A hot new high-stakes competition show went viral on the internet this week that had fans placing bets, joining fantasy leagues, tweeting live updates, and posting daily recaps. But it wasnt Love Island or Survivor. It was the conclave.
The conclave is the Catholic Churchs traditional process for picking a new pope. It involves sequestering dozens of cardinals in a locked-down Sistine Chapel for an indefinite period, during which time they use a series of votes to elect a new pontiff. After each ballot, an old-fashioned system is used to let the world know whether a pope has been chosen: If the decision has not been made, black smoke issues from the Chapels chimney; if it has, the smoke is white.
This afternoon, white smoke issued after less than two days, announcing that Robert Francis Prevost, who has taken the papal name Leo XIV, had been chosenand marking an end to a brief subculture of ultradedicated conclave fans.
Weeks before the conclave began, fans were already turning the election into a quasi-sporting event, analyzing each of the 133 contenders and placing bets on their chances of success. Once the conclave was actually underway, cardinal fever only became more intenseand more strange. These are four of the oddest ways that conclave-watchers kept up with the news:
24/7 chimney watch
For the most dedicated of pope watchers, the official Vatican News channel hosted a 24/7 close-up livestream of the Sistine Chapels chimney, where the much-awaited smoke issues after each ballot.
Despite the fact that the video was largely unchangingexcept for the occasional seagull sounds or chatter from the street belowit consistently held the attention of thousands of viewers since going live yesterday. By the time white smoke was issued around noon ET Thursday, viewership nearly topped 300,000.
Pope Crave
For anyone whos a frequent X user, youre probably familiar with the account Pop Crave, which updates followers with pop culture news every few hours. Well, now theres that, but for the next pope.
Pope Crave is keeping pope enthusiasts in the loop with a near-constant stream of conclave-related memes, photos, and, of course, real-time updates. The account started as a fan page for the film Conclave, but has since turned into a full-on conclave news outlet in its own right, working with ad hoc correspondents on the ground in Rome to deliver forthcoming details about the election process to its more than 70,000 followers.
In an interview with Time magazine, the accounts main administrator, Susan Bin, said her long-term goal for the account is for the Holy See to hire us so we can make official Vatican memes.
Today, Pope Crave broke the news that a new pope had been selected minutes before many major news networks.
Polymarket
Thousands of people have already joined conclave-based fantasy leagues and put down their hard-earned cash on the cardinal they like best.
On the crypto trading platform Polymarket, Who will be the next Pope? was the current top trending query on Tuesday, amassing over $27 million in trade volume. A handy color-coded chart kept track of how each candidate was faring among bidders. Just after white smoke issued from the chapel, but before Prevost’s election was announced, bids on Cardinal Pietro Parolin shot into a significant lead, followed by the internets favorite, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle.
Prevost’s election evidently came as a shock to most bidders, considering that his chances to win were hovering around 1% (and sometimes even edging closer to zero) in the days leading up to the decision.
Conclave Island
Frequent reality TV-enjoyers may have found it difficult to ignore that the conclave has a striking number of features in common with their favorite shows: a select group of individuals, sequestered from the rest of the world in an intense competition, which is also clouded in layers of mystery and drama. This certainly was not lost on many fans of the drag competition show RuPaul’s Drag Race, who took to captioning iconic images of the show with the conclave and speculating about what kind of cash prize the next pope might receive.
Over on TikTok, creator Rob Anderson (@heartthrobert) took the reality TV comparison to the next level with a series of videos he called the Pope Games. Each installment was dedicated to explaining how the conclave works, as well as digging into all of the juicy gossip surrounding this years election, in a style that evoked the reality TV show Love Island.
In his “Day 1 recap,” posted yesterday evening, Anderson began: Day one of the Pope Games is complete. 133 of these singles have entered the villa: no technology or contact with the outside world, leaving the ring light at the door, losing their Duolingo streaks. He went on to explain a shocking smear campaign, touched on reports that cardinals watched the Conclave movie to prepare for the election, and foreshadowed the schedule for day two.
In the run-up to the annual U.N. climate conference, set to take place in Brazils Amazon in November, the construction of a road is drawing attention, with critics arguing it will lead to environmental degradation.
Before the talks, called COP30, the state government of Para is building a 13-kilometer (8-mile) avenue designed to ease traffic on a major highway that runs parallel.
