Author: CNN

CNN
 — 

The myriad tunnels under Gaza are best known as passageways used to smuggle goods from Egypt and launch attacks into Israel.

But there exists a second underground network that the Israel Defense Forces colloquially refer to as the “Gaza metro.” It’s a vast labyrinth of tunnels, by some accounts several kilometers underground, used to transport people and goods; to store rockets and ammunition caches; and house Hamas command and control centers, all away from the prying eyes of the IDF’s aircraft and surveillance drones.

Hamas in 2021 claimed to have built 500 kilometers (311 miles) worth of tunnels under Gaza, though it is unclear if that figure was accurate or posturing. If true, Hamas’ underground tunnels would be a little less than half the length of the New York City subway system.

“It’s a very intricate, very large – huge – network of tunnels on a rather small piece of territory,” said Daphne Richemond-Barak, a professor at Israel’s Reichman University and expert on underground warfare.

It’s unclear how much the tunnel network would have cost Hamas, which governs the impoverished coastal strip. The figure is likely significant, both in terms of manpower and capital.

Gaza has been under a land, sea and air blockade by Israel, as well as a land blockade by Egypt, since 2007 and is not believed to possess the type of massive machinery typically used to build tunnels deep underground. Experts say that diggers using basic tools likely burrowed deep underground to dig the network, which is wired with electricity and reinforced by concrete. Israel has long accused Hamas of diverting concrete meant for civilian and humanitarian purposes toward the construction of tunnels.

Hamas’ critics also say that the group’s massive expenditures on tunnels could have instead paid for civilian bomb shelters or early warning networks like those across the border in Israel.

Tunnels have been an attractive tool of warfare since medieval times. Today they offer militant groups like Hamas an edge in asymmetric warfare, negating some of the technological advantages of a more advanced military like the IDF.

What makes Hamas tunnels different from those of al Qaeda in the mountains of Afghanistan or the Viet Cong in the jungles of Southeast Asia is that it has constructed a subterranean network below one of the most densely populated areas on the planet. Nearly 2 million people live in the 88 square miles that make up Gaza City.

“It’s always difficult to deal with tunnels, don’t get me wrong, in any context, even when they are in a mountainous area, but when they are urban area, then everything is more complicated – the tactical aspects, strategic aspects, the operational aspects, and of course, the protection that you want to ensure for the civilian population,” said Richemond-Barak, who is also a senior fellow at the Lieber Institute for Law and Land Warfare and the Modern War Institute at West Point.

Since the October 7 terror attack in Israel in which at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed, the IDF has repeatedly alleged that Hamas is hiding inside these passages “underneath houses and inside buildings populated with innocent Gazan civilians,” effectively turning them into human shields. Israeli military airstrikes have since killed at least 2,670 Palestinians, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said in a statement on Sunday.

The IDF is expected to go after the network in its forthcoming ground incursion into Gaza, as it has in recent years gone to extreme lengths to eliminate Hamas’ tunnels. Israel launched a ground assault on Gaza in 2014 to try and eliminate the underground passages.

On Friday, Israel warned about 1.1 million living in Gaza to move south ahead of its likely operation, according to the United Nations. Critics said such an order was impossible to carry out on short notice in the middle of a war zone. The top UN human rights official said the evacuation call “defies the rules of war and basic humanity.”

Moving civilians out of Gaza City would help make it safer to eliminate tunnels, but such operations will be dangerous, Richemond-Barak said.

The IDF can either render the tunnels temporarily unusable or destroy them. According to Richemond-Barak, bombing the underground passages is typically the most efficient way to eliminate them, but such strikes can impact civilians.

What is clear is that technology alone won’t be enough to stop the subterranean threat.

Israel spent billions of dollars attempting to secure the border with a smart system that boasts advanced sensors and subterranean walls, yet Hamas was still able to launch its October 7 assault by land, air and sea.

Richemond-Barak said a holistic approach is required, one that employs visual intelligence, border monitoring and even asking civilians to keep an eye out for anything suspect.

“There is no foolproof solution to deal with a tunnel threat,” Richemond-Barak said. “There’s no Iron Dome for tunnels.”

CNN
 — 

A portion of Colorado’s Interstate 25 has been shut down in both directions after a coal train derailed off a bridge and onto the roadway Sunday afternoon, killing a semi-truck driver, state authorities said.

Crews are working to clear toppled train cars and spilled coal at the the derailment site near the city of Pueblo, which lies about 45 miles south of Colorado Springs, the Colorado State Patrol said.

The train operator, BNSF Railway, said its personnel are assisting in the cleanup.

