INGLEWOOD: Green Day kicked off the massive FireAid benefit concert Thursday night, a two-venue concert extravaganza that is raising money for Los Angeles-area wildfire relief efforts.
They launched into “Last Night on Earth,” and were soon joined by Billie Eilish for the first surprise of the night. The lyrics are surprisingly astute: “If I lose everything in the fire / I’m sending all my love to you.”
After their set, Green Day frontman Billy Joe Armstrong hugged Billy Crystal, who was there to welcome to the crowd at the Kia Forum.
“Our goal is simple tonight, to spend more money than the Dodgers spent on free agents,” he joked. He told the audience U2 offered the first big donation of the night — $1 million dollars.
Crystal said he has was wearing the clothes he had on when when he evacuated. He lost his home in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood that he lived in for 46 years.
The first true-blue Los Angeles moment came from a surprise performance by Dr. Dre. The progenitor of West Coast hip-hop tackled “Still D.R.E.” with Anderson .Paak and Sheila E. before pivoting to Tupac and Dre’s classic “California Love.”
It was followed by the figurehead of Laurel Canyon folk, a moving set of “Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell.
Alanis Morissette in a bedazzled “I heart LA” shirt, launched into “Ironic,” harmonica in hand. Behind the performers, images of firefighters and the devastation brought forth by the fires appeared on screen.
Between sets, videos of survivors telling the stories of losing their homes were broadcast throughout the arena.
Spirits were high in the arena. “We’re appreciative of this moment. I hope people remember this concert forever,” said Scott Jones, 54, who brought his daughter to the concert. The Los Angeles-resident and his daughter wores black T-shirts with “First Responders” written across their chests.
“I hope some of the firefighters who are able to attend can come and decompress a little,” Jones said. ” They needed it. I’m supportive of what they have done for this city.”
How to watch FireAid
FireAid has taken over two Inglewood, California, venues — the Kia Forum and the Intuit Dome.
It is being broadcast and streamed live on Apple Music, Apple TV+, Max, iHeartRadio, KTLA+, Netflix/Tudum, Paramount+, Prime Video, the Amazon Music Channel on Twitch, SiriusXM, Spotify, SoundCloud, Veeps and YouTube. It will also be shown at select AMC Theatres locations in the US
Who else will perform?
Eilish, Gracie Abrams, Jelly Roll, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Lil Baby, Olivia Rodrigo, Peso Pluma, Rod Stewart, Stevie Wonder, Sting, Tate McRae and Earth, Wind & Fire will perform at the Intuit Dome.
Dawes, Graham Nash, John Fogerty, No Doubt, Pink, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stephen Stills, Stevie Nicks, the Black Crowes and John Mayer will perform at the Kia Forum.
Mayer and Dave Matthews were originally scheduled to perform live together for the first time, but on Wednesday, the official Dave Matthews Band Instagram account announced that “due to a critical illness in the family,” Matthews will no longer take the stage.
The folk rock band Dawes were directly affected by the Eaton fire. Actor-singer Mandy Moore, who is married to Dawes’ Taylor Goldsmith, posted on social media to share that a portion of their Altadena house and Goldsmith’s home recording studio were destroyed. Goldsmith’s brother and bandmate, Griffin Goldsmith, and his pregnant wife also lost their home in the fire.
How will donations work?
Those not in attendance can watch the live feed and contribute donations via FireAidLA.org. The link, which is open now, will also be up on the screen for the duration of the broadcast.
Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and his wife Connie will match all donations made during the live broadcast, doubling the proceeds. Crystal noted that because of their pledge, U2’s million dollar donation was worth twice that amount.
All of the proceeds will go to those affected. A 501(c)(3) was set up, and contributions to FireAid will be distributed under the Annenberg Foundation, which with FireAid has assembled a small committee to advise.
Green Day and Billie Eilish open FireAid, a benefit for LA wildfire relief
https://arab.news/nzrsg
Green Day and Billie Eilish open FireAid, a benefit for LA wildfire relief
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- FireAid has taken over two Inglewood, California, venues — the Kia Forum and the Intuit Dome
- The show is streaming on multiple platforms, including YouTube, Apple TV+, Max, Netflix, Paramount+ and Prime Video
Anti-US sentiment bubbling up in the West Bank bolsters demand for a local Coke-alternative
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- Chat Cola has seen its products explode in popularity across the occupied West Bank in the past year
- Palestinian consumers, angry at America’s steadfast support for Israel, protested with their pockets
SALFIT, West Bank: Order a Coke to wash down some hummus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank these days and chances are the waiter will shake his head disapprovingly – or worse, mutter “shame, shame” in Arabic – before suggesting the popular local alternative: a can of Chat Cola.
