Author: CNN

New York
CNN
 — 

Taylor Swift can add a new title to her illustrious resume: box-office superstar.

In its opening weekend, the pop singer’s concert film, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” raked in about $96 million in the box office in the United States and Canada, movie theater chain AMC said Sunday. That makes it the highest grossing concert film domestically for an opening weekend, according to AMC.

AMC, which also is the distributor of the film, expects “Eras” to play “to big audiences for weeks to come,” Elizabeth Frank, the company’s executive vice president of worldwide programming and chief content officer, said in a statement.

“Eras” also made about $32 million in international sales. It was No. 1 at the box office in the United Kingdom, Mexico, Australia, Germany and the Philippines. “Eras” is set to be released in Brazil, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong on November 3.

The $96 million in domestic box office sales dwarfed its competition, including “The Exorcist: Believer” and “Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie.”

The Eras tour, which started in the spring and continues through much of next year, has been an economy-boosting cultural phenomenon.

In cities where Swift performed, ridership on public transit spiked and hotel occupancy skyrocketed. Santa Clara, the tech-rich city located in Northern California, briefly became “Swiftie Clara.” In Seattle, dancing Swifties caused seismic activity that one seismologist said was equal to a 2.3 magnitude earthquake.

“Eras” gives fans who couldn’t score a ticket (because of the Ticketmaster debacle or their cost) a chance to sing, dance, dress up and swap home-made Eras bracelets with other Swifties. The movie, directed by Sam Wrench, is nearly three hours long and was filmed over three nights at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles this summer.

There were heightened expectations leading to the release of the film, which can be seen in 3,855 theaters in the US and Canada alone. AMC said earlier this month that the movie had already exceeded over $100 million in advance ticket sales.

“It took less than 24 hours for the Taylor Swift The Eras Tour concert film to shatter AMC’s US record for the highest ticket-sales revenue during a single day in AMC’s 103-year history,” AMC said at the time.

Swift, a 12-time Grammy winner, announced the movie in late August, posting on Instagram that tickets were already on sale.

“I thought I had seen everything with the Barbenheimer phenomenon,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore, which tracks box office numbers. But “this Taylor Swift movie seemingly came out of nowhere … and here it is now in theaters, generating blockbuster-movie style opening weekend numbers.”

He added that “to have a movie have this quick of a turnaround from when it’s announced, and then to wind up on big screens just a few weeks later, is somewhat unprecedented.” But Swift, with her legions of devoted fans, was able to pull it off by speaking to them directly through her social media channels, he noted.

First showings were initially slated for Friday, but additional shows were added Thursday and throughout the weekend due to “unprecedented demand,” Swift wrote this week on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The movie premiered on Wednesday night at The Grove, a retail and entertainment complex in Los Angeles. In attendance was Beyoncé, who has her own concert film, “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé,” coming out in December.

“Eras” is more good news for movie theaters, which have had a rough recovery from the pandemic but a great summer due in large part to “Barbie,” distributed by CNN’s parent company Warner Bros. Discovery, and “Oppenheimer.” Together, the two hits brought in nearly $2.4 billion in global box office sales this year, according to tracking site Box Office Mojo.

“Eras” will probably keep momentum going, Michael O’Leary, chief executive of the National Association of Theater Owners, previously told CNN, especially as theaters drum up excitement on their own.

AMC has sold collectible popcorn tubs and fountain drink cups in theaters and has been distributing free posters.

Barbenheimer and Swift’s concert film “puts movie theaters at the epicenter of the culture as the hub of cultural influence,” said Dergarabedian.

This story has been updated with additional information.

Editor’s Note: A version of this story appears in CNN’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, a three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.

CNN
 — 

The Israeli military has told all civilians in Gaza City to evacuate “southwards” as it maintains its bombardment of the coastal enclave in response to last weekend’s Hamas attacks that killed more than 1,400 people.

Evacuating would involve moving more than 1.1 million people from the north to the south of the besieged enclave, amid constant airstrikes – a task that the United Nations says is dangerous and unfeasible.

Israeli war planes have been pounding Gaza for a week, leveling entire neighborhoods, including schools and mosques. Israel says it strikes Hamas targets and that the group has used civilians as human shields.

Israel’s assault has killed at least 2,670 people in Gaza, and injured more than 9,600 others. Nearly 1 million Palestinians in Gaza have been forced from their homes, the UN has said.

Here’s what we know so far.

Militants from Gaza fired thousands of rockets towards Israeli towns on October 7, before breaking through the heavily fortified border fence with Israel and sending militants deep into Israeli territory. There, Hamas gunmen killed more than 1,400 people, including civilians and soldiers, and took up to 150 hostages, according to Israeli authorities.

The attacks were unprecedented in tactics and scale as Israel has not faced its adversaries in street battles on its own territory since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. It has also never faced a terror attack of this magnitude that has taken the lives of so many civilians. While Hamas has kidnapped Israelis before, it has never before taken dozens of hostages at once, including children and the elderly.

A senior Hamas official in Lebanon told a Russian state-backed channel that the group had been preparing for the attack for two years.

Hamas called the operation “Al-Aqsa Storm” and said that it was a response to what it described as Israeli attacks on women, the desecration of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and the ongoing siege of Gaza.

They said the bodies of some 1,500 Hamas fighters had been recovered inside Israel since Saturday’s assault.

In response to the attack, Israel has declared war and launched “Operation Swords of Iron,” striking what it says are Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza. It has also blocked supply lines of basic necessities to the Gaza population, including fuel and water.

Between October 7 and 12, Israel dropped 6,000 bombs on the densely inhabited territory – that’s equivalent to the total number of airstrikes on Gaza during the entire 2014 Gaza-Israel conflict, which lasted 50 days.