The road was planned long before Belem, a metropolitan area of 2.5 million people that sits on the edge of the Amazon, was chosen as conference host. That hasn’t spared it sharp criticism, however, because the road is expected to cut across the last remnants of rainforest in Belem.
Road building in the Amazon, which historically has often led to deforestation and development of surrounding areas, also stands in stark contrast to a central aim of climate conferences, and in particular this one: conservation of biodiversity.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has made the slowing of deforestation a central focus of his administration, has frequently boasted that this will be the first such conference in the Amazon rainforest.
The Amazon is key to regulating the climate, because trees absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that heats the planet when released into the atmosphere.
We will hold the best COP in history because the topic of all the ones held in other countries was the Amazon,” Lula said while visiting Belem worksites in February. This one will be in the Amazon.
An official project map shows a straight line dividing a green area through the citys outskirts. This protected area is slightly larger than Manhattan. It was designated in 1993 to protect two lakes, a river basin and to restore a degraded rainforest. However, its rules allow private properties, government-approved deforestation and public works. Two university campuses are located within its limits.
Even with measures to reduce the damage, there are tough issues to address, said Roberta Rodrigues, a professor of architecture at the Federal University of Para. Its hard to imagine a road being built along the banks of the Guama River without it leading to illegal development. It may lead to the end of this protected area.”
The project dates back to 2020. Construction began in mid-2024, despite criticism over its impact on one of the citys few remaining green areas. The project drew wider attention in March, when the BBC reported that the avenue was “being built for COP30. As the story was picked up by news outlets around the world, Brazils government issued a statement saying the avenue wasn’t among the 33 infrastructure projects planned for COP30.
In a statement to The Associated Press, the state government of Para said that the avenue, named Liberdade, or Freedom, will be an expressway and development around it won’t be permitted.
The chaotic growth of Brazilian cities, however, suggests it’s a promise that will be hard to keep. Countless public areas have been occupied for the irregular construction of housing from modest structures to luxury condos with the expectation that they will eventually be legalized, which often ends up happening.
Belem is the capital of Para, which is run by Gov. Helder Barbalho, a politician from a traditional family who is an ally of Lula. Both support oil drilling in the nearby mouth of the Amazon River, likely a point of contention during COP30.
The road is scheduled to be inaugurated just before the conference kicking off on Nov. 10.
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The Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find APs standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
Fabiano Maisonnave, Associated Press
The woman behind Instacarts successful IPO, Fidji Simo, is joining OpenAIs C-suite.
On Wednesday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced Simos new role as CEO of applications. She will report directly to him after transitioning out of her current role at Instacart later this year.
“In her new role, Fidji will focus on enabling our traditional company functions to scale as we enter a next phase of growth,” Altman said in a blog post. “Fidji brings a rare blend of leadership, product, and operational expertise, and genuine commitment to ensuring our technology benefits everyone.”
Before joining OpenAIs executive team, Simo served as a member of its board of directors. She will now concentrate on scaling the companys traditional functions as it moves into its next phase of growth. Simos addition signals OpenAIs potential expansion beyond ChatGPT. Previous reports have suggested the company is exploring ventures into social media platforms.
This organization has the potential of accelerating human potential at a pace never seen before, and I am deeply committed to shaping these applications toward the public good, Simo said in the blog post.
Heres everything you need to know about Silicon Valleys latest executive.
Who is Fidji Simo?
The 39-year-old is a first-generation high school graduate from the fishing village of Ste in France. As Fast Company previously reported, Simo was named after a perfume worn by her mother, a boutique owner. She graduated from one of Frances most prestigious business schools, HEC Paris, and began her career at eBay in 2007.
Facebook alumna
Prior to Instacart, Simo served as a senior executive at Facebook, working closely with her former mentor Mark Zuckerberg and eventually leading the Facebook app prior to the companys rebrand to Meta. During her tenure there, from 2011 to 2021, she held roles including director of product management and vice president of video, games, and monetization.
Leading Instacart
In January 2021, Simo became CEO of Maplebear Inc., Instacarts parent company. She went on to lead Instacarts highly anticipated IPO in 2023, which raised $660 million and valued the company at $9.9 billion.
A healthcare initiative
While serving as CEO of Instacart, Simo cofounded the Metrodora Institute after being diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome and endometriosis. The clinic and research center is dedicated to treating women with neuroimmune axis disorders by collecting data from consenting patients and sharing it with partner research institutions, in hopes of finding a cure. These disorders include conditions in which the immune system attacks the nervous system, such as lupus, Guillain-Barré syndrome, and long COVID.
