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The number of political prisoners in Venezuela reached its highest point following protests against Nicolas Maduro’s controversial re-election in July 2024. Alfredo Romero, a lawyer and the executive director of Foro Penal, brings hope to detainees and their families by providing pro bono legal and humanitarian assistance.

Prisoners face charges such as incitement to hatred, terrorism, and conspiracy. They’re often denied communication and access to legal defence. With a rebellious spirit rooted in his youth as a punk rocker and driven by a desire for social change, Alfredo must reinvent the ways in which Foro Penal works to free those unjustly imprisoned.

Venezuela’s Fight for Justice is a documentary film by Luis Del Valle.

Israel is ethnically cleansing the central neighborhood of Zeitoun in Gaza by bombing homes and displacement centres.

Since announcing plans to invade northern Gaza and expel Palestinians again to the south, Israel has attacked displacement shelters in the Gaza City neighbourhood of Zeitoun, according to an investigation by Sanad, Al Jazeera’s verification unit.

Since August 13, Sanad has found that Israel stepped up the bombardment and shelling of Zeitoun, and often directly hit displacement shelters.

The siege and ongoing violence have compelled thousands of Palestinians to close their tents in the camps and flee further south, according to satellite imagery obtained by Sanad.

The indiscriminate bombardment of civilian homes and displacement shelters is part of a broad pattern of Israeli war tactics that make no distinction between civilians and fighters.

Human rights groups, United Nations experts and numerous legal scholars believe Israel’s nearly two-year war on Gaza amounts to genocide.

Israel’s Western allies – who have long defended it from criticism by claiming it has the “right to defend itself” – are becoming increasingly alarmed at the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the enclave.

Many are calling on Israel to end the war and warning that its plan to seize northern Gaza could further exacerbate the suffering of civilians. The mass displacement and bombardment of Zeitoun encapsulate the atrocities resulting from Israel’s invasion.

Attacking shelters

There are about 11 displacement shelters in Zeitoun, each sheltering 4,000 to 4,500 besieged and hungry Palestinians.

Most live on just 3.2sq km (1.2sq miles), which makes up just 32 percent of the pre-war size of Zeitoun.

At the start of the war, Israel dug trenches in and around the neighbourhood, claiming it was creating a ‘buffer zone”, and built the Netzarim Corridor, which has split Gaza into two zones.

Israel’s recent bombardment of the neighbourhood is terrifying civilians into fleeing south, leading to another cycle of forced displacement that may amount to ethnic cleansing due to Israel’s attempt to destroy all livable facilities and structures.

An Al Jazeera journalist on the ground recently captured footage of Israel firing a missile directly at a home in Zeitoun.

While it is unclear whether anyone was inside, it is clear that all structures are being levelled, possibly to make it more difficult for any survivors to try to relocate to the area.

According to Sanad, there is clear evidence that Israel is pursuing that policy in and around Zeitoun. Between August 11 and 16, sources documented Israel’s attack on al-Falah School in Zeitoun and a tent camp on al-Lababidi Street.

Both the Majida al-Wasila school in the Nassr neighbourhood and tents in the Sheikh Ajilin neighbourhood were also hit.

This pattern of direct attacks on tents and school shelters – the last refuge for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians – may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, since these structures are protected under international humanitarian law.

Sweden’s landmark Kiruna Church begins a two-day journey to a new home, inching down an Arctic road to save its wooden walls from ground subsidence and the expansion of the world’s largest underground iron ore mine.

Workers have jacked up the 600-tonne, 113-year-old church from its foundations and hefted it onto a specially built trailer – part of a 30-year project to relocate thousands of people and buildings from the city of Kiruna in the region of Lapland.

Mine operator LKAB has spent the past year widening the road for the journey, which will take the red-painted church – one of Sweden’s largest wooden structures, often voted its most beautiful – 5km (3 miles) down a winding route to a brand new Kiruna city centre.

The journey, which begins on Tuesday, will save the church but remove it from the site where it has stood for more than a century.

“The church is Kiruna’s soul in some way, and in some way it’s a safe place,” Lena Tjarnberg, the vicar of Kiruna, said. “For me, it’s like a day of joy, but I think people also feel sad because we have to leave this place.”

