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Thousands of workers at more than 200 U.S. Starbucks stores plan to walk off the job Thursday in what organizers say is the largest strike yet in the two-year-old effort to unionize the company’s stores. The Workers United union chose Starbucks' annual Red Cup Day to stage the walkout since it’s usually one of the busiest days of the year. Starbucks expects to give away thousands of reusable cups Thursday to customers who order holiday drinks. The union said it was expecting more than 5,000 workers to take part in its “Red Cup Rebellion.” Around 30 stores also staged walkouts on Wednesday. Neha Cremin, a Starbucks barista in Oklahoma City, said she was striking to protest understaffing in stores, especially during promotions like Red Cup Day. Cremin said workers are already overwhelmed filling delivery orders, drive-thru orders, mobile orders and in-store orders; promotions add another layer of stress. Read: Rishi Sunak fires UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman who accused police of favoring pro-Palestinian protesters  “Understaffing hurts workers and also creates an unpleasant experience for customers,” Cremin said. “Starbucks has made it clear that they won’t listen to workers, so we’re advocating for ourselves by going on strike.” Thursday’s strike was the fifth major labor action by Starbucks workers since a store in Buffalo, New York, became the first to unionize in late 2021. Workers at 110 stores walked out last year on Red Cup Day; most recently, a strike in June protested reports that Starbucks had removed Pride displays from its stores. But the strikes have had little impact on Starbucks’ sales. For its 2023 fiscal year, which ended Oct. 1, Starbucks reported its revenue rose 12%,to a record $36.0 billion. Starbucks downplayed any potential impact of the strike Wednesday, saying it would occur at a “small subset” of the company’s 9,600 company-owned U.S. stores. “We remain committed to working with all partners, side-by-side, to elevate the everyday, and we hope that Workers United’s priorities will shift to include the shared success of our partners and negotiating contracts for those they represent,” Starbucks said in a statement. At least 363 company-operated Starbucks stores in 41 states have voted to unionize since late 2021. The Starbucks effort was at the leading edge of a period of labor activism that has also seen strikes by Amazon workers, auto workers and Hollywood writers and actors. At least 457,000 workers have participated in 315 strikes in the U.S. just this year, according to Johnnie Kallas, a Ph.D. candidate and the project director of Cornell University’s Labor Action Tracker. Starbucks opposes the unionization effort and has yet to reach a labor agreement with any of the stores that have voted to unionize. The process has been contentious; regional offices with the National Labor Relations Board have issued 111 complaints against Starbucks for unfair labor practices, including refusal to bargain. Starbucks says Workers United is refusing to schedule bargaining sessions. Read: Islamic parties stage protest condemning Israeli attacks on Palestine  Starbucks noted that it has started bargaining with the Teamsters union, which organized a Starbucks store outside of Pittsburgh in June 2022. But the two sides have not reached a labor agreement. The Teamsters didn’t say Wednesday whether workers at the unionized store would also be striking. Relations between Starbucks and Workers United have grown increasingly tense. Last month, Starbucks sued Workers United, saying a pro-Palestinian post on a union account damaged its reputation and demanding that the union stop using the name Starbucks Workers United. Workers United responded with its own lawsuit, saying Starbucks defamed the union by suggesting it supports terrorism and violence.

It was a meeting a year in the making. President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping sat down together on Wednesday just outside of San Francisco, where Asian leaders gathered for an annual summit. It was almost exactly one year since their last encounter in Bali, Indonesia, on the sidelines of another global gathering. In addition to a formal bilateral meeting, Biden and Xi shared a lunch with top advisers and strolled the verdant grounds of the luxury estate where their meeting took place. Biden, Xi met for hours and agreed to 'pick up the phone' for any urgent concerns. 'That's progress' There’s no word on whether Chinese pandas will return to Washington’s zoo. But Biden said the meeting included “some of the most constructive and productive discussions we’ve had” and will lead to stronger dialogue between the two leaders. Here’s a look at how the day panned out. NEW AGREEMENTSBiden left the meeting with commitments on key issues. Xi agreed to help curb the production of the illicit fentanyl that is a deadly component of drugs sold in the United States. A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private meeting, said the shift will be a setback for Latin American drug dealers. Biden says his goal for Xi meeting is to get US-China communications back to 'normal' “It’s going to save lives, and I appreciated President Xi’s commitment on this issue,” Biden said at a press conference after his meeting. In addition, Biden and Xi reached an agreement to resume military-to-military communications. That means Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will