Chat Cola – its red tin and sweeping white script bearing remarkable resemblance to the iconic American soft drink’s logo – has seen its products explode in popularity across the occupied West Bank in the past year as Palestinian consumers, angry at America’s steadfast support for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza, protest with their pockets.
“No one wants to be caught drinking Coke,” said Mad Asaad, 21, a worker at the bakery-cafe chain Croissant House in the West Bank city of Ramallah, which stopped selling Coke after the war erupted. “Everyone drinks Chat now. It’s sending a message.”
Since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack triggered Israel’s devastating military campaign in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian-led boycott movement against companies perceived as supportive of Israel gained momentum across the Middle East, where the usual American corporate targets like McDonald’s, KFC and Starbucks saw sales slide last year.
Here in the West Bank, the boycott has shuttered two KFC branches in Ramallah. But the most noticeable expression of consumer outrage has been the sudden ubiquity of Chat Cola as shopkeepers relegate Coke cans to the bottom shelf – or pull them altogether.
“When people started to boycott, they became aware that Chat existed,” Fahed Arar, general manager of Chat Cola, said from the giant, red-painted factory, nestled in the hilly West Bank town of Salfit. “I’m proud to have created a product that matches that of a global company.”
With the “buy local” movement burgeoning during the war, Chat Cola said its sales in the West Bank surged more than 40 percent last year, compared to 2023.
While the companies said they had no available statistics on their command of the local market due to the difficulties of data collection in wartime, anecdotal evidence suggests Chat Cola is clawing at some of Coca-Cola’s market share.
“Chat used to be a specialty product, but from what we’ve seen, it dominates the market,” said Abdulqader Azeez Hassan, 25, the owner of a supermarket in Salfit that boasts fridges full of the fizzy drinks.
But workers at Coca-Cola’s franchise in the West Bank, the National Beverage Company, are all Palestinian, and a boycott affects them, too, said its general manager, Imad Hindi.
He declined to elaborate on the business impact of the boycott, suggesting it can’t be untangled from the effects of the West Bank’s economic free-fall and intensified Israeli security controls that have multiplied shipping times and costs for Palestinian companies during the war.
The Coca-Cola Company did not respond to a request for comment.
Whether or not the movement brings lasting consequences, it does reflect an upsurge of political consciousness, said Salah Hussein, head of the Ramallah Chamber of Commerce.
“It’s the first time we’ve ever seen a boycott to this extent,” Hussein said, noting how institutions like the prominent Birzeit University near Ramallah canceled their Coke orders. “After Oct. 7, everything changed. And after Trump, everything will continue to change.”
President Donald Trump’s call for the mass expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza, which he rephrased last week as a recommendation, has further inflamed anti-American sentiment around the region.
With orders pouring in not only from Lebanon and Yemen but also the United States and Europe, the company has its sights set on the international market, said PR manager Ahmad Hammad.
Hired to help Chat Cola cash in on combustible emotions created by the war, Hammad has rebranded what began in 2019 as a niche mom-and-pop operation.
“We had to take advantage of the opportunity,” he said of the company’s new “Palestinian taste” logo and national flag-hued merchandise.
In its scramble to satisfy demand, Chat Cola is opening a second production site in neighboring Jordan. It rolled out new candy-colored flavors, like blueberry, strawberry and green apple.
At the steamy plant in Salfit, recent college graduates in lab coats said that they took pains to produce a carbonated beverage that could sell on its taste, not just a customer’s sense of solidarity with the Palestinians.
“Quality has been a problem with local Palestinian products before,” said Hanna Al-Ahmad, 32, the head of quality control for Chat Cola, shouting to be heard over the whir of machines squirting caramel-colored elixir into scores of small cans that then whizzed down assembly lines. “If it’s not good quality, the boycott won’t stick.”
Chat Cola worked with chemists in France to produce the flavor, which is almost indistinguishable from Coke’s – just like its packaging. That’s the case for several flavors: Squint at Chat’s lemon-lime soda and you might mistake it for a can of Sprite.
