Following its incursions into the northern Gaza Strip, the state of Israel has announced plans to intensify operations in the south, in areas where the army had warned civilians to flee for their safety, The Guardian reports.

When Israeli planes attacked northern Gaza at the start of the war and troops prepared to enter on foot, Israeli messages urged civilians to move south to the Wadi Gaza wetlands for their own safety.

Despite the risks of the journey and severe overcrowding in shelters and private homes, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians followed those orders.. About 1.6 million people are displaced, more than two-thirds of Gaza's population, the UN said.

Now many of those people have been told to move again and concentrate on an even smaller area along the coast, around the town of Mawasi.

Israel's top military spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said Friday that the country's troops would attack “wherever Hamas exists, including the south of the strip.”. He told reporters: “We are determined to advance our operation.”

This week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted in an interview that the war was taking a heavy toll on civilians in Gaza, but blamed Hamas for the deaths.. “That's what we're trying to do: minimal civilian casualties. But unfortunately we have not achieved it,” he told CBS.

As The Guardian notes, it is unclear where civilians might go to escape fighting if it intensifies in the south.. Gaza was already densely populated before the current fighting began on October 7, triggered by Hamas attacks on Israel that killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians.

The enclave, of 365 square kilometers, was home to 2.3 million people. Now that the north has largely emptied, most of those people are in the south, in private homes or UN shelters.

One of the most famous legacies of Pablo Escobar Gaviria, the mythical Colombian drug trafficking kingpin and possibly the most famous in history at his level, were his hippos.

The billionaire drug trafficker had the whim of creating a private zoo in his domain at the famous Hacienda Nápoles, and among other wild animals, he imported African hippos.. When their empire collapsed, the animals escaped and reproduced, forming a stable population of just over 150 individuals, but one that threatens the local ecosystem.

Now, the Government of Colombia wants to tackle this problem by sterilizing animals so that they stop reproducing and continue to pose an ecological problem, reports the Mirror.

A study published in the journal Ecology revealed that these enormous hippos have been excreting their waste into local lakes and rivers and substantially changing the oxygen levels and chemistry of the waters.

The authors, researchers from the University of California and the Pedagogical and Technological University of Colombia, believe that the population will continue to increase, causing more environmental damage.

The Colombian government has now announced that it will begin the process of surgically sterilizing 40 hippos a year, in a last-ditch attempt to keep the population under control.

The government estimates that there are 169 hippos in Colombia, especially in the Magdalena River basin, and that if no action is taken, there could be more than 1,000 by 2035.

According to the BBC, Escobar's zoo also had elephants and giraffes, in addition to hippos.. After Escobar was shot dead by Colombian police in 1993, the government took control of the animals.

Some were moved to facilities around the world, but the hippos stayed behind and eventually escaped and readapted to the wildlife of the Colombian jungle.

Iceland holds its breath. The eruption of the Fagradalsfjall volcano is imminent, and the question is no longer if there will be lava expulsion, but when it will happen, something that can happen in hours or a few days.

Regarding the type of eruption, it is also expected to be violent. Margaret Hartley, senior lecturer in Earth sciences at the University of Manchester (United Kingdom), and in statements reported by Live Science, has made a very graphic simile.

“The process is a bit like shaking a can of soft drink: as soon as a crack opens in the top of the can, the drink escapes with a lot of foam,” said the expert.

Predicting that the eruption is certain, Hartley added: “I think an eruption will happen, but the big question is when it might happen,” he said.

But another worrying thing is that we will not know in advance when it will happen.. Lovisa Mjoll Gudmundsdottir, who works in the volcano's monitoring room, told the Daily Mail that the eruption could occur with only a few minutes' notice.

“In these situations, things can change very quickly,” said the 29-year-old risk specialist, who earned her master's degree in volcanology at the University of Bristol. “If there is an eruption, it could happen even before we can predict it,” he added.

Geophysicist Benedikt Ofeigsson said there were clear signs that the huge magma corridor under the Reykjanes Peninsula was expanding, with the Icelandic Meteorological Office detecting more than 1,000 earthquakes on Friday.

The area is bracing for what could be an eruption of the volcano or one of the fissures that have opened nearby, with huge chasms destroying homes and roads in the deserted town of Grindavik.