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National active housing inventory for sale at the end of April 2025 was up 31% compared with April 2024. Thats just 16% below pre-pandemic levels from April 2019. However, while the national housing market has softened and inventory has surpassed 2019 pre-pandemic levels in some pockets of the Sun Belt, many housing markets remain far tighter than the national average.
Pulling from ResiClubs monthly inventory tracker, we identified the tightest major housing markets heading into the spring 2025 season, where active inventory is still the furthest below pre-pandemic 2019 levels. These markets are where home sellers have maintained more power compared with most sellers nationwide.
Among the nations 200 largest metro area housing markets, 37 markets (see table below) at the end of April 2025 still had at least 50% less active inventory than in April 2019.
Thats lower than last months countwhen 42 of the nations 200 largest metro area housing markets still had active inventory at least 50% below pre-pandemic 2019 levels.
Many of those tight markets are in the Northeast, in particular, in states like New Jersey and Connecticut.
Unlike the Sun Belt, many markets in the Northeast and Midwest were less reliant on pandemic-era migration and have fewer new home construction projects in progress. With lower exposure to the negative demand shock caused by the slowdown in pandemic-era migrationand fewer homebuilders in these regions offering affordability adjustments once rates spikedactive inventory in many Northeast and Midwest housing markets has remained relatively tight, maintaining a sellers advantage heading into spring 2025.
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Robert Prevost of the United States has been named the new pope, the new head of the Catholic church.
Cardinals gathered to select their latest leader during a conclave.
White smoke poured out of the Sistine Chapel chimney Thursday at 6:07 p.m. local time, signaling that a pontiff had been elected to lead the Catholic Church.
Here is the latest:
Robert Prevost is elected the first American pope in history
Cardinal Robert Prevost, an American missionary who spent his career ministering in Peru and leads the Vaticans powerful office of bishops, was elected the first American pope in the 2,000-year history of the Catholic Church.
Prevost, 69, took the name Leo XIV.
Older updates…
White smoke rises from Sistine Chapel
White smoke is pouring out of the Sistine Chapel chimney, signaling that a pope has been elected to lead the Catholic Church.
That means the winner secured at least 89 votes of the 133 cardinals participating in the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis. The crowd in St. Peters Square erupted in cheers. The name will be announced later, when a top cardinal utters the words Habemus papam! Latin for We have a pope! from the loggia of St. Peters Basilica. The cardinal then reads the winners birth name in Latin, and reveals the name he has chosen to be called.
The new pope is then expected to make his first public appearance and impart a blessing from the same loggia.
Older cardinals who didnt participate in the conclave rush out to the square
These cardinals lined up as military bands played the Italian and Holy See national anthems.
Spotted in the crowd were American Cardinals Sean OMalley and Donald Wuerl, both of whom are over 80 and didnt vote.
Swiss Guards have taken position in front of front of St. Peters Basilica
A marching brass band in blue uniforms led a contingent of Swiss guards through the crowd to a central spot below the balcony, generating another huge roar from the crowd.
The Pontifical Swiss Guard is the official security force of the Vatican, and holds a ceremonial and a protective function.
And now more marching bands are celebrating the election of a new pope in a parade that includes large groups in military dress uniforms.
Vivi il Papa! erupts from the crowd whenever the music pauses.
All eyes are now on the red-draped central balcony of St. Peters Basilica
Thats where a cardinal will soon emerge to to proclaim a new pope to Rome and to the world.
There is incredible excitement the crowd is roaring, and some are shouting hallelujah!
Church bells ring in Spain
Moments after white smoke poured out of the Sistine Chapel, the bells began tolling in Barcelonas towering Sagrada Familia basilica and the Almudena Cathedral in Madrid, across from the royal palace.
The great bells of St. Peters Basilica are tolling
And down below, amid the cheers in the vast mix of humanity in St. Peters square, priests are making the sign of the cross and nuns are weeping at the white smoke wafting into the sky.
The crowd erupted with joy in St. Peters Square
Some are obviously deeply moved, others excited. Theyre clapping and waving national flags and taking photos with their phones.
Viva il papa! some shouted.
White smoke is pouring out of the Sistine Chapel chimney
It signals that a pope has been elected to lead the Catholic Church.
That means the winner secured at least 89 votes of the 133 cardinals participating in the conclave to elect a successor to Pope Francis.