Children make up “between 30% and 40% of the wounded” in Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza, British-Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour on Thursday.

The IDF has told civilians in Gaza to leave their residential areas immediately for their safety, but some say there is nowhere safe to go. All crossings out of Gaza have been shut.

Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant said on Monday that he had ordered a “complete siege” on Gaza, blocking delivery of electricity, food, fuel and water. Energy Minister Israel Katz has said supplies will remain cut off until hostages being held by Hamas are freed.

Israel on Wednesday formed an emergency government and war management cabinet.

On Friday, Israel’s military told the 1.1 million people in northern Gaza to evacuate their homes immediately.

CNN has geolocated and authenticated five videos from the scene of a large explosion along one of the evacuation routes for civilians south of Gaza City.

The videos show many dead bodies amid a scene of extensive destruction. Some of those bodies are on a flat-bed trailer that appears to have been used to carry people away from Gaza City. They include several children. There are also a number of badly burned and damaged cars.

It’s unclear what caused the widespread devastation; the explosion occurred on Salah al-Deen Street on Friday afternoon.

IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner told CNN in an interview on Sunday that the Israeli military did not strike the convoy on Salah Al-Deen street.

A humanitarian crisis in Gaza is rapidly spiraling amid warnings that peosple are at risk of starvation as Israel tightens its chokehold on the territory.

The Gaza Strip is one of most densely populated places on earth, with some 2 million people crammed in 140-square-mile territory. The enclave lies on Egypt’s western border and has been under blockade since Hamas seized control in 2007.

The Israeli air, naval and land blockade on the territory, as well as the Egyptian land blockade, continue today.

The enclave’s only power station stopped working on Wednesday. Hospitals are expected to run out of fuel, leading to “catastrophic” conditions, the Palestinian Health Ministry warned. The World Health Organization (WHO) has said that hospitals are at “breaking point.”

On Thursday, the International Committee of the Red Cross warned hospitals in Gaza “risk turning into morgues” as they lose power. Airstrikes have hit at least 88 education facilities and killed 12 UN personnel, according to the UN.

The Palestine Red Crescent has warned of a “humanitarian catastrophe” as there are “no safe areas” to evacuate civilians to, after Israel told half the population to migrate south. It described the Israeli evacuation call as “shocking and beyond belief.”

Human rights groups have meanwhile warned of possible war crimes being committed by Israel in Gaza. Amnesty International on Friday urged Israel to “immediately” lift its blockade on the enclave, saying the “collective punishment” of civilians for Hamas’ terrorist atrocities amounts to a war crime.

Since Israel shut its two crossings with Gaza, the only corridor through which Palestinians or aid can pass in and out of the territory is the Rafah Crossing, which connects the south of the enclave to Egypt. But it’s unclear whether that crossing is open.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said on Saturday that the crossing is open but aerial bombardment has rendered the roads on the Gaza side “inoperable.”

Aid flights from Jordan, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the World Health Organization, and the Red Cross have arrived in Egypt, but the supplies have not yet made it through the crossing. Shoukry said Egypt has tried to ship humanitarian aid to Gaza but has not received the proper authorization to do so.

Hamas said on Friday that 13 Israeli hostages held in Gaza have been killed by “random” Israeli bombings on the enclave over the past 24 hours. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it could not confirm or deny the claim.

Hamas also called on Gazans not to leave their homes, accusing Israel of engaging in “psychological warfare” by sending messages telling Palestinian civilians and employees of international organizations to evacuate to the south. “Displacement and exile are not for us,” Hamas said.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) on Friday said it had relocated its central operations center and international staff in Gaza to the south of the besieged enclave.

Hamas is an Islamist organization with a military wing that came into being in 1987, emerging out of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist group that was founded in the late 1920s in Egypt.

The group, like most Palestinian factions and political parties, insists that Israel is an occupying power and that it is trying to liberate the Palestinian territories. It considers Israel an illegitimate state and has called for its downfall.

Unlike some other Palestinian factions, Hamas refuses to engage with Israel. In 1993, it opposed the Oslo Accords, a peace pact between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that saw the PLO give up armed resistance against Israel in return for promises of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. The Accords also established the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Hamas presents itself as an alternative to the PA, which has recognized Israel and has engaged in multiple failed peace initiatives with it. The PA, whose credibility among Palestinians has suffered over the years, is today led by President Mahmoud Abbas.

It has over the years claimed many attacks on Israel and has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union and Israel. Israel accuses its archenemy Iran of backing the group.

Hamas rules Gaza, the small strip of land bordering Israel and Egypt that has changed hands several times over the past 70 years. The vast majority of its population are descendants of refugees who were either expelled or forced to flee their homes in 1948 in what is now Israel.

Tensions between Israelis and the Palestinians have existed since before Israel’s founding in 1948. Thousands of people on both sides have been killed and many more injured over decades.

Violence has been particularly acute this year. The number of Palestinians – militants and civilians – killed in the occupied West Bank by Israeli forces since the year began is the highest in nearly two decades. The same is true of Israelis and foreigners – most of them civilians – killed in Palestinian attacks.

Israel captured Gaza from Egypt in the 1967 war, then withdrew its troops and settlers in 2005. The territory, home to some 2 million Palestinians, fell under Hamas’ control in 2007 after a brief civil war with Fatah, a rival Palestinian faction that is the backbone of the Palestinian Authority.

After Hamas seized control, Israel and Egypt imposed a strict siege on the territory, which is ongoing. Israel also maintains an air and naval blockade on Gaza.

Human Rights Watch has called the territory an “open-air prison.” More than half of its population lives in poverty and is food insecure, and nearly 80% of its population relies on humanitarian assistance.