Evacuated residents returned to the city every day to collect their belongings, but had to flee on Tuesday after the Met Office said its meters had detected sulfur dioxide.

Then on Thursday, magmatic gas was detected in a well in Svartsengi, 3.7 kilometers north of Grindavik, which experts say is a sign that an eruption is imminent.

An eruption of molten rock from the magma tunnel beneath Reykjanes is likely in the coming days, following weeks of seismic activity there. This is the most likely scenario, the head of the meteorological service's volcano department, Kristin Jonsdottir, told radio station RUV on Friday.

Volcanologist Haraldur Sigurðsson has said that if an eruption were to occur, he expects it could fall into the sea and says Grindavik needs to be “reorganized” to mitigate the disk of widespread destruction in the future.. In other words, the entire city will probably have to be relocated.

Some 200 people could have been killed in an Israeli bombing of the Al Fajura school, one of the facilities of the Palestinian Refugee Agency in the Near East (UNRWA), located in the Jabalia refugee camp, in the north of the Gaza Strip. Loop.

A correspondent for the pan-Arab channel Al Jazeera has reported the death toll in this Israeli attack. Television has published images of the fatal victims of the attack.

The secretary general of the Palestinian National Initiative, Mustafa Barghuti, has denounced this “massacre” in which “between 150 and 200 Palestinian civilians, most of them children,” would have died.. Barghuti recalled that at the school it was used as a shelter.

UNRWA has not confirmed this specific attack, but has denounced in a statement this Saturday that “thousands of people, including our colleagues, are dying from the bombings.”. “There will soon be more deaths as a result of the siege imposed,” the organization has warned.

“Every minute, every hour, the situation in Gaza worsens (…). A ceasefire would be critical to saving what remains of our humanity,” UNRWA said in a message posted on Twitter.

Many displaced Palestinians have taken refuge in UNRWA hospitals and schools located in the vicinity of the Indonesian Hospital, in the north of Gaza City, to avoid Israeli attacks.

The King of Morocco, Mohamed VI, congratulated Pedro Sánchez on his inauguration as President of the Spanish Government and reiterated his “firm determination” to continue working with him “to advance the strengthening of friendly relations” between both countries.

In a statement released by the official Moroccan agency MAP, the monarch expresses to Sánchez “his warm congratulations and his sincere wishes for complete success in realizing the aspirations of the friendly Spanish people towards greater progress and prosperity.”

Mohamed VI highlights the “solid cooperation that unites both countries” and his desire to consolidate the new stage in the strategic partnership adopted by both leaders, “based on good neighborliness, mutual trust and permanent and constructive dialogue.”

The Alawite king recalls in his message to Sánchez the commitment of the two neighboring countries to “consecrate agreement” on regional and international issues of common interest, and to contribute “to the preservation of peace, stability and prosperity in the region Euro-Mediterranean”.

Sánchez was inaugurated thanks to the votes of the left-wing platform Sumar and several regionalist, independentist and nationalist Catalan, Basque, Galician and Canarian formations, in addition to those of his own party, and this Friday he promised the position before King Felipe VI and the Constitution.

An American jury found David DePape guilty on two federal charges this Thursday for attacking Paul Pelosi, husband of the former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, in October 2022 with a hammer at his home in San Francisco.

DePape has been convicted of one count of assault against a family member of a federal official, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, and one count of attempted kidnapping of a federal official, for which he faces 20 years between bars, as reported by CNN.

“The Pelosi family is very proud of their father, who demonstrated extraordinary composure and courage on the night of the attack a year ago,” a spokesperson for the former Speaker of the House reacted in a statement on her profile on the social network X.

Pelosi, 83, underwent “successful” surgery to repair a fractured skull and serious injuries to his right arm and hands after the assailant, hammer in hand, asked him where his wife was and attacked him in Your domicile.

DePape planned to “hold hostage” the former president, who was not at home at that time. During the investigation against her, US police recovered zip ties in Pelosi's room and in the hallway near the front door of the house.

Likewise, in the backpack of DePape – who spread different conspiracy theories, from aliens to electoral fraud in the 2020 elections – they found, among other objects, a roll of adhesive tape, a white rope, a hammer, a pair of rubber gloves, cloth and a journal.