The crowd in St. Peters Square erupted in cheers.
The name will be announced later, when a top cardinal utters the words Habemus papam! Latin for We have a pope! from the loggia of St. Peters Basilica. The cardinal then reads the winners birth name in Latin, and reveals the name he has chosen to be called.
The new pope is then expected to make his first public appearance and impart a blessing from the same loggia.
The smoke emerged from the chimney at 6:07 p.m.
Pope Francis appointed 108 of the cardinals voting for his successor
He elevated these men and others who are not eligible to vote in groups throughout his papacy, beginning in January 2014 with 19. They came from around the world, including the developing nations of Haiti and Burkina Faso, in line with his belief the church must pay more attention to the poor and that its hierarchy should reflect the face of the faithful.
His last batch was installed in December 2024 with 21 cardinals, 20 of whom are in the conclave.
The excitement in the square is contagious
At one point there was applause from the crowd as thousands train their eyes on the chimney above the Sistine Chapel, but it was a false alarm.
We want a Pope close to the people and close to us, to the youth, who represent the future of the Church, said Kacper Michalak, 20, a seminarian from Poland who came for the 2025 Jubilee. The holy year is an ancient church tradition encouraging spiritual renewal which encourages pilgrimages to Rome.
How long does it take to choose a pope?
Its hard to say precisely. The Vatican doesnt officially publish the number of votes in past conclaves, and sources compiling their own tallies dont completely agree. But historical data provide a few clues.
The longest conclave since the 20th century begantook 14 rounds of balloting across five days, ending with the election of Pius XI in 1922. The shortest, electing Pius XII in 1939, took three ballots over two days.
Cardinals must reach a two-thirds majority to elect a pope. That may have been easier in the past: In 1922 there were just 53 voting cardinals, and until 1978 conclaves had fewer than 100. This year there are 133, so 89 votes are needed.
These are the US cardinals voting for the next pope
The United States is home to 10 of the 133 cardinals eligible to vote for the next pope. Thats more than any other nation except Italy, home to 17 of the electors in the conclave choosing a successor to Pope Francis.
Only four of the American electors actively serve as archbishops in the U.S. Timothy Dolan of New York, Blase Cupich of Chicago, Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey, and Robert McElroy of Washington. Two others are retired archbishops, and four have spent many years serving at the Vatican.
Its a mixed group, ideologically. McElroy was one of Francis staunchest progressive allies. Cardinal Raymond Burke, a traditionalist, was a frequent critic of Francis.
Seventeen states are suing President Donald Trump‘s administration for withholding billions of dollars for building more electric vehicle chargers, according to a federal lawsuit announced Wednesday.
The Trump administration in February directed states to stop spending money for electric vehicle charging infrastructure that was allocated under President Joe Bidenpart of a broader push by the Republican president to roll back environmental policies advanced by his Democratic predecessor. The EV charger program was set to allocate $5 billion over five years to various states, of which an estimated $3.3 billion had already been made available.
The lawsuit is led by attorneys general from California, Colorado and Washington, and challenges the Federal Highway Administration’s authority to halt the funding. They argue Congress, which approved the money in 2021 as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, holds that authority.
“These funds were going to be used to shape the future of transportation, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said, calling it short-sighted of Trump to revoke the funds.
We wont sit back while the Trump administration violates the law, Bonta, a Democrat, said.
The U.S. Department of Transportation did not respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
EVs stood at about 8% of new car sales in the U.S. last year, according to Motorintelligence.com, a sign the market is growingalthough the pace has slowed as the auto industry tries to convince mainstream buyers about going electric. The program was meant to assuage some concerns and build infrastructure along highway corridors first, then address gaps elsewhere once the state highway obligations were met.
Some states with projects running under the program have already been reimbursed by the Biden-era federal funds. Others are still contracting for their sites. Still more had halted their plans by the time the Trump administration ordered states to stop their spending. Regardless, getting these chargers installed and operating has been a slow process with contracting challenges, permitting delays and complex electrical upgrades.
It was expected that states would fight against the federal governments efforts to slow the nations electric vehicle charger buildout. New York, for example, which is part of the suit, has been awarded over $175 million in federal funds from the program, and state officials say $120 million is currently being withheld by the Trump administration.
Even the electric carmaker Tesla, run by Elon Musk, who has spearheaded Trumps Department of Government Efficiency efforts to cut federal spending, benefited greatly from funding under the program, receiving millions of dollars to expand its already-massive footprint of chargers in the U.S.
