Innocent people are paying the price for the mostly failed attempts to enforce gun control laws at the U.S. Congress. So much so that mass shootings have become almost commonplace in America. During the 4th of July celebration ceremony held in Highland Park in Illinois, 22-year-old Italian-born Robert Crimo shot and killed seven people, injuring dozens others.

Many previous attacks were carried out by white supremacists. Certain attacks, however, do not appear to be fueled by such an ideology, as seen in the Crimo example. Now Americans are debating the causes that produced these young killers. The most important factors are the withering away of the "American Dream," the stark inequality in the distribution of income and wealth, the ever-deepening political and cultural polarization, the social culture that celebrates guns, as well as the weakness of the political establishment in imposing restrictions on individual armament. The gun lobby in the U.S. spends a lot of money to elect pro-gun politicians. Americans need to seriously question this negative contribution to popular culture.

Racist Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in Norway in 2011. Breivik became a "poster child" for many white supremacist terrorists, especially Brenton Tarrant, who carried out the mosque massacre in New Zealand. Of course, this type of terrorism was not born out of Norway. Its roots date back to the Ku Klux Klan, which is associated with the horrific killings of Black Americans. Today, White Supermcist terror feeds on social media networks. A careful observer can easily see that there is a grand plan, so to speak, behind the racist attacks.

FBI Director Christopher Wray, meanwhile, stated that the racist attackers were inspired by each other in his statements to reporters in London on Friday, together with Ken McCallum, Director of the British Home Security organization (MI5). Noting that technology blurs the line between external and internal threats, Wray said that no organizational connection can be found between racist attacks in the Western world. As is the case in the U.S., there is also an increase in hate crimes in the U.K. In this regard, both the U.S. and the U.K. are very similar to each other.

Addressing journalists with Wray, MI5 Director Ken McCallum pointed out that the number of investigations carried out against individuals motivated by racism, Neo-Nazism, or other hateful ideologies was increasing in the U.K. Noting that there is an obsessive interest in guns among young people who embrace racist rhetoric, McCallum said this development creates a very difficult cocktail of risks that must be managed with great care.

FBI Director Christopher Wray has previously said the U.S. caseload of domestic terrorism has "exploded" since spring 2020. In fact, Wray stated that the FBI considered the invasion of the U.S. Congress, which took place on January 6, 2021, as an act of domestic terrorism. American politicians, on the other hand, disagree on the issue of characterizing racist attacks as federal terrorist crimes. By the way, we should also recall here that the rising anti-immigrant racist rhetoric in both the U.S. and Europe plays the same transformative role for the mainstream parties.

Last week, FBI Director Christopher Wray made statements accusing China of cyber espionage and technology theft, along with MI5 Director Ken McCallum during his visit to the U.K. Wray argued that China was the biggest long-term threat to U.S. economic and national security. Wray also claimed that China was attempting to interfere in the American elections. His British counterpart, McCallum, pointed out that his service has increased investigations into Chinese illegal activities in the U.K. in recent years.

It was the first time that the directors of the FBI and MI5, who put on a united front against China, addressed the press together. According to the statements from the Chinese Foreign Affairs, British intelligence was accused of exaggerating the "Chinese threat theory". Of course, Beijing accuses the U.S. and the U.K. of creating "imaginary boogeymen" and resurrecting the "Cold War mentality". As I mentioned before, the great power rivalry between Washington and Beijing has long provided fodder for simmering international tensions./YS

In what has been called one of the worst floods in recent history, 120 people are reported dead in Bangladesh and a whopping 15 million displaced.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, flood victims in remote areas said although they have to fight rising waters almost every year, this year the losses have been especially huge.

Peara Begum, 65, a mother of five, has been living on a highway leading to the border town of Companiganj from the northeastern district of Sylhet, as her home was washed away by floods.

The floodwaters flowed into her tin-and-bamboo home and began racing across the floor. Her family members had to stand in waist-deep waters for a full two days before they were finally rescued, she said.