Images of the scene posted online by the state patrol show at least ten train cars had slid off the tracks and over the side of a bridge and nearby embankment, blanketing the ground with coal. The bridge, which extends over both lanes of the interstate, appears to be partially collapsed with a semi truck crushed underneath it.

The male driver of the truck was killed, state patrol spokesperson Gary Cutler told CNN. No other details on the victim were provided. There were no reported injuries among BNSF crew members, the rail company said.

The interstate closure extends approximately 12 miles beginning at Exit 100B in Pueblo and extending northward to Exit 110, according to the Colorado Department of Transportation. Both northbound and southbound lanes are closed.

“This will be an extended closure. Drivers heading between Pueblo and Colorado Springs must detour,” the transportation department said in a closure notice.

The National Transportation Safety Board announced it is investigating the incident.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said he has communicated with Colorado Governor Jared Polis about the incident and has been briefed by the Federal Railroad and Federal Highway Administrations. US Department of Transportation staff were headed to the scene Sunday night, he said.

“State & local authorities are leading the immediate emergency response, and we will be ready to help in any way needed to support a swift return to normal use for the highway and rail routes affected,” Buttigieg said.

CNN
 — 

A Chicago-area landlord was arrested and charged with murder and hate crimes after authorities said he stabbed and killed a 6-year-old boy and seriously wounded his mother, allegedly because the tenants are Muslim.

Joseph M. Czuba, 71, was charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, two counts of a hate crime and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, the Will County, Illinois, Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. The US Justice Department has also opened a federal hate crime investigation into the attack, US Attorney General Merrick Garland announced Sunday.

The sheriff’s office said Czuba did not make a statement to detectives but investigators determined the victims were “targeted by the suspect due to them being Muslim and the on-going Middle Eastern conflict involving Hamas and the Israelis.”

The family is Palestinian and “came to America seeking what we all seek—a refuge to live, learn, and pray in peace,” according to the White House.

President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden said they were “shocked and sickened” over the attack and offered their condolences to the family in a statement released by the White House Sunday.

Authorities were called to the residence in unincorporated Plainfield Township, roughly 40 miles southwest of Chicago, shortly before noon Saturday after a woman called 911 saying her landlord had attacked her, according to the sheriff’s office.

When deputies arrived, they found Czuba sitting on the ground, near the home’s driveway, the release said. The two victims were found in a bedroom, each with “multiple stab wounds,” and were taken to the hospital, according to the release.

The boy was stabbed 26 times and succumbed to his injuries, the sheriff’s office said.

The 32-year-old woman, who had more than a dozen stab wounds, is recovering at the hospital and is expected to survive, the office said.

The Chicago office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) identified the victims in a news release as Hanaan Shahin, and her son, Wadea Al-Fayoume.

The Bidens said the “horrific act of hate has no place in America, and stands against our fundamental values: freedom from fear for how we pray, what we believe, and who we are.”

“As Americans, we must come together and reject Islamophobia and all forms of bigotry and hatred,” the statement from the White House read. “I have said repeatedly that I will not be silent in the face of hate. We must be unequivocal. There is no place in America for hate against anyone.”

The family had lived on the house’s ground floor for two years without “previous notable issues” with Czuba, CAIR said.

But in texts to the boy’s father from the hospital after the attack, Shahin said the landlord “knocked on their door, and when she opened, he tried to choke her and proceeded to attack her with a knife, yelling, ‘you Muslims must die,’” according to the CAIR statement.

The attorney general said the Justice Department “will use every legal authority at our disposal to bring to justice those who perpetrate illegal acts of hate.”

“This incident cannot help but further raise the fears of Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian communities in our country with regard to hate-fueled violence,” Garland said. “The Department of Justice is focused on protecting the safety and the civil rights of every person in this country.”

After Wadea’s killing, the Illinois State Police urged vigilance Sunday but assured residents that, “At this time, there is no actionable intelligence regarding any credible mass threats in Illinois.”

On Saturday, Israel’s military said its forces are readying for the next stages of the war in response to the unprecedented October 7 attacks by the Islamist militant group Hamas, which controls Gaza. At least 1,400 people were killed during Hamas’ rampage, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told CNN on Sunday.

In response, Israel has pounded Gaza with airstrikes that have killed more than 2,600 people, according to the Palestinian health ministry. And conditions there have deteriorated into a “complete catastrophe,” aid workers say, as tens of thousands of Palestinians try to flee south.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said in a statement, “To take a six year old child’s life in the name of bigotry is nothing short of evil.”