Despite threats to the program, experts have said they expect the nations EV charging buildout to continue as automakers look to make good on massive electrification ambitions.
Consumers thinking about buying an EV often cite concerns about the availability of charging infrastructure. It’s a hurdle for people living in multifamily dwellings and in rural areas, or what are otherwise known as charging deserts. It’s also a problem for people who can’t find a place to charge their vehicle near their work, or who often drive longer highway routes.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom of California said withholding the funds was illegal and would kill thousands of U.S. jobs, ceding them to China.
“Instead of hawking Teslas on the White House lawn, President Trump could actually help Elonand the nationby following the law and releasing this bipartisan funding, Newsom said, referencing Trump’s recent purchase of a Tesla in a show of support for Musk.
The Trump administrations effort to withdraw funding for electric vehicle chargers is part of a broader push to roll back environmental policies advanced under Biden.
During Trumps first week back in office, he signed executive orders to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement again, reverse a 2030 target for electric vehicles to make up half of new cars sold, and end environmental justice efforts. At the same time, federal agencies under Trump have rolled back key rules and regulations and supported the build-out of the fossil fuel industry.
The U.S. House also advanced proposals last week aimed at blocking California from enforcing vehicle-emission rules, including a ban on the sale of new gas-powered cars by 2035. The Senate parliamentarian says the California policies are not subject to the review mechanism used by the House.
Sophie Austin and Alexa St. John, Associated Press/Report for America
Welcome to AI Decoded, Fast Companys weekly newsletter that breaks down the most important news in the world of AI. You can sign up to receive this newsletter every week here.
Half of all LLM usage is for writing computer code
The tech industry insists that AI will transform how companies, both large and small, operate. Tech VCs and AI founders predict that major business functions will be reshaped, one by one, to be handled by AI agents. For a while, many speculated which function would be transformed first. It wasnt customer service, legal, or marketing: it was software development. Generative AIs first killer app is coding. Tools like Cursor and Windsurf can now complete software projects with minimal input or oversight from human engineers.
Businesses are rushing to capitalize on the efficiency gains offered by AI coding. Naveen Rao, chief AI officer at Databricks, estimates that coding accounts for half of all large language model usage today. A 2024 GitHub survey found that over 97% of developers have used AI coding tools at work, with 30% to 40% of organizations actively encouraging their adoption. (GitHub, owned by Microsoft, created one of the first such tools, Copilot.) Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently said AI now writes up to 30% of the companys code. Google CEO Sundar Pichai echoed that sentiment, noting more than 30% of new code at Google is AI-generated.
The soaring valuations of AI coding startups underscore the momentum. Anyspheres Cursor just raised $900 million at a $9 billion valuationup from $2.5 billion earlier this year. Meanwhile, OpenAI acquired Windsurf (formerly Codeium) for $3 billion.
And the tools are improving fast. OpenAIs chief product officer, Kevin Weil, explained in a recent interview that just five months ago, the companys best model ranked around one-millionth on a well-known benchmark for competitive codersnot great, but still in the top two or three percentile. Today, OpenAIs top model, o3, ranks as the 175th best competitive coder in the world on that same test. The rapid leap in performance suggests an AI coding assistant could soon claim the number-one spot. Forever after that point computers will be better than humans at writing code, he said.
One reason for the progress: AI coding tools are gaining stronger reasoning abilities and can process much more information at once. While models retain general knowledge from pretraining, they depend on specific project-related inputsuch as a software descriptionprovided by a human when its time to build something. This information is stored in short-term memory, known as a context window. Currently, state-of-the-art tools can productively consider fewer than 100,000 tokens (units representing words and word parts) at once. But that number is bound to go up.
Google DeepMind research scientist Nikolay Savinov said in a recent interview that AI coding tools will soon support 10 million-token context windowsand eventually, 100 million. With that kind of memory, an AI tool could absorb vast amounts of human instruction and even analyze an entire companys existing codebase for guidance on how to build and optimize new systems. I imagine that we will very soon get to superhuman coding AI systems that will be totally unrivaled, the new tool for every coder in the world, Savinov said.
Accenture research shows AI ‘reinvention’ of business still far away
A large percentage of that first wave of AI projects, numerous industry sources have told me, ran into unforeseen problemssuch as messy or incomplete data, missing infrastructure, outdated IT systems, and a lack of in-house expertiseand never made it into production. Many of the projects that did go live failed to prove they were worth the time, money, or effort. One AI company founder told me that, based on his conversations with C-level executives, he believes the success rate of first-wave AI projects was less than 10%.