The history of Gaza in 2 minutes

Hamas and Israel have fought several wars. Before Saturday’s operation, the last war between the two was in 2021, which lasted for 11 days and killed at least 250 people in Gaza and 13 in Israel.

Saturday’s assault occurred 50 years almost to the day since the 1973 war, when Israel’s Arab neighbors launched a surprise attack on Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, on October 6, 1973.

Israel is now on a war footing and has amassed more than 300,000 reservists along the Gaza border for a potential ground operation. It has said that it will exact a heavy price on Hamas for its attack and plans to retrieve Israeli hostages from the territory.

Israel has dealt with hostage situations before, but never at this scale. In the past, militants have mostly demanded the release of prisoners held in Israeli jails in exchange for captured Israelis. In 2011, Israel traded 1,027 Palestinians for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, and in 2004, it released more than two dozen Lebanese and Arab prisoners – including two senior Hezbollah officials – for Elhanan Tannenbaum, an Israeli businessman and army reserve colonel, as well as the bodies of three IDF soldiers. In 2008, Israel released five Palestinian prisoners, five Lebanese prisoners and returned the bodies of nearly 200 Arab fighters in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers.

Hamas has captured at least 150 hostages. Their presence in Gaza will undoubtedly complicate any Israeli military operation there.

The militant group’s armed wing said Monday it would begin killing civilian hostages and broadcasting the act if Israel targets people in Gaza without warning. It isn’t clear if it has acted on those threats yet.

The IDF has said that it plans to take control of the Gaza Strip. Its spokesperson, Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, said the aim is to “end the Gaza enclave” and “control the entire enclave.”

When asked whether it had stopped the “knock on the roof,” which is the Israeli military’s warning for civilians before it bombs a building. Hecht responded that Hamas did not “knock on the roof.”

“When they came in and threw grenades at our ambulances they did not knock on the roof. This is war. The scale is different,” Hecht said.

Senior Hamas member Saleh al-Arouri told Al Jazeera Arabic on Saturday that Hamas is ready “for all options, including a war and an escalation on all levels.”

“We are ready for the worst-case scenario, including a ground invasion, which will be the best for us to decide the ending of this battle,” al-Arouri said.

Hamas’ operation was carried out in a sophisticated and coordinated manner and would have taken a significant amount of planning. Speculation has been rife that the group may have received assistance from abroad, which, if proven, could raise the specter of a wider regional war.

Israel says Iran supports Hamas to the tune of some $100 million dollars a year. The US State Department in 2021 said that the group receives funding, weapons, and training from Iran, as well as some funds that are raised in Gulf Arab countries.

“Of course Iran is in the picture,” one US official told CNN. “They’ve provided support for years to Hamas and Hezbollah.”A senior Biden administration official said on Saturday that it was too early to say whether Iran was directly involved in the attack, but that Washington will be tracking the matter “very closely.”

But President Joe Biden on Wednesday issued a stark warning to Iran to “be careful” around its actions in the region.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi spoke to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh by phone last Sunday and later congratulated the Palestinian people for their “victory” over Israel. On Monday, however, Iran’s mission to the United Nations said the Islamic Republic was “not involved in Palestine’s response,” referring to the Hamas attack. “It is taken solely by Palestine itself,” it said.

On Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said in Beirut that “Lebanon’s security is Iran’s security,” in an apparent warning to Israel not to strike Lebanon or the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group that operates there.

He said that Western officials had asked him if new fronts could open against Israel, adding that it’s “probable” that members of the “resistance” against Israel could enter the war “with the continuation of Israeli war crimes.”

The warning came a day after the Iran-allied Syrian regime said that Israel struck Damascus and Aleppo airports, rendering them non-operational.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has meanwhile been shuttling around the region, visiting Israel, the occupied West Bank and Jordan. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin also arrived in Israel on Friday.

The US has ordered two carrier strike groups to the eastern Mediterranean Sea, Austin said on Saturday. A US official told CNN that the US is also sending more fighter jets to the Middle East to deter any Iranian potential aggression or an expansion of the fighting beyond Israel’s borders.

Israel may also face the threat of new fronts opening in the war. Of its immediate neighbors, it is only at peace with Jordan and Egypt, and is officially in a state of war with Lebanon and Syria. Israel has said it is ready in case there are attacks from those two countries.

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, has praised Hamas’ attack and said it is in contact with Palestinian militant groups “at home and abroad,” its Al Manar channel said. The group claimed responsibility for targeting three Israeli sites in an area known as Shebaa Farms using missiles and artillery. The area is considered by Lebanon as Israeli-occupied. Israel responded by firing artillery.

On Monday, the IDF said it killed a “number of armed suspects” who infiltrated into Israel from Lebanon and that soldiers were searching the area. Lebanese Prime Minister-designate Najib Mikati said on Monday that his country doesn’t want to be drawn into the conflict.

The IDF said Wednesday a report was received regarding a suspected “infiltration from Lebanon into Israeli air space.”

It did not provide further details and it was unclear whether the infiltration involved aircraft, drones, gliders, balloons or people.

CNN
 — 

Poland’s populist ruling party appeared to be on the brink of losing power, after an exit poll in a bitter and high-stakes national election predicted that the country’s opposition has the clearest path to forming its next government.

The poll projected that the Law and Justice party, known by its Polish acronym PiS, would win the most seats after Sunday’s vote.

But it would fall some way short of a parliamentary majority, and the opposition bloc – led by former Polish prime minister and European Council president Donald Tusk – appeared on course to gain control if it struck deals with smaller parties.

Both Tusk and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the PiS chairman and Poland’s de facto leader, attempted to declare victory on Sunday night. In reality, however, days of negotiations may lie ahead until the make-up of the country’s new government becomes clear.

“The exit poll results give us the fourth victory in the history of our party in the parliamentary elections and the third victory in a row; this is a great success of our formation and our project for Poland,” Kaczynski told supporters.