For many of the region’s Indigenous Sami community, which has herded reindeer there for thousands of years, the feelings are less mixed. The move is a reminder of much wider changes brought on by the expansion of mining.

“This area is traditional Sami land,” Lars-Marcus Kuhmunen, chair of the local Gabna Sami community, said. “This area was grazing land and also a land where the calves of the reindeer were born.”

If plans for another nearby mine go ahead after the move, that would cut the path from the reindeer’s summer and winter pastures, making herding “impossible” in the future, he said.

“Fifty years ago, my great-grandfather said the mine is going to eat up our way of life, our reindeer herding. And he was right,” he added.

The church is just one small part of the relocation project.

What next?

LKAB says about 3,000 homes and approximately 6,000 people need to move. A number of public and commercial buildings are being demolished, while some, like the church, are being moved in one piece.

Other buildings are being dismantled and rebuilt around the new city centre. Hundreds of new homes, shops, and a new city hall have also been constructed.

The shift should allow LKAB, which produces 80 percent of the iron ore mined in Europe, to continue to extend the operation of Kiruna for decades to come.

The state-owned firm has brought up about two billion tonnes of ore since the 1890s, mainly from the Kiruna mine. Mineral resources are estimated at another six billion tonnes in Kiruna and nearby Svappavaara and Malmberget.

LKAB is now planning the new mine next to the existing Kiruna site.

Rare earth elements

As well as iron ore, the proposed Per Geijer mine contains significant deposits of rare earth elements – a group of 17 metals critical to products ranging from lasers to iPhones, and green technology key to meeting Europe’s climate goals.

Europe – and much of the rest of the world – is currently almost completely dependent on China for the supply and processing of rare earths.

In March this year, the European Union designated Per Geijer as a strategic project, which could help to speed up the process of getting the new mine into production.

About 5km (3 miles) down the road, Kiruna’s new city centre will also be taking shape.

“The church is … a statement or a symbol for this city transformation,” mayor Mats Taaveniku said. “We are right now halfway there. We have 10 years left to move the rest of the city.”

The reigning world player of the year, Kildunne has been one of the figureheads of the tournament, featuring in organisers’ and sponsors’ promotions.

She says it is surreal to see herself on billboards, in magazines and on social media posts.

“Yeah, it feels strange because I’m just a girl from Yorkshire who’s playing rugby,” she says.

“I’m nothing special. I just love what I do. I just think it’s important to be strong to your values and remember who you are and where you’ve come from because that’s a person that’s got you here.

“It’s not all the showbiz and the lights and the cameras – it’s that young girl that picked up a rugby ball.”

The 25-year-old, who straightened her distinctive curly hair on Monday as the result of losing a bet at training, says that while others may be looking ahead to the 27 September final, England’s focus is solely on the United States in their opening game.

“We’ll be where our feet are – we don’t look too far ahead,” she said.

“There’s no point in looking to the final or if and when we win, because if we don’t get now right, that will never be anything. It’s all ifs, buts and maybes.

“But if we focus on now, we’ve got this week leading to the United States, we’ve finished a hard training session, how do focus on our culture and bonding tonight? How do we get closer as a team?

“That’s going to be the thing that wins the World Cup. You can’t look too far ahead because you’ll trip over.”

Marius Borg Hoiby faces up to 10 years in prison after being charged with 32 criminal offences, including rape.

The son of Norway’s crown princess has been charged with raping four women, domestic violence, assault and other crimes following a yearlong police investigation, according to prosecutors.

Marius Borg Hoiby, 28, son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit and stepson of the heir to the throne, Crown Prince Haakon, is expected to stand trial early next year and could face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty of the most serious charges, Oslo state attorney Sturla Henriksbo said on Monday.

Hoiby denies the most serious accusations against him but plans to plead guilty to some lesser charges in court when the trial starts, his lawyer Petar Sekulic told the Reuters news agency.

“He does not agree with the claims regarding rape and domestic violence,” Sekulic said of his client.

Hoiby was charged on Monday with 32 criminal offences, including one count of rape with sexual intercourse and three counts of rape without intercourse, some of which he filmed on his telephone, the prosecution said.

Henriksbo estimates the trial could begin in mid-January and take about six weeks.

Hoiby does not have a royal title and is outside the line of royal succession.

“It is up to the courts to hear this case and to reach a decision,” the royal palace said in a statement.

