USA - The government is ratcheting up its efforts to convince Americans to get flu shots. "You can't walk into a pharmacy without seeing lines, and the government is now telling preachers to tell their congregations to get flu shots," says Dr Russell Blaylock, renowned neurosurgeon and editor of the Blaylock Wellness Report. "I've never seen anything like it.”

USA - For the first time in the history of GLAAD's 'Where We Are on TV' report, LGBTQ characters of color also outnumber those that are white. Broadcast television is enlisting a record percentage of LGBTQ characters and featuring those of color more often than those that are white for the first time in the 2018-19 television season, a report published Thursday found. GLAAD's annual Where We Are on TV report found that LGBTQ characters make up 8.8 percent of all regular characters this season, up 2.4 percent from the 2017-18 season. (Last season had previously held the record for largest percentage in the report's 23-year history.)

USA - We’re getting close to the end now. Can you feel it?  I do.  It’s in the news, on the streets, and in your face every day. You can’t tune it out anymore, even if you wanted to. Where once there was civil debate in the court of public opinion, we now have censorship, monopoly, screaming, insults, demonization, and, finally, the use of force to silence the opposition. There is no turning back now. The political extremes are going to war, and you will be dragged into it even if you consider yourself apolitical.

USA - A quarter of students found the 2016 election so traumatic they now report symptoms of PTSD [Post-traumatic stress disorder], according to a new study. Researchers surveyed Arizona State University students around the time of President Donald Trump's inauguration in 2017, and some had stress scores on par with that of school shooting witnesses' seven-month follow-ups.

USA - Less than two weeks from the most expensive and, perhaps, consequential midterm election in a generation, some of Hollywood’s most influential stars have taken to social media to spew deranged and self-centered hot takes about President Donald Trump and the issues facing the nation. ‘No Human Beings Are Illegal;’ Being Transgender the ‘Truest Form of America’s Freedom’.

USA - The homelessness crisis in the United States is getting a lot worse, and it is happening at a pace that is absolutely frightening. Did you realize that more than half a million Americans are homeless right now? One out of every four homeless Americans actually has a job, but thanks to rapidly rising housing prices they are not able to afford a place to live. So every night in this country, hundreds of thousands of people are sleeping in shelters, in their vehicles or on the streets. It is a national crisis that isn’t going away, and during the next economic downturn it is only going to intensify. Hundreds of thousands of people are deeply suffering in this country every single night, and that should not be happening in the greatest nation on the planet. ...the homelessness crisis is likely to get a whole lot worse as the US economy continues to deteriorate.

USA - US President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin plan to meet in Paris next month, officials said on Tuesday, their first encounter since a summit in Helsinki that unleashed a storm of criticism that Trump was cosying up to the Kremlin. Both presidents plan to be in Paris for events to commemorate the centenary of the end of World War One, and they are planning to hold a bilateral meeting on the sidelines, according to Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov. At a post-summit news conference alongside Putin, Trump questioned the findings of US intelligence agencies that Russia had tried to influence the vote. Moscow denies any interference in the elections.

USA - A school district has apologized to parents, after hosting a drag queen as part of a career day. A spokesperson for Adams 12 Five Star schools said Rocky Top Middle School staff should have notified parents a drag queen would be speaking to their children, before allowing the speech to happen. Students at Rocky Top range from 6th to 8th grade. The drag queen, identified as a woman who goes by “Jessica L’Whor,” is a relative of one student. The district confirmed she was invited to attend career day. “I knew it was going to be controversial because that was nothing that would be allowed when I was in middle school,” L’Whor said. “At the same time, it opened up a door for conversation.” District spokesperson Joe Ferdani said staff believed the visit by L’Whor would demonstrate their inclusiveness of all, no matter how they prefer to dress.