But in an admission of the tall order facing his party, he added: “We still face the question of whether this success will be able to be transformed into another term of office of our government. And we don’t know that yet. But we must have hope and we must also know that regardless of whether we are in power or in the opposition, we will implement this project in various ways and we will not allow Poland to be betrayed.”

Tusk appeared buoyant, saying: “This is the end of bad times, this is the end of the rule of PiS.” He said his group’s supporters “have won freedom, we have won our Poland back.” The exit poll suggested that voter turnout was 73%, the highest in any Polish parliamentary election.

A smaller coalition called Third Way may end up as kingmakers. The centrist bloc has criticized both major parties, arguing that neither represents Poland’s best path forward. But its leader Szymon Hołownia has long lambasted the performance of PiS, and insisted he would not pursue a pact with the incumbent party.

In their post-election appearances, Third Way candidates appeared to indicate that they would seek to enter government in an opposition alliance if exit polls proved correct.

“If the exit polls are accurate, it means Poles have chosen a stable state that invests in their future, strengthens public institutions, and solves people’s problems instead of creating propaganda and chaos,” Paulina Hening-Kloska said. She called on Poland’s PiS President, Andrzej Duda, not to frustrate efforts to change leadership.

“I hope the president will save us two months of havoc and that he’ll respect the voters’ decision thus making it possible for us to create a new, democratic government.”

‘Poland is back’

The outcome of this election could have major ramifications for Poland’s future direction, the balance of power in the European Union and the future of the war in Ukraine.

PiS, which has been mired in bitter spats with the EU during its eight years in power, was seeking a third consecutive electoral success – an unprecedented feat since Poland regained its independence from the Soviet Union.

The party has been accused by the EU and Polish opposition figures of dismantling Poland’s democratic institutions during its time in power. PiS has brought the Polish judiciary, public media and cultural bodies under greater control, and has taken a hard line against abortion access and LGBTQ+ rights.

The exit poll, which seemed to indicate that the end of their stint in power was likely, was celebrated by some European Parliament lawmakers.

“Poland is back,” Siegfried Mureșan, the Romanian vice-chair of the center-right European People’s Party group, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “By far the most important election in Europe this year is the Polish national election. It ended tonight with a victory for democracy.”

Tusk, by contrast, has presented himself as a leader who would restore and amplify Poland’s standing in Europe. Warsaw has earned goodwill in the West through its response to the Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and smoothing tensions with Brussels could position Poland as a major player in the EU.

During a bitter campaign, PiS shot back at Tusk’s opposition coalition, claiming the former leader would be subservient to Brussels and Berlin if he returned to power.

PiS has overhauled many of Poland’s institutions during its eight-year rule; the judiciary and public media have been brought under greater control, with state-run television outlets essentially becoming government mouthpieces.

Its critics had likened its agenda to that of Viktor Orban, the authoritarian leader of Hungary. Should the opposition oust the party, Warsaw would be expected to reorientate itself towards the United States and Western Europe in terms of foreign policy and reverse many of the domestic changes made by PiS.

But that could be a complicated mission for a coalition government encompassing various ideological groupings. The left-wing party Lewica may be required to prop up a minority Tusk-led government, along with centrists and center-right lawmakers.

High inflation and the security of Poland’s borders have been front of mind for voters during the campaign. Developments were also watched in Kyiv, after a tense period that saw relations between the two close allies sour.

Poland has been a crucial partner to Ukraine as it fights Russian forces in its east, but Warsaw was intensely critical of Ukraine’s government during a dispute over the imports of Ukrainian grain.

Voters were electing members of both houses of Poland’s parliament, with 231 seats in the Sejm – Warsaw’s lower house – needed for a party to clinch power outright.

CNN
 — 

Chris Evans has traded in his Captain America shield for a more sentimental accessory.

The Marvel actor was sporting a wedding band on Saturday during an appearance at New York Comic-Con (NYCC), where he publicly confirmed for the first time that he recently wed actress Alba Baptista.

“I got married,” the Marvel star told the audience, adding that his recent nuptials were “really, really great.”

He shared that he and Baptista had two ceremonies – one in Portugal, where Baptista is from, and another ceremony on the East Coast, which reportedly took place last month in Cape Cod.

“They were wonderful and beautiful,” he said of the dual ceremonies, later adding that since then, he and Baptista have “been relaxing and enjoying life and reflecting” as newlyweds.

Evan admitted that he felt the weight of planning a wedding, joking, “It’s a lot.”

“For those of you who are married, it takes a lot out of you but now that we’re through that, we’ve kind of just been enjoying life,” he said.

Evans and Baptista have been romantically linked since 2021.

The actor’s appearance at NYCC comes just days after contract negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and the major studios and streamers were suspended amid the ongoing strike. The union supporting actors and performers has been on strike since July.

Hollywood writers in the Writers Guild of America, who had been on strike since May, agreed upon a new contract with the studios and streamers in September. The new contract was ratified last week, putting thousands of people back to work.

Washington
CNN
 — 

The FBI has seen an increase in reported threats in the US amid the Israel-Hamas war, Director Christopher Wray told reporters on a call Sunday.

“Here in the US, we cannot and do not discount the possibility that Hamas or other foreign terrorist organizations could exploit the conflict to call on their supporters to conduct attacks on our own soil,” Wray said.

Most threats have been deemed not credible by the agency, a senior FBI official said during the call, but Jewish and Muslim institutions have been targeted.

The FBI, along with the Department of Homeland Security, last week issued a public service announcement and a bulletin to law enforcement agencies around the US warning of possible threats related to the war abroad.

The FBI official noted that over the past week, the agency has seen an uptick in rhetoric targeting “Jewish people as well as Muslim institutions.”