The prosecutor said Hoiby, as a member of the royal family, would not be treated “more lightly or more severely” than anyone else in similar circumstances.

Domestic abuse

Police in November last year held Hoiby in detention for one week as part of the investigation.

In August of last year, Hoiby was named as a suspect of physical assault against a woman with whom he had been in a relationship – the only victim identified by the prosecution, Nora Haukland.

“The violence consisted, among other things, of him repeatedly hitting her in the face, including with a clenched fist, choking her, kicking her and grabbing her hard,” the prosecutor said.

Hoiby, in a statement to the media at the time, admitted to causing bodily harm to the woman while he was under the influence of cocaine and alcohol and of damaging her apartment. He had stated then that he regretted his actions.

According to media reports, he spent time with gang members, Hells Angels bikers and members of Oslo’s Albanian mafia. In 2023, police contacted him to discuss his hangouts with “notorious criminals”.

It emerged last year that Hoiby had already been arrested in 2017 for using cocaine at a music festival.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard says change upholds privacy of US users.

Apple will no longer be forced to provide the United Kingdom’s government with access to American citizens’ encrypted data, Washington’s spy chief has said, signalling the end of a months-long transatlantic privacy row.

Tulsi Gabbard, the United States’ director of national intelligence, said on Monday that London agreed to drop its requirement for Apple to provide a “back door” that would have allowed access to the protected data of US users and “encroached on our civil liberties”.

Gabbard said the reversal was the result of months of engagement with the UK to “ensure Americans’ private data remains private and our constitutional rights and civil liberties are protected”.

The UK government said it does not comment on operational matters, but that London and Washington have longstanding joint security and intelligence arrangements that include safeguards to protect privacy.

“We will continue to build on those arrangements, and we will also continue to maintain a strong security framework to ensure that we can continue to pursue terrorists and serious criminals operating in the UK,” a government spokesperson said.

“We will always take all actions necessary at the domestic level to keep UK citizens safe.”

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The UK’s climbdown on encryption comes after Apple in February announced it could no longer offer advanced data protection, its highest-level security feature, in the country.

While Apple did not provide a reason for the change at the time, the announcement came after The Washington Post reported that UK security officials had secretly ordered the California-based tech giant to provide blanket access to cloud data belonging to users around the world.

Under the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act, authorities may compel companies to remove encryption under what is known as a “technical capability notice”.

Firms that receive a notice are legally bound to secrecy about the order unless otherwise granted permission by the government.

Like other tech giants, Apple has marketed its use of end-to-end encryption as proof of its steadfast commitment to the privacy of its users.

End-to-end encryption scrambles data so it cannot be read by third parties, including law enforcement and tech companies themselves.

Governments around the world have made numerous attempts to undermine or bypass encryption, saying that it shields serious criminals from scrutiny.

Privacy experts and civil liberties advocates have condemned efforts to weaken the technology, arguing that they treat innocent people as potential criminals and put the privacy and security of all users at risk.

John Pane, chair of the advocacy group Electronic Frontiers Australia, welcomed the UK’s reversal as a win for digital rights and safety.

“Were Apple to create a backdoor to its encrypted user data it would create a significant risk which could be exploited by cybercriminals and authoritarian governments,” Pane told Al Jazeera.

“EFA believes access to encryption technologies is vital for individuals and groups to be able to safeguard the security and privacy of their information and it is also  fundamental to the existence of the digital economy. The right to use encrypted communications must be enshrined in law.”

Thousands of firefighters, backed by soldiers and water-bombing aircraft, have battled more than 20 major wildfires raging across western Spain, where officials say a record area of land has already been burned.

Spain and neighbouring Portugal have been particularly affected by forest fires spurred by heatwaves and drought, blamed on climate change, that have hit southern Europe.

Two firefighters were killed on Sunday – one in each country, both in road accidents – taking the death toll to two in Portugal and four in Spain.

Spain’s civil protection chief, Virginia Barcones, told public television TVE that 23 blazes were classified as “operational level two”, meaning they pose a direct threat to nearby communities.

The fires, now entering their second week, are concentrated in the western regions of Castile and Leon, Galicia, and Extremadura, where thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes.

More than 343,000 hectares (848,000 acres) of land – the equivalent of nearly half a million football pitches – have been destroyed this year in Spain, setting a new national record, according to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS).