speak with his Chinese counterpart once someone is named to the job, the official said. Similar engagements will take place up and down the military chain of command. The official said Biden was “very clear” to Xi that such communications between U.S. and China should be institutionalized and that they are “not done as a gift or as a favor to either side.” Biden said the U.S. and China would talk more about artificial intelligence as well. White House hoping Biden-Xi meeting brings progress on military communications, fentanyl fight “We’re going to get our experts together and discuss risk and safety issues,” he said. The agreements helped fulfill the White House’s goal for the meeting — prove to voters that Biden’s dedication to personal diplomacy is paying off. On Sunday, national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN that Biden wanted “practical ways” to show that meeting with Xi can help “defend American interests and also deliver progress on the priorities of the American people.” Zoe Liu, a fellow for China studies at the Council for Foreign Relations, described the meeting between Biden and Xi as a positive step, albeit an incremental one. “These agreements will not change the structural challenges in the bilateral relations, but it paves the way for more detailed working-level discussions, which is more important,” she said. BIDEN PRESSES CHINA TO ACT LIKE A SUPERPOWER IN COOLING GLOBAL TENSIONSBeijing has long sought to be treated as an equal by Washington, and Biden sought to leverage those ambitions with Xi to address two devastating wars. In their private session, Biden appealed to Xi to use his influence to try to calm global tensions, particularly to try to pressure Iran not to widen the conflict between Israel and Hamas. A U.S. official said Biden did most of the talking on the matter, and that Xi mostly listened, and that it was too soon to tell what sort of message China was sending to Tehran and how it was being received. Biden has also pressed Xi to continue to withhold military support for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A ‘CLEAR-HEADED’ EXCHANGE AND A WARNING ON TAIWANBiden and Xi held a “clear-headed” and “not heated” discussion on Taiwan — the most sensitive topic in the relationship with the greatest potential to spiral into wider conflict. Biden said he reaffirmed the United States’ “One China” policy and its belief that any resolution must be peaceful. “I’m not going to change that,” Biden said. “That’s not going to change.” He reiterated, though, that the U.S. would continue to arm Taiwan as a deterrent against any attempt by China to use force to reunify the self-governing island with the mainland. The U.S. had maintained strategic ambiguity about whether it would directly intervene to protect Taiwan in the event of an invasion by Beijing. Xi, a U.S. official said, told Biden he had no plans to invade the island, though Biden chided him for China’s massive military build-up around Taiwan. Biden also called on China to avoid meddling in Taiwan’s elections next year. ECONOMIC CHALLENGESXi arrived in San Francisco at a time of economic challenges back in China, where an aging population and growing debt have hampered its recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Beijing’s description of the meeting, Xi pressed Biden to lift sanctions and change policies on export controls for sensitive equipment. “Stifling China’s technological progress is nothing but a move to contain China’s high-quality development and deprive the Chinese people of their right to development,” the readout said. “China’s development and growth, driven by its own inherent logic, will not be stopped by external forces.” There’s no indication that Biden will agree to take such steps. But even the meeting itself could calm jittery nerves back in China, where there have been signs foreign investment is tapering off. Zhang Lei, a Chinese businessman whose company, Cheche Group, is listed on NASDAQ, said high-level meetings such as the one between Biden and Xi can help assure companies that have been hesitant to invest in China. “Confrontations don’t work,” he said. “You don’t make money with confrontations.” IT’S PERSONALBiden and Xi go back years, and Biden often repeats the story of their meetings when they were both vice presidents. But on Wednesday, it was Xi’s turn to reference their previous encounters during brief public remarks, although he eschewed the embellishments that Biden usually adds to the tale. “It was 12 years ago,” Xi said. “I still remember our interactions very vividly, and it always gives me a lot of thoughts.” Biden also emphasized the length of their relationship and the value of their interactions. “We haven’t always agreed, which was not a surprise to anyone, but our meetings have always been candid, straightforward and useful,” Biden said. He added that “it’s paramount that you and I understand each other clearly, leader to leader, with no misconceptions or miscommunication.” Bilateral meetings aren’t always conducive to a personal touch, and Biden and Xi were flanked by advisers on opposite sides of a long table. However, a senior administration official said they spoke about their wives, and Biden wished Xi’s wife a happy birthday. The official, who requested anonymity to discuss a private conversation, said Xi was embarrassed, and he admitted that he had forgotten his wife’s upcoming birthday because he’s been working so hard.  

