Town Hall News

MORRO BAY, Calif. (AP) — On a jagged coastline in Central California, brown pelicans gather on rock promontories, packed in like edgy commuters as they take flight to feed on a vast school of fish just offshore. The water churns in whitecaps as the big-billed birds plunge beneath the surface in search of northern anchovies, Pacific sardines and mackerel. If awkward and wobbly in appearance on land, they are graceful […]

‘This Winter Will Be the Most Dangerous’: Desert Smugglers Drive Syria’s Captagon Surge Smugglers exploit fog, dust storms, and Syria’s security vacuum along the Jordanian frontier to move stockpiled Captagon that now functions as hard currency in a collapsed economy By Ahmad Qwaider and Jacob Wirtschafter / The Media Line On November 17, 2025, at 2 p.m., a young Syrian man on a motorcycle stopped on a bridge along the […]

Israel Confirms Return of Thai Hostage’s Remains as Search Continues for Final Deceased Captive   By The Media Line Staff   Israel confirmed on Thursday that the body returned from Gaza earlier this week belonged to Thai farm worker Sutthisak Rinthalak, who was killed during the October 7 attacks and taken into Gaza by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Officials released the announcement after forensic teams completed their examination at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine.   […]

By Angelica Medina Dec 4 (Reuters) – The National Football League unveiled sweeping new mandatory field standards on Thursday that will require all 32 teams to select from a list of approved surfaces starting in 2026, with existing turf needing to be replaced by the end of the 2027 season. The initiative represents the league’s most significant step toward standardising playing conditions across its stadiums, addressing long-standing concerns about field […]

WASHINGTON, Dec 4 (Reuters) – Canada and Mexico should not be used as export hubs for China, Vietnam, Indonesia and other countries, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said on Thursday, saying that this was already happening in some cases in Mexico. Greer told a conference in Washington that there were problems with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement that he had helped negotiate during President Donald Trump’s first term, but some measures […]

SIGAR Watchdog Final Report: 2 Decades, $145 Billion, and a Failed US Bid To Rebuild Afghanistan   By Arshad Mehmood/The Media Line Staff   The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) reported on Wednesday that “close to $30 billion in US funds were wasted, stolen, or mismanaged,” during nearly 20 years of American involvement.   In its final forensic report summarizing US reconstruction in Afghanistan, SIGAR said it had documented 1,327 instances of waste, fraud, and abuse from 2002 to 2021, amounting to between $26 billion and $29.2 billion—most of […]

Israel To Stay in Eurovision 2026 as Ireland, Spain, Slovenia and Netherlands Boycott  By The Media Line Staff  The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has confirmed that Israel will compete in the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest in Vienna, following a tense General Assembly in Geneva in which member broadcasters approved new contest rules and declined to expel the country. The decision, taken by secret ballot as part of a broader rules […]

Pakistani Interior Minister Says 90% of Social Media Content Is False, Urges Crackdown  Fizza Abbas, a Karachi-based digital rights activist: “In Pakistan, the line between countering misinformation and constraining dissent has always been a delicate one”  By Arshad Mehmood / The Media Line  [Islamabad] The Pakistani government has revealed a wide-ranging plan to combat the increasing spread of false information online.  Federal Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi warned that authorities will […]

Israeli-Backed Gaza Faction Leader Reported Killed in Rafah Shooting  By The Media Line Staff  Israeli officials are assessing reports that Yasser Abu Shabab, a Palestinian militia leader who cooperated with Israel in the southern Gaza Strip, was shot dead on Thursday in the Rafah area of Gaza. Abu Shabab headed an armed group known as the Popular Forces, which operated in eastern Rafah under Israeli protection and received weapons and […]