The previous record of 306,000 hectares (756,142 acres) was set in the same period three years ago.

Help from abroad

Spain is being helped with firefighting aircraft from France, Italy, Slovakia, and the Netherlands, while Portugal is receiving air support from Sweden and Morocco.

However, the size and severity of the fires and the intensity of the smoke were making “airborne action” difficult, Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles told TVE.

Across the border in Portugal, about 2,000 firefighters were deployed across the north and centre of the country on Monday, with about half of them concentrated in the town of Arganil.

About 216,000 hectares (533,747 acres) of land have been destroyed across Portugal since the start of the year.

Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said the country had endured 24 days of weather conditions of “unprecedented severity”, with high temperatures and strong winds.

“We are at war, and we must triumph in this fight,” he added.

Officials in both countries expressed hope that the weather would turn to help tackle the fires.

Spain’s meteorological agency said the heatwave, which has seen temperatures hit 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit) in parts of the country, was coming to an end.

No compensation

United States President Donald Trump has announced plans to convene a face-to-face summit between Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in his latest bid to end Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

Trump’s proposal on Monday came as he hosted Zelenskyy and top European leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, at the White House for high-stakes talks on ending the conflict, which has raged since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Trump said he had “begun arrangements” for the summit after speaking with Putin by phone, and that he would hold a trilateral meeting with his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts following their two-way meeting.

“Again, this was a very good, early step for a War that has been going on for almost four years,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

“Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, are coordinating with Russia and Ukraine.”

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte separately confirmed that Putin had agreed to the bilateral meeting, but did not specify a date or location.

Zelenskyy, who described his meeting with Trump as a “very good conversation,” told reporters that he was “ready” to meet the Russian leader one-on-one.

Moscow did not immediately confirm that it had agreed to a summit, but Russia’s state-run TASS news agency cited presidential aide Yuri Ushakov as saying that Putin and Trump “spoke in favour of continuing direct talks” between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations.

The proposals for a summit, which would be the first meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy since Moscow’s invasion, came as the fraught issue of security guarantees for Ukraine took centre stage during the talks at the White House.

The specifics of what those guarantees would look like remained unclear on Monday.

Asked if the US could send peacekeepers to Ukraine, Trump said that European countries would be the “first line of defence”, but that Washington would provide “a lot of help”.

“We’re going to help them out also, we’re going to be involved,” Trump said.

Trump said on Truth Social later that discussions had focused on which security guarantees would be provided by European countries with “coordination” by the US.

Zelenskyy said that the guarantees would be “unpacked” by Kyiv’s partners and formalised within the next week to 10 days.

While Trump has ruled out NATO membership for Ukraine, his special envoy, Witkoff, said on Sunday that Putin was open to a security guarantee resembling the 32-member alliance’s collective defence mandate.

Under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, an armed attack against any one NATO member nation is considered an attack on all members of the alliance.

Speaking on Fox News after Monday’s talks, Rutte called Washington’s commitment to be involved in guaranteeing Ukraine’s security a “breakthrough”, but said the exact nature of that involvement would be discussed over the coming days.

Rutte said the discussions had not touched on the possibility of deploying US or European troops.

“What we all agree on is that if this war does come to end… it has to be definitive – that Russia will never, ever, ever again try to get a catch a square mile of territory of Ukraine post a peace deal,” Rutte said.

Konstantin Sonin, a Russian exile and Putin critic who is a professor at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy, said that meaningful security guarantees for Kyiv would need to include European troops on the ground.

“This is all ‘unacceptable’ to Putin, so for European leaders, it is the question how to persuade President Trump that without such guarantees, the war, even if it stops now, will start again in the near future,” Sonin told Al Jazeera.

Sonin said that Ukraine had been failed by “written” guarantees for decades, including during Moscow’s 2014 invasion and occupation of Crimea.

“Russia has signed many international treaties recognising Ukraine’s sovereignty and borders – including Putin himself signing one such treaty in 2004 – and still violated all of these treaties, both in 2014 and 2022,” Sonin said.

“This is all to say that the sticking point is not the language in some documents,” he added.

The issue of what territory Kyiv might be asked to give up in a peace deal also remained unclear after the talks at the White House.

