No respite for citizens, Delhi registers warmest October in 73 years
Most areas in the capital recorded an Air Quality Index (AQI) over 350, raising health concerns for residents.
Bank Holidays In November 2024: Banks to remain closed for 12 days, state-wise list here
Customers are advised that bank holidays in India vary by state. It is recommended to check with your local bank branch for their specific holiday schedule in advance to stay informed.
Harris ripped for ‘word salad’ after heckler interruption during campaign speech: ‘The gibberish never ends’
Vice President Kamala Harris was mocked by the Trump campaign and other conservatives online for a “word salad” after a heckler interrupted her speech in Nevada on Thursday night. “You know what?” the vice president said in Reno, Nevada after shouting could be heard from the audience as she spoke. “Let me say something about this.” “We are here because we are fighting for a democracy. Fighting for a democracy. And understand the difference here, understand the difference here, moving forward, moving forward, understand the difference here.” “What we are looking at is a difference in this election, let’s move forward and see where we are because on the issue, for example, freedom of choice,” Harris continued as the heckling went on. TRUMP SUES CBS NEWS FOR $10 BILLION ALLEGING ‘DECEPTIVE DOCTORING’ OF HARRIS’ ’60 MINUTES’ INTERVIEW “That’s OK,” Harris said as the voices of her supporters drowned out the heckling. “That’s alright. That’s OK.” “You know what? Democracy can be complicated, sometimes it’s okay. We’re fighting for the right for people to be heard and not jailed because they speak their mind. We know what’s at stake.” Harris quickly drew criticism from conservative critics on social media. MARK CUBAN TRIES TO ‘CLARIFY’ AFTER COMMENT ON ‘THE VIEW’ WIDELY SEEN AS INSULT TOWARD PRO-TRUMP WOMEN “Kamala spirals after ANOTHER speech is interrupted by protesters,” an account run by the Trump campaign posted on X. “CRACKS UNDER PRESSURE,” Trump adviser Stephen Miller posted on X. “CHOKES EVERY TIME. Not a quality you want in the commander-in-chief.” “She is the word salad Queen!” Author Tom Young posted on X. “The gibberish never ends,” Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce posted on X. Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment but did not immediately receive a response. “ “Nevada, I am here asking for your vote,” Harris told the crowd. “I am asking for your vote. And here is my pledge to you, and I got your back, as president, I pledge to you to seek common ground and common sense solutions to the challenges you face. I am not looking to score political points.” “I am looking to make progress. And I pledge to listen to experts, to listen to those who will be impacted by the decisions I make and to listen to people who disagree with me. Because that’s what real leaders do.”
Family of Marine vet murdered by cartel violence in Mexico: ‘We’ll take care of it’
Former President Trump was joined onstage at a Nevada rally on Thursday night by the family of a marine veteran who was recently murdered in Mexico. Retired Army Lt. Col. Warren Douglas Quets joined Trump on stage in the Las Vegas suburb of Henderson while speaking about his son Nicholas Douglas Quets, a 31-year-old Marine veteran who worked for Pima County, Arizona, on water reclamation projects. The younger Quets was shot and killed along the Caborca-Altar Highway in northern Mexico on Oct. 19, 30 miles from the U.S.-Mexico border. “I really wasn’t planning on being here,” Warren Douglas Quets said. “Two weeks ago, I was a completely apolitical actor. Anybody outside my own home wouldn’t have known who I would have voted for. Today. The situation changed for me two weeks ago.” TRUMP SUES CBS NEWS FOR $10 BILLION ALLEGING ‘DECEPTIVE DOCTORING’ OF HARRIS’ ’60 MINUTES’ INTERVIEW He said Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, met with him three days after the killing. “So when you wonder about where America really is and what the stories are, you don’t have to wonder anymore. The man next to me and his vice presidential nominee, a current seated senator, both met with me within 36 hours of asking, and both took up the cause,” said Quets. TRUMP MAKES PLAY FOR BLUE-LEANING STATE AS HE BRIEFLY DETOURS FROM THE BATTLEGROUNDS “It is the policy that contributed to my son being killed. It is the policy that’s contributing to the death of other Americans,” he added. “It is the policy that’s contributing to fentanyl coming into the United States. Those are political failures, and we need to end them.” Mexican officials reportedly said that Nicholas Quets didn’t stop at a cartel checkpoint, and a group of armed men followed his pick-up truck and opened fire in a “direct attack.” While reports indicate Mexican authorities made arrests, Quets’ father said he was relying on the FBI to conduct its investigation