“Every single Illinoisan – including our Muslim, Jewish and Palestinian neighbors – deserves to live free from the threat of such evil,” the governor said. “Today, MK and I join our Muslim and Palestinian brothers and sisters in mourning this tragic loss and praying for the recovery of Wadea’s mother.”

“May Wadea Al-Fayoume’s memory be a blessing.”

Wadea had celebrated his birthday shortly before his death, Ahmed Rehab, CAIR-Chicago’s executive director, said in a news conference Sunday.

“He was a 6-year-old boy, he loved everything,” Rehab said of the child, recalling how Wadea’s father had described him.

“He loved everybody, he loved his toys, he loved anything with a ball, basketball, soccer, he loved to color, he loved to swing around, he loved his parents, he loved his family and his friends, he loved life and he was looking forward to a long, healthy, prosperous life,” he added during the news conference.

“He has no clue about these larger issues happening in the world but he was made to pay for it,” Rehab added.

Wadea’s mother and father had moved to the United States 12 and nine years ago, respectively, and their son was born here, Rehab added. They were from a village in the West Bank, he said.

In a statement on X, formerly Twitter, CAIR National wrote they were “shocked and disturbed” to hear of the boy’s death, and said, “The Islamophobic rhetoric and anti-Palestinian racism being spread by politicians, media outlets, and social media platforms must stop.”

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said it “strongly condemns the heinous act of racism and hatred that led to the death of a 6-year-old Palestinian child and the serious injury of his mother.”

“The ministry also condemns the incitement campaigns, attacks, racist statements, and provocative positions that have been directed against Palestinian citizens and several Palestinian embassies and ambassadors in some countries,” it said in a statement, adding that it “calls on all nations to confront these actions and to hold their promoters and those behind them accountable.”

Czuba was transported to the Will County Adult Detention Facility and is awaiting his initial court appearance, according to the sheriff’s office. It is unclear if he has an attorney.

West Bank
CNN
 — 

The men in the wedding hall at the Dheisheh refugee camp in the West Bank spend most of their days and nights glued to their phones, smoking, constantly refreshing their news feeds. They look exhausted, the horrors of the last few days clearly visible on their faces.

These 180 men – they are all men – are refugees from Gaza. They are among the roughly 18,000 residents of the enclave who have Israeli work permits and are allowed to cross the border back and forth. When the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) shut all access to Gaza following Hamas’ deadly attack last Saturday, these men became stuck.

Some have wives and children in Khan Younis, a town in southern Gaza that is now the epicenter of its own rapidly unfolding refugee crisis, with no way of getting out.

Video shows ‘sheer chaos’ in Gaza as Israel airstrikes target cities

The IDF has been relentlessly pounding Gaza with airstrikes and artillery after Hamas fighters staged a terror attack and launched thousands of rockets that so far have killed at least 1,400 people. The terror group also kidnapped some 150 others last Saturday during their unprecedented rampage.

Israel’s military says their goal is to destroy Hamas and ensure it can never again carry out such an attack. But the civilian toll of the campaign has been immense. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said 2,450 have been killed in the past eight days, which is more more than during the entire 2014 war, which lasted 51 days.

Ismail Abd Almagid’s wife and five children – four girls and one boy – are in Gaza while he is staying in the refugee camp. He has videos of all of them on his phone. One shows his young daughter Misk eating a piece of mango. When he plays the clip, tears start streaming down his face.

Tala, his second-oldest daughter, was injured in the 2014 war when the family was staying at his parents’ house. “She loves roller skates, so I told her I’ll bring them when I come back,” he said.

Abd Almagid, 44, told CNN he tries to keep in touch with his wife at all times, but communication has been difficult since Israel cut off the Gaza’s access to electricity, food and water.

“My children are telling me to pray for them. The situation is very difficult over there,” he said. “I’d go back (to Gaza) right now … even with everything that’s going on, take me to Gaza, I will go with you right now … my life is not worth it without my family.”

Right now a huge population shift is underway in Gaza, with hundreds of thousands heading south, many heading to the overcrowded streets of Khan Younis.

The Israeli military told people living in densely populated northern Gaza, including Gaza City, to relocate to the south of the strip. The United Nations said the instruction, which it said affects 1.1 million people, would cause “devastating humanitarian consequences.”

The IDF told CNN Sunday they estimated 500,000 people have left northern Gaza for the south so far.

When Abd Almagid got his permit to work in Israel in October last year, it felt like winning the lottery. The economy in Gaza, which is ruled by Hamas but blockaded by Israel and Egypt, has been decimated, and the unemployment rate stands at 45%, according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics.