In 2020, the Ramallah-based National Beverage Company sued Chat Cola for copyright infringement in Palestinian court, contending that Chat had imitated Coke’s designs for multiple drinks. The court ultimately sided with Chat Cola, determining there were enough subtle differences in the can designs that it didn’t violate copyright law.
In the Salfit warehouse, drivers loaded “family size” packages of soda into trucks bound not only for the West Bank but also for Tel Aviv, Haifa and other cities in Israel. Staffers said that Chat soda sales in Israel’s predominantly Arab cities jumped 25 percent last year. To broaden its appeal in Israel, Chat Cola secured kosher certification after a Jewish rabbi’s thorough inspection of the facility.
Still, critics of the Palestinians-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, say that its main objective – to isolate Israel economically for its occupation of Palestinian lands – only exacerbates the conflict.
“BDS and similar actions drive communities apart, they don’t help to bring people together,” said Vlad Khaykin, the executive vice president of social impact and partnerships in North America for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization. “The kind of rhetoric being embraced by the BDS movement to justify the boycott of Israel is really quite dangerous.”
While Chat Cola goes out of its way to avoid buying from Israel – sourcing ingredients and materials from France, Italy and Kuwait – it can’t avoid the circumstances of Israeli occupation, in which Israel dominates the Palestinian economy, controls borders, imports and more.
Deliveries of raw materials to Chat Cola’s West Bank factory get hit with a 35 percent import tax – half of which Israel collects on behalf of the Palestinians. The general manager, Arar, said his company’s success depends far more on Israeli bureaucratic goodwill than nationalist fervor.
For nearly a month last fall, Israeli authorities detained Chat’s aluminum shipments from Jordan at the Allenby Bridge Crossing, forcing part of the factory to shut down and costing the company tens of thousands of dollars.
Among the local buyers left in the lurch was Croissant House in Ramallah, where, on a recent afternoon, at least one thirsty customer, confronting a nearly empty refrigerator, slipped to the supermarket next-door for a can of Coke.
“It’s very frustrating,” said Asaad, the worker. “We want to be self-sufficient. But we’re not.”
Court convicts preschool teacher of child-beating that shocked France
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- Video footage of the incident, filmed by a parent at the school in central Paris, went viral
- The 52-year-old teacher was given a $3,140 fine, half of it suspended
PARIS: A French court on Friday fined a preschool teacher for having beaten a three-year-old child in class, a case that sparked nationwide anger and a shocked response from the then-education minister.
Video footage of the incident, filmed by a parent at the school in central Paris, went viral after it was posted online.
The 52-year-old teacher was given a 3,000-euro ($3,140) fine, half of it suspended, after admitting to having lost her cool in the incident last September.
Prosecutors had asked for a four-month suspended sentence.
The court opted not to record the fine as a criminal conviction, ruling that the teacher had been under intense pressure and that it had been a one-off incident.
But she was ordered to pay 1,600 euros to the mother of the child concerned.
The incident happened on September 3, the day after French pupils returned to school from the summer break.
At the time, the then-education minister Nicole Belloubet described the images filmed as “terribly shocking and unacceptable,” adding that she had immediately ordered the teacher’s suspension.
After Friday’s ruling, the teacher’s lawyer Laurent Hazan told reporters that his client was “relieved.”
In court, she said the girl had been having a meltdown in class worse than any she had seen in 30 years of teaching.
The girl had thrown a chair, which had nearly hit another child, she added.
But of the blow, she admitted, in tears, “I lost my cool,” and offered her apologies to the child and her family.
‘Queen of Pop’ Madonna lambasts ‘King’ Trump
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- “I thought this country was built by Europeans, escaping living under the rule of a King, to establish a New World governed by the people,” Madonna said on X
- “Currently we have a president who calls Himself Our King. If this is a joke, I’m not laughing“
WASHINGTON: Pop superstar Madonna has reignited her campaign against President Donald Trump, upbraiding the US leader for calling himself “the King.”
Trump declared “LONG LIVE THE KING” to end a social media message on Wednesday stating that he had killed a New York plan to impose a peak congestion charge of $9 for cars entering much of busy Manhattan.
The White House reposted the message on its social media with an illustration showing Trump wearing a diamond-studded crown.
“I thought this country was built by Europeans, escaping living under the rule of a King, to establish a New World governed by the people,” Madonna, widely known as “The Queen of Pop,” said late Thursday on the X platform.
“Currently we have a president who calls Himself Our King. If this is a joke, I’m not laughing,” added the 66-year-old singer.