Ahead of the meeting, Trump warned that the return to Ukraine of Russian-occupied Crimea would be off the table in any negotiated settlement.

Trump has indicated that a deal to end the war would involve “some swapping, changes in land” between Russia and Ukraine.

Russia controls about one-fifth of Ukraine, according to open-source estimates. Ukraine, which took control of a large swath of Russia’s Kursk region during a surprise counter-offensive last year, is not believed to hold any Russian territory at present.

Speaking on Fox News, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said both Moscow and Kyiv would have to make concessions for a deal.

“Obviously, land or where you draw those lines – where the war stops – is going to be part of that conversation,” Rubio said.

“And it’s not easy, and maybe it’s not even fair, but it’s what it takes in order to bring about an end to a war. And that’s been true in every war.”

Zelenskyy, who has repeatedly ruled out handing over Ukrainian territory to Moscow, said on Monday that land would be an issue for him and Putin to work out between them.

“We will leave the issue of territories between me and Putin,” Zelenskyy told reporters.

When I heard about the killing of Mohammed Noufal and his colleagues from Al Jazeera, my first thoughts were with his sister, Janat. I knew her vaguely in university; she is a polite girl with a beautiful smile, who was studying digital media at the Islamic University of Gaza and ran an online shop where she sold girls’ accessories.

She had already lost several members of her family when she received the news of her brother’s martyrdom. I thought of her and the devastating pain she must be in. I thought of how her story reflects the fate of so many Palestinian families who, over the past almost two years, have faced slow death, member by member.

On October 30, 2023, just three weeks after the start of the war, a missile struck Janat’s family house in Jabalia. She and her sisters and brothers survived, although Mohammed had serious injuries. Their aunt and uncle were killed.

A year later, on October 7, 2024, Omar, Janat’s eldest brother, was martyred while he was trying to rescue the injured from a bombed house; the Israeli army hit the same spot again, killing him.

Then, on June 22 of this year, her mother, Muneera, passed away. She was visiting relatives when the Israeli army bombarded the area. Muneera was hit by shrapnel; she arrived at the hospital still alive but passed away 39 hours later.

On August 10, Israel bombed a media tent near al-Shifa Hospital, killing Janat’s brother Mohammed and six other journalists.

Now, Janat has only her father Riyad, her brother Ibrahim and her sisters Ola, Hadeel, Hanan left.

“[When] my older brother Omar passed away, we heard our father groan and say, “You’ve broken my back, oh God,” Janat told me when I reached out to her.

“When we lost my mother Muneera, my father said in a hoarse voice, ‘We have been struck down’,” she continued.

“When my brother Mohammed, the journalist, was martyred, he said nothing. He didn’t scream, he didn’t cry, he didn’t utter a word. And that’s when fear began to creep into my heart … I feared that his silence might break him forever. I feared his stillness more than I feared his grief.”

After Mohammed was martyred, Janat tried to convince her brother Ibrahim to leave his work as a journalist, because she was afraid for him. He was the last one left to support her, their father, and her sisters. But he refused, saying that nothing would befall them except what God had written for them. He told her that he wanted to follow the legacy of their martyred brother and his colleagues.

For Janat, the pain of losing her loved ones has become unbearable. “Whenever we thought we could breathe a little, the next loss would bring us back to the same darkness. Fear is no longer a passing feeling, but a constant companion, watching us from every corner of our lives. Loss has become part of our existence, and grief has settled into the details of daily life, in every paused smile and every prolonged silence,” she told me.

Her words echo the suffering of so many families here in Gaza.

According to the Government Media Office, as of March this year, 2,200 Palestinian families were completely wiped out from the civil registry, all of their members killed. More than 5,120 families had only one member left.

Palestinian families are constantly under the threat of extinction with each wave of bombing.

My own relatives have also been erased from the civil registry. My father, Ghassan, had eight cousins – Mohammed, Omar, Ismail, Firas, Khaled, Abdullah, Ali, and Marah – who formed a large branch of our extended family. After the outbreak of war, we began losing them one after another. Each loss left a new void, as if we were being pulled into a spiral of recurring grief.

Only the wives of Omar and Ismail and their two children remain now. My father carries this immense pain quietly, holding his sorrow deep inside.