“I always wanted this permit because the situation in Gaza is very dire. The financial situation, the debt … the economy is zero. There’s no work opportunities,” he said, adding that he had been unemployed since graduating in 2004 when he got the permit.

Israel began issuing thousands of work permits for Gazans to cross into Israel as part of an economic incentive strategy Israeli authorities had hoped would deter Hamas from further armed conflict.

His wife, who has an English degree, is also without work. He said he was spending every other week in Israel, where he worked at a bakery.

Many of the men at the Dheisheh refugee camp are in the same situation – they are the only members of their families to have a job. The salaries they earn in Israel are multiple times higher than anything they’d be able to get in Gaza.

Marwan Saqer, 55, is the only one of his entire family to have a job – and the only one to have ever stepped foot outside of Gaza.

He was working at a construction site in Kafr Qassem, an Arab town near Tel Aviv, when Hamas attacked Israel. He said that the Palestinian Authority told him and other Gazans to come to the West Bank after their Israeli work permits were canceled.

He said the people of Dheisheh welcomed them with open arms, bringing them mattresses, blankets and basic supplies, and providing comfort and company.

The Dheisheh camp in Bethlehem was first established in 1949, when 3,000 Palestinians settled there after being expelled or fleeing from villages west of Jerusalem.

The camp’s population has since grown to more than 18,500 people who are still living in a now-built-up area of one third of a square kilometer, according to the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.

The walls of the camp are decorated with portraits of its residents, mostly young men, who have been killed in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The tradition started in the 1990s as a way to commemorate them and has persisted until now.

While the camp is under Palestinian control, the IDF regularly conducts incursions, arresting people and conducting raids. Local residents told CNN the IDF came on Sunday morning and detained three people. While 180 people from Gaza have already arrived to the camp, more were expected to come in the coming days.

Marwan Saqer said that as far as he knows, his wife and eight children have left their home in central Gaza three or four times in the past week, but are now back.

While speaking to CNN, Saqer’s phone rang several times – his son was calling him from Gaza. He picked up, but got disconnected almost immediately, the signal on the other side failing.

“We speak, but they only tell me half the truth. They don’t want to make me more worried,” he told CNN.

The fact that it’s the husbands and fathers who are in the relative safety of the refugee camp while women and children are in Gaza is weighing hard on these men.

“It’s difficult. We all sit together, and we share our feelings. We all feel the same all the fathers. We all feel the suffering of our children,” Saqer said.

The space is getting claustrophobic, and the atmosphere is tense. Arguments can erupt easily over issues like access to power plugs.

“There are people within our group that stay up all night crying,” Saqer said. “All of us, physically, we are here, but our minds are in Gaza.”

CNN
 — 

Former Vice President Mike Pence has run up debt in his bid for the White House, according to figures released by his campaign Sunday – underscoring the financial hurdle he faces just months before the first contests for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

And other fundraising totals announced by GOP contenders ahead of a midnight filing deadline with the Federal Election Commission highlight the vast financial divide among the large group of candidates vying to become their party’s standard-bearer. Former President Donald Trump appears to sit atop the field in fundraising, according to his campaign’s previously released figures – with Pence and several others trailing far behind.

Pence’s presidential campaign raised $3.3 million in the third quarter and had nearly $1.2 million in the bank as of September 30, according to his FEC filings. A portion of that available cash can be only used for the general election should Pence secure the nomination.

The campaign also reported $620,000 in debt.

The former vice president also pitched in $150,000 of his own funds during the July-to-September period, the filings show, amid his struggle to gain traction with Republican voters and donors.

NBC News first reported Pence’s third-quarter totals.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott have all reported raising millions more through their campaigns and affiliated committees, putting them on stronger financial footing heading into the next leg of the race.

Scott ended the quarter with $13.3 million in cash on hand – $11.6 million of which can be spent in the Republican presidential primary, a campaign official said Sunday.

That puts the senator ahead of the available primary cash previously announced by Haley ($9.1 million) and DeSantis ($5 million).

(Some candidates are raising sums above the limits set for the primary elections, which cannot be used unless they advance to the general election.)

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, meanwhile, raised $3.8 million in the third quarter and had $3.9 million banked as of September 30, according to a campaign spokesperson.

All of the money Christie has raised is designated for use in the primary, the spokesperson said.

Axios first reported the totals for Christie, who has staked his campaign on having a strong showing in the New Hampshire primary.

Another GOP contender, biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, raised more than $7.4 million in the third fundraising quarter, a campaign spokesperson told CNN.

