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Buried in a roughly 200-page quarterly filing from JPMorgan Chase last month were eight words that underscore how contentious the bank’s relationship with the government has become.

The lender disclosed that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau could punish JPMorgan for its role in Zelle, the giant peer-to-peer digital payments network. The bank is accused of failing to kick criminal accounts off its platform and failing to compensate some scam victims, according to people who declined to be identified speaking about an ongoing investigation.

In response, JPMorgan issued a thinly veiled threat: “The firm is evaluating next steps, including litigation.”

The prospect of a bank suing its regulator would’ve been unheard of in an earlier era, according to policy experts, mostly because corporations used to fear provoking their overseers. That was especially the case for the American banking industry, which needed hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts to survive after irresponsible lending and trading activities caused the 2008 financial crisis, those experts say.

But a combination of factors in the intervening years has created an environment where banks and their regulators have never been farther apart.

Trade groups say that in the aftermath of the financial crisis, banks became easy targets for populist attacks from Democrat-led regulatory agencies. Those on the side of regulators point out that banks and their lobbyists increasingly lean on courts in Republican-dominated districts to fend off reform and protect billions of dollars in fees at the expense of consumers.

“If you go back 15 or 20 years, the view was it’s not particularly smart to antagonize your regulator, that litigating all this stuff is just kicking the hornet’s nest,” said Tobin Marcus, head of U.S. policy at Wolfe Research.

“The disparity between how ambitious [President Joe] Biden’s regulators have been and how conservative the courts are, at least a subset of the courts, is historically wide,” Marcus said. “That’s created so many opportunities for successful industry litigation against regulatory proposals.”

Those forces collided this year, which started out as one of the most consequential for bank regulation since the post-2008 reforms that curbed Wall Street risk-taking, introduced annual stress tests and created the industry’s lead antagonist, the CFPB.

In the final months of the Biden administration, efforts from a half-dozen government agencies were meant to slash fees on credit card late payments, debit transactions and overdrafts. The industry’s biggest threat was the Basel Endgame, a sweeping proposal to force big banks to hold tens of billions of dollars more in capital for activities like trading and lending.

“The industry is facing an onslaught of regulatory and potential legislative change,” Marianne Lake, head of JPMorgan’s consumer bank, warned investors in May.

JPMorgan’s disclosure about the CFPB probe into Zelle comes after years of grilling by Democrat lawmakers over financial crimes on the platform. Zelle was launched in 2017 by a bank-owned firm called Early Warning Services in response to the threat from peer-to-peer networks including PayPal.

The vast majority of Zelle activity is uneventful; of the $806 billion that flowed across the network last year, only $166 million in transactions was disputed as fraud by customers of JPMorgan, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, the three biggest players on the platform.

But the three banks collectively reimbursed just 38% of those claims, according to a July Senate report that looked at disputed unauthorized transactions.

Banks are typically on the hook to reimburse fraudulent Zelle payments that the customer didn’t give permission for, but usually don’t refund losses if the customer is duped into authorizing the payment by a scammer, according to the Electronic Fund Transfer Act.

A JPMorgan payments executive told lawmakers in July that the bank actually reimburses 100% of unauthorized transactions; the discrepancy in the Senate report’s findings is because bank personnel often determine that customers have authorized the transactions.

Amid the scrutiny, the bank began warning Zelle users on the Chase app to “Stay safe from scams” and added disclosures that customers won’t likely be refunded for bogus transactions.

JPMorgan declined to comment for this article.

The company, which has grown to become the largest and most profitable American bank in history under CEO Jamie Dimon, is at the fore of several other skirmishes with regulators.

Thanks to his reputation guiding JPMorgan through the 2008 crisis and last year’s regional banking upheaval, Dimon may be one of few CEOs with the standing to openly criticize regulators. That was highlighted this year when Dimon led a campaign, both public and behind closed doors, to weaken the Basel proposal.

In May, at JPMorgan’s investor day, Dimon’s deputies made the case that Basel and other regulations would end up harming consumers instead of protecting them.

