ISRAEL - “The Latest” is an Associated Press feature which provides the day’s collection of brief updates about a large, developing event. Today’s “The Latest: Israeli Aircraft Strike Another Building in Gaza” is a collection of all that is wrong with the news agency’s coverage of Hamas attacks on Israel, and Israel’s retaliatory airstrikes. The roundup begins with five paragraphs on the Israeli airstrike overnight on a nine-storey building in Gaza City. While it notes that the building “houses residential apartments, medical production companies and a dental clinic,” it omits the fact that the army identified it as the location of a Hamas control center, which is the reason why Israel hit that particular building.

Newly discovered Wi-Fi security vulnerabilities collectively known as FragAttacks (fragmentation and aggregation attacks) are impacting all Wi-Fi devices (including computers, smartphones, and smart devices) going back as far as 1997. Three of these bugs are Wi-Fi 802.11 standard design flaws in the frame aggregation and frame fragmentation functionalities affecting most devices, while others are programing mistakes in Wi-Fi products. Attackers abusing these design and implementation flaws have to be in the Wi-Fi range of targeted devices to steal sensitive user data and execute malicious code following successful exploitation, potentially leading to full device takeover.

WALES - Legislation will be introduced to protect LGBT+ people in Wales and England from being subjected to conversion therapy. According to information released by the UK Government, many of the practices are already banned under current laws but the new steps will ensure it is stamped out "once and for all". Conversion therapy - also sometimes described as gay cure therapy - tries to change someone's sexuality or gender identity. The UK's women and equalities minister Liz Truss said ministers want to end the "coercive and abhorrent" practice. New funding will also be introduced to support victims of conversion therapy and proper support is believed to come into play this summer. Despite a promise to ban conversion therapy by Theresa May's government in 2018, it has not been put into law. "As a global leader on LGBT rights, this government has always been committed to stamping out the practice of conversion therapy", Liz Truss said.

USA - Colonial Pipeline Co paid nearly $5 million to Eastern European hackers on Friday, contradicting reports earlier this week that the company had no intention of paying an extortion fee to help restore the country’s largest fuel pipeline, according to two people familiar with the transaction. The company paid the hefty ransom in difficult-to-trace cryptocurrency within hours after the attack, underscoring the immense pressure faced by the Georgia-based operator to get gasoline and jet fuel flowing again to major cities along the Eastern Seaboard, those people said. A third person familiar with the situation said US government officials are aware that Colonial made the payment. Once they received the payment, the hackers provided the operator with a decrypting tool to restore its disabled computer network. The tool was so slow that the company continued using its own backups to help restore the system, one of the people familiar with the company’s efforts said.

USA - Did you react calmly when you learned that a cyberattack against one of our most important pipelines was causing thousands of gas stations to run out of gasoline? Sadly, lots of Americans didn’t. There was yelling, there was screaming, there was lots of hoarding, vehicles were waiting in line for hours at stations that still had gas, and there were reports that brawls were even breaking out between frustrated motorists. Even though we knew that the shortages were just going to be temporary, people were “panic buying” gasoline as if the apocalypse had arrived. In fact, one energy expert said that this was “the worst panic buying for gasoline since the Carter Administration”…

USA - More than 120 retired US military leaders have signed an open letter appearing to advance a false conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was rigged and questioning President Joe Biden's mental capacity to serve. "Without fair and honest elections that accurately reflect the 'will of the people' our Constitutional Republic is lost," said the letter released Tuesday by "Flag Officers 4 America," and signed by 124 former admirals and generals. "The FBI and Supreme Court must act swiftly when election irregularities are surfaced and not ignore them as was done in 2020." On its website, Flag Officers 4 America says it is a collection of "retired military leaders who pledged to support and defend the Constitution of the US against all enemies, foreign and domestic." In the letter, the signatories, many of whom have been out of active service for decades, also addressed concerns over Biden's health. "The mental and physical condition of the Commander in Chief cannot be ignored. He must be able to quickly make accurate national security decisions involving life and limb anywhere, day or night," the letter said.

USA - Gasoline stations and terminals from Florida to New Jersey are running dry as shortages worsen five days into the shutdown of the biggest US fuel pipeline. As the Colonial Pipeline system - hit by a cyberattack and forced to shut on May 7 - struggles to recover, fuel terminals are being drained. In parts of the US South, three in every four gas stations have run dry, while in Washington, DC, cars are lined up for blocks as they wait to fill up. US pump prices have topped $3 a gallon for the first time in six years. “The situation completely changed overnight,” said Gary Kandola, chief financial officer at Express Fuel Distributors Corp, which supplies gas stations in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. “They have people coming in from Virginia, Maryland” to acquire fuel.

