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Millions of People Arrive in Saudi Arabia for hajj amid heat

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Massive crowds of worshippers have thronged Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, on Friday for the biggest hajj pilgrimage in years, with more than two million expected to brave the scorching Saudi Arabian heat.

Pilgrims in white robes and sandals packed the ancient city, now dotted with luxury hotels and air-conditioned shopping malls, after flooding in on planes, buses, and trains for the annual rites.

This year’s hajj – one of the world’s biggest annual religious gatherings, with a tragic history of stampedes and other disasters – could break attendance records, officials said.

“As the hajj draws near, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia prepares… for the largest Islamic gathering in history,” Minister of Hajj and Umrah Tawfiq Al-Rabiah said in a video published by the ministry this week.

Rites include circling the Kaaba, the large black cube in Mecca’s Grand Mosque, praying on Mount Arafat and “stoning the devil” by throwing pebbles at three giant concrete walls representing Satan.

More than two million people from more than 160 countries will attend, Rabiah said – a dramatic increase on the 926,000 from last year, when numbers were capped at one million post-pandemic.

In 2019, about 2.5 million people took part. Only 10,000 were allowed in 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, rising to nearly 59,000 a year later.

The hajj is among the five pillars of Islam and must be undertaken by all Muslims with the means at least once in their lives.

– ‘Unbelievable feeling’ –

Travellers from around the world have been pouring into Jeddah’s modernised airport, some of them using streamlined visa services to disembark from planes straight onto buses to their accommodation.

Some 24,000 buses will be in service to ferry the pilgrims, as well as 17 trains capable of moving 72,000 people every hour, officials said.

“It is an unbelievable feeling that is very emotional,” Souad bin Oueis, a 60-year-old Moroccan pilgrim, told AFP after arriving on her first visit to Saudi Arabia along with her husband.

This hajj will be the biggest since the requirement for women to be accompanied by male guardians was dropped in 2021.

This year, the maximum age limit has also been scrapped, meaning thousands of elderly will be among those contending with Saudi summer temperatures that are expected to reach 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit).

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Democrats Win US midterm elections

Trump acknowledges the Iran war, and the rising cost of living, were factors in his Republican Party’s defeat – as the White House posts on social media: “Trump is still your president”

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US President Donald Trump

The Democrats win the Senate and the House in US midterm elections, taking control of Congress for the rest of Donald Trump’s tenure.

Voters in conservative bastions who had propelled the president to his second term in office just two years ago swung dramatically toward Democrats, fueled by deep frustration over the unpopular war with Iran, anxiety over the high cost of living and anger at ‌Trump’s stewardship of the country.

Trump acknowledges the Iran war, and the rising cost of living, were factors in his Republican Party’s defeat – as the White House posts on social media: “Trump is still your president”

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In Texas, the biggest Republican state, Democrats ended a decades-long losing streak in seismic fashion, winning a Senate seat and ousting three-term Governor Greg Abbott.Kansas elected its first Democratic senator since the Great Depression nearly a century ago, and in South Carolina, a state that Trump carried by nearly 18 points in 2024, Democrats turned aside his hand-picked Senate candidate.The results will usher in a new era of divided government in Washington, following two years in which the Republican-controlled Congress rarely exercised its power to rein in Trump.

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JUST IN: Plane Crash Near Trump’s Florida Home Kills All 9 Aboard

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A private Learjet 60 crashed into a residential neighborhood in Palm Beach County, Florida, on Sunday afternoon, killing all nine people on board, officials confirmed.

The aircraft, flying from Austin, Texas, to the Bahamas, went down around 12:50 p.m. local time near Cresthaven/Greenacres, roughly 7–11 kilometers (about 4–7 miles) from President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

It struck near a busy roadway at the entrance to a mobile-home community, creating a large fireball and leaving a crater in the road. Debris was scattered across a wide area, and nearby power and water lines were damaged.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy called the crash a “horrific tragedy” and confirmed there were no survivors among the nine occupants.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis described the impact as “cataclysmic,” saying it “looked like a missile going down.” No injuries were reported among people on the ground. About 600 residents of a nearby mobile-home park were evacuated.

Trump had been at Mar-a-Lago earlier Sunday but departed on Air Force One from the nearby airport about an hour before the crash.

The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation, with support from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Early reports noted the crew had discussed moderate turbulence and ice shortly before the steep descent.

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Tens of thousands protest against Narendra Modi regime in Delhi

The protest was one of the largest shows of opposition strength in years, taking place amid a wider resurgence of anti-government dissent which has been systematically crushed over the 12 years of the Modi regime.

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Thousands of opposition supporters have gathered in Delhi as protests against the Narendra Modi government continue to gather momentum.

Led by the Congress party, India’s opposition alliance has brought together supporters from across the country, amid growing anger over a large-scale revision of the country’s voter roll that has seen 130 million names erased.

Opposition leaders have alleged the process gives Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) an electoral advantage, and have called for the resignation and impeachment of the chief election commissioner, Gyanesh Kumar.

The BJP has denied the claims.

Addressing tens of thousands of party workers and supporters, the opposition leader Rahul Gandhi said Kumar had “carried out the biggest crime. He has tried to silence the voice of people, strangulate our country.”

Gandhi said the opposition, united under the acronym India (Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance), would not let “democracy be finished in the country” and warned Modi: “You can’t run anywhere.”

The protest was one of the largest shows of opposition strength in years, taking place amid a wider resurgence of anti-government dissent which has been systematically crushed over the 12 years of the Modi regime.

The Guardian Uk

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