and wants his son’s killers extradited to the U.S. “What I want is sponsorship of a couple things,” Quets said. “One is change to US code so that if people committed crimes against US persons, especially murder, they are brought back here to face our justice. Number two is legislation that is enacted that takes us someplace closer to a plan in Mexico that’ll institute not only military capability, but also institution building.” Quets told the crowd that Trump had a “tear in his eye” when the two talked about his son and that he believes Trump will “keep” his promise to seek justice if elected. Quets also said that his family attempted to attend a rally with Harris running mate Gov. Tim Walz but were told the venue was full and that they could not meet with Walz. Fox News Digital reached out to the Harris campaign for comment but did not immediately receive a response. “That’s incredible and frankly, to do that, to be able to do that literally just a few days after this horrible event happened is pretty amazing,” Trump told the crowd, who at one point erupted with chants of “Nicholas!” “I’ll tell you. We’ll take care of it. We’re going to take care of it. We’re going to get that guy. We’re going to get him. We’re going to get him. They know who he is. Can you believe it? They know who he is. Nothing’s done. Mexico is going to give them to us. Mexico is going to give them to us. They have to. They have to. It’s going to be real easy. When I’m president, we’re going to put the drug smugglers and human traffickers. We’re going to put them right out of business. They’re killing hundreds of thousands of people in our country.” Fox News Digital’s Louis Casiano contributed to this report
Allying with Trump, Elon Musk is the latest billionaire to seek gov’t power
If Elon Musk joins the United States government following a Donald Trump victory in the presidential election, he will be the latest in a succession of billionaire businesspeople to hold public office. From the late Vice President Nelson Rockefeller and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and former President Trump himself, the super-rich have long held positions of power in Washington, DC and across US state capitals. With polls showing Tuesday’s election on a knife edge, Musk is in serious contention to join Trump’s cabinet after the Republican candidate floated the idea of the tech billionaire serving as so-called “Secretary of Cost Cutting”. Since entering politics after decades in the real estate business, Trump has displayed a penchant for drafting high-net-worth individuals from the private sector. During his first term in office, Trump nominated five people as Cabinet secretaries who had spent all or nearly all of their careers in the business world, including Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, billionaire philanthropist Betsy DeVos, and former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon. According to an analysis by the Pew Research Centre, Trump’s first slate of Cabinet nominees had more businesspeople with no public sector experience than any other before it. Musk, the world’s richest man, has called for drastic reductions in government spending, although he has provided few specifics about where he would direct cuts. During Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on Sunday, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX CEO said the federal budget could be slashed by “at least” $2 trillion. “Your money is being wasted, and the Department of Government Efficiency is going to fix that,” Musk told Howard Lutnick, the chief executive of Wall Street firm Cantor Fitzgerald and a member of Trump’s transition planning team, when asked how much he could “rip out” of the latest federal budget. “We’re going to get the government off your back and out of your pocketbook.” Such a reduction in spending – equal to nearly one-third of last year’s federal budget of $6.75 trillion – would almost certainly be impossible to achieve without steep cuts in areas that politicians across the aisle have been loath to touch, including social security, healthcare, veterans’ benefits, and defence. Musk himself has acknowledged that such a sharp cut in spending would inflict serious economic pain. On Tuesday, he responded “sounds about right” to a post on X that predicted there would be “an initial severe overreaction in the economy” and “markets will tumble.” SpaceX and Tesla did not respond to requests seeking comment from Musk. Elon Musk speaks as part of a campaign town hall in support of former President Donald Trump in Folsom, Pennsylvania on October 17, 2024 [Matt Rourke/AP] While politicians pledging to end wasteful spending is hardly new, there is no “precise parallel” to a businessman like Musk overseeing a department tasked with improving government efficiency, said Bruce Schulman, a professor of history at Boston University. Political