Sand and dust storms are "dramatically" more frequent in some places worldwide, with at least a quarter of the storms caused by humans, according to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). Bus accident leaves 30 dead in Indian-controlled Kashmir "The sight of rolling dark clouds of sand and dust engulfing everything in their path and turning day into night is one of nature's most intimidating spectacles. It is a costly phenomenon that wreaks havoc everywhere from Northern and Central Asia to sub-Saharan Africa," said Ibrahim Thiaw, UNCCD's executive secretary. ASEAN defense chiefs call for the fighting in Gaza to cease, but they struggle to address Myanmar "Sand and dust storms present a formidable challenge to achieving sustainable development. However, just as sand and dust storms are exacerbated by human activities, they can also be reduced through human actions," said Thiaw. Biden says his goal for Xi meeting is to get US-China communications back to 'normal' While sand and dust storms are a prevalent and seasonal natural phenomenon in some regions, the problem is exacerbated by poor land and water management, droughts, and climate change, according to UNCCD experts.

The Israeli military raided Gaza's largest hospital early Wednesday, conducting what it called a "precise and targeted operation against Hamas in a specified area” of the facility, which has been the site of a standoff with the ruling militant group. Israeli authorities claim the militants conceal military operations in the Shifa Hospital. But with hundreds of patients and medical personnel inside, the military has refrained from entering. In recent weeks, Israeli defense forces have publicly warned that such use of the hospital “jeopardizes its protected status under international law,” the military said. On Tuesday, military officials conveyed again to Gaza authorities that all military activity in the hospital must cease within 12 hours. "Unfortunately, it did not,” the military said. Hamas has denied the Israeli accusations that it uses the hospital for cover. Israeli military officials gave no further details but said they were taking steps to avoid harm to civilians. Is Hamas hiding in Gaza's main hospital? Israel's claim is now a focal point in a dayslong stalemate The operation unfolded after the military seized broader control of northern Gaza on Tuesday, including capturing the territory's legislature building and its police headquarters, in gains that carried high symbolic value in the country's quest to crush Hamas. Meanwhile, Israeli defense officials said they have agreed to allow some fuel shipments into the Gaza Strip for humanitarian operations. It was the first time that Israel has allowed fuel into the besieged territory since Hamas' bloody cross-border invasion on Oct. 7. China, Iran, Arab nations condemn Israeli minister's statement about dropping a nuclear bomb on Gaza Inside some of the captured buildings, soldiers held up the Israeli flag and military flags in celebration. In a nationally televised news conference, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Hamas had “lost control” of northern Gaza and that Israel made significant gains in Gaza City. But asked about the time frame for the war, Gallant said: “We’re talking about long months, not a day or two.” One Israeli commander in Gaza, identified only as Lt. Col. Gilad, said in a video that his forces near Shifa Hospital had seized government buildings, schools and residential buildings where they found weapons and eliminated fighters. The army said it had captured the legislature, the Hamas police headquarters and a compound housing Hamas’ military intelligence headquarters. The buildings are powerful symbols, but their strategic value was unclear. Hamas fighters are believed to be positioned in underground bunkers. For days, the Israeli army has encircled Shifa Hospital. Hundreds of patients, staff and displaced people were trapped inside, with supplies dwindling and no electricity to run incubators and other lifesaving equipment. After days without refrigeration, morgue staff on Tuesday dug a mass grave in the yard for more than 120 bodies, officials said. Elsewhere, the Palestinian Red Crescent said Tuesday it had evacuated patients, doctors and displaced families from another Gaza City hospital, Al-Quds. More than 180,000 people across France march against soaring antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war Israel has vowed to end Hamas rule in Gaza after the militants' Oct. 7 attack into Israel in which they killed some 1,200 people and took roughly 240 hostages. The Israeli government has acknowledged it doesn’t know what it will do with the territory after Hamas’ defeat. The Israeli onslaught — one of the most intense bombardments so far this century — has been disastrous for Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians. More than 11,200 people, two-thirds of them women and minors, have been killed in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Ramallah. About 2,700 people have been reported missing. The ministry’s count does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths. Almost the entire population of Gaza has squeezed into the southern two-thirds of the tiny territory, where conditions have been deteriorating even as bombardment there continues. About 200,000 fled the north in recent days, the U.N. said Tuesday, though tens of thousands are believed to remain. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said Tuesday that its fuel storage facility in Gaza was empty and that it would soon end relief operations, including bringing limited supplies of food and medicine in from Egypt for more than 600,000 people sheltering in schools and other facilities in the south. "Without fuel, the humanitarian operation in Gaza is coming to an end. Many more people will suffer and will likely die,” said Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of UNRWA. Israeli defense officials, who repeatedly rejected allowing fuel into Gaza saying Hamas would divert it for military use, changed course early Wednesday. Israel will allow some 24,000 liters (6,340 gallons) of fuel into the Gaza Strip for humanitarian operations, officials said. The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli defense body responsible for Palestinian affairs, said it would allow U.N. trucks to refill at the Rafah crossing on the Egyptian border later Wednesday. It said the decision was in response to a request from the U.S. PLIGHT OF HOSPITALSFighting has raged for days around the Shifa Hospital complex at the center of Gaza City that has now “turned into a cemetery,” its director said in a statement. The Health Ministry said 40 patients, including three babies, have died since Shifa’s emergency generator ran out of fuel Saturday. Another 36 babies are at risk of dying because there is no power for incubators, according to the ministry. The Israeli military said it