FBI officials have also been meeting with leaders in Jewish and Muslim communities across the US as the threats increase. The goal of these meetings, both in person and over the phone, has been to tell leaders “if you see something that concerns you, please let us know because we want to keep you safe,” the FBI official said.

Wray also noted that the FBI is working to help “identify all Americans who’ve been impacted in (Israel), including those who remain unaccounted for.”

Fifteen Americans are still unaccounted for after the attacks, according to the State Department, and over two dozen Americans were killed.

“Our victim services specialists are working closely with victims and their families, here and abroad,” the director added.

Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world.

Beijing
CNN
 — 

Chinese leader Xi Jinping is gathering world leaders in Beijing this week for a high profile forum with a clear set of goals: laud China’s role backing economic development over the past decade and project its expanding ambitions as an alternative global leader to the United States.

That bid takes on heightened significance as renewed conflict in Israel and Gaza threatens to trigger broader instability in the Middle East, a region where the US is the traditional power broker, but China has been growing its influence and efforts to play a role in peace.

Leaders, representatives and delegations from more than 140 countries, including in the Middle East and many Global South nations, are expected to meet in the Chinese capital for the carefully choreographed two-day gathering – China’s first time hosting an international event at this level since emerging this past January from nearly three years of pandemic isolation.

Beijing has been remarkably close-lipped in the lead-up to the event, an important milestone for Xi marking a decade since the launch of his signature foreign policy, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), hailed by officials as China’s “most important diplomatic event” of the year.

Officials only announced the dates six days before the forum’s start, and did not release a list of attendees in advance as of Monday morning, a day before the event.

Likely missing from that guest list are top leaders from major Western powers, at least some of whom, a Chinese state-run media outlet earlier this year implied, weren’t invited.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin, whose on-going assault on Ukraine is another major point of global instability and division, is expected to attend. The last time he was in Beijing was for the Winter Olympics opening ceremony in early 2022. Three weeks later, Russian tanks and troops poured over Ukraine’s border.

The forum will signal the future path for Xi’s Belt and Road, which for the past 10 years funneled hundreds of billions in Chinese financing toward building ports, bridges, highways and power plants largely in poorer countries across the world, expanding China’s global influence along the way.

But Chinese officials, experts say, will also use the gathering of friendly countries to pitch a much broader vision for how China wants to impact the world, as it promotes an alternative to the liberal world order championed by democratic countries.

“Xi’s message is clear – the current, US-led order has failed to bring either peace or prosperity to many developing nations, and a new order is necessary to tackle today’s issues and anticipate tomorrow’s challenges,” said Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank in Washington.

“He wants to be seen as being capable of convening world powers in Beijing and (of demonstrating that) when he hosts a summit there is a deliverable outcome … (including a) very clear path forward to discuss reforming global governance,” he added.

Xi’s bid comes at a critical time for Beijing.

It faces stark economic challenges at home with a spiraling property crisis, high unemployment and slowing growth – and sees its rise increasingly threatened by what it believes are American efforts to contain and stifle its development.

The Chinese leader is also grappling with apparent turmoil in the top echelons of the ruling Communist Party. Beijing abruptly replaced several senior officials including its foreign minister without explanation this summer. Its defense minister has not been seen in public since August amid reports suggesting he is under investigation.

Winning backing for China’s global leadership from a broad swath of developing and emerging economies is key to Xi’s strategy to push back against perceived international threats, analysts say.

This week in Beijing Xi will be surrounded by nations like Russia, who have grown increasingly aligned with China – especially as Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine has drawn the US and its allies closer together, while Moscow and Beijing have looked to strengthen alternative groups like BRICS and make them more explicitly anti-West.

In an interview with Chinese state broadcaster CCTV broadcast Sunday ahead of the event, Putin lavished praise on Xi, hailing his “unique approach of dealing with other countries” that has shown no imposition or coercion, but rather providing others with opportunities.

In a sweeping more than 13,000-word policy document released last month ahead of the forum, Beijing laid out the broad strokes of its international vision, warning the world “is at risk of plunging into confrontation and even war.” China “lights the path forward” with a plan to “promote solidarity and cooperation among all countries,” it said, while providing limited specifics.

The pitch appears at odds with accusations from countries in China’s region that it is itself threatening regional stability with its aggression, including in the disputed South China Sea – claims Beijing rejects.

During the forum, Chinese leaders will likely cite the latest outbreak of conflict between Israel and militant Islamist group Hamas as another example of “how the various Chinese ideas and proposed principles may help better address regional security challenges,” according to Li Mingjiang, an associate professor of international relations at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University. Officials have made similar suggestions throughout the conflict in Ukraine.

But the latest conflict may also spotlight limits to China’s ability to play a role in its resolution.

Israel last week expressed “deep disappointment” with Beijing’s response to the conflict, which follows a terror attack on Israeli territory by Hamas, in particular its failure to explicitly condemn Hamas terrorism in its statements.

Most actors in the region may not see China as a player that can fundamentally address these issues, as this remains “an early moment in China’s Middle East presence,” Jonathan Fulton, an Abu Dhabi-based senior fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank, said.

Even as Beijing may look to pitch its larger ambitions on the world stage this week, many delegations attending this week’s event will be more interested in enhancing their economic partnerships with the world’s second largest economy and getting a sense for how China will direct funding into the Belt and Road Initiative in the years to come.

Some governments in the Middle East are “laser focused” on how cooperation with China and the BRI can facilitate development, according to Fulton. “There’s a massive appetite for that in the Middle East.”

Belt and Road ahead

Ten years on, the initiative itself has a mixed legacy.

It has propelled construction of much-needed infrastructure and development projects in poorer countries across the world to the tune of what Beijing has said is “up to one trillion dollars of investment.”