candidates that touted their experience in business, from former President George W. Bush to presidential nominee Mitt Romney, typically had a track record in public service before seeking to enter the highest levels of the federal government. Government commissions aimed at eliminating waste and inefficiency – such as the Hoover Commission and the National Partnership for Reinventing Government led, respectively, by former President Herbert Hoover and Vice President Al Gore – have also generally been led by seasoned government officials. Schulman said while initiatives to eliminate waste have been endorsed at various times by both Democrats and Republicans, they have been largely for “political show”. “These efforts have had marginal effects, and mostly been for political show. But overall, both the size of the federal government in number of employees and in terms of spending have been flat for a long time even though the US population has increased dramatically. The federal government is much leaner than it was in the 1960s/70s,” Schulman told Al Jazeera. John Pelissero, director of Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, questioned Musk’s standing to hold a government position given his lack of experience in the public sector. “Without any working experience in government, one might wonder how he could be qualified to occupy a position, for example, that focuses on government efficiency,” Pelissero told Al Jazeera. “It is worth noting that past government efficiency or reform commissions have often been led by an individual who has earned public trust and has deep experience in government.” While Musk has been lauded as a tech visionary in the private sector, his business track record is not without its stumbles and controversies. Since his $44bn takeover of X in 2022, the social media platform’s value has fallen about 80 percent, according to a valuation by the investment giant Fidelity, largely as a result of advertisers leaving the platform over its loosening of content moderation. The Environmental Protection Agency has accused SpaceX of polluting the area around its Texas base, damaging a surrounding state park and federal wildlife refuge. In September, the agency fined SpaceX $148,378 over a chemical spill – a minuscule penalty for a company of its size that Musk nonetheless branded as “silly”. A Cabinet position would be an enticing reward for Musk, who has emerged as one of Trump’s most vocal and powerful supporters since July’s failed assassination attempt on the former president. Musk’s companies hold billions of dollars in contracts with government agencies, raising concerns that his elevation to the government would create potentially huge conflicts of interest. SpaceX alone has received more than $15bn in government contracts for launching rockets for NASA, satellites for the Pentagon, and ferrying US astronauts to the International Space Station. In February, the Wall Street Journal reported that the company was awarded a $1.8bn classified government contract with an unnamed government agency. Tesla, which is facing regulatory scrutiny from numerous government agencies, stands to benefit from potentially looser regulatory enforcement during a friendly Trump administration, as well as tax cuts and subsidies. X,
Boeing workers to vote on 38% pay rise offer to end weeks-long strike
Striking workers to vote Monday on contract that includes 38 percent pay rise and $12,000 ratification bonus. Striking Boeing workers in the United States are set to vote on a new contract deal after a previous offer by the company failed to get them back to work. The offer to be voted on Monday includes a 38 percent pay rise over four years, a $12,000 ratification bonus and the reinstatement of an annual bonus scheme that was not included in the earlier proposal, The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) said in a statement on Thursday. Nearly two-thirds of workers last week rejected a contract that would have provided a 35 percent wage rise over four years but did not restore a defined pension plan sought by many employees. Workers have been pushing for a 40 percent wage increase and the reinstatement of the old pension scheme. “Your union is endorsing and recommending the latest IAM/Boeing contract proposal. It is time for our members to lock in these gains and confidently declare victory,” the IAM chapter said. Some 33,000 IAM members have been on strike since September 13, halting operations at Boeing factories in the Seattle area that produce the 737 Max and 777. The strike has added to a difficult year for Boeing, which has been under intense scrutiny since a January incident during which a 737 Max plane operated by Alaska Airlines lost a door panel midflight. Boeing shares rose 2.5 percent in after-hours trading after the announcement of the latest offer, after closing 3.2 percent earlier on Thursday. Adblock test (Why?)