USA - For decades, the global elite hid their plans behind environmental extremists, but now they have fully revealed themselves as being the master architects from the very beginning. The World Bank, IMF and Bank for International Settlements are in a coordinated tryst to reform the planet. ⁃ TN Editor

USA - US job vacancies hit record highs in March, illustrating how a shortage of workers is hampering economic recovery and heaping fresh pressure on President Joe Biden and his $300-a-week unemployment supplement. Six states have now moved to end the federal program amid complaints that it is deterring people from looking for work. Tuesday's Labor Department figures showed vacancies rising 8%, to 8.1 million openings in March, the most since records began in December 2000. Critics were quick to blame the supplement, which pays more than most minimum-wage jobs. It is due to run until September as part of Biden's $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package approved in March.

ISRAEL - Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to 'inflict blows that Hamas has not dreamed of' prompting Hamas to retaliate with 130 rockets of its own, as the deadly fighting in the Middle East continued on Wednesday. Israeli strikes killed several of the Islamist group's top commanders on Wednesday, and destroyed another multi-storey building in Gaza City, as the UN warned of a 'full scale war' in the region. Israeli fighter jets dropped two bombs on the 14-storey Al-Sharouk tower, which housed the bureau of the Al-Aqsa television channel, and is the third tall structure in Gaza City levelled since the bombing campaign began Monday. In just two days of fighting, Hamas has fired more than 1,000 rockets at Israel, while the Jewish state has carried out counter-strikes against what it called military targets. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony J Blinken has called Netanyahu to reaffirm America's support for Israel's right to defend itself from Hamas rocket attacks.

USA - With many students at home, and with a mass of websites offering services to do their homework, schools have seen a surge in academic dishonesty. A year of remote learning has spurred an eruption of cheating among students, from grade school to college. With many students isolated at home over the past year — and with a mass of online services at their disposal — academic dishonesty has never been so easy. Among the newer ways to cheat are homework auction sites, which give students a say in who does their work and at what price. Students post their assignment on a website, along with a deadline; the website acts as a marketplace for bidders who offer to do the assignment.

USA - The first tropical storm of the 2021 eastern Pacific hurricane season formed off the southwest coast of Mexico on Sunday. Tropical Storm Andres is the earliest tropical storm to ever form during the satellite era in the eastern Pacific, surpassing Adrian in 2017. Andres also holds the distinction of developing before the official start of eastern Pacific hurricane season, which begins on May 15. It's not the first time a tropical system has developed before the official start of hurricane season. The eastern Pacific has had either a tropical depression or tropical storm form prior to the official season in three of the last five years. This system began developing on Friday, and has since strengthened into a tropical storm. Tropical Storm Andres currently has sustained winds of 40 mph and is tracking to the northwest at 6 mph. It only takes one storm to change your life and community. If you live in an area prone to tropical cyclones, you need to be prepared. Learn how during Hurricane Preparedness Week (May 9-15, 2021).

ISRAEL - A woman was killed and another person was critically wounded in Rishon Lezion after terrorists in the Gaza Strip fired a barrage of rockets in the direction of Tel Aviv late Tuesday night setting off sirens throughout the center of the country. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz gave a joint statement Tuesday night, declaring that the violence will continue for some time. "Hamas and Islamic Jihad have paid and will continue to pay for their actions," said Netanyahu. "We are all mourning those killed and praying for those who were injured. We give our full support to the IDF and Israeli security forces. This campaign will take time." Israel has "the right and the obligation to act and will continue to do so," said Gantz. Israel struck 500 targets, killing dozens of terrorists, IDF chief of staff Lieutenant General Aviv Kohavi said. "We will continue extensive strikes against Gaza," he added.

ISRAEL - Benjamin Netanyahu has declared a state of emergency in the central city of Lod as police accused Arab residents of waging 'wide-scale riots'. Mayor Yair Revivo had ramped up the drama by declaring 'civil war has erupted', the military should be deployed and compared it to Kristallnacht under the Nazis. The city of 77,000 people, including 47,000 Jewish Israelis and 23,000 Arab Israelis, had been the scene of violent clashes on Monday, local police confirmed. Mr Revivo said the clashes were 'too big for the police' and called for the military to be deployed. 'All of Israel should know, this is a complete loss of control… This is unthinkable. Synagogues are being burned. Hundreds of cars set alight. Hundreds of Arab thugs are roaming the streets… Civil war has erupted in Lod… The Orthodox-nationalist community here has guns. I'm imploring them to go back home but they understandably want to protect their homes. Petrol bombs are being thrown into [Jewish] homes. The situation is incendiary.'

ISRAEL - Things have been getting more tense in Jerusalem for weeks, and Monday was the day when tensions really started to boil over. The violence that we witnessed in the streets of Jerusalem shocked the entire globe, and it threatens to spark a major regional conflict. In response to the chaos in Jerusalem, Hamas fired more than 160 rockets into Israel, and the IDF responded by striking several targets in the Gaza strip. We haven’t seen hostilities in the region reach this level in a long, long time. Politicians around the globe are crying out for peace to be restored, but the leader of Hamas is indicating that more violence may be coming…