“With the help of some neighbors, we reached the highway by boat somehow and have been living here under the open sky since then with a single dress,” she said, pointing towards a large swath of water, gesturing to where her village might have once stood.

But with a sheet of water covering everything, there are no traces of villages around.

As Anadolu Agency visited the flood-hit Sylhet region bordering India, it could see telltale signs of destruction left behind by the floods. Villagers were seen wading, swimming, and paddling using makeshift rafts or small skiffs, rescuing those marooned, or delivering aid. A large swath of habitats and farms are underwater.

It took nearly an hour by boat to reach the waterlogged place from where Begum and others were forced to relocate due to the deadly floods.

In some places, where the water has receded, people were seen trying to rebuild their houses making use of the odd bits and pieces of materials available.

“Only some wood and tin is left, and I’m trying to restore it just to take shelter with my three kids,” said Mohammad Rafiq.

- Need permanent solution

He added that they need at least 10-15 years to recover from the damage caused by the floods.

In the remote Gussagram locality, Mohammad Juel asked the government to find a permanent solution to the floods that hit them every year.

“If the government makes concrete houses on high pillars for us, then we can get relief from such floods permanently,” he said.

He added that many residents of the area have migrated to different urban areas due to floods. Some of them are begging now after failing to find any other means of livelihood. Floods turn people into paupers overnight.

Heavy rains lashed the region ahead of the scheduled monsoons, a harsh reminder that climate change is bringing more extreme weather around the world.

Bangladesh’s 58 rivers, which create fertile plains, have also been a bane for the country, as they overflow frequently, causing death and destruction in the region.

Md. Mojibur Rahman, chief district officer, told Anadolu Agency that the government is on its way to finding a permanent solution to floods in the most vulnerable Sylhet and adjacent districts.

“From now on we will make more culverts instead of constructing roads so that during the rainy season, water flow is not interrupted. On the other hand, we will also dredge the two main rivers of Surma and Kushiara,” he said.

He also said the government has allocated funds for reconstructing the damaged houses of the people affected by this year’s floods./aa

The world’s tallest animal, the giraffe, may be on the brink of extinction in the East African country of Tanzania, as they are being poached to meet the demand for bushmeat and superstitious beliefs that their organs ward off misfortune and treat diseases like HIV/AIDS.

“This is a very serious problem here. Giraffes are innocently being killed by poachers. I urge relevant authorities to stop this madness,” said Kulwa Herman, a resident of the northern Manyara Region, known for the world-famous Tarangire National Park and Lake Manyara National Park.

He blamed the large-scale poaching on beliefs that the brain and bone marrow of giraffes can cure chronic diseases, including HIV/AIDS, and also boost men’s libido.

“People are being deceived by witch doctors to believe that giraffe body parts have magical powers. It’s absolute nonsense,” Herman told Anadolu Agency.

The giraffe's chief distinguishing characteristics are its extremely long neck and legs, the conical skin-covered bone structures on their heads, and its spotted coat patterns.

According to the international Giraffe Conservation Foundation (GCF), Masai or Tanzanian giraffe have been already declared an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

The most populous giraffe three decades ago with an estimated 71,000 individuals, only 45,400 Masai giraffes remain in the wild today, according to the foundation.

But the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWRI) claims that their aerial survey data recently found a mere 28,850 giraffes in the region.

Despite the giraffe being a national symbol protected under the country's conservation laws, independent researchers believe that almost 2,246 giraffes are illegally poached every year.

- Alleged poacher, officer collusion

Herman said that gun-wielding poachers from the northern Arusha region often collude with local ward officers to trap and kill giraffes. They then extract their hair, tail, brains, and fats, which are highly valued on the black market, before escaping into the darkness.

“It’s very easy to kill a giraffe, that’s why many people are attracted to doing so. A single gunshot is more than enough to take down the big animal,” he said.

Benjamin Kuzaga, Manyara regional commander of the police force, said that in the past three months they have seized 560 kilograms (1,235 pounds) of poached giraffe meat.