The cumulative effect of pending regulation would boost the cost of mortgages by at least $500 a year and credit card rates by 2%; it would also force banks to charge two-thirds of consumers for checking accounts, according to JPMorgan.

The message: banks won’t just eat the extra costs from regulation, but instead pass them on to consumers.

While all of these battles are ongoing, the financial industry has racked up several victories so far.

Some contend the threat of litigation helped convince the Federal Reserve to offer a new Basel Endgame proposal this month that roughly cuts in half the extra capital that the largest institutions would be forced to hold, among other industry-friendly changes.

It’s not even clear if the watered-down version of the proposal, a long-in-the-making response to the 2008 crisis, will ever be implemented because it won’t be finalized until well after U.S. elections.

If Republican candidate Donald Trump wins, the rules might be further weakened or killed outright, and even under a Kamala Harris administration, the industry could fight the regulation in court.

That’s been banks’ approach to the CFPB credit card rule, which aimed to cap late fees at $8 per incident and was set to go into effect in May.

A last-ditch effort from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and bank trade groups successfully delayed its implementation when Judge Mark Pittman of the Northern District of Texas sided with the industry, granting a freeze of the rule.

A key playbook for banks has been to file cases in conservative jurisdictions where they are likely to prevail, according to Lori Yue, a Columbia Business School associate professor who has studied the interplay between corporations and the judicial system.

The Northern District of Texas feeds into the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which is “well-known for its friendliness to industry lawsuits against regulators,” Yue said.

“Venue-shopping like this has become well-established corporate strategy,” Yue said. “The financial industry has been particularly active this year in suing regulators.”

Since 2017, nearly two-thirds of the lawsuits filed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce challenging federal regulations have been in courts under the 5th Circuit, according to an analysis by Accountable US.

Industries dominated by a few large players — from banks to airlines, pharmaceutical companies and energy firms — tend to have well-funded trade organizations that are more likely to resist regulators, Yue added.

The polarized environment, where weakened federal agencies are undermined by conservative courts, ultimately preserves the advantages of the largest corporations, according to Brian Graham, co-founder of bank consulting firm Klaros.

“It’s really bad in the long run, because it locks in place whatever the regulations have been, while the reality is that the world is changing,” Graham said. “It’s what happens when you can’t adopt new regulations because you’re terrified that you’ll get sued.”

— With data visualizations by CNBC’s Gabriel Cortes.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

Hassan Nasrallah, whom Israel believes it killed in a strike on southern Beirut, turned Hezbollah into one of the most powerful paramilitary forces in the Middle East. His death caps a series of devastating blows for the group, already reeling from the humiliation of having its communications network comprehensively infiltrated, and suggests that one of Israel’s most formidable enemies is deeply wounded.

One of the founding members of the group formed four decades ago with the aid of Iran, Nasrallah ascended to the top of Hezbollah in 1992. He replaced his predecessor and mentor, Abbas Musawi, as secretary-general of Hezbollah, after he was killed by an Israeli helicopter strike.

Born to a grocer and his wife in Beirut in August 1960, Nasrallah spent his early adolescence under the shadow of Lebanon’s civil war.

His family were forced to flee the capital when the fighting erupted in 1975, moving further south to a village near the coastal city of Tyre.

One year later, Nasrallah moved to Iraq to attend a Shiite seminary. But he was swiftly expelled during the persecution of Shiite Muslims under Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s repressive regime – returning to Lebanon to study under his teacher, Musawi.

When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, Nasrallah rallied a group of fighters to resist the occupation – which would evolve into Hezbollah.

Israeli forces took almost half of Lebanon’s territory that year, and were held responsible for the killing of at least 17,000 people, according to reports and an Israeli inquiry into a massacre at a Beirut refugee camp.

Transformation of Hezbollah

Known for his fiery speeches, the leader oversaw the transformation of Hezbollah, from a rag-tag group of militants in the 1980s to an organization that mounted a concerted campaign to drive out Israeli occupation in 2000.

The Lebanese militant group became a regional fighting force under Nasrallah. He led the growth of Hezbollah’s forces – his fighters and reservists are thought to number 100,000 – as well as the proliferation of its arsenal, which boasts long-range as well as medium and short-range missiles and drones.