It’s also pushed other powers to beef up their own efforts. Last month, the US and its partners pitched the latest of those rival programs on the sidelines of the G20 summit in New Delhi.

But Belt and Road projects have also sparked backlash over accusations of lax environmental and labor standards – and of saddling some countries with unmanageable levels of debt, an issue now compounded by a shifting financial environment in the wake of the pandemic and war in Ukraine.

A report from the Boston University Global Development Policy Center released earlier this month found that Chinese development finance projects carry significantly higher risks to biodiversity and to Indigenous lands than projects financed by the World Bank.

Overseas development finance from China’s two major development banks has also decreased significantly since a peak in 2016, the report’s data show.

China has pushed back on criticisms of the initiative, but also signaled ahead of the forum that there will be a shift to environmentally friendly, better-vetted projects in the years ahead.

The next stage of BRI will continue to create “high-quality” projects that can “better benefit people in partner counties,” Cong Liang, a top official with China’s National Development and Reform Commission, said at a press conference last week.

The shift will likely also mean a decrease in funding for big-ticket infrastructure projects, which have already been on the decline in recent years, experts say.

“This also reflects the reality that the Chinese economy is slowing down – China doesn’t have as many resources to squander along BRI as it did during the first decade,” said Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington.

Ten years on, Chinese decision makers are becoming “more selective and more calculating” about the benefits of their financing, she said. “Now they have new focuses.”

Washington
CNN
 — 

President Joe Biden raised more than $71 million for his reelection campaign and the Democratic Party in the third fundraising quarter of the year, his campaign announced on Sunday, far outpacing former President Donald Trump and the rest of the GOP primary who have reported their results so far.

The president’s political operation with the Democratic National Committee ended the quarter with $91 million, the campaign said. Biden’s campaign did not disclose how that money was divided between the campaign and the party committee.

The president nearly met the $72 million that he raised in the first fundraising quarter this year, though that period was three weeks shorter since he launched his reelection in late April.

Campaign co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg told CNN the figure “exceeded the high-bar goals” the campaign set for the July to September period, which is typically a sluggish time to raise money. Katzenberg argued it provides Biden with an upper hand as he’s able to devote the early resources toward the general election while Republicans battle it out in their primary.

“The momentum is continuing to build for him. As the stakes of the election are becoming clearer and the choice could not be more distinctive, the enthusiasm grows,” Katzenberg said. “All the money that has been raised and is continuing to be raised and the $91 million that is in the bank today, it’s all focused on November of 2024. All of our investment today is focused on those strategic, important places – states that are going to be where this race will be won or lost.”

The Biden campaign also said its grassroots network grew from the previous quarter.

The average grassroots contribution was $40, the campaign said, and 97% of all donations were under $200.

The campaign did not provide an exact total raised by small-dollar donors, but that figure is expected to become available when the campaign files its report with the Federal Election Commission by Sunday’s deadline.

The $71 million showing comes as the 80-year-old president has faced low approval ratings and concerns about his age. But Katzenberg argued the latest fundraising haul shows enthusiasm for the president’s candidacy.

“Actions speak louder than words, and what this result is really about is not the vibes, not the feelings, not the angst, not the tea leaf reading. It’s concrete proof that the beltway chatter, the cable talking heads, once again have gotten this wrong. They underestimated Joe Biden,” Katzenberg said.

‘Dark Brandon’ mugs and supporter meetups

Biden’s latest fundraising figure is higher than that raised by the candidates in the Republican presidential primary, according to the amounts reported so far. Trump has topped that list, raking in more than $45.5 million last quarter for his campaign and associated committees.

Trump’s campaign said his operation has $37.5 million on hand.

Neither Trump nor his rivals for the Republican nomination are raising money jointly with the Republican National Committee, and they face lower contribution limits for top donors than Biden and his combined effort with the Democratic Party.

Biden, however, raised less than the $125 million brought in by Trump as an incumbent presidential candidate in the third fundraising quarter of 2019. The president slightly exceeded the $70 million raised by former President Barack Obama in the same period in 2011.

The campaign said more than 493,000 donors gave to the campaign through 843,000 contributions and the team has brought in over 240,000 new donors who did not contribute to Biden’s 2020 campaign, which was powered by small- dollar donors.

Biden’s campaign has also doubled the number of donors who have committed to donating every month since last quarter, with the figure now reaching over 112,000 people.

The president’s team used some of the same online tactics from the second quarter to scoop up money from small-dollar donors, raising nearly $2.5 million through a contest to meet Biden and Obama and bringing in close to $2 million since August through the sale of “Dark Brandon” mugs, which Biden pitched through social media videos.

Biden’s campaign, which held 37 in-person fundraisers this quarter, has used an early joint fundraising agreement to its advantage, allowing the president to raise money for his campaign, the Democratic National Committee and state parties. The breakdown of money raised for each entity is also expected to become public when they submit their FEC filings.

“These numbers are a testament to one of our core objectives early in this campaign: raise the resources needed to run an aggressive campaign that will win in November 2024,” said Julie Chavez Rodriguez, the Biden-Harris campaign manager.

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN
 — 

Israel is gearing up for the next stage of its war on Hamas, following the Palestinian militant group’s brutal October 7 attacks that killed 1,400 people.

Following a week of unprecedented airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, which have killed at least 2,450 people, Israel is massing troops and military equipment on its border with the Hamas-controlled enclave and has warned some 1.1 million people in the northern half of the strip to evacuate, according to the United Nations.

As Israel prepares for a ground offensive into Gaza, here’s what you need to know about the 140 square-mile enclave – one of the most densely-populated territories on Earth.

Gaza is a narrow strip of land, only about 25 miles long and seven miles wide – just over twice the size of Washington DC.

