Category Archives: News to use

Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works

Harris Houston Rally numbers – Cowboy Carter

Over 7 million people across all online platforms (not including cable TV) tuned into the Kamala Harris Houston rally with Beyoncé. 30,000 got in stadium for the event.

Gaza: Israel’s Northern Offensive Endangering Hundreds of Thousands of Civilians | Human Rights Watch

Displaced Palestinians flee after an evacuation order by the Israeli military in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on October 23, 2024. 

Displaced Palestinians flee after an evacuation order by the Israeli military in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on October 23, 2024.  © 2024 Rami Zohud/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

Israel’s renewed northern Gaza offensive is displacing and endangering hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, Human Rights Watch said today. Videos, photographs, satellite imagery, media reports, and UN agency reports analyzed by Human Rights Watch show that civilians are at grave risk of mass forced displacement and other atrocities as the last remaining places of refuge in northern Gaza, including shelters and hospitals, come under fire.

Since early October 2024, Israel has renewed mass evacuation orders for Gaza’s north, largely ordering civilians to move south, including to the “humanitarian” zone in al-Mawasi. The overcrowded area lacks adequate food, shelter, water, sanitation, and medical care. Israeli forces have also frequently attacked the zone, killing civilians.

“Israeli forces in northern Gaza are issuing evacuation orders after having done everything to ensure that there is no safe place to go in Gaza,” said Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Unsafe evacuations are cruel and unlawful and a set up for further crimes against civilians.”

Source: Gaza: Israel’s Northern Offensive Endangering Hundreds of Thousands of Civilians | Human Rights Watch

Harris torches Texas abortion ban at rally with Beyonce – DW – 10/26/2024

Image: Annie Mulligan/AP Photo/picture alliance

Harris and Beyonce emphasized reproductive rights during their rally in Houston

US Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris championed abortion rights at a rally in Houston, Texas on Friday, a mere 11 days before the closely-contested presidential race comes to fruition on November 5.

The vice president addressed over 20,000 supporters, telling them former Republican President Donald Trump had undone decades of progress when he appointed Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade and sparked a reproductive health crisis. Trump is Harris’ rival in the 2024 race for the White House.

Source: Harris torches Texas abortion ban at rally with Beyonce – DW – 10/26/2024

Beyoncé urges Americans to support Kamala Harris

Singer Beyoncé is the latest superstar entertainer to endorse Kamala Harris’s bid to become the next US president.

At a rally in the city of Houston, Texas, she told the crowd she wasn’t there as a celebrity or a politician, but as a “mother who cares deeply about the world my children and all of our children live in, a world where we have the freedom to control our bodies.”

She went on to urge Americans to “sing a new song”.

Source: Beyoncé urges Americans to support Kamala Harris

Beyoncé brings star power to Harris rally in Texas with abortion law in the spotlight | Kamala Harris | The Guardian

Beyoncé on Friday lent her star power to Kamala Harris at a high-octane rally in her native Texas, declaring that the country was on the “brink of history” as the vice-president warned the state’s near-total abortion ban could become the law of the land if Donald Trump is elected.

“For all the men and women in this room, and watching around the country, we need you,” Beyoncé told a crowd of 30,000 people at the open-air Shell Energy stadium in Houston.

With the presidential race effectively deadlocked, Harris detoured from her frenetic race across the seven battleground states to appear in reliably Republican Texas, where she sought to highlight the state’s abortion restrictions for voters who have yet to make up their minds or cast a ballot.

“Let us be clear: If Donald Trump wins again, he will ban abortion nationwide,” Harris told the audience, her largest to date. Harris walked on to the stage, as she has ever since she became the presumptive nominee roughly 100 days ago, to Beyoncé’s hard-charging anthem, Freedom.

Harris has centered her campaign on the theme of freedom. In the closing days of the campaign, she has painted Trump as posing a threat to hard-won progress, eroding access to reproductive care, seeking to walk back LGBTQ rights and targeting American democracy itself. Earlier this week, Harris agreed that Trump was a “fascist”.

Harris spoke to an exuberant crowd, thousands of whom had waited hours in the sticky Houston heat to attend. Rally-goers were given flashing wristbands in all different colors. They danced and sang as a DJ spun pop ballads before the event began.

But the message Harris came to deliver was sobering. She listed the sprawling impacts of abortion bans like the one in Texas, which she called “ground zero for the right for reproductive freedom.”

“All that to say, elections matter,” Harris said…

Source: Beyoncé brings star power to Harris rally in Texas with abortion law in the spotlight | Kamala Harris | The Guardian

Enchanting Street Art by Nina Valkhoff: Celebrating Wildlife and Nature on Urban Walls | STREET ART UTOPIA

Nina Valkhoff is a muralist and painter from the Netherlands known for her vibrant, large-scale murals that often depict wildlife, flora, and powerful female figures.

Her detailed, expressive works are inspired by her love for nature and her advocacy for animal rights, aiming to create awareness and admiration for biodiversity. Valkhoff’s art combines realism with colorful surrealism, transforming urban spaces around the world. She’s painted murals across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, each work adding her unique vision to public spaces.

For more, visit Nina Valkhoff’s website.

Source: Enchanting Street Art by Nina Valkhoff: Celebrating Wildlife and Nature on Urban Walls | STREET ART UTOPIA