MET Financial News

The trial of Sam Bankman-Fried readjourned Monday morning with FTX's former head of engineering, Nishad Singh, beginning his testimony.

Iran on Monday said time was running short to reach a political solution in the Israel-Gaza conflict, warning of the «possibility of expanding the scope of war and conflict to other fronts». Israel declared war on the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas a day after waves of its fighters broke through Gaza's heavily militarised border with Israel on October 7 and shot, stabbed and burned to death over 1,400 people, most of them civilians. Israel has responded by pummelling the Gaza Strip with non-stop air and artillery strikes that have flattened neighbourhoods and killed at least 2,750 people in Gaza, mostly civilians. Iran celebrated the Hamas assault but insisted it was not involved. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Monday held phone calls with his Russian and Turkish counterparts, during which he «warned against the continuation of crimes by the Zionist regime», the president's political deputy, Mohammad Jamshidi, said on X, formerly Twitter. During his phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Raisi warned of a «possibility of expanding the scope of war and conflict to other fronts». «If this happens, it will be more difficult to control the situation,» Raisi said, according to state news agency IRNA. Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian meanwhile «stressed that time is running out for political solutions» to the conflict, according to a post on X. He added that he told his counterparts in Malaysia, Pakistan and Tunisia that the «probable spread of war to other fronts is approaching an inevitable stage». His remarks come as Israel readies for a land invasion into the long-blockaded Gaza Strip, where fears for Palestinians trapped in the heavily-bombarded enclave have grown since Israel

Seven of the activists who repeatedly have demonstrated against a wind farm in in central Norway that they say hinders the rights of the Sami Indigenous people to raise reindeer have met with the Norwegian king

Environmentalists are poised to return to court in an ongoing legal battle with the Biden administration over a Nevada lithium mine

Fran Drescher said Thursday that she is baffled and disappointed that Hollywood studios abruptly broke off talks this week with the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists

Leaders of emerging market countries are arriving in Beijing for a meeting organized by the Chinese government that will mark the 10th anniversary of its Belt and Road Initiative

Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje met Assam Governor Gulabchand Kataria in Udaipur. Both of them held a long discussion during the meeting in Udaipur on Sunday, party sources said, adding the meeting was not pre-scheduled.

Vanna White, known for her iconic role as the co-host of "Wheel of Fortune," recently shared insights into her 12-year-long relationship with John Donaldson, shedding light on why the couple hasn't rushed down the aisle.

For the summer of 2023, India’s power ministry had predicted a peak electricity demand of 230 gigawatts (GW). But given an erratic and milder summer early on, the projection was not met until August, instead of the usual peak of June or July. Thanks to the driest August in 123 years, the monsoon months’ peak demand turned out to be 7.5% greater than that of the hottest summer months, a record gap in at least 15 years, a Mint analysis showed.

Welcome to the weekend. To start off your day, we’ve curated 10 great reads to enjoy.

Biden administration over a Nevada lithium mine, environmentalists are poised to return to court with a new approach accusing US wildlife officials of dragging their feet on a year-old petition seeking endangered species status for a tiny snail that lives nearby. The Western Watersheds Project said in its formal notice of intent to sue that the government's failure to list the Kings River pyrg as a threatened or endangered species could push it to the brink of extinction. It says the only place the snail is known to exist is in 13 shallow springs near where Lithium Americas is building its Thacker Pass Mine near the Oregon line. US President Joe Biden has made ramped-up domestic production of lithium a key part of his blueprint for a greener future.

Axios. This comes as the diplomatic sources said that on Saturday in Beirut, the capital city of Lebanon, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian met with UN ambassador to the Middle East Tor Wennesland.

Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot on Saturday said the ticket distribution process for the upcoming assembly polls is going on «smoothly» and asserted that candidates would be selected on the basis of winnability as well as the feedback received from a survey conducted. He made the remarks ahead of the screening committee meeting here. Later in the evening, the screening committee met in the party's war room at 15, Gurudwara Rakabganj Road to discuss the names of the candidates put forward by the state's election committee headed by Rajasthan unit chief Govind Singh Dotasra.

Israel to stop its attacks on Gaza, warning that the war might expand to other parts of the Middle East if Hezbollah joins the battle, and that would make Israel suffer «a huge earthquake.» Hossein Amirabdollahian told reporters in Beirut that Lebanon's Hezbollah group has taken all the scenarios of a war into consideration and Israel should stop its attacks on Gaza as soon as possible. Israel considers Hezbollah its most serious immediate threat, estimating it has some 150,000 rockets and missiles, including precision-guided missiles that can hit anywhere in Israel.

Hard Times, a tartly satirical website on music and millennial culture, did a 'story' last year about a punk audiophile, Terry Spinoza, who splurged $2,000 (about ₹1.65 lakh) on a high-end turntable to listen to the authentically muddy sound of 'his collection of poorly produced and recorded LPs'. Both 'Spinoza' and the 'Audio Perfektion' turntable that he purportedly bought are pure fiction, created only as a jibe at wannabe audiophiles and their endless quest to reach sonic nirvana by way of acquiring new (and expensive) gadgets. You must have met a Spinoza or two.

Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the youngest recipient of the honor. In 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his exceptional leadership and nonviolent struggle against racial discrimination in the United States. At the time of receiving the award, he became the youngest laureate in the history of the Nobel Peace Prize.

MARRAKECH, Morocco (Reuters) — The International Monetary Fund has met its fundraising target to increase concessional trust fund resources for the world's poorest countries by $3 billion, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Saturday.

Antony Blinken called on Saturday for protection for civilians in both the Gaza Strip and Israel as the Israeli military ordered half of the Palestinian territory's population to evacuate in advance of an expected ground assault. Blinken met his Saudi Arabian counterpart, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, in Riyadh as he began a third day of intense Middle East diplomacy aimed at preventing the Israel-Hamas war from expanding into a regional conflict and fuelling a humanitarian crisis.

International Monetary Fund has met its fundraising target to increase concessional trust fund resources for the world's poorest countries by $3 billion, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said on Saturday. Georgieva said in a statement that the contributions completed during IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Morocco «will allow the IMF to continue to support low-income countries with zero-interest rate financing to meet their evolving needs.» She said that PRGT lending has increased five-fold to $30 billion since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with about 30 countries still with loan programs. Demand for the trust's resources is expected to reach $40 billion through 2024, about five times the historical average. The IMF had urged member countries to fill a $1.2 billion gap in the $3 billion subsidy account endorsed by the membership in 2021.

By Laurie Chen

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -More than 1 million Palestinians in northern Gaza faced an Israeli deadline on Saturday to flee south, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had only just begun to retaliate for last week's Hamas rampage across southern Israel.