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Drone strike launched toward Benjamin Netanyahu’s home, Israel says; no injuries reported
A drone was launched toward Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s home on Saturday, the Israeli government said.
Sirens wailed Saturday morning, warning of incoming fire from Lebanon. The drone was launched towards Netanyahu’s home in Caesarea, but neither he nor his wife were home, his spokesperson said in a statement. There were no injuries.
There was no information given about where the drone was launched from or who might be responsible for the attempted attack. Israel did not say if the drone was intercepted or landed elsewhere.
It’s the second strike aimed at Netanyahu in recent months. In September, Yemen’s Houthi rebels launched a ballistic missile toward Ben Gurion Airport when Netanyahu’s plane was landing. The missile was intercepted.
Meanwhile, in Gaza, more than 50 people have been killed in several Israeli strikes, including children, in less than 24 hours, according to hospital officials and an Associated Press reporter.
Ariel Schalit / AP
Saturday’s strikes into Israel come as its war in Lebanon with Hezbollah — a Hamas ally backed by Iran — has intensified in recent weeks. Hezbollah said Friday that it planned to launch a new phase of fighting by sending more guided missiles and exploding drones into Israel. The militant group’s longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in late September, and Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon earlier in October.
Israel’s military said some 55 projectiles were fired in two separate barrages at northern Israel from Lebanon on Saturday morning. Some were intercepted, the army said, and there were no immediate reports of any casualties.
Israel also said Saturday it killed Hezbollah’s deputy commander in the southern town of Bint Jbeil. The army said Nasser Rashid supervised attacks against Israel
In Lebanon, the health ministry said an Israeli airstrike Saturday hit a vehicle on a main highway north of Beirut, killing two people. It was unclear who was in the car when it was struck.
A standoff is also ensuing between Israel and Hamas, which it’s fighting in Gaza, with both signaling resistance to ending the war after the death of Hamas’ leader Yahya Sinwar this week. On Friday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Sinwar’s death was a painful loss but noted that Hamas carried on despite the killings of other Palestinian militant leaders before him.
“Hamas is alive and will stay alive,” Khamenei said.
Since Israel announced Sinwar’s death Thursday and a top Hamas political official confirmed the death Friday, Hamas has reiterated its stance that the hostages taken from Israel a year ago will not be released until there is a cease-fire in Gaza and a withdrawal of Israeli troops. The staunch position pushed back against a statement by Netanyahu that his country’s military will keep fighting until the hostages are released, and will remain in Gaza to prevent a severely weakened Hamas from rearming.
Israel says Sinwar was the chief architect of the 2023 Hamas raid on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped another 250. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has caused the deaths of over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not distinguish combatants from civilians but say more than half the dead are women and children.
More strikes pounded Gaza on Saturday. The Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement that Israeli strikes hit the upper floors of the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, and that forces opened fire at the hospital’s building and its courtyard, causing panic among patients and medical staff. At Al-Awda hospital in Jabaliya, strikes hit the building’s top floors, injuring several staff members, the hospital said in a statement.
In central Gaza, at least 10 people were killed, including two children, when a house was hit in the town of Zawayda, according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital where the casualties were taken. An AP reporter counted the bodies at the hospital. Another strike killed 11 people, all from the same family, in the Maghazi refugee camp, according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, where they were taken. An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the hospital.
Overnight Friday, at least three houses were struck in northern Gaza killing at least 30 people, more than half of them women and children, said Fares Abu Hamza, head of the health ministry’s ambulance and emergency service. The homes were hit in Jabaliya and at least 80 people were injured.
The war has destroyed vast swaths of Gaza, displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people, and left them struggling to find food, water, medicine and fuel.
Sinwar’s killing appeared to be a chance front-line encounter with Israeli troops on Wednesday, and it could shift the dynamics of the war in Gaza even as Israel presses its offensive against Hezbollah with ground troops in southern Lebanon and airstrikes in other areas of the country.
Israel has pledged to destroy Hamas politically in Gaza, and killing Sinwar was a top military priority. But Netanyahu said in a Thursday night speech announcing the killing that “our war is not yet ended.”
Still, the governments of Israel’s allies and exhausted residents of Gaza expressed hope that Sinwar’s death would pave the way for an end to the war.
In Israel, families of hostages still held in Gaza demanded the Israeli government use Sinwar’s killing as a way to restart negotiations to bring home their loved ones. There are about 100 hostages remaining in Gaza, at least 30 of whom Israel says are dead.
CBS News
Mail carriers reach tentative contract with USPS that includes pay raises, air-conditioned trucks
Some 200,000 mail carriers have reached a tentative contract deal with the U.S. Postal Service that includes backdated pay raises and a promise to provide workers with air-conditioned trucks.
The new agreement, which still needs to be ratified by union members, runs through Nov. 2026. Letter deliverers have been working without a contract since May 2023.
Both the union and the Postal Service welcomed the agreement, which was announced Friday.
“Both sides didn’t get everything they wanted. But by bargaining in good faith, we ended with an agreement that meets our goals and rewards our members,” Brian Renfroe, the president of the National Association of Letter Carriers, told The Associated Press. “To make that happen, the Postal Service had to recognize the contributions of members to the Postal Service and the American people.”
Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images
Among other improvements, the deal increases the top pay and reduces the amount of time it takes new workers to reach that level, Renfroe said. He credited Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and his deputy for bargaining in good faith throughout the arduous process.
