New York (AFP) – Microsoft announced Tuesday a $69 billion deal to purchase US gaming giant Activision Blizzard, the firm behind hits like “Call of Duty” that has been hit by allegations of sex discrimination against women.

“This acquisition will accelerate the growth in Microsoft’s gaming business across mobile, PC, console and cloud and will provide building blocks for the metaverse,” Microsoft said in a statement.

Activision, the California-based maker of “Candy Crush” has been hit by employee protests, departures, and a state lawsuit alleging it enabled toxic workplace conditions and sexual harassment against women. 

Over the past seven months the company has received about 700 reports of employee concerns over sexual assault or harassment or other misconduct, in some cases separate reports about the same incident, The Wall Street Journal has reported.

Nearly 20 percent of Activision Blizzard’s 9,500 employees have signed a petition calling for CEO Bobby Kotick to resign.

Prince Andrew used to “shout and scream” if any of his 60 teddy bears were put in the wrong place.

The Duke of York is said to have an extensive collection of cuddly toys carefully arranged on a bed and royal staff were even issued a laminated photo of the furry menagerie to ensure they were all put back in the right place after cleaning because the 61-year-old prince would fly into a rage if they weren’t exactly how he liked them.

Former protection officer Paul Page – who had access to Andrew’s private quarters when he worked in Royalty and Specialist Protection Command between 1998 and 2004 – told Ranvir Singh on upcoming ITV documentary ‘Ghislaine, Prince Andrew and the Paedophile’: “It had about 50 or 60 stuffed toys positioned on the bed and basically there was a card the inspector showed us in a drawer and it was a picture of these bears all in situ.

“The reason for the laminated picture was if those bears weren’t put back in the right order by the maids, he would shout and scream.”

Royal writer Elizabeth Day previously recalled coming face-to-face with one of Andrew’s bears and finding his interest “weird”.

Writing in 2019 about a meeting a decade before, she said: “I was told to wait in a corridor where my only other companion was an oversized teddy bear squashed into a seat. When I was ushered in to meet Prince Andrew, I asked him about it. He sniggered and told me it had been a wedding gift from his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson.

“Apparently he had found the bear waiting for him when he got into the horse-drawn carriage that was to take them from Westminster Abbey to their reception. I remember that he found this extremely funny, even several years after the event.

“It seemed rather strange to me that a grown man should be so amused by the presence of a stuffed toy, but I suppose the English upper classes have a long history with teddy bears used as transitional objects to express emotions they might feel uncomfortable with.

“I wondered if this was someone who had never really grown up because he had never had to. Here he was, taking up space in his mother’s house, carrying out a made-up job to keep him entertained and still having a teddy bear his ex-wife had given him. It was weird.”

Last week, it was ruled a lawsuit brought by Virginia Giuffre against the prince can move forward.

Giuffre has accused convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein – who took his own life in August 2019 – and his one-time girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell of arranging and forcing her into having sex with the prince in 2001, when she was 17.

Andrew has repeatedly denied Giuffre’s allegations and his legal team recently argued to get her lawsuit dismissed, citing a 2009 deal and $500,000 settlement she agreed with Epstein.

However, the judge in New York recently ruled that the case could continue.

The documentary will explore how Andrew became embroiled in the sex trafficking scandal surrounding Epstein and Maxwell.

Oxfam said the wealth of the world’s 10 richest men jumped from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion during the pandemic

Paris (AFP) – The world’s 10 wealthiest men doubled their fortunes during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic as poverty and inequality soared, a report said on Monday.

Oxfam said the men’s wealth jumped from $700 billion to $1.5 trillion, at an average rate of $1.3 billion per day, in a briefing published before a virtual mini-summit of world leaders being held under the auspices of the World Economic Forum.

A confederation of charities that focus on alleviating global poverty, Oxfam said the billionaires’ wealth rose more during the pandemic more than it did the previous 14 years, when the world economy was suffering the worst recession since the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

It called this inequality “economic violence” and said inequality is contributing to the death of 21,000 people every day due to a lack of access to healthcare, gender-based violence, hunger and climate change.

