old Santa Monica pier, about 10 miles away from Malibu, showed several seconds of intense shaking. Bruce Silverstein, a Malibu councilmember, said he had lived in the community for 13 years and this was the hardest quake he’d felt yet. There have now been 14 earthquakes with a magnitude of 4.0 or higher in southern California this year.

UK - The transgender population in Britain could be smaller than previously thought, a watchdog report has found. The Office for Statistical Regulation (OSR) said there was “sufficient evidence” that the gender identity question in the 2021 Census for England and Wales was “more likely than others” to be misunderstood by certain groups. The Census reported there were 262,000 trans people, equivalent to 0.5 per cent of the population, or one in 200 people. It was the first time the survey had asked whether people identified as a gender that was different from their registered birth sex. People whose first language was not English were four times more likely to say they were trans than those with English as their main language. Dr Michael Biggs, a sociologist at Oxford University and a trustee of Sex Matters, a campaign group, said: “It’s disgraceful that the Office for National Statistics took 18 months to admit that the Census question on gender identity was fundamentally flawed."