Nasrallah commands a dedicated following of hundreds of thousands of largely Shiite Muslims – in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen. His influence in the Iran-backed so-called axis of resistance grew exponentially after the US assassinated Iran’s top general Qassem Soleimani, the architect of the region-wide axis, in 2020.

Hezbollah is the most robustly armed non-state group in the region – and is the most dominant political force in crisis-ridden Lebanon. Much of the Western world has designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization.

‘Lebanon will not stop supporting Gaza’

The Lebanese militant group has increasingly traded strikes with Israel since it launched its assault on Gaza after the Hamas-led October 7 attacks – inflaming tensions in the region.

Hezbollah says it has been firing on Israel in solidarity with Hamas, and Palestinians trying to survive Israeli attacks in Gaza, which have killed more than 41,000 people, according to the Ministry of Health there.

Days before he was killed, Nasrallah vowed to continue striking Israeli positions until Israel’s offensive in Gaza ends. “I say clearly: no matter the sacrifices, consequences, or future possibilities, the resistance in Lebanon will not stop supporting Gaza,” he said in a speech on September 19.

Fears of an all-out war peaked earlier this month, after Israel unleashed a wave of lethal explosions across Lebanon targeting Hezbollah fighters. Many of those killed were civilian bystanders.

In the days since, hundreds of thousands of people in Lebanon have been forced from their homes by Israeli attacks. In total, since October 7, more than 1,500 civilians in Lebanon have been killed and over 200,000 people displaced, according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Lebanese officials estimate the true number of displaced is closer to half a million.

Human rights advocates have fiercely condemned the violence – including UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who warned that Lebanon is suffering its bloodiest period “in a generation” and called on Israel and Hezbollah to “stop the killing and destruction.”

This post appeared first on cnn.com

Israel’s audacious attack targeting Hezbollah’s leader on Friday has rattled the group, delivering its most severe blow since its founding. This has led its Iranian backers to warn that Israel has entered a dangerous phase of the conflict by altering the rules of engagement.

As Tehran watches its most prized non-state ally take a beating, questions are mounting about how it may respond.

The Jewish state significantly escalated its yearlong conflict with the group after expanding its Gaza war objectives on September 17 to include its northern front with Hezbollah. The following day, thousands of pagers used by its members exploded simultaneously, with walkie-talkies targeted the day after that. Israel then began an air assault that killed several Hezbollah commanders and led to the highest number of casualties in Lebanon in almost two decades.

And on Friday, Israel struck what it said was Hezbollah’s headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut, targeting its leader Hassan Nasrallah. The Israeli military has claimed that Nasrallah has been killed, but Hezbollah is yet to comment on the matter.

How much has Hezbollah been degraded?

“Hezbollah has taken the biggest blow to its military infrastructure since its inception. In addition to losing weapon depots and facilities, the group has lost most of its senior commanders, and its communications network is broken,” said Hanin Ghaddar, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute and author of “Hezbollahland.”

Despite its losses however, the group still retains skilled commanders and many of its most powerful assets, including precision-guided missiles and long-range missiles that could inflict significant damage to Israel’s military and civilian infrastructure, said Ghaddar. Most of those missiles haven’t been deployed yet.

Since Israel stepped up its campaign, Hezbollah’s military performance “has proven that it was able to absorb that shock and was able to bounce back and it has been striking hard at northern Israel for days now,” said Amal Saad, Hezbollah expert and lecturer in politics and international relations at Cardiff University in Wales.

On Wednesday, Israel intercepted a ballistic missile fired by Hezbollah near Tel Aviv, an unprecedented attack that reached deep into the country’s commercial heartland. Hezbollah said it targeted the headquarters of Israel’s intelligence agency.

While Nasrallah’s targeting is unlikely to disrupt the operational continuity of the movement it is “obviously a massive, massive demoralization amongst its ranks and supporters and absolute terror which will temporarily paralyze ordinary people” within the movement, said Saad.

“That doesn’t mean the organization is paralyzed,” she added. “Hezbollah is an organization that was built to absorb these types of shocks… it’s built to be resilient and outlast individual leaders.”