Today, we face another Israeli offensive on northern Gaza. Last year, the Israeli onslaught killed tens of thousands. Those who defied forced displacement to the south paid a heavy price.

Many of us who have lost loved ones do not want to live through the horror again. Last year, my family stayed in the north, but we are now exhausted. We are worn out from the bombing, death, and terror we experienced. We will leave this time. Janat’s family, who proudly held on to their half-destroyed home in Jabalia, will also leave.

We have experienced atrocities that no human being can endure. We cannot take any more death.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Gary Lineker has received his first National Television Award nomination since 2017 in the wake of his exit from Match of the Day.

Lineker left the football show after 26 years at the end of the Premier League season in May. It was also his last appearance for the BBC after the latest in a string of controversies about his social media use led him to announce he would be leaving the corporation.

Lineker has been voted onto the shortlist for best TV presenter – and could pull off a major upset if he breaks Ant and Dec’s 23-year winning streak in that category at the ceremony in September.

Elsewhere, Netflix’s Adolescence is up for three awards – with on-screen father and son Stephen Graham and Owen Cooper going up against each other for the best drama performance award.

The show, which became a runaway hit and national talking point earlier this year, will also be the hot favourite to win best new drama.

Gavin and Stacey’s finale, which attracted more than 20 million viewers at Christmas, is likewise the frontrunner in the comedy category.

Michael McIntyre and Stacey Solomon are nominated for three prizes each – with Solomon’s Sort Your Life Out and Stacey & Joe occupying two spots on the shortlist for best factual entertainment show.

The public will bote for the winners, which will be revealed on 10 September.

The Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) has said Air Canada’s ongoing strike, in which 10,000 cabin crew members have walked off their jobs, is illegal after strikers ignored orders to return to work.

The regulatory board made the call on Monday after it previously declared that workers must return to the job as of 2pm ET (18:00 GMT) on Sunday.

The cabin crew for the Montreal-based carrier had pushed for a negotiated solution, saying binding arbitration would take pressure off the airline. Workers have said that the proposed wage hikes are insufficient to keep up with inflation and match the federal minimum wage.

The attendants are also calling to be paid for work performed on the ground, such as helping passengers to board. They are now only paid when planes are moving, sparking some vocal support from Canadians on social media.

A leader of the union on strike against Air Canada said on Monday that he would risk jail time rather than allow cabin crews to be forced back to work.

“If it means folks like me going to jail, then so be it. If it means our union being fined, then so be it. We’re looking for a solution here,” said Mark Hancock, Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) national president, at a press conference after a deadline by the board to return to work expired with no union action to end the strike.

Air Canada’s CEO Michael Rousseau told the news agency Reuters that he was “amazed” that the union was not following the law, adding, “At this point in time, the union’s proposals are much higher than the 40 percent [hike we have offered]. And so we need to find a path to bridge that gap,” he said, without suggesting what that process would be. “We’re always open to listen, and have a conversation,” he said.

Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney voiced his support for the cabin crews, saying that they should be “compensated equitably at all times”.

Pushing for a resolution, Carney said, “We are in a situation where literally hundreds of thousands of Canadians and visitors to our countries are being disrupted by this action.”

The airline normally carries 130,000 people daily during the ongoing peak summer travel season and is part of the global Star Alliance of airlines.

On Monday, Air Canada suspended its third-quarter and annual profit forecasts as its planes remained grounded.

The union said it would continue its strike and invited Air Canada back to the table to “negotiate a fair deal”.

A government nudge

The government’s options to end the strike now include asking courts to enforce the order to return to work and seeking an expedited hearing.

The minority government could also try to pass legislation that would need the support of political rivals and approval in both houses of the Parliament of Canada, which are on break until September 15.

“The government will be very reticent to be too heavy-handed because in Canada, the Supreme Court has ruled that governments have to be very careful when they take away the right to strike, even for public sector-workers who may be deemed essential,” said Dionne Pohler, professor of dispute resolution at Cornell University’s Industrial and Labor Relations School.

Another option is to encourage bargaining, Pohler said.

The government did not respond to requests for comment.

On Saturday, Carney’s Liberal government moved to end the strike by asking the CIRB to order binding arbitration. The CIRB, an independent administrative tribunal that interprets and applies Canada’s labour laws, issued the order, which Air Canada had sought, and unionised flight attendants opposed.