started an effort to transfer incubators to Shifa. But they would be useless without electricity, said Christian Lindmeier, a World Health Organization spokesman. The Health Ministry has proposed evacuating the hospital with the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross and transferring the patients to hospitals in Egypt, but has not received any response, ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qidra said. While Israel says it is willing to allow staff and patients to evacuate, some Palestinians who have made it out say Israeli forces have fired at evacuees. Israel says its claims of a Hamas command center in and beneath Shifa are based on intelligence, but it has not provided visual evidence to support them. Denying the claims, the Gaza Health Ministry says it has invited international organizations to investigate the facility. The evacuation at the Al-Quds Hospital followed “more than 10 days of siege, during which medical and humanitarian supplies were prevented from reaching the hospital,” Palestinian Red Crescent officials said. In a post on X, they blamed the Israeli army for bombarding the hospital and firing at those inside. The White House’s national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, said the U.S. has unspecified intelligence that Hamas and another Palestinian militants use Shifa and other hospitals and tunnels underneath them to support military operations and hold hostages. The intelligence is based on multiple sources, and the U.S. independently collected the information, a U.S. official said on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. Kirby said the U.S. doesn't support airstrikes on hospitals and does not want to see “a firefight in a hospital where innocent people" are trying to get care. MARCH FOR HOSTAGESFamilies and supporters of the around 240 people being held hostage by Hamas started a protest march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The plight of the hostages has dominated public discourse since the Oct. 7 attack, with solidarity protests held across the country. The marchers, who expect to reach Jerusalem on Saturday, say the government must do more to bring home their loved-ones. “Where are you?” Shelly Shem Tov, whose 21-year-old son, Omer, is among the captives, called out to Netanyahu. “We have no strength anymore. We have no strength. Bring back our children and our families home.” BATTLE IN GAZA CITYIndependent accounts of the fighting in Gaza City have been nearly impossible to gather, as communications to the north have largely collapsed. Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said Israeli forces have completed the takeover of Shati refugee camp, a densely built district bordering Gaza City's center, and are moving about freely in the city as a whole. Videos released by the Israeli military show troops moving through the city, firing into buildings. Bulldozers push down structures as tanks roll through streets surrounded by partially collapsed towers. The videos portray a battle where troops are rooting out pockets of Hamas fighters and tearing down buildings where they find them, while gradually dismantling the group’s tunnel network. Israel says it has killed several thousand fighters, including important mid-level commanders, while 46 of its own soldiers have been killed in Gaza.  

China, Iran and a multitude of Arab nations condemned an Israeli minister’s statement that a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip was an option in the Israel-Hamas war, calling it a threat to the world. At Monday’s long-planned opening of a United Nations conference whose goal is to establish a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, many ambassadors expressed condemnations and criticisms of comments by Israel’s Heritage Minister Amihai Eliyahu, who later called his remarks in a radio interview Sunday “metaphorical.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quickly disavowed the comments and suspended him from cabinet meetings. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its nuclear capability. It is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, and a former employee at its nuclear reactor served 18 years in Israeli prison for leaking details and pictures of Israel’s alleged nuclear arsenal program to a British newspaper in 1986. China’s deputy U.N. ambassador Geng Shuang said Beijing was “shocked,” calling the statements “extremely irresponsible and disturbing” and should be universally condemned. He urged Israeli officials to retract the statement and become a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, considered the cornerstone of nuclear disarmament, as a non-nuclear weapon state “as soon as possible.” Read: As fighting empties north Gaza, humanitarian crisis worsens in south Geng said China is ready to join other countries “to inject new impetus” to establishing a nuclear weapons-free zone in the Mideast, saying there is greater urgency because of the situation in the current region. U.N. disarmament chief Izumi Nakamitsu, who opened Monday’s fourth conference, didn’t mention Israel. But she said: “Any threat to use nuclear weapons is inadmissible.” Nakamitsu reiterated the “urgency ... of a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction,” stressing that “cool heads and diplomatic efforts” must prevail to achieve peace between Israel and the Palestinians, based on a two-state solution. Oman’s U.N. Ambassador Mohamed Al-Hassan, speaking on behalf of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council which includes Saudi Arabia, said the threat to use nuclear weapons in Gaza “reaffirms the extremes and brutality of the Israeli occupation against the Palestinian people” and their “disregard for innocent life.” He called on the U.N Security Council and the IAEA to take decisive action on the matter. Read: Hundreds trapped inside Gaza’s biggest hospital Lebanon’s Charge d’Affaires Hadi Hachem also condemned the Israeli heritage minister’s comments, stressing that “this self-acknowledgment of having nuclear weapons and the threat of using them by its officials, poses a serious threat to both regional and international peace and security." He urged Israel to stop “such rhetoric or posturing” and join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear weapon state. Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Amir Iravani told the conference the nuclear threats directed toward Palestinians by high-ranking Israeli officials highlight Israel’s “pride” in having these weapons in its hands. “The secrecy surrounding Israel’s nuclear capabilities poses a significant threat to regional stability,” he said. “In these critical times, the imperative to establish such a zone in the Middle East has never been more urgent.” Israel did not speak Monday but Netanyahu has said his country's biggest threat remains the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran, and it is prepared to prevent that from happening. Efforts to create a nuclear-weapon-free zone date back to the 1960s and include a call by parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1995 and a 1998 General Assembly resolution asking countries to contribute to establishing it. The first U.N. conference aimed at creating a zone was held in November 2019. Read: Battles force Palestinians out of hospitals in Gaza, leaving patients, babies stranded  Russia’s ambassador to the IAEA and other U.N. organizations based in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, told delegates Monday that given the new escalation of violence in the Middle East, a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the region “is more pertinent than ever.” But he said Moscow is “extremely uncomfortable” that along with the two other sponsors of the 1995 resolution – the United States and the United Kingdom – the promise to establish a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Mideast has not been met after almost 30 years. And for more than 20 years, “there’s been almost no progress whatsoever,” he said.

Senior defense officials from South Korea, the United States and other nations on Tuesday warned North Korea over its nuclear ambitions and threats, vowing an unspecified collective response to any war-like aggression by the North toward its rival. Their joint statement came after a meeting in Seoul involving U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik and officials from 16 other countries under the U.S.-led United Nations Command, which provided combat or medical forces in support of the South during the 1950-53 Korean War. The meeting came a day after Austin and Shin held annual defense talks where the allies updated a bilateral security agreement with the aim of more effectively countering North Korea’s evolving nuclear and missile threats. In the joint statement, the defense ministers and other representatives of the U.N. Command’s member states strongly condemned North Korea’s “unlawful” nuclear and ballistic missile programs which violate multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions and called for Pyongyang to recommit to diplomacy aimed at defusing the nuclear standoff. Read: Jin Air keen to operate direct flights between Bangladesh, South Korea The U.N. Command’s member states also declared “they will be united upon any renewal of hostilities or armed attack on the Korean Peninsula challenging the principles of the United Nations and the security of (South Korea).” Shin during a speech at the meeting said the North would face a “strong response from the international community centered on the U.N. Command” if it ever attempts to invade the South again. He also issued a veiled warning toward Pyongyang’s growing alignment with Russia and China, as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un tries to break out of diplomatic isolation and insert Pyongyang as part of a united front against Washington. “If the countries that supported North Korea during the Korean War offer to do so again, they too will face the same punishment as North Korea,” Shin said. The Korean War was triggered by a North Korean sneak attack on the South in June 1950. The North was backed by forces from the newly formed People’s Republic of China, which was aided by the then-Soviet Union's air force. South Korea, the United States and troops from various countries under the direction of the United Nations fought to push back the invasion before the fighting was halted by an armistice in 1953, leaving the Korean Peninsula in a technical state of war. The U.N. Command has since remained in the South to enforce and maintain the armistice. Before Tuesday’s meeting, North Korea’s Foreign Ministry condemned the event as reflecting a “dangerous scheme to ignite a new war of aggression.” The North’s state media also criticized the visits by Austin and U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who traveled to Seoul last week, calling them “warmongers” brining a “new war cloud” to Asia. Animosity between the Koreas has spiked recent months after Kim ramped up his weapons demonstrations, including events he described as simulated nuclear attacks on the South, and also authorized his military to launch pre-emptive nuclear strikes against enemies if it perceives Pyongyang’s top leadership as under threat. Read: Evidence shows Hamas likely used some North Korean weapons in attack on Israel South Korea has responded by expanding its combined military exercises with the United States as well as trilateral security cooperation with Japan. Seoul has also been seeking stronger public assurances from Washington that the United States would swiftly and decisively use its nukes to protect the South in the face of a North Korean nuclear attack. During their annual Security Consultative Meeting on Monday, Austin and Shin signed a new version of their countries’ Tailored Deterrence Strategy agreement, which was revised for the first time in a decade to address the growing threat of the North’s military nuclear program. Shin said the new document spells out that the United States would mobilize its full range of military capabilities, including nuclear ones, to defend the South in the event of a North Korean nuclear attack. He also said the document will provide a template for the allies to strategize how South Korea could assist U.S. nuclear operations in such events with its conventional capabilities but didn’t elaborate further. While Kim is also trying to strengthen relations with China, Russia has been his primary focus. A flurry of diplomacy between the countries, highlighted by a September summit between Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin, has triggered concerns about an arms arrangement in which North Korea provides badly needed munitions to Russia to help it wage war on Ukraine in exchange for Russian technology transfers that would upgrade Kim’s military nuclear program. A Russian delegation led by Alexander Kozlov, minister of natural resources, arrived at Pyongyang's airport Tuesday, in the latest sign of diplomatic activity. While The Associated Press photographed the arrival, the North’s state media did not immediately release details of the visit. Read: North Korea raises specter of nuclear strike over US aircraft carrier's arrival in South Korea  In written responses to questions from AP, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said he will discuss the international response to the purported weapons deal between North Korea and Russia during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco this week. He said such military cooperation between the countries not only poses a serious threat to the security of Asia and Europe but also undermines the rules-based international order. Both Pyongyang and Moscow have denied U.S. and South Korean claims that the North has been supplying munitions and military equipment to Russia.