The pandemic has plunged 160 million people into poverty, the charity added, with non-white ethnic minorities and women bearing the brunt of the impact as inequality soared.

The report follows a December 2021 study by the group which found that the share of global wealth of the world’s richest people soared at a record pace during the pandemic.

Oxfam urged tax reforms to fund worldwide vaccine production as well as healthcare, climate adaptation and gender-based violence reduction to help save lives.

The group said it based its wealth calculations on the most up-to-date and comprehensive data sources available, and used the 2021 Billionaires List compiled by the US business magazine Forbes.

Forbes listed the world’s 10 richest men as: Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, former Microsoft CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, former Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, US investor Warren Buffet and the head of the French luxury group LVMH, Bernard Arnault.

Bradley Cooper says filming full-frontal nude scenes in ‘Nightmare Alley’ was “pretty heavy”.

The 47-year-old actor stars in Guillermo del Toro’s as an ambitious carnival worker and explained how he had to get his kit off on camera in an intimate scene with Toni Collette’s character in a bathtub.

Bradley told ‘The Business’: “I remember reading in the script and thinking, he’s a pickled punk in that bathtub and it’s to story. You have to do it.

“I can still remember that day just to be naked in front of the crew for six hours, and it was Toni Collette’s first day. It was just like, ‘Whoa’. It was pretty heavy.”

Bradley had no qualms about appearing in the nude during the making of the movie as he felt it was “demanded” to make the project a success.

The ‘A Star Is Born’ actor said: “The content of what the movie is, what we were exploring, in order to do it in a real way, it demanded that we’d be naked emotionally and soulfully.”

Bradley also explained the process of delving deep to give the best possible performance in the flick.

He said: “It really is akin to putting on a miner’s kit, hat and flashlight, and looking at each other and then going down in the tunnel, knowing that you may be excavating a route that won’t ever get you to the end that day but you come back up and go down again the next day.”

The ‘Hangover’ star previously explained that it was a “unique experience” making the film amid the coronavirus crisis.

Bradley said last year: “We have been making ‘Nightmare Alley’ for the last two and a half years.

“It was a unique experience, going through the pandemic, taking six months off and revisiting it. We not only became lifelong friends, but it was an artistic experience.”

‘America’s Funniest Home Videos’ has aired a tribute to former host Bob Saget.

The ‘Full House’ star was found dead in a hotel room last weekend and the long-running television series – which shows humorous homemade clips that are sent in by viewers – opened the latest episode by paying respects.

Current host Alfonso Ribeiro said: “As you’ve heard, the world lost a legend this week. And ‘AFV’ lost a family member. Bob Saget is synonymous with ‘AFV’ to this day. This show wouldn’t have been the same without his unique sense of humour. It’s been my honour to continue carrying the torch Bob so brightly lit. Take a look back at Bob being Bob.”

After Alfonso read out the introduction, a video montage showed Bob during his days at the helm of the show, with one highlight the comedian crashed through a set window, and another snippet reminding viewers of the time he presented with a monkey sitting on his shoulder.

The montage also showed Tom Bergeron – who was one of Bob’s successors on the programme – interviewing the late star as part of the show’s 20th anniversary celebrations back in 2017.

A description of the tribute on YouTube read: “By now, pretty much the world has heard of Bob Saget’s passing Sunday morning. Bob was the backbone of a TV show that has gone onto entertain not only America, but the world.”

“Bob made us smile, he made us laugh out loud and, often times, he would make us giggle. A comedy legend. A kind soul. Our dear friend. We will miss you, Bob.”

Bob was the original host of the show when it premiered back in 1999 and went on to front the series for eight seasons in total.

The Pence family announced over the weekend that Marlon Bundo — their pet rabbit seen here in May 2017, when Mike Pence was US vice president — had died

Washington (AFP) – The family of former US vice president Mike Pence has announced the death of Marlon Bundo, their pet rabbit who starred in a children’s book series by the second family as well as a parody version supporting gay rights.

The rabbit, whose name is a pun on actor “Marlon Brando,” lived with the Pence family at the vice president’s official residence in Washington, and was a frequent guest at events for children.

“God brought you to us right when we needed you most,” said Pence’s daughter, Charlotte Pence Bond, who authored the series of children’s books told from Bundo’s point of view, in a Twitter post Saturday.