The previous government, under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, intervened last year to head off rail and dock strikes that threatened to cripple the economy, but it is highly unusual for a union to defy a CIRB order.

Travellers at Toronto Pearson International Airport over the weekend said they were confused and frustrated about when they would be able to fly.

Italian Francesca Tondini, 50, sitting at the Toronto airport, said she supported the union even though she had no idea when she would be able to return home.

“They are right,” she said with a smile, pointing at the striking attendants.

The dispute between cabin crews and Air Canada hinges on the way airlines compensate flight attendants. Most, including Air Canada, pay them only when planes are in motion.

In their latest contract negotiations, flight attendants in both Canada and the United States have sought compensation for hours worked, including for tasks such as boarding passengers.

New labour agreements at American Airlines and Alaska Airlines legally require carriers to start the clock for paying flight attendants when passengers are boarding.

American flight attendants are now also compensated for some hours between flights. United Airlines’ cabin crews, who voted down a tentative contract deal last month, also want a similar provision.

On the markets, Air Canada’s stock is down 1.6 percent as of 12pm in Toronto (16:00 GMT). US carrier United Airlines – another Star Alliance member, which does not have a striking cabin crew and which serves several major Canadian cities – is up 1.4 percent.

Newsmax has paid $27m so far, and will pay $20m in 2026 and $20m in 2027 to technology firm Dominion Voting Systems.

The right-wing network Newsmax will pay $67m to a voting technology firm over outright false claims it made about United States President Donald Trump‘s 2020 election loss.

The settlement of the defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems was announced in a filing by Newsmax on Monday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Under the settlement agreement, Newsmax said it had paid Dominion $27m on Friday and would pay $20m in 2026 and the final $20m in 2027.

The Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox News settled a similar defamation lawsuit with Dominion in 2023 for the larger sum of $787.5m.

The settlement came as Trump vowed in a social media post on Monday to eliminate mail-in ballots and voting machines such as those supplied by Dominion and other companies. But it was unclear how the Republican president could achieve that.

Dominion filed a defamation suit against Newsmax in 2021 over false claims that its voting technology was used to rig the 2020 US presidential election, in which Democrat Joe Biden defeated Trump. Dominion sought $1.6bn in damages.

In a statement, Newsmax said it had agreed to settle because it did not believe it would receive a fair trial.

Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis had ruled earlier that Newsmax defamed Denver-based Dominion Voting Systems by airing false information about the company and its equipment. But Davis said he would leave it to a jury to eventually decide whether that was done with malice, and, if so, how much Dominion deserved from Newsmax in damages.

“The pattern of judicial rulings that consistently denied Newsmax due process left the Company to believe it would not receive a fair trial,” Newsmax said. “Faced with these rulings and other constraints, Newsmax chose to settle the case.”

“Newsmax has always maintained that its reporting was not defamatory and that its coverage was consistent with accepted journalistic standards,” the company said.

“We stand by our coverage as fair, balanced, and conducted within professional standards of journalism,” it added.

However, internal correspondence from Newsmax officials shows they knew Trump’s claims of electoral fraud were baseless.

Davis also handled the Dominion-Fox News case, and made a similar ruling that the network repeated numerous lies by Trump’s allies about his 2020 loss despite internal communications showing Fox officials knew the claims were false.

Though Trump has insisted his fraud claims are real, there’s no evidence to prove they were, and the lawsuits in the Fox and Newsmax cases show how some of the president’s biggest supporters knew they were false at the time. Trump’s then-attorney general, William Barr, said there was no evidence of widespread fraud.

Trump and his backers lost dozens of lawsuits alleging fraud, some before Trump-appointed judges. Numerous recounts, reviews and audits of the election results, including some run by Republicans, turned up no signs of significant wrongdoing or error and affirmed Biden’s win.

A new wave of flooding has swept through villages in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Officials say at least 20 people were killed when fresh monsoon rains added to the ongoing flood emergency in the region.

Sam Curran stars as he takes three wickets and completes a run-out to wrap up a dominant victory for Oval Invincibles against Southern Brave to move the two-time defending champions four-points clear of The Hundred table.

MATCH REPORT: Curran shines as Invincibles thump Brave

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More than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in its nearly two-year genocidal war on Gaza, with the population suffering relentless bombardment with nowhere safe in the besieged enclave, Israeli-induced starvation and the daily killing of people desperately seeking food for their families.