To its west lies the Mediterranean Sea, to its north and east is Israel, and Egypt is to its south.

It is one of two Palestinian territories, the other being the larger Israeli-occupied West Bank, which borders Jordan.

Around 2 million people are crammed into the 140-square-mile territory. The overwhelming majority of people are young, with 50% of the population under the age of 18, according to the World Health Organization.

Nearly all of Gazans – 98-99% – are Muslim, according to the CIA World Factbook, with most of the rest Christians.

More than 1 million of Gaza’s residents are refugees, with eight recognized Palestinian refugee camps, according to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which assists Palestinians.

Inhabited for thousands of years, Gaza has been many things: An Egyptian base, a royal city for the Philistines and the place where the Hebrew Samson, betrayed by Delilah, met his death.

It was part of the Ottoman Empire for most of the period from the 16th to the early 20th century, until Britain took control over the Gaza area after World War I.

The most recent contest for the land began at the end of World War II, when Jews fleeing persecution traveled from Europe in search of refuge after the horrors of the Holocaust.

In 1947, the UN created a plan to split the then-British Mandate of Palestine into two lands, one for Jews and one for Arab people. David Ben Gurion, Israel’s founder, proclaimed the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. More than 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled, and most were denied return.

After Israel declared independence, Egypt attacked Israel through the Gaza Strip. Israel won, but Gaza remained under the control of Egypt and the region saw an influx of Palestinian refugees from Israel. Unable to migrate to Egypt and not allowed to return to their former homes in Israel, many were living in extreme poverty.

In 1967, war broke out between Israel, Egypt, Jordan and Syria. During the conflict, which became known as the Six-Day War, Israel seized Gaza and held it for nearly 40 years until 2005, when it withdrew its troops and settlers.

Since then, hostilities have regularly broken out between Israel and Palestinian factions including Hamas.

In 2006, Hamas won a landslide victory in Palestinian legislative elections – the last polls to be held in Gaza.

Hamas is an Islamist organization with a military wing that formed in 1987, emerging out of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist group that was founded in the late 1920s in Egypt.

The group considers Israel to be an illegitimate state and an occupying power in Gaza. Unlike other Palestinian groups, such as the Palestinian Authority, Hamas refuses to engage with Israel.

The group has claimed responsibility for many attacks on Israel over the years and has been designated as a terrorist organization by countries including the United States, the European Union and Israel. The last war between Hamas and Israel was in 2021, which lasted for 11 days and killed at least 250 people in Gaza and 13 in Israel.

One of the group’s biggest funders is Iran, according to the US State Department, which said in a 2021 report that Iran provides around $100 million a year to Hamas, among other “​​Palestinian terrorist groups.” The group also receives weapons, and training from Iran, as well as some funds that are raised in Gulf Arab countries, the State Department said.

Despite Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, since 2007 it has maintained tight control over the territory through a land, air and sea blockade. For nearly 17 years, Gaza has been almost totally cut off from the rest of the world, with severe restrictions on the movement of goods and people.

The blockade has been fiercely criticized by international bodies including the UN, which said in a 2022 report that restrictions have had a “profound impact” on living conditions in Gaza and have “undermined Gaza’s economy, resulting in high unemployment, food insecurity and aid dependency.”

Israel has said the blockade is vital to protect its citizens from Hamas.

“Israel worried that without a blockade, Hamas would have an easier approach to smuggling weapons, to arming itself,” said Bilal Saab, senior fellow and founding director of the defense and security program at the Middle East Institute.

Although, he told CNN, “frankly it hasn’t really done a very good job given the massive tunnel infrastructure that the organization has built over the years.”

Even before Hamas’ attacks and Israel’s retaliation on Gaza, living conditions in the enclave were dire.

Human Rights Watch has called the territory an “open-air prison” – Gazans have limited access to healthcare, education and economic opportunities.

Unemployment levels are among the highest in the world, with nearly half of the population unemployed, according to 2022 UN data. More than than 80% live in poverty. “For at least the last decade and a half, the socioeconomic situation in Gaza has been in steady decline,” the UNRWA said in August.

“Beyond the numbers, mental health professionals in Gaza describe a crisis that goes unseen,” said Tania Hary, executive director of Gisha, an Israeli human rights organization that focuses on the freedom of movement of Palestinians.

There has still been hope, Hary told CNN: ” Despite these dire statistics, Gaza also has eight universities and several other colleges, a small but industrious manufacturing industry, entrepreneurs in a variety of fields, and innovative and resilient farmers.”

Yet conditions have become exponentially worse since Israel declared a “complete siege” on the enclave in retaliation for Hamas’ attacks, withholding essential supplies of food, fuel and water.

Life became even more perilous for the 1.1 million Gazans living in the north of the enclave on Friday, when Israel told them to evacuate southwards, prompting aid workers to warn of a “complete catastrophe.”

The UN World food Program warned on Sunday that it was “running out of supplies” to help people in Gaza. Aid flights have arrived in Egypt near the Rafah crossing on Gaza’s southern border, but so far have not made it into the enclave.

In the meantime, the death toll continues to rise. More people have been killed in this week’s bombardment of the enclave than during the six-week Israel-Hamas war of 2014.

CNN
 — 

Madonna took the stage in London on Saturday in the long-awaited debut of her surprisingly poignant new ‘Celebration’ world tour, which had been delayed after she suffered a serious health scare during the summer.

In the opening night at the O2 Arena, the singer – who turned 65 in August – delivered a show that was at times more somber than celebratory, with tributes during the show to some of the late icons with whom she ascended to stardom, like Prince, Michael Jackson and Sinead O’Connor.

The “Like a Virgin” performer also addressed her health troubles, saying it had been “a crazy year for me.”

“I didn’t think I was going to make it, neither did my doctors. That’s why I woke up with all of my all of my children sitting around me,” she said.