“We had some wild times together and I’m forever grateful. Rest in sweet peace, little bunny.”

When the first Bundo book was released, British-American comedian John Oliver announced his TV show would publish an alternate version, in which the male bunny falls in love with another male bunny.

Sales of the book, which was meant to highlight Mike Pence’s opposition to homosexuality, quickly outpaced the original, and at one point held the number one spot on Amazon.

Pence, a conservative Christian, was staunchly opposed to same-sex marriage and opposed LGBTQ-rights legislation while governor of Indiana.

Proceeds from both versions of the book went to charity, with the HBO host choosing LGBTQ-focused non-profits.

Pence’s daughter, who had originally bought the bunny for a student film, took the jab in stride.

“The only thing better than one bunny book for charity is… TWO bunny books for charity,” she wrote on Instagram at the time.

French bulldogs like Magnolia — seen here sporting a tiny Chanel bag during New York Fashion Week in February 2021 — have become a favored target of thieves, some of them violent

Washington (AFP) – The two thieves who brutally robbed 27-year-old Marieke Bayens at gunpoint on a California street were not after her purse — or her. They wanted the little dog at the end of her leash: Merlyn, a French bulldog.

From New York to Los Angeles, and from Miami to Chicago, thefts of the prized breed have been on the rise.

Small and friendly — and thus easy to grab — French bulldogs are hugely popular, selling for thousands of dollars on the black market.

They have the added draw of being a “dog of the stars.”

The most famous victim so far has been Lady Gaga. Armed men last year stole her pet bulldogs Koji and Gustav, even opening fire on an employee who was walking them (he was wounded but survived).

The superstar singer offered a $500,000 reward for their return and eventually got the dogs back. Police made five arrests in the case.

Bayens survived a similarly traumatic attack in November while walking Merlyn, a friend’s dog, in the California city of Oakland. The brazen attack occurred in broad daylight.

“I was waiting for Merlyn to go about his business when I saw two people coming,” she told AFP. “Before I knew it, one was in front of me pointing a gun at my face and said, ‘Give me the dog.’

“The other had already grabbed Merlyn off the ground, and when I didn’t respond to the one pointing the gun, the other pulled the rest of Merlyn’s leash out from my hand. They ran away towards their car and sped away down a street,” going the wrong way on a one-way street, she said.

Bulldog thefts elsewhere in the country have been carried out with similar cold-blooded tactics.

Last year, people in San Francisco heard the distressing story of 30-something Sarah Vorhaus, who was stopped by three armed men — and brutally beaten by one — before they made off with her five-month-old French bulldog Chloe. Pictures on social media showed the young woman with a badly swollen face.

Tempting target

So why are French bulldogs quite such a tempting target for thieves? 

Two key reasons: their high resale value — $3,500 to $5,000 or more — and their relative rarity, Brandi Hunter Munden, vice president of the American Kennel Club, told AFP.

“This is not a breed that has large litters… and it can take a while to get one,” she said. “Their rise in popularity has led to an increase in thefts.

“The use of violence, however, is new and alarming.”

In the face of the spate of “dognappings,” experts offer a list of precautions for owners: have a computer chip implanted in the pet to allow tracing; always keep it on a leash when outdoors (and seal any dog door that allows it to leave home unescorted); keep its identity papers in a safe place; use a GPS-equipped collar; and be wary of strangers who come knocking.

But the most crucial recommendation — and the one probably least observed — involves social media: owners are strongly urged to resist the temptation of posting cute photos or videos of their pets, which may allow thieves to locate them. 

Countless celebrities — actors, athletes, musicians, models and influencers — have ignored that rule. They include stars like Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Jackman, Chrissy Teigen, Leonardo DiCaprio, Madonna, Snoop Dogg, Michael Phelps and Hilary Duff. 

So it’s not surprising that Hollywood has become a hotspot of French-bulldog thievery.

In late December, one resident nearly lost his life in an incident near Sunset Boulevard.

Robert Marinelli was walking Luca, his eight-year-old bulldog, when he was attacked.

Two thieves beat him brutally, and when his shirt was caught in their car door, he was dragged briefly on the ground. 