Israel is intensifying strikes on Gaza City, the territory’s largest – and now destroyed – urban centre, as it plans to seize it and forcibly displace tens of thousands of people to concentration zones in the south. At least 26 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip since dawn on Monday, including 14 seeking aid.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, says, “Israeli attacks are still ongoing, unabated, in the eastern part of Gaza City. The scale of attacks illustrates how Israel’s current strategy is shaping the geography and demography of Gaza.”

“We can see how Israel is using heavy artillery, fighter jets and drones, in order to destroy what’s left of residential homes there. The scale of destruction is extremely overwhelming,” he said.

“This current military tactic ensures that Israel will enable its forces to operate on the ground and will also ensure residential areas turn into zones of rubble. People there say Israeli attacks are happening day and night.”

Many who have already been displaced multiple times during the war by Israeli bombardment are on the move again from Gaza City. Others are staying put.

The city was the main target of air attacks on Sunday that killed nearly 60 people, and Israel is also targeting the few remaining healthcare centres there.

But while many Palestinians who remain in the devastated city are forced to survive in the ruins of buildings, makeshift shelters, or tents, some people have told Al Jazeera that it would be impossible for them to leave.

“How am I supposed to even get there? How can I go? I need nearly $900 to move – I don’t even have a dollar. How am I supposed to reach the south?” asked displaced Palestinian man Bilal Abu Sitta.

Others do not trust Israeli promises of aid and shelter. “We don’t want Israel to give us anything,” Noaman Hamad said. “We want them to [allow] us back to the homes we fled – we don’t need more than that.”

Slight hope emerged as Hamas said it approved a Gaza ceasefire proposal put forward yesterday by mediators Qatar and Egypt. An informed source told Al Jazeera that the draft deal would ensure a 60-day truce that would see the release of half of the Israeli captives held in Gaza as well as an unspecified number of Palestinian captives imprisoned by Israel.

But Palestinians in Gaza have seen countless false dawns before, and after a brief ceasefire in January was shattered by Israel in March, the war then entered its most grim phase of human misery.

‘Israel carrying out a deliberate campaign of starvation’

Gaza’s Health Ministry says five more Palestinians have died from malnutrition as a result of Israel’s punishing monthslong blockade in the past 24 hours, including two children.

As of August 18, the known number of people who have starved to death in Gaza, according to the ministry, reached at least 263 people, including 112 children.

The United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) warned that as of July 2025, more than 320,000 children – the entire population under the age of five in Gaza – are at risk of acute malnutrition.

Families are surviving on the bare minimum of basic foods, with almost no dietary diversity, WFP said. The agency called for an immediate ceasefire to allow large-scale delivery of humanitarian aid.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) says children in Gaza should be preparing for the new school year, but instead are searching for water, queuing for food, and living in classrooms turned into overcrowded shelters.

UNRWA warned that children in the enclave have already lost three years of schooling, risking becoming a “lost generation”, and renewed its call for an immediate ceasefire.

Amnesty International has condemned Israel “systematically destroying the health, wellbeing and social fabric of Palestinian life”. In a report quoting displaced Palestinians and medical staff who have treated malnourished children, Amnesty said: “Israel is carrying out a deliberate campaign of starvation in the occupied Gaza Strip.”

In the meantime, Doctors Without Borders, known by its French initials MSF, says its staff in Gaza are witnessing a surge in mass casualties linked to Israel’s ongoing siege and its oversight of limited distribution of aid by the controversial, US- and Israel-backed aid organisation GHF.

“The indiscriminate killings, and the counts of mass casualties we still [see] on a daily basis right now, hasn’t stopped, but only increased in its scale,” said Nour Alsaqqa of MSF.

She said one MSF facility in Rafah, located near an aid distribution centre, has been overwhelmed with wounded Palestinians, including children.

“We are receiving baby injuries and killings from the distribution sites. People who are coming with gunshots, with different injuries, related to the distribution sites and they go only seeking food,” she said.

“They go out of desperation and they risk their lives to access aid, which is still inaccessible due to Israel’s siege.”

Since the establishment of the GHF aid sites at the end of May, nearly 2,000 people have been killed while trying to access aid, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.