Washington:

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris launched a $50 million advertising blitz on Tuesday, capitalizing on the momentum of a fledgling campaign against Republican rival Donald Trump with a one-minute spot titled “Fearless.”

It was Harris’ first big ad buy since consolidating support for the Democratic nomination after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race on July 21 and endorsed her.

In addition to garnering the backing of big-money donors, Harris has sparked newfound energy among groups such as young voters that Biden had been struggling to win over.

Public opinion polls in the last week have shown Harris, 59, closing the gap with 78-year-old Trump, who still leads in some national surveys.

The ads will be rolled out on television as well as streaming and social channels across election battleground states in the weeks before the Democratic National Convention that starts on Aug. 19.

The first ad in the campaign begins with images of Harris as a little girl and follows her progression to a prosecutor, attorney general and U.S. vice president. “The one thing Kamala Harris has always been: fearless,” the ad says.

Since stepping into her new role, Harris has focused on Trump’s felony convictions in a hush-money trial involving a porn star and the other criminal charges he faces, and portrayed him as responsible for a wave of anti-abortion measures in Republican-led states around the country.

The Harris campaign’s ad buy dwarfed the $10 million advertising buy announced by Trump’s campaign on Monday, to be launched in six battleground states this week as it tries to counter a surge of voter enthusiasm and donations for Harris.

That was Trump’s biggest ad buy since January.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Hong Kong:

Hong Kong pro-democracy news outlet Stand News and its two former chief editors were found guilty of sedition on Thursday, the first conviction of its kind since the city came under Chinese rule in 1997.

The verdict is part of a crackdown on free speech in the former British colony that has seen critics of China jailed or forced into exile, following huge pro-democracy protests in 2019.

Editors Chung Pui-kuen, 54, and Patrick Lam, 36, are the first journalists to be convicted of sedition since Britain handed Hong Kong over to China in 1997, and the ruling drew resounding international condemnation.

Chung and Lam were in charge of Stand News, a Chinese-language website that gained a massive following during the protests in 2019, before it was raided and shut down in December 2021.

On Thursday, district court judge Kwok Wai-kin said the pair were guilty of “conspiracy to publish and reproduce seditious publications”. The parent company of Stand News, Best Pencil Limited, was also found guilty.

“The line (Stand News) took was to support and promote Hong Kong local autonomy,” according to a written judgement by Kwok.

“It even became a tool to smear and vilify the Central Authorities (Beijing) and the (Hong Kong) SAR Government.”

Kwok also pointed to 11 articles published by Stand News that “caused potential detrimental consequences to national security” and had the intention of “seriously undermining” authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong.

Lam was absent from court on Thursday due to illness.

The judge granted the duo bail before their sentencing on September 26.

Colonial-era law

Chung and Lam were charged under a colonial-era law, which punishes sedition with a maximum jail term of two years.

A recent security law enacted in March raised the jail term for sedition to seven years.

In response to the verdict, the European Union called on Hong Kong to “stop prosecuting journalists”.

“The ruling risks inhibiting the pluralistic exchange of ideas and the free flow of information, both cornerstones of the economic success of Hong Kong,” a EU spokesperson said.

Speaking outside court, police chief superintendent Steve Li said the verdict “clearly illustrated the necessity and lawfulness” of the enforcement actions in 2021 against Stand News.

Asked if the verdict would further affect press freedom, Li said it would “actually help”.

“It would let everyone know what kind of problems could risk breaching the law,” he said.

Not seditious

But Beh Lih Yi from the Committee to Protect Journalists said the ruling showed that Hong Kong was “descending further into authoritarianism”.

“Journalism is not seditious,” she said.

Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s China Director, called the verdict “one more nail in the coffin for press freedom in Hong Kong”.

Hong Kong has seen its standing in global press freedom rankings plummet in recent years.

Chung had testified that the outlet was a platform for free speech and defended his decisions to publish articles critical of the government.

But prosecutors accused them of bringing “hatred or contempt” to the Chinese and Hong Kong governments.

More than 100 people, including supporters and media professionals, queued up for spots in the public gallery on Thursday morning.

The verdict was also attended by representatives from various consulates — including the United States, Britain, France, European Union, and Australia.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Paris:

After an escalation of hostilities Sunday amid over 10 months of cross-border clashes between Israel and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah movement, here are the major eruptions of violence since their 2006 war.

The devastating month-long war in the summer of 2006 cost Lebanon more than 1,200 lives, mostly civilians, while some 160 Israelis were killed, mostly soldiers.

The following years saw sporadic attacks, which surged following the October 7 attack by Hezbollah’s Palestinian ally Hamas on Israel.

2007-2013: rocket fire and incursion

On June 17, 2007, two rockets were fired into northern Israel from Lebanon hitting an industrial zone in the border town of Kiryat Shmona without causing casualties. Hezbollah denies responsibility.

In early August 2010, a move by Israeli troops to uproot trees in a disputed border area at Adaysseh sparks a deadly border battle in which two Lebanese soldiers and a journalist are killed along with a senior Israeli officer.

On August 7, 2013, four Israeli soldiers on patrol were wounded in a blast claimed by Hezbollah 400 metres (yards) inside Lebanese territory.

2014-2015: Israeli strikes

On February 26, 2014, Hezbollah says Israeli warplanes had carried out an air raid on one of its positions at Lebanon’s border with Syria.