He suffered extensive injuries and was hospitalized.

Leah Remini has been “living and working with an 8th grade education”.

The 51-year-old star has reflected on growing up in the Church of Scientology and how she was treated like an adult from a very young age, including leaving formal education in her early teens and being held accountable for anything “bad” that happened to her.

Sharing a black and white photo taken at the start of her acting career, she wrote on Instagram: “This photo was taken when I was 16. I was so proud of this headshot. I thought my side pony made me look so versatile and like the consummate actress.

“By this point, I had been living the life of an adult for years even though I was just a kid.

“Scientologists are taught that kids are no different from adults. So from a young age I was held accountable like an adult and regularly told that anything bad that happened in my life, even things that I wasn’t responsible for, was my fault.

“Even though I was just 16 at the time, I hadn’t received any sort of formal education for years. Instead, I was working to earn a living to support myself and my family.

“L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, had a deep disdain for conventional education and since everything in Scientology is guided directly by his policies, with no room for interpretation, my education was interrupted.

“For the last 38 years of my life, I have been living and working with an 8th grade education.”

The ‘King of Queens’ star explained how she turned to acting as a “salvation” to raise her position in the church and lift her family out of poverty.

She continued: “Scientology was my life. Our friends were mostly Scientologists, I met my agent through Scientologists, and I worked for an insurance company owned by Scientologists.

“I saw a successful acting career as a salvation. It would help me get my family out of poverty and give me a higher standing in Scientology which I truly believed was helping to save mankind.

“At the time we were living in squalor with no furniture. Every spare cent we had went to Scientology and I was determined to get my family into better circumstances.

“I auditioned but was repeatedly told that my brash approach, and thick Brooklyn accent, was taking me nowhere fast. It wasn’t until a voice teacher and casting director discouraged me from losing my brashness and accent that I started getting acting gigs.”

Leah has recently returned to her studies and is amazed at how far she’s come since leaving the controversial faith.

She concluded: “Had you told me then that I would be a student at NYU at age 51, I wouldn’t have believed it. I had big dreams but looking back they were rooted in my desire to survive, not to educate myself.

“And the idea that I would leave Scientology and work to expose the abuses that members face was not a thought I would even conjure up. Had I heard that anyone else was doing that, I would have seen them as an enemy worthy of punishment.”

By Julien Pretot

PARIS (Reuters) – Novak Djokovic could be barred from playing in the French Open as things stand now after the Sports Ministry said on Monday there would be no exemption from France’s new vaccine pass law.

World number one Djokovic, who has not been vaccinated against COVID-19, was deported from Australia on Sunday before the first Grand Slam tournament of the year after losing a court case to have the cancellation of his visa overturned.

France’s vaccine pass law, approved by parliament on Sunday, will require people to have a certificate of vaccination to enter public places such as restaurants, cafes, cinemas and long-distance trains.

“The rule is simple. The vaccine pass will be imposed, as soon as the law is promulgated, in establishments that were already subject to the health pass,” the ministry said.

“This will apply to everyone who is a spectator or a professional sportsperson. And this until further notice.

“Now, as far as Roland Garros is concerned, it’s in May. The situation may change between now and then and we hope that it will be more favourable. So we’ll see, but clearly there’s no exemption.”

Serbian Djokovic, who was barred from bidding to win a record 21st Grand Slam title at the Australian Open, has refused to vaccinate and was criticised for attending public events last month after testing positive for the coronavirus.

(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Ed Osmond)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A rabbi who was among four Jewish congregants taken captive at a Dallas-area synagogue said on Monday that he and others managed to escape after he threw a chair at the hostage-taker and then rushed for an exit door.

The ten-hour siege Saturday at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, west of Dallas, Texas, ended in gunfire with all four hostages released and the suspect dead. It is not clear whether the gunman took his own life or was killed by members of an FBI hostage rescue team.

The suspect, identified by the FBI as a British citizen, knocked on the synagogue’s door during Sabbath prayers and was invited in and offered tea, Rabbi Charlie Cytron Walker, who was among those taken captive, told CBS.

Walker then returned to prayer, after which he said he “heard a click – and it could have been anything – but it turned out it was his gun.”