Madonna had criticized Trump during his first term as president and she took part in a demonstration by Trump opponents after his January 20 inauguration.
Opponents frequently criticize Trump for adopting a regal tone. He said in his inaugural address that he was “saved by God to make America great again,” after surviving an assassination attempt in July.
The Republican leader campaigned against New York’s congestion charge, the first in the United States, during his presidential campaign.
The US Department of Transportation directed New York authorities this week to halt the charge.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said lawyers have initiated court action to halt the federal order.
But Trump triumphantly said on his Truth Social platform that “CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!“
Nepal community fights to save sacred forests from cable cars
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- Across Nepal, five cable car projects have opened in the past two years – and 10 more are under development
- Critics accuse the Nepalese government of failing to assess the environmental impact properly
TAPLEJUNG, Nepal: They appear tranquil soaring above Himalayan forests, but a string of cable car projects in Nepal have sparked violent protests, with locals saying environmental protection should trump tourism development.
In Nepal’s eastern district of Taplejung, the community has been torn apart by a $22-million government-backed project many say will destroy livelihoods and damage ancient forests they hold as sacred.
Across Nepal, five cable car projects have opened in the past two years – and 10 more are under development, according to government figures.
Critics accuse the government of failing to assess the environmental impact properly.
In January, protests at Taplejung escalated into battles with armed police, with four activists wounded by gunfire and 21 officers injured.
The protests calmed after promises construction would be suspended, but erupted again this week, with 14 people wounded on Thursday – 11 of them members of the security forces.
“We were in a peaceful protest but hired thugs showed us kukris (large knives) and attacked us – and we countered them,” protest committee leader Shree Linkhim Limbu said after the latest clashes.
He vowed to continue demonstrations until the project is scrapped.
Around 300,000 Hindu devotees trek for hours to Taplejung’s mountaintop Pathibhara temple every year – a site also deeply sacred to the local Limbu people’s separate beliefs.
In 2018, Chandra Prasad Dhakal, a businessman with powerful political ties who is also president of Nepal’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry, announced the construction of a 2.5-kilometer-long (1.5-mile) cable car to the temple.
The government calls it a project of “national pride.”
Dhakal’s IME Group is also building other cable cars, including the 6.4-kilometer-long Sikles line in the Annapurna Conservation Area, which the Supreme Court upheld.
The government deemed the project a “national priority,” thereby exempting it from strict planning restrictions in protected areas.
The Supreme Court scrapped that controversial exemption last month, a move celebrated by environmentalists.
But activists fear the project may still go ahead.
Taplejung is deeply sacred to local Mukkumlung beliefs, and residents say that the clearance of around 3,000 rhododendron trees – with 10,00 more on the chopping block – to build pylons is an attack on their religion.
“It is a brutal act,” said protest chief Limbu. “How can this be a national pride project when the state is only serving business interests?”
Saroj Kangliba Yakthung, 26, said locals would rather efforts and funding were directed to “preserve the religious, cultural and ecological importance” of the forests.
The wider forests are home to endangered species including the red panda, black bear and snow leopard.
“We worship trees, stone and all living beings, but they are butchering our faith,” said Anil Subba, director of the Katmandu-based play “Mukkumlung,” which was staged for a month as part of the protest.
The hundreds of porters and dozens of tea stall workers that support trekking pilgrims fear for their livelihoods.
“If they fly over us in a cable car, how will we survive?” said 38-year-old porter Chandra Tamang.
The government says the cable car will encourage more pilgrims by making it easy to visit, boosting the wider economy in a country where unemployment hovers around 10 percent, and GDP per capita at just $1,377, according to the World Bank.
“This will bring development,” said resident Kamala Devi Thapa, 45, adding that the new route will aid “elderly pilgrims.”
The cable cars symbolize Nepal’s breakneck bid to cash in on tourism, making up more than six percent of the country’s GDP in 2023, according to the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC).
Beyond the Pathibhara project, the government’s environmental policy is in question – in a country where 45 percent is forest.
More than 255,000 trees have been cut down for infrastructure projects in the past four years, according to the environment ministry.
“Nepal has witnessed massive deforestation in the name of infrastructure,” said Rajesh Rai, professor of forestry at Tribhuvan University. “This will have severe long-term consequences.”
Unperturbed, the cable car builder assures his project will create 1,000 jobs and brushes aside criticism.