The global consulting firm Accenture recently published research on what separates the winners from the rest of the pack. The firm emphasizes the importance of thinking bigthat is, scaling AI systems aggressively across users and business functionsas well as securing executive buy-in, reskilling employees, and making significant investments in AI and cloud infrastructure. Accenture refers to companies that meet these criteria and see tangible results as front runners.
Yet Accentures data shows that such companies are still in the minority. After surveying executives at nearly 2,000 companies with more than $1 billion in revenue, the firm found that only about one-third (34%) had made a long-term investment in a generative AI system focused on a core business function. Accentures research revealed that a small minority of companies . . . are already achieving considerable success at reinventing their enterprises with gen AI, the report states. It also found that among those surveyed, 15% are ready to reinvent themselves with AI, 43% are progressing, and another 43% are merely experimenting.
Some companies may have been better off ignoring the early AI hype and waiting for the models, tools, and infrastructure to mature. On the other hand, theres something to be said for learning by doingeven if the first attempt falls short.
Google is putting AI models to work to protect against online and phone scams
Online and phone scams, some of them powered by generative AI tools, surged in 2024 and continue to rise. Now, Google is deploying some of its latest AI models to help protect users from these threats. One such model is Gemini Nano, a lightweight AI that can run directly on a user’s device.
Now, when a Chrome user enables Enhanced Protection mode in Safe Browsingthe browsers highest security settingthe Nano model runs locally to scan web content for signs of fraud. It can recognize common scam tactics, such as bad actors posing as remote technical support staff, a tactic Google says is becoming increasingly common. The model is also capable of detecting novel scams it hasnt encountered before.
Google says it plans to use the on-device AI scam protection in the browser on mobile Android devices in the future, and to expand the detection to moe types of scams. Google already uses on-device AI to detect scams in other mobile apps. The company recently began warning Android users of possible scams within text messages and phone calls.
More AI coverage from Fast Company:
How AI is reshaping student writing
LinkedIns new AI tools help job seekers find smarter career fits
AI scam calls are getting smarter. Heres how telecoms are fighting back
Apple eyes AI-powered search as Safari usage declines
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Israels ongoing blockade of humanitarian assistance for Gaza forced a leading aid group to shut its community soup kitchens Thursday as it faced empty warehouses and no replenishment of supplies in the war-battered enclave.
World Central Kitchen was serving 133,000 meals per day and baking 80,000 loaves of bread over the past weeks, but said it was forced to suspend operations since there is almost no food left in Gaza for the organization to cook.
The lack of food is threatening Gaza’s population, already battered by 19 months of war. In April, the World Food Program said its food stocks in Gaza had run out under Israel’s blockade, ending a main source of sustenance for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the territory.
Shortages due to blockade drive hunger, malnutrition
Malnutrition and hunger are becoming increasingly prevalent in the Gaza Strip as Israels total blockade enters its third month, and aid agencies say supplies to treat and prevent malnutrition are depleted and quickly running out.
Israel imposed the blockade on March 2, then shattered a two-month ceasefire by resuming military operations in the territory on March 18. It said both steps aim to pressure the militant Hamas group to release hostages the extremists still hold. Rights groups call the blockade a starvation tactic that endangers the entire population and say it is a potential war crime.
Community kitchens such as the ones run by World Central Kitchen are often the only way for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza to eat a daily meal.
But a third of the communal kitchens supported by the U.N. have closed in the past 10 days for lack of food or fuel, the U.N. humanitarian office, or OCHA, said. It warned that number will plunge further in the coming days because of more imminent closures.
The hot meals provided by these kitchens constitute one of the last remaining lifelines for Palestinians, OCHA said.
At those still open, chaotic scenes of desperate men, women and children fighting to get meager rations are common. Bakeries have closed, while water distribution is grinding to a halt due to lack of fuel.
Aid is waiting on the borders
Since the start of the war, World Central Kitchen said it has served more than 130 million meals and baked 80 million loaves of bread. The organization also said on Thursday there was no flour left in their mobile bakery.
Our trucksloaded with food and suppliesare waiting in Egypt, Jordan, and Israel, ready to enter Gaza, said José Andrés, the celebrity chef who founded the organization. But they cannot move without permission. Humanitarian aid must be allowed to flow.