One hostage was released unharmed after six hours of tense negotiations conducted with help from the family of the suspect, 44-year-old Malik Faisal Akram.

Still held captive with two others, Walker said he drew on hostage training from the FBI when determining if and when to try to escape.

“When I saw an opportunity where he wasn’t in a good position, I made sure that the two gentlemen who were still with me, that they were ready to go, (and that) the exit wasn’t too far away,” Walker said.

“I told them to go. I threw a chair at the gunman, and I headed for the door, and all three of us were able to get out without even a shot being fired.”

The FBI’s hostage rescue team then raided the synagogue, leading to Akram’s death. Police in England say they have detained two teenagers for questioning.

(Reporting by Rami Ayyub; Editing by Scott Malone and Chizu Nomiyama)

Trinity Valley Community College’s Maddie Volcik is among the cheerleaders in season two of Netflix’s “Cheer.” Kyle Alexander/Netflix/dpa

When “Cheer” was released in January 2020, the Netflix docuseries about elite cheerleaders at a Texas community college became an instant cultural sensation. Within weeks, it turned tough-as-nails coach Monica Aldama and her gritty athletes into overnight celebrities who got spoofed on “Saturday Night Live,” appeared on “Ellen” and interviewed Brad Pitt on the Oscars red carpet.

As inspiring as it was unflinching, “Cheer” resonated well beyond the cheerleading community because it told a story about young people overcoming unthinkable adversity — including poverty, sexual abuse and parental neglect — to compete in a physically and emotionally punishing sport often dismissed as a sideline spectacle.

But the hardships of Season 1 are nothing compared to Season 2. In the nine episodes that premiered Wednesday on Netflix, the series documents a turbulent two years interrupted by a deadly pandemic, upended by disturbing allegations against a beloved teammate and tainted by the pressures of newfound fame.

“There are some pretty complicated issues that we raised in Season 1,” says director Greg Whiteley, “but not quite like what we had to tackle in Season 2.”

The Navarro College athletes and their rivals at Trinity Valley Community College, who are newly featured in Season 2, were weeks away from vying for the National Cheerleaders Association championship in Daytona Beach, Florida, when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world in March 2020. Daytona was canceled, leaving the athletes without a competition, and “Cheer” without a finale or a clear narrative path forward.

Then, things got worse.

In September 2020, Jerry Harris, the ebullient underdog whose giddy mat talk, heartbreaking backstory and infectious passion for cheerleading made him Season 1’s breakout star, was arrested and charged with production of child pornography for allegedly soliciting and receiving explicit material from a minor over social media. In December he was indicted on additional child pornography charges. (He has denied the allegations.)

Whiteley and his crew returned to Texas in early 2021 — nearly a full year after COVID hit — to follow the cheerleaders as they regrouped after a lost season and grappled with the allegations against Harris.

“Cheer” addresses the charges head on, examining the case and its impact on Harris’ teammates in a gut-wrenching episode called “Jerry.” Whiteley interviews Sam and Charlie (their last names are not disclosed), the twin brothers who allege that Harris solicited them for sex and explicit photos; their mother; and their lawyer, Sarah Klein, who criticizes Aldama for what she sees as an insufficient statement in response to the allegations. (“I have no sympathy for her,” Klein says.)

Whiteley says he never considered not moving forward with the series in light of the allegations against Harris. Nor did he feel that he had somehow misrepresented his subject in Season 1.

“Human beings are complicated people. As a filmmaking team, we’re as good as anyone at creating a portrait and filming somebody authentically. But in the three months that we’re allowed to film someone, we’re not going to get to the bottom of someone,” he says. “I think as long as we’re humble about that, and that when we do learn something new, we have the integrity to also cover it, not ignore it, then I can sleep at night knowing I’m doing my job.”

The news breaks during an already difficult time for the Navarro athletes, many of whom are struggling with the isolation of COVID-19 or floundering without the leadership of Aldama, who is away competing on “Dancing With the Stars.” Harris’ friends struggle to square the allegations with the person they know — and reach varying conclusions. “I don’t care how famous you are,” La’Darius Marshall, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, says in the episode. “That don’t give you the right to do stuff like this, especially when you know one of your best friends went through something like that.” A tearful Gabi Butler concludes, “I can’t turn my back on him because he was there for me when I needed it.”