Ramaswamy’s total included contributions from more than 78,000 unique small-dollar donors. The average donation to Ramaswamy’s campaign in the third quarter was $38, with 38% of donors being first-time contributors to a Republican candidate, the spokesperson said.

The campaign had $4.2 million in the bank on September 30, all of which can be spent in the Republican presidential primary, according to the spokesperson. Ramaswamy did not make any personal loans to his campaign, as he has done previously, but contributed $1 million to his campaign in the third quarter.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum – a former software executive who self-financed much of his early campaign – announced he had more than $2.2 million available for the primary.

DeSantis had previously announced raising $15 million across several affiliated committees during the third quarter.

Sunday’s filings show that the Florida governor took in a little more than $11 million through his main campaign account during the quarter and spent much of it. His campaign entered October and the sprint to the first nominating contests with a little more than $1 million in unpaid bills.

DeSantis’ campaign spending and high burn rate have been the subject of intense scrutiny as he tries to win over the wealthy donors who have remained on the sidelines of the GOP primary fight.

Payroll topped the DeSantis campaign’s expenses, at more than $1.2 million, though the report showed campaign staff size shrinking to about 60 people by the final month of the quarter, down from about 90 at the start of the fundraising period.

DeSantis’ team slashed positions over the summer, and it recently announced that about a third of his staff would shift to Iowa, underscoring the importance of the lead-off caucuses to the Florida governor’s presidential hopes.

The filings also show that DeSantis plowed money into private air travel during the summer months before tapering off that activity in September.

A fierce battle is underway among Republican candidates seeking to persuade the party’s wealthy donors to back them as the main alternative to Trump. Aides to DeSantis, Haley and Scott all trekked to Texas on Friday to make pitches before a group of billionaires who are part of the American Opportunity Alliance – with each camp arguing that their candidate had a path to the nomination.

Trump, however, has dominated the field in polling and fundraising, and his aides have said he will report having $36 million available for the primaries. (Trump’s campaign has said his political operation took in $45.5 million during the third quarter, but that includes money raised through his joint fundraising committee, which also shares proceeds with Trump’s leadership PAC and will not report details of its financial activity until next year.)

Pence’s financial struggles highlight the difficulty Trump’s onetime running mate has faced in breaking through this year, despite his name recognition and long political career as an Indiana congressman and governor and vice president.

Signs of that financial strain became apparent when Pence on Thursday filed for the state-run Nevada presidential primary, rather than party-run caucuses – which come with a $55,000 filing fee and are being used to determine allocation of delegates to next year’s Republican convention.

Pence told reporters in New Hampshire this past week that his campaign will “probably have to be a little bit more selective in where we invest resources.”

Pence also said that he’s still working on gaining enough small-dollar donors to qualify for the third GOP primary debate next month in Miami. Participants must hit at least 4% in multiple polls and collect campaign money from at least 70,000 unique donors, among other requirements.

Sunday’s filings show Pence’s debts were owed to two Virginia-based companies for direct-mail consulting and postage expenses. His campaign has relied heavily on mail to reach the necessary number of donors to qualify for the Republican debates.

The FEC reports also highlight the dire financial picture of former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s campaign. Hutchinson, who failed to qualify for the second Republican debate last month, ended September with a little more than $325,000 remaining in his campaign’s cash reserves.

As Republicans jockey for position, President Joe Biden’s campaign announced Sunday that he had raised more than $71 million for his campaign and the Democratic Party in the third quarter of the year – far outpacing what Trump and the rest of the GOP primary field had reported raising as of Sunday afternoon.

This story has been updated with additional information.

New York
CNN
 — 

Rite Aid filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Sunday, a casualty of a miserable environment for drug stores, exacerbated by its runner-up status to bigger chains and expensive legal battles for allegedly filling unlawful opioid prescriptions.

The bankruptcy was not a surprise. Its bigger rivals, CVS and Walgreens, are also facing many of the same problems. They, too, are closing stores as Amazon and big-box chains like Walmart, Target and Costco serve as more customer-friendly alternatives to nationwide pharmacy chains.

But Rite Aid is in much worse financial shape than its competitors and unable to weather the storm that has been beating down on the industry. On Thursday, it filed a notice to the US Securities and Exchange Commission saying it would be unable to file its latest quarterly financial report because it was looking at “strategic alternatives,” which is Wall Street speak for “considering bankruptcy.”

In that filing, the company said it expected its losses would increase significantly in the past quarter, which is saying something, considering it lost about three quarters of a billion dollars between March 2022 and March 2023 — and another $307 million between March and May this year. Over the past six years, Rite Aid has tallied nearly $3 billion in losses.