Donald Trump sues CBS over ‘misleading’ interview with rival Kamala Harris
Lawsuit against 60 Minutes demands $10bn in damages and claims footage was edited. United States presidential candidate Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against a US television network for what he calls a “misleading” interview with rival Kamala Harris. The suit against CBS News filed in a Texas court on Thursday alleged the network aired two different responses from Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris when responding to a question about the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. The version that aired during the 60 Minutes programme on October 6 did not include what the lawsuit called a “word salad” response from Harris about the Biden administration’s influence on Israel’s conduct of the war. The suit filed by the Republican Party presidential nominee essentially accused CBS of editing Harris’s response to make it seem clearer. The lawsuit has been filed in federal court in the Texas city of Amarillo, which has only one judge – Matthew Kacsmaryk. US media reports said the Trump-appointed judge’s court had become an increasingly popular choice for lawsuits filed by Republicans. CBS says the allegations are wrong CBS News has rejected the claims. “Former President Trump’s repeated claims against 60 Minutes are false,” a CBS News spokesperson said. “The lawsuit Trump has brought today against CBS is completely without merit, and we will vigorously defend against it.” The suit demanded a jury trial and about $10bn in damages, the filing showed. It alleged violations of a Texas law barring deceptive acts in the conduct of business. Trump has repeatedly assailed the network on the campaign trail over the episode and has threatened to revoke CBS’s broadcasting licence if elected. CBS has said Trump backed out of his own planned interview with 60 Minutes. The lawsuit is just another example of Trump’s fraught relationship with the media. He has called it “fake news” and the “enemy of the people” and has often called for television stations to have their licences revoked. However, Trump is also still willing to talk to media outlets such as Fox News that he considers friendly, and continues to give regular and often relaxed off-the-cuff news conferences during the campaign. The organisation Reporters Without Borders, known by its French acronym RSF, which monitors press freedom worldwide, is worried that Trump poses “an existential threat” to the media’s ability to do its job in the US. It analysed Trump’s campaign comments from September 1 to October 24, 2024. It found he had “insulted, attacked, or threatened the media at least 108 times in public speeches or remarks”. RSF’s executive director, Clayton Weimers, warned that violent words could lead to physical violence against reporters. Trump and Harris face each other in what polls show to be a tight race in next Tuesday’s presidential election, with both campaigning on Thursday in the three Western states of New Mexico, Nevada and Arizona. Adblock test (Why?)
Delhi Air Pollution: Delhi-NCR wakes up to thick layer of smog post-Diwali, AQI in ‘very poor’ category
The air quality deteriorated further on Diwali night, with PM2.5 levels rising sharply, creating hazardous conditions for respiratory health.
House Oversight Chairman Comer investigating FBI over ‘quietly’ revised crime statistics
The Republican-led House Oversight Committee on Thursday launched an investigation into the FBI over its alleged “failure to report complete, accurate national crime data.” In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said the bureau “failed to include” in its 2022 data a 4.5% increase in national crime. The FBI had initially reported a 1.7% decrease in violent crime in 2022, but later “quietly” revised those figures, Comer said. Comer alleged that the FBI failed to include in its initial count “an additional 1,699 murders, 7,780 rapes, 33,459 robberies, and 37,091 aggravated assaults.” Comer said the FBI’s failure to report this data “draws into question the veracity” of the 2023 Crime in the Nation report. TOWN’S ENTIRE POLICE FORCE, INCLUDING CHIEF, RESIGNS ON SAME DAY He noted that Vice President Kamala Harris “touted the 2023 data” and the media used it “to dispel Americans’ real concerns about crime.” “The Committee is concerned that the FBI’s recent failures to report accurate crime data are politically motivated,” Comer said. “The Committee is seeking documents and communications to understand the FBI’s failure to provide Congress and the American people with accurate crime data and whether the 2023 data is, in fact, accurate.” FBI INVESTIGATING LEAK OF CLASSIFIED DOCS ON ISRAELI PREPARATIONS FOR POSSIBLE IRAN STRIKE The FBI told Fox News Digital it stands behind each of its Crime in the Nation publications. The FBI said a “significant number of agencies” were unable to complete the transition from the bureau’s traditional Summary Reporting System (SRS) to the more comprehensive National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) for the 2021 data collection year. “Due to the lower volume of participation, the FBI was unable to produce the traditional national estimates for 2021,” the bureau said. “To provide a confident comparison of crime trends across the nation, the UCR Program performed a NIBRS estimation crime trend analysis.” The FBI said its release last month of Crime in the Nation, 2023, was the first phase in its efforts to provide the public with more timely data. The bureau said it will soon transition to monthly data releases “to promote transparency and provide an opportunity for consumers to review data based on more timely crime counts with the understanding that data will be continuously updated.”