USA - When all the hurricanes and tropical storms that have formed in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific Oceans this year are added together, the 2018 hurricane season is the most active season ever recorded, Colorado State University meteorologist Phil Klotzbach announced Tuesday. Florence and Michael were the most destructive storms in the Atlantic, while the eastern Pacific featured several powerhouse storms, including Lane, Rosa, Sergio and now, Willa. To determine the strength of a given season, scientists use the "Accumulated Cyclone Energy" (ACE) index, which adds together the intensity and duration of all the tropical storms and hurricanes that formed. So far in 2018, the ACE for the Atlantic and eastern Pacific seasons together is 432 units of energy, shattering the record of 371, which was set in 1992, Klotzbach said.

ISRAEL - Israel is left with no choice but to unleash a military action against Hamas militants, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman has threatened. The bellicose tirade comes amid reports the IDF are amassing tanks along the Gaza border. “Wars are only conducted when there is no choice, and now there is no choice,” Lieberman told the parliament. Apparently anything less than the “toughest response” to Hamas is not being considered as Tel Aviv had “exhausted the other options.” Speculation about a potential offensive on Gaza has been swirling for several days, as the IDF stationed around 60 tanks and armored personnel carriers near the Palestinian border in what may be the largest military deployment since 2014’s Operation Protective Edge.

ISRAEL - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Palestinian terror group Hamas is a greater threat than in the past, but added that it “fully understands” the messages Israel sends to it. “We are preparing for every scenario,” Netanyahu told local activists at a closed ceremony at the Sdot Negev regional council near the Gaza border. “We are dealing with a theological junta that has taken control of two million people,” Netanyahu said, referring to Hamas, the terror group which controls the Strip and openly seeks Israel’s destruction. “They are committed to our destruction and therefore are not partners for conversation in the diplomatic sense, but they fully understand our other messages and we won’t let them continue (with their violence),” the prime minister warned. “We also won’t let them dream about carrying out their plan.”

ISRAEL - Israeli Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel threatened on Monday to cut off water to Jordan in response to King Abdullah's decision to cancel a land-annexing article in its peace deal with Tel Aviv. Mr Ariel said in an interview with Israel's Channel 1 that water supplies to Amman would be reduced from four to two days a week if Jordan terminates the agreement of the 1994 peace treaty that allows the Israeli government and farmers to use Jordanian lands of Baqura and Ghamr near their shared border.

ISRAEL - If US President Donald Trump does not present his Israeli-Palestinian peace plan next month, France’s President Emmanuel Macron will issue a proposal of his own, a senior Israeli diplomat reportedly told Knesset members at a closed-door briefing. Alon Ushpiz, the Foreign Ministry’s political director, testified to the Knesset’s powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Monday, in a closed session, that France is waiting out November 6’s US midterm elections, but that if Trump does not present his long-awaited plan in the first few weeks after that vote, Macron will publicize his own formula, TV news reports said. The reports, on Israel’s Channel 10 and Hadashot TV, quoted MKs who were at the session. The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem said the reports contained inaccuracies.

TURKEY - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is trying to turn a horrific murder in Istanbul into a catalyst for changing the balance of power in Saudi Arabia and regaining influence across the Middle East. Having remade the region’s largest democracy in his own image, Erdogan is taking aim at rival Saudi Arabia’s leadership amid international outrage over the death of insider-turned critic Jamal Khashoggi at the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul. Erdogan has vowed to reveal what happened to Khashoggi “in all its nakedness” on Tuesday, just as the Saudis kick off a major investment forum in Riyadh. Directly refuting the Saudi account of the slaying could dramatically raise the stakes for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

ISRAEL - “Israel is in a very difficult situation,” said Dan Shapiro, a former US ambassador to Israel. “It wants and needs Saudi Arabia to be a reliable anchor of this regional coalition to confront Iranian aggression, and it’s faced with a reality that the current Saudi leadership has been proven unable to fulfill that role.” No other Arab country could replace Saudi Arabia in the region’s anti-Iran coalition, but MBS [Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ] has proven to be “extremely reckless, impulsive and untrustworthy,” added Shapiro, who today is a fellow at the Institute for National Security in Tel Aviv. Israel should be careful not be regarded as Riyadh’s mouthpiece in the US and Europe, several analysts interviewed for this article warned.