“This is a serious problem here in Manyara,” said Jeremia Kizinga, a resident of Vilima Viwili village. “The police force should intervene, otherwise these animals will be finished.”

William Mwakilema, commissioner of conservation at Tanzania National Parks Authority, said growing human activity and settlements coming up near the wildlife corridors in the region have also increased the killing of giraffes.

- Need to create awareness

“We’re working hard along with other security organs to identify and dismantle a vicious network of criminals involved in this illegal business,” he said. “We will leave no stone unturned until all the perpetrators are arrested and punished under the law.”

Selemani Juma, a local leader at Vilima Vitatu village in Manyara, said there was an urgent need to create awareness to stamp our superstitious beliefs.

He said the illegal trade is fueled by mistaken beliefs that giraffes’ fats and bone marrow and other organs help to treat chronic diseases and increase male sexual prowess.

“These claims are not true. We’re trying to educate the people to ignore these false claims and understand the importance of conserving wildlife, including giraffes, whose population is decreasing at an alarming rate,” he said.

(Reuters) -Drawing back the curtain to a photo gallery unlike any other, NASA will soon present the first full-color images from its James Webb Space Telescope, a revolutionary apparatus designed to peer through the cosmos to the dawn of the universe.

The highly anticipated unveiling this week of pictures and spectroscopic data from the newly operational observatory follows a six-month process of remotely unfurling various components, aligning its mirrors and calibrating instruments.

With Webb now finely tuned and fully focused, astronomers will embark on a competitively selected list of science projects exploring the evolution of galaxies, the life cycles of stars, the atmospheres of distant exoplanets and the moons of our outer solar system.

The first batch of photos, which have taken weeks to process from raw telescope data, are expected to offer a compelling glimpse at what Webb will capture on the science missions that lie ahead.

NASA on Friday posted a list of the five celestial subjects chosen for its showcase debut of Webb, built for the U.S. space agency by aerospace giant Northrop Grumman Corp.

Among them are two nebulae - enormous clouds of gas and dust blasted into space by stellar explosions that form nurseries for new stars - and two sets of galaxy clusters.

One of those, according to NASA, features objects in the foreground so massive that they act as "gravitational lenses," a visual distortion of space that greatly magnifies the light coming from behind them to expose even fainter objects farther away and further back in time. How far back and what showed up on camera remains to be seen.

NASA will also present Webb's first spectrographic analysis of an exoplanet - one roughly half the mass of Jupiter that lies more than 1,100 light years away - revealing the molecular signatures of filtered light passing through its atmosphere.

'MOVED ME AS A SCIENTIST ... AS A HUMAN BEING'

All five of the Webb's introductory targets were previously known to scientists. One of them, the galaxy group 290 million light-years from Earth known as Stephan's Quintet, was first discovered in 1877.

But NASA officials promise Webbs imagery captures its subjects in an entirely new light, literally.

"What I have seen moved me as a scientist, as an engineer and as a human being," NASA deputy administrator Pam Melroy, who has reviewed the images, told reporters during a June 29 news briefing.

One unspecified image from the collection will be unveiled on Monday evening by U.S. President Joe Biden at a White House briefing with NASA chief Bill Nelson, the space agency said on Sunday.

The rest will be released as previously scheduled in a live broadcast and webcast on Tuesday from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, by NASA and its European and Canadian space agency collaborators.

The $9 billion infrared telescope, the largest and most complex astronomical observatory ever sent to space, was launched on Christmas Day from French Guiana, on the northeastern coast of South America.

A month later, the 14,000-pound (6,350-kg) instrument reached its gravitational parking spot in solar orbit, circling the sun in tandem with Earth nearly 1 million miles from home.

Webb, which views its subjects chiefly in the infrared spectrum, is about 100 times more sensitive than its 30-year-old predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits Earth from 340 miles (547 km) away and operates mainly at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths.

The larger light-collecting surface of Webb's primary mirror - an array of 18 hexagonal segments of gold-coated beryllium metal - enables it to observe objects at greater distances, thus further back in time, than Hubble or any other telescope.