Madonna battled a bacterial infection in June that caused her to cancel the first leg of the “Celebration” tour in North America.

“I forgot five days of my life – or my death. I don’t really know where I was,” she added, going on to thank her children for saving her, as they do “every time.”

“If you want to know my secret, and you want to know how I pulled through and how I survive, I thought, ‘I’ve got to be there for my children. I have to survive for them,’” she said.

In another solemn moment, victims of the AIDS epidemic splashed across the arena’s giant screens, as Madonna sang verses from her emotional ballad “In This Life” off of her 1992 album “Erotica.” Notably, her friend, the late artist Keith Haring, was displayed as the show shifted to her 1986 hit “Live to Tell.”

“Celebration,” of course, also had some joyous interludes, like when Madonna’s daughter Mercy James appeared behind a piano, flawlessly rendering the opening notes to “Bad Girl,” also off “Erotica.”

Her other daughters Lourdes Leon – who was celebrating her birthday – and twins Stella and Estere also got in on the fun, during the performance of Madge’s timeless 1990 hit “Vogue.”

Dancers wore masks and costumes meant to distill her most career-defining moments, those tied to her No. 1 hits and not. Indeed, it should be noted for Madonna’s die-hards that the tour is not at all reserved only for her chart hits. More esoteric songs – like 1994’s “Bedtime Stories” – got major love, too.

The show featured sumptuous lighting and video wizardry. Madonna often faced away from the audience, performing to a camera that then projected a flawless-looking Madge back to the crowd.

Ultimately, though, “Celebration” had a surprisingly pared-down feel, as the iconic entertainer took some time to reflect back on her unparalleled career and personal journey, as well as the journeys of others who touched her along the way.

CNN
 — 

The American public expresses deep sympathy for the Israeli people and broadly sees the Israeli government’s military response to Hamas’ attacks as justified, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, and two-thirds are at least somewhat worried the fighting between Israel and Hamas could lead to terrorism in the US. The poll also finds divisions by party and age in how Americans view the conflict and the US response to it.

‘Israelis are bombing the crap out of Gaza’: Tapper presses Biden official on American hostages

The public is mixed over how much trust it has in President Joe Biden to make the right decisions on the fighting between Israel and Hamas (47% have at least a moderate amount of trust), but they express slightly more confidence in Biden than they did at the outset of the war in Ukraine (42%).

Half of Americans (50%) say that the Israeli government’s military response to the Hamas attacks is fully justified, another 20% say it’s partially justified and just 8% that it is not at all justified, with 21% unsure. Republicans are far more likely than independents or Democrats to say the response is fully justified (68% of Republicans say so compared with 45% of independents and 38% of Democrats), and older Americans are also much likelier than younger ones to say it is completely justified (81% of those age 65 or older see the response as fully justified, compared with 56% of 50-to-64-year-olds, 44% of 35-to-49-year-olds and 27% of 18-to-34-year-olds). Majorities across age and party, though, say the Israeli response is at least partially justified, with very few Americans of any age or party affiliation saying the response is not at all justified.

A sizable 71% of Americans say they feel a lot of sympathy for the Israeli people over the attacks by Hamas on October 7, with nearly all, 96%, expressing at least some sympathy for them. A broad majority also feel at least some sympathy for the Palestinian people (87%), but fewer feel a lot of sympathy for the Palestinians (41%). Nearly all Americans (84%) express at least some sympathy for both Israeli and Palestinian people as they face ongoing fighting.

But here too, there are divides by age and party, with younger Americans and Democrats likelier to express a lot of sympathy for the Palestinian people than Republicans and older Americans. Majorities across party lines express a lot of sympathy for the Israeli people (78% of Republicans, 68% of independents and 67% of Democrats), but there is a broad gap between the share of Democrats (49%) and independents (47%) who have a lot of sympathy for the Palestinian people and the share of Republicans who say the same (26%).

The division by age appears even wider: Among those age 65 or older, 87% have a lot of sympathy for the Israeli people, while 36% feel the same toward Palestinians. Among those younger than 35, 61% say they have a lot of sympathy for the Israeli people and nearly the same share, 54%, say the same about the Palestinian people.

Few Americans express a great deal of trust in Biden to make the right decisions on the situation in Israel (16%), with about 3 in 10 saying they trust him moderately (31%), 26% saying they have not much trust and 28% none at all. There are broad partisan gaps, with 80% of Democrats saying they trust Biden a great deal or moderately, compared with 46% of independents and just 13% of Republicans. The overall partisan divide is similar to the levels of trust placed in Biden to handle the war in Ukraine at its outset, but independents appear a bit more inclined to express trust in Biden now than they were around the start of the war in Ukraine (46% have at least a moderate amount of trust in Biden, 37% said the same in February 2022 on Ukraine).

About a third of all US adults, 35%, say the US is providing the right amount of assistance to Israel in response to the situation there, with 15% saying the US is providing too much assistance, 14% too little and another 36% unsure about whether the level of assistance is appropriate. Among those who say they are very closely following news about the conflict, 51% say US assistance is about right, 21% say it’s too little, 7% too much and 21% are unsure.

Two-thirds of Americans (66%) say they are at least somewhat worried that the fighting between Israel and Hamas will lead to terrorism in the US. Older Americans (75% of those age 65 or older), women (72%) and Republicans (76%) appear most likely to be worried about the potential for terrorism in the US.

About 7 in 10 Americans, or 71%, say they’ve been following news about the fighting between Israel and Hamas at least somewhat closely, including 26% who are following it very closely.

The CNN poll was conducted by SSRS from October 12-13 among a random national sample of 1,003 adults surveyed by text message after being recruited using probability-based methods. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.0 percentage points. It is larger for subgroups.