At the beginning of June, the last time the company filed a financial report, Rite Aid had just $135.5 million of cash on hand -— and $3.3 billion in long-term debt, which exceeded the value of the company’s assets by nearly $1 billion. With rising interest rates, that debt wasn’t cheap to finance.

“It was always a matter of when, not if, Rite Aid would file for bankruptcy,” said Neil Saunders, managing director of GlobalData, in a note to investors. “The company has been deep in the red for the past six years.”

The company said in a statement it had secured $3.5 billion in financing and debt reduction agreements from lenders to keep the company afloat through its bankruptcy.

It said it would accelerate its pace of store closures and sell off some of its businesses, including prescription benefit provider Elixir Solutions. Bankruptcy could also help resolve the company’s legal disputes at a vastly reduced cost.

As part of the bankruptcy plan, Rite Aid appointed a new CEO, Jeff Stein, who will also serve as the head of restructuring and a board member. Stein, in the statement, said the company plans to remain in business.

“With the support of our lenders, we look forward to strengthening our financial foundation, advancing our transformation initiatives and accelerating the execution of our turnaround strategy,” he said. “In doing so, we will be even better able to deliver the healthcare products and services our customers and their families rely on -— now and into the future.”

Rite Aid has had an interim CEO since January 2023.

Rite Aid’s losing battle against mounting debt was exacerbated by its legal troubles stemming from accusations of filing unlawful opioid prescriptions for customers.

The Department of Justice filed suit against the company in March, claiming that it knowingly processed “unlawful prescriptions for controlled substances.” That stands in violation of the False Claims Act and Controlled Substances Act. The government accused Rite Aid of missing “obvious red flags” when it filled the prescriptions for addictive pain killers.

When the US Justice Department filed its lawsuit, Attorney General Merrick Garland said the department would use “every tool at our disposal” to hold Rite Aid accountable for contributing to the opioid epidemic.”

Walgreens, CVS and others settled similar lawsuits over the past few years, but they remain in better financial shape and were largely able to weather the tens of billions of dollars owed to various government agencies in settlements.

More than half a million people have died from drug overdoses in the United States between 1999 and 2020, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Rite Aid is a distant third-largest nationwide standalone pharmacy chain in the United States — and the seventh largest pharmacy overall, when taking into account big box chains. It has more than 2,200 stores in 17 states.

It was offered a $17 billion lifeline in 2015 when Walgreens offered to buy the chain. But the deal was met with stiff scrutiny from US regulators who feared the combination would violate federal antitrust laws and reduce competition in the drug store market.

Ultimately, in 2017, the companies agreed to a smaller, $4.4 billion deal, in which Walgreens bought just under 2,000 Rite Aid locations, leaving Rite Aid diminished in stature and unable to compete at the scale of its bigger rivals.

— CNN’s Nathaniel Meyersohn and Juliana Liu contributed to this report

New York
CNN
 — 

Autoworkers in Canada ratified a new labor contract Sunday with General Motors, averting a resumption of a strike that had lasted about 13 hours on Tuesday.

Members of Unifor, the Canadian union that represents 4,300 workers at GM, voted 80% in favor of the new deal, which gives them base-wage increases of nearly 20% during the life of the deal and improves their pensions. In September, members of the same union at Ford had voted only 54% in favor of a similar contract.

The strike threatened to disrupt operations at GM’s US plants that depend on engines and transmissions built by Unifor members at some of GM’s Canadian facilities.

Had the GM rank and file of Unifor voted down the tentative deal, the union was prepared to immediately resume the strike. Given the narrow vote at Ford, a new strike at GM was a distinct possibility. Last week, rank-and-file members of the United Auto Workers union voted down a tentative labor agreement with heavy truck manufacturer Mack Trucks and went on strike as a result. That strike continues.

Unifor members in three Ontario cities went on strike at GM just after the deadline at 11:59 p.m. Monday. The strike ended shortly after 1 p.m. Tuesday, when the two sides announced a tentative agreement.

“I am proud of our members at General Motors for their solidarity throughout their brief but decisive strike action and for ratifying this contract that contains life-changing improvements,” said Unifor National President Lana Payne. “This agreement reflects true collective bargaining. Our goal was to bring more fairness and equity to auto workplaces and to lift everyone up. We did that.”

“Nothing worthwhile is ever easy – and labor negotiations are no exception,” Marissa West, president and managing director of GM Canada, said in a statement. “Together, we’ve secured a deal that recognizes the many contributions of our 4,200 represented team members through significant increases in wages, benefits, and job security, while positioning GM Canada to remain competitive in the future.”