“This was an event that was so impactful on the lives of the team. Even if Jerry was no longer physically present while we were filming, his presence still was very large,” Whiteley says. “You could feel a team that was completely devastated. It was as though a close friend they thought they knew had died. And that isn’t something that goes away in a week, or a month, or even a year.”

Season 2 finds Aldama and her team dealing with the roller-coaster ride of celebrity. They marvel at the opportunities they’ve received because of the show — like trying avocado toast for the first time — and use downtime between practice to record lucrative Cameo messages. But the spotlight also creates tension, particularly when Aldama agrees to go on “Dancing With the Stars” and appoints a replacement coach, the improbably named Kailee Peppers, during a vulnerable time.

Aldama, the stoic heroine of Season 1, emerges as a more fallible figure this time around, bristling at the criticism she gets on social media and having a painful falling out with one of her star athletes. “There is a certain emotional vulnerability that she shared with us under some very, very difficult circumstances. I left that interaction admiring her more than I did in Season 1,” Whiteley says.

Whiteley also introduces us to a new cast of compelling characters, including Navarro’s arch-rivals at Trinity Valley Community College, who finished in second place in 2019 and are hungry for a comeback.

The team is led by coach Vontae Johnson, a soft-spoken former football player who was eager to be a part of “Cheer.” “We liked how it portrayed the athletes and athleticism. There’s no way that we would turn it down this season,” he says.

Johnson encourages his cheerleaders to go out of their comfort zone and put on a showier performance in order to close the gap with the Navarro squad, which is known for its high-energy style.

“You’ve got the best cheerleading programs in the history of cheerleading separated by 30 miles. It didn’t take a genius to go, ‘We should spend more time with this other school,'” Whiteley says.

The decision to follow TVCC may have been a no-brainer, but it also made it even more excruciating for the filmmaker to document the teams when they finally faced off in Daytona Beach last April. Whiteley recalls the disorienting experience of being with the losing team as they wept over the results, then following the winners as they took a joyful ceremonial plunge into the ocean. He knew that “if we could somehow get an audience to feel even a semblance of what I’m feeling right now,” they’d have a special season, he says.

“There aren’t good guys in this and bad guys in this. There are two teams, and we want the audience to love them both.”

By John Geddie and Joe Brock

(Reuters) – International brands including Coca Cola and PepsiCo called on Monday for a global pact to combat plastic pollution that includes cuts in plastic production, a key growth area for the oil industry.

World officials will meet at a United Nations Environment Assembly conference (UNEA 5.2) later this year to start negotiations on a treaty to tackle a plastic waste crisis that is choking landfills, despoiling oceans and killing wildlife.

It remains unclear whether any deal will focus on waste management and recycling or take tougher steps such as curbing new plastic production, a move that would likely face resistance from big oil and chemical firms and major plastic-producing countries like the United States.

The more than 70 signatories to Monday’s joint statement https://www.plasticpollutiontreaty.org/UNEA include consumer goods companies like Unilever and Nestle, which sell a myriad of products in single-use plastic from shampoo to chocolate bars, as well as retailer Walmart and French bank BNP Paribas.

“We are at a critical point in time to establish an ambitious U.N. treaty,” the statement said, noting that any deal should “reduce virgin plastic production and use.”

“UNEA 5.2 is the decisive, most auspicious moment to turn the tide on the global plastic pollution crisis. We cannot afford to miss it,” the statement said.

Less than 10% https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-plastic-recycling of all the plastic ever made has been recycled, and a Reuters investigation last year https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/environment-plastic-oil-recycling revealed that new recycling technologies touted by the plastics industry have struggled to combat the problem.

Meanwhile, production of plastic, which is derived from oil and gas, is projected to double within 20 years. This is a key source of future revenue for energy majors, as demand for fossil fuels wanes with the rise of renewable energy and electric vehicles.

While scaling-up global recycling is critical to tackling plastic waste, these efforts will not prevent plastic pollution from continuing to skyrocket without constraints on production, a landmark 2020 study by Pew Charitable Trusts found.