U.S. officials expressed hope Monday that this week's highly anticipated face-to-face meeting between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping will produce some concrete results, including the possible reestablishment of military communication between the two nations and a shared effort to combat illicit fentanyl trafficking. The two leaders will meet Wednesday on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in San Francisco. The Biden-Xi bilateral will be the marquee moment of the forum, which is dedicated to promoting trade, investment and economic development among nations around the Pacific Ocean. Biden and Xi have not spoken in a year. Their last meeting was at the Group of 20 summit in Indonesia last fall. And since then, tensions between the two nations have grown following a series of events touched off by the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon that had wafted across the U.S. earlier this year. The frosty relationship between the two economic superpowers has global implications: China and the U.S. produce roughly 40% of the world’s goods and services. Read: At least four people stabbed at Louisiana Tech University in Ruston; suspect in custody U.S. officials have set relatively low expectations for the Biden-Xi meeting, suggesting that simply getting back to a baseline of routine communication would be a good benchmark for success. Still, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Monday there could be some movement toward shared goals, through “intense diplomacy.” “All in all we’re looking forward to a productive meeting,” Sullivan said. “President Biden has a long history with President Xi and their conversations are direct, they’re straightforward and President Biden believes there is no substitute for leader-to-leader, face-to-face diplomacy to manage this complex relationship.” Among those goals: the reestablishment of communications between military leaders of the two nations. U.S. military contacts with China have eroded, particularly since the pandemic, and are now almost nonexistent, even as the number of unsafe or unprofessional incidents between the two nations’ ships and aircraft have spiked. The U.S. has consistently viewed military relations with China as critical to avoiding any missteps and to maintaining a peaceful Indo-Pacific region. They became even more important as China stepped up its efforts to aggressively militarize manmade islands in the Pacific as part of a broader campaign to control the South China Sea, including international transit by other ships and aircraft. China has also long complained about U.S. Navy and Air Force movements in the western Pacific, along with other U.S. moves to impose sanctions and other economic restrictions. Canceling military talks is viewed by China as a way to punish Washington. But there are small signs of progress. China’s defense ministry last week said the two militaries held a conference call on the search for the remains of American prisoners of war and missing personnel, discussing case investigations and cooperation on military archives. Sullivan also said there were other areas where U.S. and Chinese interests overlap, particularly on the effort to combat fentanyl trafficking. The powerful opioid is the deadliest drug in the U.S. today. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that drug overdose deaths have increased more than sevenfold from 2015 to 2021. Read: More than 180,000 people across France march against soaring antisemitism amid the Israel-Hamas war Mexico and China are the primary sources for fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked directly into the U.S., according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which is tasked with combating illicit drug trafficking. Nearly all the chemicals needed to make fentanyl come from China, and the drugs are then mass-produced in Mexico and trafficked via cartels into the U.S. Sullivan said Biden would also use the meeting to address China's relations with Iran and Taiwan. China has perceived American contact with Taiwan as encouragement to make the island’s decades-old de facto independence permanent. Concern about the issue is heightened as Taiwan prepares to hold presidential elections in January. Under the “One China” policy, the U.S. recognizes Beijing as the government of China and doesn’t have diplomatic relations with Taiwan, but it has maintained that Taipei is an important partner in the Indo-Pacific. Sullivan said Biden would “set out a vision for peace and stability and the maintenance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.” The Democratic president is also expected to let Xi know that he would like China to use its burgeoning sway over Iran to make clear that Tehran or its proxies should not take action that could lead to expansion of the Israel-Hamas war. The Biden administration sees the Chinese, a big buyer of Iranian oil, as having considerable leverage with Iran, which is a major backer of Hamas. “President Biden will make the point to President Xi that Iran acting in an escalatory, destabilizing way that undermines stability across the broader Middle East is not in the interests" of China or "any other responsible country,” Sullivan said. Read: US State Dept spokesperson says will ‘refrain from being drawn into’ internal Bangladeshi political matters  The White House announced Monday that Biden would also meet with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador later this week. The two leaders will discuss the growing migration issue at the U.S.-Mexico border and beyond. Preparations for the summit are evident around San Francisco. The city has erected tall steel barricades downtown that snake around the streets surrounding the Moscone Center and other venues where APEC events will be held this week. Finance and diplomatic leaders from the 21 APEC economies are also gathering this week; Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen opened the finance ministers meeting Monday. The San Francisco Police Department has beefed up patrols throughout downtown. In the area around Union Square, where many summit dignitaries have booked up the city’s four-star hotels, locals have taken note that the city’s significant homeless population seems less prevalent than usual.