Few contenders for Hezbollah’s leadership can match Nasrallah’s popularity, said Ghaddar, as he is closely associated with the group’s “golden days,” including the end of Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000 and the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war, both of which were viewed as major victories for the Lebanese group.

If the group’s leadership is truly dismantled and coordination between Iran and Hezbollah is disrupted, it could prompt Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to take the lead, according to Ghaddar.

“They (Iran) will have to find a way to do it themselves. But it’s not an easy option as they will (become) targets, and they don’t understand Lebanon.”

Under what circumstances would Iran intervene?

Ahead of the attempt on Nasrallah’s life, Iran’s official line was that Hezbollah is capable of defending itself, even as Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei acknowledged on Wednesday that Israel’s killing of the group’s leaders was “definitely a loss.”

Following Friday’s attack however, Iran’s embassy in Lebanon indicated that Tehran’s calculations might now be shifting.

“There is no doubt that this reprehensible crime and reckless behavior represent a serious escalation that changes the rules of the game, and that its perpetrator will be punished and disciplined appropriately,” the embassy said on X.

Iran’s rationale for avoiding involvement in the conflict may no longer hold, said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Washington DC-based Quincy Institute. “If it becomes clear (to Iran) that Hezbollah actually cannot defend itself following the bombing in Beirut, particularly if Nasrallah himself was killed, then the Iranian justification for staying out of the war has collapsed,” he said. “At that point, Iran’s credibility with the rest of its partners in the Axis will risk collapsing if Tehran does not react.”

Iran is likely “horrified by the effectiveness and efficiency” of Israel’s attacks but despite the targeting of Hezbollah’s top leadership, Tehran may still believe the group can defend itself and dictate the terms of an eventual ceasefire, which would help the group recover, according to  Farzin Nadimi, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute.

Tehran is most probably already helping Hezbollah rebuild its military command structure and providing tactical and operational advice to its leadership, he said. However, if the group nears collapse, it could “prompt a more assertive Iranian intervention,” potentially in the form of missile and drone strikes, as seen in April when Iran blamed Israel for attacking its diplomatic building in Damascus. Nadimi added that while a larger attack is unlikely, it’s not entirely out of the question.

Saad, the Hezbollah expert from Cardiff University, said an intervention by Iran would likely drag the United States into the war, noting that Tehran was “the weakest link” in the conflict.

“It’s the only member of the Axis that is an actual state. All the others are non-state or quasi-state actors. So, Iran has the most to lose if it participates,” she said.

“(Iran) is a conventional armed force, it would probably not fare anywhere near as well as Hezbollah would in a war because it’s a completely different military infrastructure,” Saad noted. “Hezbollah knows its terrain and adversary better than anyone else.”

Why Hezbollah matters to Iran

Since its inception 40 years ago, the Lebanese militant group has been the crown jewel of Tehran’s so-called Axis of Resistance, a group of mostly Shiite, Iran-allied Islamist militias spanning Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen that gives Iran strategic depth against its adversaries.

As a non-Arab, Shiite state, Iran sees itself as “strategically lonely” in the Middle East and therefore sees Shiites in the Sunni-dominated region “as the closest thing it has to natural allies,” Parsi said..

“From Tehran’s perspective, Hezbollah is central to the Axis because of its capabilities and discipline, its geographical placement, and its ideological and political proximity to Iran’s Islamic Republic,” Parsi added. “The destruction of Hezbollah is not in the cards in my assessment, but if it were to occur, that would be an existential blow to the Axis.”

The group is essential to “maintain a strong military component on the northern borders of Israel and keep Israel off-balance,” said Nadimi from the Washington Institute.

“It will be important to maintain Hezbollah as a viable and resilient actor and ally,” he said. “Iran has designed Hezbollah with resiliency in mind and believes they can take a lot more beating before Iran feels compelled to intervene directly.”

Iran looks to improve ties with the West

But Iran also has domestic considerations. The escalation between Hezbollah and Israel comes at a delicate time for Iran’s new reformist president, who campaigned on improving foreign relations to lift Tehran out of the isolation that has crippled its economy.