Unifor will now turn its attention to winning a similar contract for its members at Stellantis, which builds vehicles for the North American market under the Jeep, Ram, Dodge and Chrysler brands.

The two deals in Canada stand in contrast to the strike against the US operations of GM, Ford and Stellantis.

The United Auto Workers union has more than 33,000 members on strike against the three companies. The strike started on September 15 and targeted one assembly factory of each of the automakers. It marked the first time the UAW simultaneously went on strike against all three companies. The UAW has since expanded the strike to two more assembly plants at Ford and one at GM, as well as networks of 38 parts distribution centers operated by GM and Stellantis.

Both sides’ public comments suggest that negotiations are far apart, and neither has provided an indication that a deal is imminent.

UAW President Shawn Fain told members Friday that the union is prepared to continue to expand the strike with no advance warning if the company negotiators do not improve their offers. Executives at Ford said this past week that it has reached the limits of the additional money it can offer to reach a deal.

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Hong Kong
CNN
 — 

China’s economy may be in the doldrums, but its movie theaters have enjoyed a record-breaking few months as young women flocked to see home-grown films.

Box office receipts totaled 23.44 billion yuan ($3.2 billion) between June and September, the highest amount for that period in history, according to data from Dengta and Maoyan, China’s two major box office tracking apps.

The boom was mainly thanks to a red hot summer. Ticket sales for the traditional high season between June and August soared to a record 20.6 yuan ($2.8 billion), smashing the previous summer peak of 17.8 billion yuan ($2.4 billion) recorded in 2019.

More than 570 million people flocked to cinemas in the past four months, and most of them were women.

For the top five movies, 61% of the viewers were women, the highest percentage on record, according to Dengta, which is backed by Alibaba (BABA). About half of the viewers were between 20 and 29 years old.

The box office record is a rare bright spot in China’s economy, which has lost momentum after an initial rebound when consumers emerged from three years of draconian Covid-19 curbs. History shows that movies tend to thrive during tough economic times, as they offer escapism for a relatively small price, analysts said.

“Consumption is way down [in China] for things like housing or cars,” said Stanley Rosen, a professor of political science and international relations at USC’s US-China Institute.

“But they can afford to go to the movies. And that takes your mind off some of the depression,” he said.

China’s gross domestic product grew just 0.8% in the second quarter, compared with the previous three months. The all-important property market, where Chinese households store 80% of their wealth, has continued its slump. And people are hoarding cash amid rising uncertainty about the future.

Rosen drew an analogy between the situation in China and the United States during the Great Depression in the 1930s, when the Americans also “had no money,” but box office takings were tremendous for films featuring stars like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

While “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” have dominated the global box office in recent months, the most popular movies in China were all homegrown films: crime thriller “No More Bets,” romantic mystery “Lost in the Stars” and epic fantasy “Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms.”

Perry Peng, a 23-year-old gallery assistant in Shanghai and a cinephile, says she’s been “amazed” by the quality of Chinese films she’s seen over the summer.

“We’ve not seen such excellent domestic movies for a long time. We are surprised they can be that good,” she said, adding that she’s also enjoyed “Oppenheimer” and “Barbie,” which was distributed by Warner Bros, like CNN part of WarnerBros. Discovery.

Her favorite this year was “Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms,” a martial arts fantasy based on 16th century Chinese fiction.

“I’ve been a big fan of American and European movies,” Peng said. “But I suddenly felt China seemed to have its own Lord of the Rings.”

She says that her generation, born after 2000, has increasingly become the “main force of consumption.” And there has been a shift in what and how they consume.

“We want to live in the moment, not thinking about the future,” Peng said. “Some of us don’t even want to make social security payments. We just want to enjoy life while we can and seize the day.”

Pency Peng, Perry’s sister who works in the finance industry in Hong Kong, said movies are cheap and allow her to forget about her troubles even if just for a little while.

“Things like houses and cars are really too far away for us, or it feels like they are something that’s beyond our control,” she said. “Our lives are already so miserable, why can’t we enjoy things that make us happy?”

The sisters live in some of China’s most cosmopolitan cities, but analysts say it is the audiences in smaller cities and towns that have grown the most this year.

“The economy is in trouble,” said Xuguang Chen, a professor at the School of Arts at Peking University. “From the consumer’s point of view, going to a movie is more suitable for the consumption of low- and middle-income audiences.”

The improved quality and range of movies offered this summer have helped, Chen said.