Four women were stabbed Monday morning on the campus of Louisiana Tech University in the north Louisiana city of Ruston in what university officials and local police said appeared to be a random attack by a student. Ruston Mayor Ronny Walker said three of the four suffered serious injuries and were transported to a hospital in Shreveport. The university issued a statement saying campus police caught a suspect — a 23-year-old man —within minutes of the stabbings. Ruston Police Chief Steve Rogers said the man was being booked into jail Monday afternoon after being treated for unspecified injuries. He was to be held on four counts of attempted second-degree murder, Rogers said at an afternoon news conference with Walker. Read: Driver of Civil Aviation Authority stabbed to death in Dhaka’s Kawla Rogers said the weapon believed to have been used was a folding knife with a blade estimated about four inches long. Of the four people stabbed, one was a graduate student, who was the first to be taken to a Shreveport hospital. The other victims were not students. Two were first hospitalized in Ruston, then transferred to Shreveport, Walker said. “We have two that we know are in critical but stable condition, one that is in stable condition," Walker told reporters. Read: UN agencies' Regional Directors call for immediate action to halt attacks on Gaza hospitals A fourth victim refused treatment, according to the university. “This appears to be a random act of violence,” the university's statement said. “It sounds like he ran up behind them and surprised them,” Louisiana Tech Police Chief Randall Hermes told the Ruston Daily Leader. Rogers said police had had contact with the suspect roughly a week earlier, but provided few details. “We had one reported incident with him,” Rogers said. “It wasn't criminal. We went and checked him out and had people check him out. He was fine at that time.” Read: 48-hr countrywide blockade: Violence, arson attack, clashes marks 1st day blockade The attack happened shortly after 9 a.m. at Tech's Lambright Sports and Wellness Center, a recreation center that offers fitness classes to students and the Ruston community. Tech police received a call at 9:08 a.m. and the suspect was reported in custody about four minutes later.

More than 180,000 people across France, including 100,000 in Paris, marched peacefully on Sunday to protest against rising antisemitism in the wake of Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza. Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, representatives of several parties on the left, conservatives and centrists of President Emmanuel Macron's party as well as far-right leader Marine Le Pen attended Sunday’s march in the French capital amid tight security. Macron did not attend, but expressed his support for the protest and called on citizens to rise up against “the unbearable resurgence of unbridled antisemitism.” However, the leader of the far-left France Unbowed party, Jean-Luc Melenchon, stayed away from the march, saying last week on X, formerly Twitter, that the march would be a meeting of “friends of unconditional support for the massacre” in Gaza. Read: UN agencies' Regional Directors call for immediate action to halt attacks on Gaza hospitals  The interior ministry said at least 182,000 people marched in several in French cities in response to the call launched by the leaders of the parliament's upper and lower houses. No major incident has been reported, it said. Paris authorities deployed 3,000 police troops along the route of the protest called by the leaders of the Senate and parliament’s lower house, the National Assembly, amid an alarming increase in anti-Jewish acts in France since the start of Israel’s war against Hamas after its Oct. 7 surprise attack on Israel. France has the largest Jewish population in Europe, but given its own World War II collaboration with the Nazis, antisemitic acts today open old scars. Holding a French flag, Robert Fiel said marching against antisemitism is “more than a duty.” Read: UK police step up efforts to ensure a massive pro-Palestinian march in London remains peaceful  “It's a march against violence, against antisemitism, against all (political extremes) that are infiltrating the society, to show that the silent majority does exist,” the 67-year-old said. Family members of some of the 40 French citizens killed in the initial Hamas attack, and of those missing or held hostage, also took part in the march, which Paris police said drew 105,000 participants. Patrick Klugman, a lawyer and a member of “Freethem” committee working to obtain the release of people held by Hamas and other groups in Gaza, said the large participation in the march is meaningful and symbolic in reassuring Jewish communities in France. “I am very proud of my country because of this mobilization,” Klugman said. “I feel less alone than in the past weeks and days.” Yonathan Arfi, the president of the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France known as CRIF said he was encouraged Sunday's show of support, but the question remains, he