Its infrared sensitivity allows it to detect light sources that would otherwise be hidden in the visible spectrum by dust and gas.

Taken together, these features are expected to transform astronomy, providing the first glimpse of infant galaxies dating to just 100 million years after the Big Bang, the theoretical flashpoint that set the expansion of the known universe in motion an estimated 13.8 billion years ago.

Webb's instruments also make it ideal to search for signs of potentially life-supporting atmospheres around scores of newly documented plants orbiting distant stars and to observe worlds much closer to home, such as Mars and Saturn's icy moon Titan.

Besides a host of studies already lined up for Webb, the telescope's most revolutionary findings may prove to be those that have yet to be anticipated.

Such was the case in Hubble's surprising discovery, through observations of distant supernovas, that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, rather than slowing down, opening a new field of astrophysics devoted to a mysterious phenomenon scientists call dark energy.

• Twitter has hired one of the world's top corporate law firms to sue Elon Musk, Bloomberg reports.
• The social media company plans to file a lawsuit against Musk early this week, sources told the outlet.
• The Tesla CEO moved to terminate the $44 billion Twitter deal on Friday.

Twitter has hired Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz LLP to sue Elon Musk over his move to terminate a $44 billion deal to acquire the app, sources familiar with the matter tell Bloomberg.

The firm specializes in merger litigation and has connections to the Delaware court system, where the case will be tried. Twitter plans to file a lawsuit against the Tesla CEO early this week, the sources told Bloomberg.

Musk himself will be represented by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP. The law firm successfully won a defamation trial for the billionaire back in 2019.

Representatives for Twitter and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz did not immediately respond to Insider's request to comment.

Twitter's board said in a statement on Friday that it was "committed to closing the transaction at the price and terms agreed upon," and that it would be pursuing legal action to enforce the deal.

"We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery," the board said.

Musk's central objection in recent weeks has been over the data and methods used to estimate the number of fake accounts on the platform. His lawyers argue that he did not waive his right to inspect this information when he elected not to look at it before signing the merger agreement.

The lawyers claim that Musk's analysis so far indicates the percentage of false accounts is "wildly higher than 5%" — contrary to Twitter's disclosures in its financial reports.

Legal experts told Insider Musk is facing a considerable legal fight, including a possible $1 billion breakup fee, as he attempts to walk away from the deal./BI

London, (Agencies) – About 42 percent of mosques or Islamic institutions in a newly released UK report having experienced religiously motivated attacks in the last three years.

The survey, the first of its kind, was jointly carried out by two British Muslim organizations – Muslim Engagement and Development (MEND) and Muslim Census.

It said that the most common form of attack experienced by mosques and other Islamic institutions was vandalism, followed by burglary or theft (34 percent), with 83 percent being attacked at least once a year.

It also suggested that nearly 17 percent of mosques have faced physical abuse directed at staff or worshippers, with one mosque reporting that a religious cleric was stabbed outside the front entrance.

Mosques officials described receiving threats of physical violence on popular social media platforms and general abuse. In the report, they have expressed their frustrations and how increased Islamophobia hate crimes are taking toll on their wellbeing.

“We have sprayed individuals unidentified breaking windows, vandalizing worshipers racist graffiti on the mosque building,” official was quoted by the report as saying.

Nearly two-thirds of the 113 Islamic mosques who participated in the survey reported that the attacks harmed the wider community, with 9 percent reporting that their mosques or institutions were targeted frequently, at least every three months.

The report indicated that 15 percent of mosques saw an increase in attacks during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Toufik Kacimi, the imam of Sainsbury Park mosque in north London, told Al Jazeera that religiously motivated attacks have increased over the years, with the latest incident happening weeks ago when a member of the public hurled dog faeces into the mosque.

“Just last Ramadan, one man punctured six cars belonging to worshipers; we also received threats phone calls and hatred letters,” he said.

Kacimi also said that some of the attackers intended to be Muslim to gain access to the mosque and steal money and mobile phones from the donation box and people’s jackets.