As pressure mounts on firms that sell products in hard-to-recycle plastic to tackle the resulting waste, some have teamed up with cement makers to burn plastic waste as a cheap fuel in the developing world, a Reuters investigation found last year https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/environment-plastic-cement.

(Reporting by John Geddie and Joe Brock; Editing by Mark Potter)

Florence (United States) (AFP) – Donald Trump delivered a crowd-pleasing speech to thousands of adoring supporters in Arizona Saturday, insisting yet again that he won the 2020 US presidential election.

Some of the faithful had arrived in the area days in advance from as far away as Florida or Texas, waiting to hear the former president trot out a familiar list of grievances.

Their patience was soon rewarded.

“We are done having our lives controlled by politicians in Washington. We are done with the mandates,” he said, in reference to rules brought in to control the coronavirus pandemic.

“The radical Democrats want to turn the United States into a communist country,” he continued.

“We won those elections. We won them big. We can’t let them get away with it.”

Earlier speakers had kept to similar themes, slamming 2020 election victor President Joe Biden as “weak” and “deranged,” and taking aim at the “lamestream media,” who were duly booed by the crowd.

It was a greatest hits of Trumpism, playing all the expected notes: a stolen election, the unfairness of the media, open borders and how the United States has become “a laughing stock all over the world.”

There was a carnival feeling for much of the day.

Flags proclaiming “Trump 2020” and “Trump 2024” fluttered in the desert wind, as chants of “Let’s Go Brandon” erupted from the good-natured crowd. The slogan has become code in right-wing circles after a news reporter mistook coarse anti-Biden chants.

“It’s just a party atmosphere,” said Jonathan Riches, who was attending his 40th Trump rally.

“It’s almost like a MAGA Woodstock. It’s patriots from around the country getting together for the common good of this country. We love our president.”

MAGA is an acronym for Trump’s 2016 campaign call to “Make America great again.”

While some filtered out as Trump was still speaking, perhaps to escape the parking crush, those who stayed until the end declared themselves happy with what they had heard.

“He’s encouraging, because he’s not giving up and we’re not giving up because we’ve lost our country,” 58-year-old Tony Cunio said.

“I’m supporting him because I want the country to get back to where it was before.”

‘The biggest’ crowd

Trump abandoned a pledged press conference on January 6 — the anniversary of the invasion of the Capitol by his supporters — and the rally was his first major public outing since October.

As is customary, he proclaimed it to be “the biggest” crowd, going “further than the eye can see,” though accurate figures on attendance were not immediately available.

In the lead-up to his election win in 2016, and throughout his presidency, tens of thousands of supporters would throng venues to hear him speak.

But crowds have since dwindled, and Saturday’s turnout appeared to be far smaller than those of earlier rallies.

The gathering, on farmland in Florence, 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Phoenix, featured a raft of Republicans who have echoed Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 election was fixed.

They included Kari Lake, whom Trump has endorsed for governor of Arizona in this year’s race. She has previously said she would not have certified Biden’s victory if she had been in office at the time.

Trump, who lost his Twitter megaphone for his claims about the poll, has been a much lower-key presence in US politics since leaving office.

But he still looms large in the Republican party, where adherence to his theories — or at least not publicly denying them — is often vital to survival for members of Congress and state legislatures.

Few Covid-19 precautions

Trump has largely shunned major media outlets since leaving office.

But last week, he ventured onto National Public Radio (NPR), where he said he recommends that people get vaccinated against Covid-19 — a hot-button issue in the United States, where there is widespread vaccine hesitancy on the right.

There were almost no masks or other anti-Covid precautions in evidence among the crowd in Florence, despite the Omicron variant wave that is washing over the United States.

Nationwide, more than 750,000 people a day are testing positive for the disease.

The rally comes 24 hours after pro-Trump TV channel OAN was dumped by its main distributor.

Trump had repeatedly directed his fans towards the conspiracy theory-peddling outlet, which is hoping to take a bite out of the market for right-wing viewers dominated by Fox News.

The event also comes after the founder of the Oath Keepers — a far-right militia group — and 10 others were indicted for seditious conspiracy over their role in the January 6 assault on the Capitol.