During the assault, Pelosi managed to call the emergency services, who heard a conversation in the background, after which the police were sent to review what was happening.. All this without the attacker having evidence that there was an open line.

The Ministry of Health of Costa Rica reiterated this Thursday that the sale and use of vaping products is prohibited by minors, after confirming the first case of a teenager diagnosed with a serious condition of pulmonary syndrome due to vaping, which has alerted the authorities.

The Ministry of Health noted in a statement that in Costa Rica the sale to minors of Electronic Nicotine Administration Systems (ENDS), Similar Nicotine-Free Systems (SSSN) and electronic devices that use heated tobacco and similar technologies is prohibited. its accessories and other complementary goods, including the liquid for its use”.

The entity stated that these devices “affect the way our breathing system works” which “can lead to the appearance of infections in the lungs, whether caused by bacteria or viruses, and increases the risk of suffering from diseases such as the cold flu, pneumonia and tuberculosis.

The Ministry's warning arises after the Costa Rican Social Security Fund (CCSS) confirmed in early November the first case in the country of a minor with pulmonary syndrome associated with vaping.

This syndrome, known as EVALI for its acronym in English, “produces lung lesions associated with the use of electronic cigarettes or vaping and occurred in a 16-year-old boy who had been using this type of electronic device for vaping for just over 3 months.” , explained the CCSS.

The teenager vaped daily secretly from his parents and his condition led him to be hospitalized in an intensive care unit for almost a month, in which he required assisted mechanical ventilation, according to the official report.

Patients who present EVALI will generally have difficulty breathing, cough, chest pain, rapid breathing, bloody phlegm, tachycardia, fever, cold sensation, fatigue and gastrointestinal symptoms, according to the coordinator of the Cesación clinics. of Smoking and Vaping of the CCSS, Dr. Marny Ramos.

Ramos assured that the products used for vaping generate lung inflammation, whether they contain nicotine or not, and maintained that nicotine is one of the substances with stimulant properties and is responsible for dependence, but there is also formaldehyde, a carcinogen that can be generated by a vaporizer or a tobacco heater.

Both the Ministry of Health and the CCSS called on the population to recognize the dangers of using vaping devices and asked parents to talk to their children about the effects of vaping.

CCSS data indicates that in 2021 it treated 13 people for respiratory disorders related to vaping, a figure that by 2023 has experienced exponential growth to reach 857.

The Italian Parliament approved this Thursday a law that prohibits the production and sale of synthetic foods, such as cultured meat, making Italy the first European country to introduce this measure.

The norm, promoted by the Government of the far-right Giorgia Meloni, argues the inequalities that these foods could cause at a nutritional level and the lack of scientific studies, although the argument causes great controversy among the opposition, which highlights the lack of scientific conclusions that justify its absolute prohibition.

Likewise, those against the law point out that it may contravene the principle of free movement of goods in the European Union if the marketing of synthetic foods produced in other countries is also prohibited.

The law provides that the marketing of this type of food will be fined between 10,000 and 60,000 euros, or 10% of the business volume in the case of income greater than 60,000 euros.

The debate on the law in the Chamber of Deputies, which has been postponed due to doubts about its fit into European legislation, was accompanied by confrontations outside Parliament between supporters of the norm convened by Coldiretti, the largest association of livestock farmers and farmers of the country, and opponents.

“We want to protect public health and avoid unemployment. There is a risk of social injustice with synthetic foods, with a society in which the rich eat well and the poor do not,” justified the Minister of Agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida, when approving the bill last March.

According to Lollobrigida, the intention of the Italian Executive is not “persecutory”, but rather tries to protect “health” and the “environment.”

For his part, the Minister of Health, Orazio Schillaci, argued that the decision has been taken as a way to “safeguard” the country's agri-food heritage and culture, “based on the Mediterranean diet.”

“The law against synthetic foods is significant: it is based on the precautionary principle because there are currently no scientific studies on their effects. We guarantee the highest level of protection of the health of citizens and the safeguarding of our nation's heritage,” said Schillaci.

The Meloni Government has already signed four decrees to offer more information to consumers about foods that “are not found in the traditional diet” and that, among other measures, forces supermarkets to separate flours made with insects from the rest of the products. .