told French broadcaster BFM at the march, “what will be done (against antisemitism) tomorrow?” Tomer Sisley, an Israeli and French actor insisted the massive show of solidarity proves that majority of French citizens are against violence and hate against any religious and ethnic group. “We’re not Jews, we’re not Muslims, we’re not Christians,” Sisley said. "We are French and we are here to show that we are all together.” French authorities have registered more than 1,000 acts against Jews around the country in the month since the conflict in the Middle East began. Former French president Francois Hollande said “there are many French flags in the protest but what unites us is not just a flag, it’s what it represents, it’s the value of freedom and the value of human dignity." Read: Thousands who were sheltering at Gaza City’s hospitals flee as Israel-Hamas war closes in  In a letter addressed to the French on Sunday, Macron vowed that perpetrators will be prosecuted and punished. “A France where our Jewish fellow citizens are afraid is not France,” Macron said in the letter, published in Le Parisien newspaper. He called on the country to remain “united behind its values ... and work for peace and security for all in the Middle East.” Macron said he will attend “in my heart and in spirit,” but not in person. “My role is to build unity of the country and to be firm on values,” Macron said Saturday on the sidelines of Armistice Day commemorations to mark the end of World War I. French far-right leader Marine Le Pen attended Sunday's march amid fierce criticism that her once-pariah National Rally party has failed to shake off its antisemitic heritage despite growing political legitimacy. After arriving to the march with the president of the party, Jordan Bardella, Le Pen dismissed critics and said that she and the party members are “exactly where we need to be.” She called on other politicians “to take a break from fomenting political controversies” during the march. Le Pen and other far-right officials showed up at the end of the march, hundreds of meters away from government members and other officials who led the demonstration. Borne, who is the daughter of a Jewish Holocaust survivor, tweeted “the presence of the National Rally is not fooling anyone.” The president of the Paris region council, Valérie Pécresse, a former conservative presidential candidate, denounced “hypocrisy,” saying that National Rally officials ran against her in past elections “who were clearly antisemitic people and Marine Le Pen never sanctioned them.” As of Saturday, officials counted 1,247 antisemitic acts since Oct. 7, nearly three times as many as in the whole of 2022, according to the Interior Ministry. Sunday's march in Paris appears as the biggest gathering to denounce antisemitism in France since a 1990 demonstration against the desecration of a Jewish cemetery. France has banned a number of pro-Palestinian demonstrations, although supporters have marched in several French cities in the past weeks, including thousands demanding a cease-fire in Gaza in a protest in Paris last Sunday.  

Hundreds of thousands of pro-Palestine demonstrators gathered in London, UK on November 11, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war began a month ago. Protesters marched through the city, starting from London’s Hyde Park. The march ended at 4 pm at the US Embassy on the south bank of the River Thames, 5 km away. Authorities said the march was the largest in London since the start of the conflict. Police estimated that some 300,000 people took part in the march. Read: EU calls for 'immediate pause in hostilities' in Gaza According to Stop the War Coalition, one of the organizers of Saturday’s event, people arrived at the march on buses from different parts of the country. “Coach companies across the country reported that all their vehicles were fully booked,” it said. Palestinians living in Britain have been holding peaceful protests every Saturday for a month to protest the brutal Israeli attack in Gaza. Read: UN agencies' Regional Directors call for immediate action to halt attacks on Gaza hospitals Security was strengthened at various points around the procession since Saturday morning. Barricades surroundings the ‘Remembrance Sunday Footprint’ in Whitehall were reinforced. The Metropolitan Police Service said around 2,000 additional officers were deployed in central London to ensure peace and order. This was double the usual because the protest coincided with Armistice Day. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak objected to the procession on Armistice Day, saying that the commemoration events are “sacred” to Britain and should be a time for unity and “solemn reflection.” Read: Israel must stop killing babies and women in Gaza: Macron tells BBC More than 11,000 Palestinians, two-thirds of them women and children, have been killed since Israel began its offensive, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza. At least 1,200 people have been killed on the Israeli side, mostly civilians killed in the initial Hamas attack.