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7 Palestinians Killed By A Gunman Near Synagogue In Jerusalem

(CTN NEWS) – JERUSALEM – Friday night, a Palestinian gunman opened fire outside an east Jerusalem synagogue, killing seven people—including a woman in her 70s—and injuring three more.

He was later shot and killed by police, according to officials. It increased the risk of additional bloodshed and was the bloodiest attack on Israelis in recent memory.

The strike happened a day after an Israeli military incursion in the West Bank that claimed the lives of nine Palestinians and took place as locals observed the Jewish Sabbath.

The incident on Friday sparked celebrations in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, where people fired weapons into the air, honked horns and gave out candy.

/ AP

The outbreak of violence has presented an early challenge for Israel’s new administration, which is predominated by ultranationalists who have campaigned for a firm line against Palestinian violence.

It also included a rocket bombardment from Gaza and retaliatory Israeli airstrikes. Additionally, it tainted Sunday’s visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the area.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters at the national police headquarters in Israel that he had conducted a security assessment and made a decision on “urgent actions.”

He said that he would meet with his Security Cabinet on Saturday night, following the conclusion of the Sabbath, to discuss an additional response.

Netanyahu chose not to go into further detail but promised that Israel would act “determinately and calmly.” He urged the populace to refrain from enforcing the law themselves.

Speaking on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the United States strongly denounced the act and was “shocked and saddened” by the lives lost.

/ AP

Later on Friday, according to American sources, President Joe Biden phoned with Netanyahu to express U.S. support for the Israeli government and people and to describe the shootings as “an attack against the civilised world.”

The White House described the call as “the President stressed the ironclad U.S. commitment to Israel’s security.”

The shootings took place in Neve Yaakov, a settlement with a sizable ultra-Orthodox population, according to Israeli police, and the shooter left in a car. According to the police, they pursued and killed him after exchanging gunfire.

In addition to the shooter, Chief Doron Turjeman of the Jerusalem Police confirmed seven deaths and three injuries.

A 21-year-old citizen of east Jerusalem who appeared to act alone was the assailant, according to police. Turjeman vowed to make “aggressive and major” efforts to find anyone who assisted him.

A picture of the gun the police claim the attacker used was also made public by the police.

Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, met with the military chief and other top security officials and gave them orders to support police and bolster security for Jewish communities in the occupied West Bank and close to Jerusalem.

/ AP

Against terrorism, Israel’s defense establishment “will act decisively and forcefully” and “will reach anybody involved in the incident,” Gallant declared.

Five men and two women, many of whom were 60 years old or older, were among those who died, according to Israel’s MADA rescue service. According to Jerusalem’s Hadassah Hospital, a 15-year-old boy was recovering from surgery.

According to the Foreign Ministry, the attack was the bloodiest against Israelis since a massacre in 2008 that left eight people dead in a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem.

It could prompt a stern response from Israel, given the situation’s timing and location.

Several rockets were fired into southern Israel by Gaza militants overnight on Thursday, but every one was either stopped or fell into open spaces.

Israel’s response was to attack targets in Gaza with warplanes. No casualties were recorded, and before Friday night’s gunfire, tranquility seemed to settle in.

No one immediately took blame. The strike was “revenge and a natural response,” according to Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem in Gaza, to the deadly IDF raid on Thursday.

/ AP

Dozens of Palestinians gathered in impromptu protests across the Gaza Strip to celebrate the incident in Jerusalem; some of them emerged from dessert shops carrying sizable trays of sweets to hand out.

Gunfire in celebration could be heard in Gaza City’s downtown as automobiles honked and shouts of “God is great!” came from mosque loudspeakers. Palestinians set off fireworks in several West Bank towns.

After a raid on Thursday in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank left nine people dead, including at least seven militants and a 61-year-old lady, tensions were already high.

The attack heightened those tensions. It was the West Bank’s worst single raid in 20 years. In separate clashes close to Jerusalem, a tenth Palestinian was murdered.

As they laid the final victim of those killed a day earlier to rest, furious Palestinians marched on Friday.

Disputes broke out between Israeli security forces and Palestinian protesters after the burial of a 22-year-old Palestinian north of Jerusalem and elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, but for most of the day.

Peace reigned in the conflicted city and the blockaded Gaza Strip.

/ AP

The shooting in east Jerusalem, which Yair Lapid, the opposition leader and former prime minister, called “horrific and devastating,” abruptly ended that.

Israel views the devout Jewish community’s settlement in Neve Yaakov as a part of its capital’s neighborhood.

While the Palestinians want to use east Jerusalem, which Israel took in the 1967 Middle East conflict, as the capital of their future state, Israel believes that all of Jerusalem is its undivided capital.

Blinken’s journey will likely now be mainly focused on reducing tensions.

He’ll probably talk about the root reasons of the conflict, the goals of Israel’s new far-right administration, and the PA’s decision to stop working with Israel on security matters in the wake of the Jenin raid.

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby noted that the Biden administration has been in close contact with Israeli.

And Palestinian leaders in recent days, highlighting the “urgent need here for all parties to deescalate to prevent the further loss of civilian life and to work together to improve the security situation in the West Bank.”

/ AP

Since the Islamist party seized control of Gaza from opposing forces in 2007, Israel and Hamas have engaged in four wars and a number of smaller clashes.

Following a string of Palestinian attacks, Israel increased its operations in the West Bank last spring, which heightened tensions.

According to the major Israeli rights organization B’Tselem, 2022 was the deadliest year in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since 2004 with close to 150 Palestinian deaths.

30 individuals were killed in Palestinian attacks on Israelis last year.

30 Palestinians have died this year so far, according to a tally by The Associated Press.

Most of those killed, according to Israel, were militants. However, adolescents opposing the intrusions and others who were not participating in the altercations have also perished.

Israel claims that the goals of its raids are to destroy extremist networks and prevent assaults. The West Bank, east Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip were all taken by Israel during the Mideast War of 1967, adding to its 55-year, unrestricted occupation, according to the Palestinians.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

google

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

google

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

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Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

trump

Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

trump

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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