“We can say that hate crimes against Muslims have sharply increased in the last three years, and it’s costing us more money; we have hired four security guards and deployed more CCTV cameras in the mosque premise and it’s a huge financial burden to us,” he said.

police response

The survey also investigated the UK police response to such attacks. It said 85 percent of the mosques that have been attacked or reported threatened these incidents to the police.

About 55 percent of the mosques were satisfied with the police response, while 38 percent said that no police action was taken when they reported the incident, according to the report.

In addition, 28 percent of the respondents said that the police provided extra surveillance to the mosques due to their reports; however, 15 percent of those deemed it unnecessary to contact the police and report the attack, supposing the police would not take any action.

However, the UK national police chiefs’ council lead for hate crime, Deputy Chief Constable Mark Hamilton, refuted the allegations, saying that they take all hate crime reports seriously since they have a devastating impact on individual victims and the communities involved.

“We work hard to build confidence by engaging with affected communities at a local and national level. We are in regular contact with our partners at the charity who support Muslim communities, and I would encourage anyone who suffers hate crime to report it to the police,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Everyone has a right to live their lives and practice their religion, without the fear of targeted abuse for who they are, either physically or verbally; and we will always seek to protect that right.”

Recommendations to the police

Azhar Qayum, the director of MEND told Al Jazeera that although they have documented their concerns, they have also made recommendations to the police to address Islamophobic hate crimes in the UK.

“We haven’t had a response from the government yet; but we have made some recommendations, including the police to improve links with their local Muslim community and mosques and implement swift action when such attacks occur, and a full explanation when no action is taken and we will monitor to see if they have been implemented, ” he said.

Some mosques mentioned in the report also stated that they kept quiet about these attacks for a variety of reasons.

About 64 percent of mosques reported that they feared these attacks would have a negative impact on Muslim communities, with responses ranging from worshipers being discouraged from attending mosques, to causing rifts in the community to Muslims losing faith in the police.

The UK Home Office statistics record 6,377 religious hate crimes between March 2020 and 2121 with almost half of them aimed at the Muslim community in Britain, which is estimated to be about 2.8 million or 4.4 percent of the British population.

The death toll from a glacier collapse in the Italian Alps rose to 11, local media reported on Saturday.

Search and rescue teams found another dead body after a large chunk of a mountain glacier collapsed in the Italian Dolomites last week, according to Italian news agency ANSA.

Nine victims are Italian, while two others were Czech citizens, the report said.

Last Sunday, the avalanche of snow, ice and rocks hit a group of alpinists who were rope climbing on Marmolada, the highest mountain in the Dolomites, between the northern Italian regions of Trentino and Veneto.

According to studies by Italy's state-run CNR research center, the glacier will not exist anymore in the next 25-30 years and most of its volume is already gone due to the effects of global warming./aa

A group of supporters of the YPG/PKK terror organization held a demonstration in the capital Stockholm on Saturday, protesting the recent memorandum between Türkiye, Sweden and Finland.

Participants at Norra Bantorget carried banners and symbols of the terror group, called on the Swedish government to withdraw from accession to NATO and "concessions" given to Türkiye in the memorandum signed at the NATO summit in Madrid late last month.

Chanting slogans in support of the terrorist group, they also criticized Sweden's Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson and Foreign Minister Ann Linde.

Sweden and Finland formally applied to join the alliance in May, a decision spurred by Russia's war on Ukraine.

However, Türkiye, a longstanding member of the alliance, voiced objections to the membership bids, criticizing the countries for tolerating and even supporting terrorist groups.

Ahead of NATO's Madrid summit on June 28-30, Türkiye, Sweden and Finland signed an agreement, which was followed by four-way talks in the Spanish capital.

The agreement allows the two Nordic countries to become NATO members, but conditions them to take steps on Türkiye's terrorism concerns, and lift an arms embargo on Ankara.

Following the agreement, NATO formally invited Sweden and Finland to join the 30-member military alliance.

In its more than 35-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the US and the EU – has been responsible for the deaths of more than 40,000 people, including women, children and infants./aa