A ‘very different scenario’ for the House of Representatives elections in 2024
The race for control of the House is tight. The classic political jumpball. It’s hard to judge which way the House will tilt. Republicans are heavily favored to win the Senate. But nearly every competitive Senate contest is razor-thin. Pennsylvania. Ohio. Michigan. Wisconsin. Texas is suddenly in play. Some observers would never rule out Florida. Montana appears to be slipping away from Democrats. Democrats seem in good shape in Arizona. But what happens if former President Trump wins Arizona? Republicans might seize the Senate majority with a robust 53 or 54 seats – even if all of these races are decided by just a percentage point or two. But, we could be talking about a very different scenario for control of the House and Senate had President Biden not withdrawn from his reelection bid in mid-July. REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: THE HARD STUFF IS YET TO COME On July 21, the President said he would stand down because it was “in the best interest of my party and the country.” House and Senate Democrats breathed a collective sigh of relief. Although many wouldn’t publicly admit it – even now – they feared that Mr. Biden had lost more than a step. He appeared tired. Utterly incoherent at times during the late June debate with former President Trump. Few were excited. They fretted that another Biden candidacy would drain all enthusiasm from the Democratic side. Former President Trump would bludgeon Mr. Biden in the race for the White House. But what truly petrified them was the impact of President Biden standing for re-election on down ballot races. Competitive Senate seats in Pennsylvania and Ohio? Probably down the drain. Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., prognosticated that the GOP would pick up several dozen seats in 2022. McCarthy may have been off by two years. Mr. Biden at the top of the ticket likely would have triggered a blood-letting in House contests. Now, the House is anybody’s ballgame. Biden campaign officials met with House Democrats at the Democratic National Committee on a sizzling morning in mid-July. Some senior House Democrats like Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., declared he was “ridin’ with Biden” as he entered the forum. But the ground was already shifting. WHO’S IN CHARGE: THE MUDDY HISTORY OF THE 50-50 SENATE The president stubbornly stayed in the race. But former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is always mindful of the caucus she used to lead. Pelosi understood the political catastrophe which probably awaited Democrats if the President didn’t step aside. The San Francisco Democrat couldn’t publicly call on Mr. Biden to drop out. Pelosi would be more artful than that. She would quietly urge concerned Democrats to speak out. Without directly saying anything, a groundswell of Congressional Democrats began to demand the President bow out. A group of Biden advisers huddled with moribund Senate Democrats at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) on a sweltering hot afternoon in mid-July. Almost every Senate Democrat who attended tried to avoid the press. In fact, many had drivers take them the several hundred yards from the Senate wing of the Capitol to the DSCC across the street. All to duck the press corps. Their silence spoke volumes about President Biden remaining in the race. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., even visited with President Biden in Delaware, just hours before the assassination attempt of former President Trump in Pennsylvania. News of Schumer’s audience with the president disappeared into the milieu of news coverage of the disaster in Butler, Penn. But Schumer feared a GOP blowout if Mr. Biden stuck around. The deft touch of the former Speaker was classic Pelosi. A read of the climate. No fingerprints. A wink and a nod. A green light to others to do something. Someone close to Pelosi once described to me the former Speaker’s subtlety: “You will be bleeding out and never even realize you’ve been cut.” When Pelosi served as Speaker, allies and foes alike always wondered in awe how she got the votes. Helping orchestrate the exit of President Biden from the presidential sweepstakes was no different. Just switch the improbable into the inevitable. A longtime confidante of Pelosi confided to me years ago that Pelosi knew how to gingerly prod House Democrats to move constituents in their districts. The constituents would then support the given issue – giving cover to Members to vote yes and not face blowback. The base now supported the issue. But not without some cunning engineering from Pelosi. AFGHAN CHARGED WITH ELECTION DAY TERROR PLOT RAISES QUESTIONS, FEARS FROM LAWMAKERS: ‘THIS IS REAL’ That crafty tactic was also at play in convincing Mr. Biden to withdraw. After a few weeks of massaging this behind the scenes, the President understood he had no alternative but to quit. Otherwise, he likely would likely lose. Congressional Democrats would be resigned to their fate. Vice President Harris may win. But Democrats never had a primary season to settle on their nominee. Sure. Harris likely would have been favored initially in a conventional primary process. That’s simply because she ran for president before and has served nearly four years as Vice President. But the quick pivot to Harris was in the interest of efficiency. After President Biden stepped aside, Democrats had an automatic nominee-in-waiting who was credible, qualified and whose resume resonated with the party. So, switching mid-stream to Harris was about as seamless a transition as possible. But, just as importantly, handing over the keys to Harris immediately infused congressional Democrats and the base with much-needed energy. The change buoyed Democrats in ways which were impossible under President Biden. Suddenly, congressional Democrats were back in the game. Republicans have a strong chance of winning the Senate on Tuesday night. But had Mr. Biden remained at the top of the ticket, Democrats faced a tidal wave. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., appears to be on the ropes. There are tight races involving Sens. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio and Bob Casey, D-Penn. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich.,