COLLEYVILLE (United States) (AFP) – The man who died after holding four people hostage at a Texas synagogue in what President Joe Biden called an “act of terror” was identified by the FBI on Sunday as a 44-year-old British citizen named Malik Faisal Akram.

The four hostages — including a respected local rabbi, Charlie Cytron-Walker — were all released unharmed Saturday night, prompting relief in the United States, where the Jewish community and Biden renewed calls to fight anti-Semitism.

“There is no question that this was a traumatic experience,” Cytron-Walker said in a statement Sunday. 

“We are resilient and we will recover,” he added.

There was “no indication” that anyone else was involved in the attack on the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in the small Texas town of Colleyville, the statement from the FBI’s field office in Dallas said.

It did not give any further information about Akram, or what his motive may have been.

A man identifying himself as Akram’s brother Gulbar said in a Facebook post that the suspect had suffered from mental health problems.

“We would like to say that we as a family do not condone any of his actions and would like to sincerely apologize wholeheartedly to all the victims involved in the unfortunate incident,” he said, adding that his family hoped to get Akram’s body back to Britain for a funeral.

Biden declined to speculate on the motive but appeared to confirm US media reports that the hostage-taker was seeking the release of convicted terrorist Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist known as “Lady Al-Qaeda.”

“This was an act of terror” that was related to “someone who was arrested 15 years ago and has been in jail for 10 years,” Biden said in comments to reporters during a visit to a hunger relief organization in Philadelphia.

Britain’s foreign minister Liz Truss likewise Sunday condemned the hostage-taking as an “act or terrorism and anti-Semitism.”

Siddiqui, the first woman to be suspected by the United States of links to Al-Qaeda and a cause celebre in Pakistan and in South Asian jihadist circles, was detained in Afghanistan in 2008.

Two years later she was sentenced by a New York court to 86 years in prison for the attempted murder of US officers in Afghanistan.

Siddiqui is currently being held at a prison in Fort Worth, Texas. Her lawyer has said she “has absolutely no involvement” in the hostage situation and condemned it.

Any links she may have to Akram remained unclear.

Police have not said whether the assault team killed Akram or whether he killed himself.

FBI special agent Matthew DeSarno told reporters in Colleyville on Saturday, after the climactic end of the standoff, that the investigation would “have global reach.”

He said the suspect’s demands were “focused on one issue that was not specifically threatening to the Jewish community.” 

Britain’s ambassador to the United States confirmed that British authorities were “providing our full support to Texas and US law enforcement agencies.”

“We stand with US in defending the rights and freedoms of our citizens against those who spread hate,” Truss, the British foreign secretary, posted on Twitter.

‘Mind-blowing’

In his statement Sunday, rabbi Cytron-Walker credited his congregation’s previous security training from the FIB and the Anti-Defamation League, among others, with their survival. 

“Without the instruction we received, we would not have been prepared to act and flee when the situation presented itself.” he said of the hostages’ escape.

Other residents of Colleyville, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) northwest of Dallas, were still struggling to comprehend the incident the next day.

“Colleyville … It’s one of the safest towns in North Texas,” said Austin Sewell, owner and founder of the North Texas Kings baseball club, whose field is across the street from the synagogue in a quiet, residential neighborhood.

“It’s mind-blowing, to be honest,” he told AFP.

At one point the standoff involved some 200 local, state and federal law enforcement officers massed around Colleyville. They included an FBI team flown in from Washington.

A Facebook livestream of the congregation’s Shabbat service appeared to capture audio of a man talking loudly, but did not show the scene inside the building.

He could be heard saying, “You get my sister on the phone” — apparently using the word “sister” figuratively — and “I am gonna die.”

He was also heard saying: “There’s something wrong with America.”

One hostage was freed early in the standoff. 

Hours later, after what police said were extensive negotiations, an elite SWAT team burst into the synagogue and the remaining three hostages were freed.

Journalists nearby said they heard a loud bang — likely a flash-bang grenade used as a distraction — and shots.

The siege had sparked an outpouring of concern from Jewish organizations in the United States.

Biden pledged to “stand against anti-Semitism and against the rise of extremism in this country.”