“It won’t disturb the ecology or local culture,” Dhakal said. “If people can fly there in helicopters, why not a cable car?”
The argument leaves Kendra Singh Limbu, 79, unmoved.
“We are fighting to save our heritage,” he said.
It has split the community, local journalist Anand Gautam said.
“It has turned fathers and sons against each other,” Gautam said. “Some see it as progress, others as destruction.”
‘Just two glasses’: In Turkiye, lives shattered by bootleg alcohol
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- Toxicology professor: ‘Just one glass of fake vodka made from methylated alcohol can be deadly’
- ‘People really need to be careful. But who would drink alcohol without a proper label?’
ISTANBUL: Taskin Erduan thought he’d got a bargain: three liters of vodka for around $15. But it took only two glasses to kill the 51-year-old hairdresser who worked at an Istanbul salon.
“He came in a bit late on that Saturday saying he couldn’t see properly,” said Belgin, joint owner of the salon where he worked in the Ortakoy district, who didn’t want to give her surname.
Not long after he got there, Erduan needed to sit down because he couldn’t even hold a pair of scissors, she said.
“He told us all he could see was whiteness so I immediately drove him to a private hospital,” she said.
There, he saw an ophthalmologist who quickly realized it was a case of bootleg alcohol poisoning.
Erduan collapsed in late January, barely a week after the city was shaken by news that within just four days, 33 people had died and 29 were critically ill after drinking bootleg alcohol.
That number has since shot up to 70, with another 63 dead in the capital Ankara, Turkish media reports say. Another 36 remain in intensive care.
Erduan told the doctors he bought the vodka at a corner shop in Ortakoy, saying it was five times cheaper than the supermarket because it was imported from Bulgaria.
They gave him folic acid to try and stave off the effects of methanol, a toxic substance often found in bootleg alcohol that can cause blindness, liver damage and death.
“He was still perfectly conscious,” his boss said, her eyes red from crying.
Shortly afterwards, he was rushed into intensive care and intubated.
“On the fourth day, we went with his son to see him. He was totally yellow,” she said, describing jaundice, another symptom of methanol poisoning.
“That evening, we heard he had died.”
“Nobody should have to die like that. The alcohol seemed totally legal from the packaging and the branding when in fact it came from an illegal distillery,” said Erol Isik, her partner at the salon, who was clearly angry.
“Taskin didn’t drink to get drunk, he wasn’t an alcoholic,” he said.
Speaking to AFP at his laboratory at Istanbul’s Yeditepe University where he heads the toxicology department, professor Ahmet Aydin explained how lethal it can be.
“Just one glass of fake vodka made from methylated alcohol can be deadly,” he said.
The difference between ethanol, which is used for making spirits, and methanol, which is used in varnishes and antifreeze, is only visible in a laboratory, he explained, showing test tubes containing the two alcohols.
“No-one can tell them apart by taste, sight or smell,” he said.
“The biggest danger with methanol poisoning is that you don’t feel the effects straight away. It only manifests after about six hours. If the person goes straight to hospital, they have a chance of recovering.”
But it can very quickly become “too late.”
“People really need to be careful,” he warned, saying it was a lot easier to buy methanol than ethanol, the purchase of which is highly regulated.
“But who would drink alcohol without a proper label?” he wondered, following reports several people died after buying alcohol in half-liter water bottles from a business posing as a Turkmen restaurant in Istanbul.
Like the main opposition CHP party, Ozgur Aybas, head of the Tekel association of alcohol retailers, blames the crippling taxes imposed by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who regularly rails against drinking and smoking.
“Nowhere else in the world are there such high taxes on alcohol,” he said, saying people had no choice but to seek out alternatives.
Buying a liter bottle of raki, Turkiye’s aniseed-flavored national liquor, from a supermarket currently costs around $35 in a country where the minimum wage is $600.
Standing in front of the now-closed shop where Taskin Erduan bought the vodka that killed him, a neighbor called Levent, who didn’t give his surname, also blamed taxes.
“Alcohol is too expensive in Turkiye. It costs about 100 Turkish liras to make a bottle of raki but with the tax, that becomes 1,200 liras,” or the equivalent of 12-hours work at minimum wage, he raged.
Levent said he had long known the owner of the shop, describing him as “a nice guy.”
But with Turkiye in the grip of a severe economic crisis, he said he’d long since stopped being surprised at how far people would go to bring in a bit more cash.
“People will do anything for money. They have no shame anymore.”