On October 7, Israel strikes two Hezbollah positions in southern Lebanon in response to its bomb attack against Israeli troops on the ceasefire line on the Shebaa hills between the two countries that wounded two soldiers.

On January 28, 2015, two Israeli soldiers are killed in a Hezbollah ambush in the Shebaa hills.

The attack is carried out in retaliation for a raid blamed on Israel 10 days earlier on the Syrian-controlled side of the Golan Heights, which killed at least six members of Hezbollah and an Iranian general.

In retaliation, Israeli tanks and artillery bombarded several villages in southern Lebanon.

2019: drones and missiles strikes

On August 25, 2019, two explosive-laden drones hit the southern Beirut suburbs, causing material damage according to Hezbollah, which blames the attack on Israel.

The day before, an Israeli air strike in Syria had killed two Hezbollah members.

On September 1, the Israeli army and Hezbollah traded missile fire along the border.

2021: uptick in clashes

On August 4, 2021, three rockets were fired from Lebanon, of which two fell in Israel. The Israeli army responds with air strikes on southern Lebanon.

On August 6, Hezbollah fires more than 10 rockets at Israel, which responds with artillery fire.

2023-2024: October 7 attacks aftermath

Hezbollah has traded almost daily cross-border fire with Israel since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel which triggered the war in the Gaza Strip.

In southern Lebanon, a Reuters video journalist was killed on October 13, and six other journalists from AFP, Reuters and Al Jazeera were wounded in a strike by an Israeli tank.

On January 2, 2024, Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri was killed in Beirut’s southern suburbs in a strike blamed on Israel.

On February 26, Israeli strikes Hezbollah targets in the Bekaa Valley in the first such raid on Lebanon’s east since fighting erupted in October.

July, August 2024: Hezbollah, Fatah chiefs killed

On July 27, a rocket strike killed 12 children aged 10-16 in the Druze Arab town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

Israel blames the strike on Hezbollah, which denies the claim.

The Israeli army responds by striking Beirut’s southern suburbs on July 30, killing Hezbollah’s top commander in the south, Fuad Shukr.

In an August 21 strike, the Israeli military kills Khalil Maqdah, described by the Palestinian Fatah movement as “one of the leaders” of its armed wing in Lebanon.

August 2024: hostilities surge

On August 25, Hezbollah says it launched a barrage of hundreds of rockets and drones on Israel in response to the killing of Shukr. It says its operation “was completed and accomplished”.

But Israel says it has thwarted the attack, launching air strikes into Lebanon that the military says destroyed “thousands” of Hezbollah rocket launchers.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Israel:

Top US diplomat Antony Blinken was due to travel to Egypt on Tuesday for talks on a Gaza ceasefire after saying Israel had accepted a US “bridging proposal” for a deal and urging Hamas to do the same.

Blinken, on his ninth visit to the Middle East since the Palestinian operative group’s October 7 attack triggered the war with Israel, was scheduled to fly from Tel Aviv to El Alamein, the Mediterranean city famous for a World War II battle in 1942, to speak to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi at his summer palace.

Afterwards, he will head to a meeting with Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, in Doha, the scene of ceasefire talks last week.

Both Egypt and Qatar are working alongside the United States to broker a truce in the 10-month Gaza conflict.

Washington put forward the latest proposal last week after the talks in Doha.

Blinken said Monday he had “a very constructive meeting” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who “confirmed to me that Israel accepts the bridging proposal”.

Ahead of those talks, Hamas called on the mediators to implement the framework set out by US President Joe Biden in late May, rather than hold more negotiations.

The movement said on Sunday that the current US proposal “responds to Netanyahu’s conditions” and leaves him “fully responsible for thwarting the efforts of the mediators”.

Earlier on Monday, the US secretary of state had said: “This is a decisive moment — probably the best, maybe the last, opportunity to get the hostages home, to get a ceasefire and to put everyone on a better path to enduring peace and security”.

Months of on-off negotiations with US, Qatari and Egyptian mediators have failed to produce an agreement.

Israel and Hamas have blamed each other for delays in reaching an accord that diplomats say would help avert a wider conflagration in the Middle East that could draw in Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

“There is, I think, a real sense of urgency here, across the region, on the need to get this over the finish line and to do it as soon as possible,” Blinken said.

The Biden administration is under domestic pressure over Gaza, with pro-Palestinian protests taking place outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago on Monday.

Biden said in his farewell speech to the convention that the protesters “have a point”, adding that “a lot of innocent people are being killed, on both sides”.

Permanent ceasefire

Israel and Hamas have traded blame for delays in reaching a truce deal.

Hamas insisted on “a permanent ceasefire and a comprehensive (Israeli) withdrawal from the Gaza Strip”, saying Netanyahu wanted to keep Israeli forces at several strategic locations within the territory.

Western ally Jordan, hostage supporters who protested in Tel Aviv during Blinken’s visit, and Hamas itself have called for pressure on Netanyahu in order for an agreement to be reached.

Far-right members crucial to the prime minister’s governing coalition oppose any truce.

The October 7 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 40,139 people, according to the territory’s health ministry, which does not give details of civilian and operative deaths.

Out of 251 hostages seized during Hamas’s attack, 111 are still held in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

The Biden framework would freeze fighting for an initial six weeks while Israeli hostages are exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and humanitarian aid enters Gaza.

Netanyahu said on Monday that negotiators were aiming to “release a maximum number of living hostages” in the first phase of any ceasefire.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)