COGAT, the Israeli defense body overseeing aid to Gaza, said the blockade would continue unless the Israeli government changed its policy.
Hamas is engineering hunger
Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer said the government was concerned that Hamas has control of humanitarian aid, and that Israeli officials are actively exploring mechanisms” to get aid only to those in need and not Hamas.
Its very, very important to remember that it is hunger which is engineered by Hamas, Mencer said. Israel will remove the blockade when Hamas lays down its weapons, he said.
Aid workers deny there is a significant diversion of aid to militants, saying the U.N. strictly monitors distribution.
Since the start of the year, more than 10,000 children have been admitted or treated for acute malnutrition, according to the World Health Organization. The increase was particularly dramatic in March, with 3,600 casesan 80% increase, compared to the 2,000 children in February, UNICEF reported.
Nearly half the 200 nutrition centers around Gaza have shut down because of displacement and bombardment.
World Central Kitchen had previously suspended operations in April of last year after seven aid workers were killed in Israeli strikes on their convoy, before resuming weeks later.
Toll in Gaza continues to rise
The Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza said Thursday the bodies of 106 people killed by Israeli strikes have been brought to hospitals over the past 24 hours.
Hospitals also received 367 wounded, the ministry said in its daily report.
The overall Palestinian death toll from the Israel-Hamas war rose to at least 52,760 since Oct. 7, 2023, the ministry said. Another 119,264 have been wounded, it said.
It said the tally includes 2,651 dead and 7,223 wounded since Israel resumed the war on March 18, shattering the ceasefire after nearly two-month hiatus.
The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants, but says more than half of the dead were women and children.
The Israeli military said they are targeting Hamas infrastructure in Gaza. On Wednesday, chief of staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir told commanders Israel was about to enter phase 2 of operations in Gaza, where Israel plans to “expand and intensify our operations.
1 killed, 8 injured in Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon
Also on Thursday, a series of Israeli airstrikes hit hilltops in the vicinity of the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh, killing at least one person and wounding eight others, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
The Israeli military said it bombed infrastructure that belonged to the Hezbollah militant group and included weapons and tunnels. Israel said that Hezbollah’s activities at the site violated a November ceasefire.
Hezbollah did not immediately comment on the strikes. Lebanons state-run National News Agency said public institutions in the area were closed after the attacks as families rushed to schools to take their children home.
Since the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in November stopped the war between Israel and Hezbollah, Israeli strikes on souther Lebanon have continued. Hezbollah says its has largely disarmed south of the Litani River, while Israel insists the militants are rearming themselves. Some 4,000 people in Lebanon were killed during the war, including many civilians.
Journalist from Jenin detained for six months
A renowned Palestinian journalist arrested by the Israeli military and suffering from multiple chronic illnesses has been placed on six months of administrative detention, the Israeli military said.
Ali Samoudi, who has worked for international news outlets including CNN and Al Jazeera, was detained late last month by the Israeli military from his family home in the city of Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and has spent part of the time in the hospital due to chronic health issues.
The Israeli military said Samoudi was detained based on involvement in actions endangering regional security” but that a police investigation did not find sufficient evidence against him to issue an arrest. However, on Thursday, a military court decided to place him under administrative detention for six months.
Israeli authorities can renew administrative detentions indefinitely. Detainees are held without charge or trial. Israel says the controversial tactic is necessary to contain dangerous militants and avoid divulging incriminating material for security reasons. But Palestinians and rights groups say the system denies due process and is widely abused.
Wafaa Shurafa and Kareem Chehayeb, Associated Press
Associated Press writer Melanie Lidman contributed to this report.
Once a year, a crowd of thousands of runners fill Central Park as they look up at the sky with joy, relief, exhaustion, and tears, knowing they just completed the iconic TCS New York City Marathon.
Recognizing the endless storytelling opportunities that come from the event, New York Road Runners (NYRR), the nonprofit behind the marathon, is launching its own production studio, East 89th St Productions.
It was clear to me that this was a huge opportunity for the organization from the first day that I went to the finish line of the marathon, NYRR CEO Rob Simmelkjaer says. It’s rare that you can look and see total strangers by the hundreds, having a moment that you know they’re never going to forget.
Named after NYRRs early headquarters on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, East 89th St Productions partnered with Tribeca Studios to produce Final Finishers, a short documentary film showcasing the last tens of thousands of runners crossing the finish line in the final hours of the NYC Marathon. The film is set to premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival on June 12.