The Postal Service said the agreement supported its 10-year ‘Delivering for America’ mission to modernize operations and adapt to changing customer needs.
“This is a fair and responsible agreement that serves the best interest of our employees, our customers and the future of the Postal Service,” said Doug Tulino, the deputy postmaster general and chief human resources officer.
As part of the agreement, all city carriers will get three annual pay increases of 1.3% each by 2025, some of which will be paid retroactively from Nov. 2023. Workers will also receive retroactive and future cost-of-living adjustments.
There is also a commitment from the Postal Service to “make every effort” to provide mail trucks with air-conditioning.
Jon Shapley/Houston Chronicle via Getty Images
The Postal Service in summer began rolling out its new electric delivery vehicles, which come equipped with air-conditioning. While the trucks won’t win any beauty contests, they did get rave reviews from letter carriers accustomed to older vehicles that lack modern safety features and are prone to breaking down — and even catching fire.
Within a few years, the new delivery fleet will have expanded to 60,000 vehicles, most of them electric models, serving as the Postal Service’s primary delivery truck from Maine to Hawaii.
Under the tentative contract agreement, the Postal Service must discuss with the union any plans to buy new mail trucks that don’t have air-conditioning.
This is the second contract negotiated since DeJoy was appointed postmaster general in 2020. It is expected to take several weeks for union members to ratify the contract. Rural mail deliverers aren’t covered by the contract because they are represented by a different union.
Three people were killed and eight were injured during a shooting at a trail ride in Holmes County, Mississippi.
The shooting occurred around midnight on Saturday on Highway 17 North, according to CBS affiliate WJTV.
Holmes County Sheriff Willie March said several people went on a trail ride after homecoming for Holmes County Consolidated Schools, WJTV reported. March said an argument took place between young men before the shooting occurred.
Suspects are being sought in the shooting, the sheriff said.
The three victims were identified as Martel Gibson, 25, of Durant; Shundra Chestnut, 19, of Kosciusko; and John Jenkins, 19, of Durant.
Holmes County is about 70 miles north of Jackson, the state capital.
The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is assisting in this case, a spokesperson confirmed to CBS News on Saturday.
CBS News was told that no further updates will be provided until Monday.
It’s usually a serene two-and-a-half-hour ride on Japan’s famously efficient bullet train. But the journey quickly descended into a zombie apocalypse, with passengers screaming in terror.
Organizers of Saturday’s adrenaline-filled trip, less than two weeks before Halloween, touted it as the “world’s first haunted house experience on a running shinkansen.”
Aboard a chartered car of the shinkansen — the Japanese word for bullet train — were around 40 thrill-seekers, ready to brave an encounter with the living dead between Tokyo and the western metropolis of Osaka.
PHILIP FONG/AFP via Getty Images
The eerie experience was inspired by the hit 2016 South Korean action-horror movie “Train to Busan”, in which a father and daughter trapped on a moving train battle zombies hungry for human flesh.
All seemed normal at first as the bullet train made a peaceful departure Saturday evening, but it wasn’t long until the first gory attack.
The victims — actors planted in seats by the organizers — jerked in agony and then underwent a terrifying transformation before starting a rampage against their fellow passengers.
Event organizer Kenta Iwana of the group Kowagarasetai, which translates to the “scare squad”, said they wanted to “depict the normally safe, peaceful shinkansen — something we take for granted — collapsing in the blink of an eye”.
PHILIP FONG/AFP via Getty Images
Sitting next to one of the actors was Joshua Payne, one of many foreign tourists on board.
“I literally felt like I was in the film, just sitting here watching it take place in front of me,” the 31-year-old American told AFP.
“The fact that we can physically go from Tokyo to Osaka right now and have this whole performance at the same time… I think is really cool and maybe a little bit groundbreaking,” he said.
It was far from Central Japan Railway Company’s first experiment with the usually dazzlingly clean, accident-free shinkansen, a Japanese institution that turned 60 this year.
After demand for long-distance travel plunged during the COVID-19 pandemic, the railway operator started renting out bullet train compartments for special events to diversify its business.
A sushi restaurant, a bar and even a wrestling match have been hosted on the high-speed train, and carriages can also be reserved for private parties.
PHILIP FONG/AFP via Getty Images
Marie Izumi of JR Central’s tourism subsidiary told AFP that she was surprised by the idea for a zombie-themed commute when Kowagarasetai approached her, thinking it would be “almost impossible to pull off”.
But the event has convinced her of “new possibilities” for the bullet train, Izumi said, adding that concerts and comedy shows might be a good fit in the future.
On Saturday, toy chainsaws and guns were used as props, but depictions of extreme violence and gore that could tarnish the shinkansen’s squeaky-clean reputation were avoided.
To counterbalance the subdued horror, the two-and-a-half-hour tour was peppered with light-hearted performances by zombie cheerleaders, magicians and comedians, including a choreographed dance to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”.
“Nobody wants to sit tight for such a long time being constantly exposed to horror,” said Ayaka Imaide from Kowagarasetai.
Many aboard the zombie-infested train said the experience alone was worth the ticket price of up to 50,000 yen ($335).
“It was very immersive,” Naohiko Nozawa, 30, told AFP. “And the appearance of so many different kinds of zombies kept me entertained all the way.”