“No More Bets,” the biggest summer money maker with 3.52 billion yuan ($480 million) in sales, has an anti-fraud theme that resonated with lower-income audiences, he said.

That China’s recent box office boom has been driven by women is surprising given the gender imbalance in the country. The ratio of men to women was 104.7 to 100, according to 2022 statistics.

The highest percentage of women viewers — 67% — was recorded by “Lost in the Stars,” which had a feminist message and reflected real-life events.

“Men may outnumber women in China, but the latter group’s increasing spending power justifies further investment aimed at serving them,” Kevin Tran, a senior analyst at Morning Consult, wrote in a report last month.

“With Hollywood currently struggling to reclaim the box office dominance in China it previously relied on, studios would benefit from appealing more to the country’s women,” he said.

So far this year, American films accounted for only about 14% of China’s box office, the second largest in the world, according to CNN calculations based on Dengta data. If that trend persists until the end of 2023, it would mark Hollywood’s lowest annual share in more than a decade, excluding the pandemic years.

Hollywood’s share has gradually fallen in recent years due to tightening censorship, worsening bilateral relations, rising nationalist sentiment fueled by state propaganda as well as competition from locally produced films.

Tran said international studios should consider targeting Chinese women more heavily in marketing campaigns for romantic comedies, musicals and other genres they favor.

“In the year ahead, some studios may become more bullish on catering to female moviegoers given that fewer women in China are marrying, likely leaving them with more time for leisure activities like moviegoing,” he added.

CNN
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Buffalo Bills running back Damien Harris was transported off the field in an ambulance after sustaining a neck injury during the team’s home game against the New York Giants on Sunday night.

“Damien Harris (neck) is out for the game,” the Bills said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter. “He has movement in his arms and legs. Harris is being taken to hospital for further testing.”

Harris was injured in the second quarter during his first carry of the game when he was tackled by Giants linebacker Bobby Okereke on a 1-yard run. The 26-year-old remained down after the play, before players from both teams signaled for athletic trainers and doctors.

With players and coaches surrounding Harris, an ambulance was brought out to the field as he was placed to a backboard and a stretcher. He gave a thumbs up as he was being loaded into the ambulance.

One of the people anxiously looking on was Bills backup safety Damar Hamlin, who suffered cardiac arrest on the field against the Cincinnati Bengals in early January that prompted NFL officials to cancel the rest of the game.

Hamlin collapsed after making a tackle and taking a hit to the chest area. Medical professionals performed CPR on Hamlin when he lost his pulse and he needed to be revived through resuscitation and defibrillation. He was on a ventilator for days and spent more than a week in a Cincinnati hospital.

It was later determined that Hamlin’s cardiac arrest was caused by commotio cordis, which can occur when severe trauma to the chest disrupts the heart’s electrical charge and causes dangerous fibrillations (or abnormal heartbeats).

Hamlin was fully cleared to resume football activities in April and by August, the 25-year-old was a full participant in preseason games. He made the roster for the regular season but has played only one game this season. He didn’t suit up Sunday night but was on the bench where TV cameras showed him with his head down.

The Bills won Sunday’s game 14-9. Their next game is against the New England Patriots on Sunday, October 22.

CNN
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A coal train derailed off a bridge in southern Colorado on Sunday as it was crossing over Interstate 25, killing the driver of a semi truck that was passing underneath the bridge, state authorities confirmed.

The train derailed around 4:30 p.m. local time near the city of Pueblo – about 45 miles south of Colorado Springs, according to a statement from the train operator, BNSF Railway.

Images of the scene posted online by the Colorado State Patrol show at least ten train cars had slid off the tracks and over the side of a bridge and nearby embankment, blanketing the ground with coal. The bridge, which extends over both lanes of the interstate, appears to be partially collapsed with a semi truck crushed underneath it.

The male driver of the truck was killed, state patrol spokesperson Gary Cutler told CNN. No other details on the victim were provided. There were no reported injuries among BNSF crew members, the rail company said.

The derailment prompted interstate closures in both directions as authorities worked to clear the roadway, the state patrol said on social media. BNSF said its personnel are also assisting in clearing the site.

The National Transportation Safety Board announced it is investigating the incident.

Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said he has communicated with Colorado Governor Jared Polis about the incident and has been briefed by the Federal Railroad and Federal Highway Administrations. US Department of Transportation staff were headed to the scene Sunday night, he said.

“State & local authorities are leading the immediate emergency response, and we will be ready to help in any way needed to support a swift return to normal use for the highway and rail routes affected,” Buttigieg said.