‘A very significant next step’
The launch of NYRRs production studio is a continuation of a larger effort to reach and connect with wider audiences through content creation.
Prior to assuming his leadership position in December 2022, Simmelkjaer spent almost 10 years at ESPN and eight years at NBC Sports. At the start of his tenure at NYRR, he set out long-term plans, including broadening awareness of NYRRs initiatives beyond organizing over 60 local races.
Due to his background in media, Simmelkjaer saw content creation and storytelling as the logical next step towards building awareness and community.
I had to sell both internally and externally the idea that this was an essential part of what we do, because we needed to be talking to our existing audience of runners and members and stakeholders in a new way, he says.
In addition to expanding its existing content creation team, which focused on broadcasting the races and managing the organizations social media, Simmelkjaer branched into podcasting. With over 100 episodes, Set the Pace” features stories from runners, as well as running tips, every Thursday, in partnership with Peloton.
The podcast was like a beachhead for us. It kind of planted our flag on the beach in terms of content, Simmelkjaer says. The studio is a very significant next step in the evolution of this vision.
Take the money and run
In addition to building community engagement, content creation is also driving the nonprofit toward another goal: diversifying revenue streams.
While NYRR relies primarily on race entry fees and philanthropic donations, content creation opens the door for monetization, new partnerships, and the creation of a deeper connection between donors and the nonprofit’s mission.
At the heart of every nonprofit is a mission and that mission can always be told as a story or a set of stories, Simmelkjaer says.
The expansion to content creation as a broader strategy can also be adopted by other mission-based nonprofits, visually showcasing the impact of an organization.
When donors support a cause, there is something that is moving them to support that cause,” Simmelkjaer says. “There’s something the nonprofit is bringing about a world that the donor wants to see. When you can see in really human and understandable terms what impact that an organization is having, I think that’s going to be more powerful than any PowerPoint presentation can ever be.
The social media platform X said Thursday it has blocked access to jailed Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu s account in Turkey, complying with a Turkish court order the latest measure targeting a key rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
However, Elon Musk‘s X said that while the company abided by the order, it disagrees with it and is legally challenging it. It said X complied to avoid severe punishments, such as the throttling of the whole platform in Turkey.
X has been and will continue to object to removal orders including government requests in courts to protect users when those requests do not align with principles of free expression, due process, or other local laws, the company said on its Global Government Affairs account.
The statement said X maintains that “keeping the platform accessible in (Turkey) is vital to supporting freedom of expression and access to information.
Imamoglu, seen as the main opposition challenger to Erdogans 22-year rule, was arrested on March 19 and jailed on corruption charges. He was nominated as his Republican Peoples Party, or CHPs presidential candidate while in custody.
His arrest has been widely viewed as politically motivated although the government insists Turkeys judiciary is independent and free of political influence. It triggered widespread demonstrations calling for his release and an end to Turkeys democratic backsliding under Erdogan.
According to Engelli Web, a website that that tracks and reports internet censorship in Turkey, X restricted Imamoglus account in Turkey complying with a legal request by Turkish authorities who cited national security and public order concerns.
A notice that appears on Imamoglu’s account, which has 9.7 million followers, says it has been “withheld in TR in response to a legal demand. The account remains accessible outside of Turkey.
Gonenc Gurkaynak, a lawyer representing X in Turkey, said he had filed an appeal on behalf of the platform against the decision blocking the account. He said he had submitted a 27-page petition and hundreds of pages of supporting documents to the court.
The Turkish presidency’s Center for Countering Disinformation said the court decision followed an investigation into a post by Imamoglu on X, which prosecutors assessed to be an incitement to commit a crime.
Authorities also ruled that because Imamoglu is currently detained, his account is not directly managed by him and therefore poses a threat to public order.
On Thursday, CHP’s leader Ozgur Ozel welcomed X’s decision to challenge the court order but said the platform should have resisted complying with it.
X should not impose this restriction, which contradicts universal freedoms and the companys own principles, he said and urged Imamoglu’s supporters to follow the mayor’s international account and re-share his posts.
Ozel also criticized Erdogan’s administration saying that there probably is no other government that uses its judicial power so unfairly against its opponent.
Despite his detention, Imamoglu had remained active on social media.
Supporters criticized the restriction as an assault on free speech in Turkey. They showed solidarity with the mayor by replacing their profile pictures with Imamoglu’s image.
Suzan Fraser, Associated Press