Just this week, President Masoud Pezeshkian said at the United Nations that his country is ready to engage with the West on its disputed nuclear program. He has named as his Vice President Javad Zarif, the seasoned, US-educated diplomat who became the face of Iran’s 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers, abandoned by the administration of former US President Donald Trump in 2018.

Parsi, from the Quincy Institute, said the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7 and the subsequent escalation with Hezbollah “were very badly timed” for Tehran, since they “risked prematurely bringing forward a confrontation between Iran, Hezbollah and Israel at a time that is much more strategically suitable for Israel than the Axis.”

At home, Pezeshkian must navigate between his reformist constituency, which favors detente with the West, and hardline elements within the regime that want a show of force against Israel.

On Monday, the day nearly 500 Lebanese were killed in Israeli airstrikes, Pezeshkian stated in New York that Iran was ready to “lay down arms if Israel does the same.” The remark sparked intense backlash from hardliners at home for appearing weak in front of the enemy, according to reports. His statement, along with his offer to reconcile with the West in his speech to the UN General Assembly the following day, also drew criticism in some Lebanese media.

Given the “profound unhappiness of much of the Iranian public” with the regime, Pezeshkian’s priority is national reconciliation, said Parsi.

Still, if Hezbollah is seriously degraded, “Tehran may face a situation in which it will conclude that war is at its doorstep whether it chooses it or not and that it is, as a result, better off responding before Hezbollah is further weakened,” he said.

Wary of Israel’s ‘trap’

He said that both Iran and Hezbollah had exercised restraint in the face of Israeli attacks, “but now the Israelis are crossing the line, in my view, and there is every prospect of the war getting more difficult to contain.” Hezbollah was capable of defending itself, he added, but it was incumbent on the international community to step in before the situation gets “out of hand.”

Iran has yet to carry out the revenge it promised Israel after the assassination of Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.

This week however, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that his country would not remain “indifferent” if a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah erupted in Lebanon.

“We stand with the people of Lebanon with all means,” he said at a news conference in New York ahead of a UN Security Council meeting.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

After Hezbollah confirmed the death of its leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli strike, what – if anything – can it do next?

The next 72 hours are likely to be full of Hezbollah’s remaining commanders assessing who is left, how safe it is to communicate and meet, and exactly what level of pain tolerance it retains as it tries to formulate a response.

What we don’t know is how much disruption has been done to the group’s rocket inventory by the wave of Israeli airstrikes over the past two weeks.

Israel appears to have very accurate information as to the whereabouts of Hezbollah leadership in real time, and so that is likely mirrored in what it knows about where Hezbollah has kept its munitions.

So far, we have yet to see a barrage of rockets from Hezbollah that has caused significant (and known) damage to Israeli targets. That may still come if Hezbollah’s remaining leadership decides that it has to project some kind of military strength to try to salvage morale and relevance in the region. But if it tries to project strength and fails, owing to Israeli interceptions, that will just compound its loss of face.

What is unknown at this point is how fervently Iran feels it needs to be dragged into this.

It has shown an extraordinarily high threshold for pain over the past months and may have a longer view in hand. The West and Israel should be mindful over the apparent change in tempo of Iran’s uranium enrichment and be petrified of losing the wider war of non proliferation in a region unable to step back from the brink.

Yet most profoundly, it is Israel’s next steps that matter most. It has shown that it has the intelligence advantage, military might, and tolerance for international condemnation of civilian casualties to continue to strike at will. But this risks turning a fortnight of brutal strikes into another longer term loss to Israeli prestige.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a defining choice to make. Does the past fortnight salvage his domestic reputation for security and leave him better placed to face the music of the cases against him? Or does he again calculate that an ongoing war without clear strategic direction is his best way forward?

Ultimately a wider field of vision must win out. Lebanon’s civilians – and its southern neighbors – need political accommodation and a ceasefire now, regardless of what it means for the fate of Israel’s current political elite.

This post appeared first on cnn.com

One was a koala. The other was a husky. Both were arguably out of place on a warm August night in subtropical Brisbane, the capital of Queensland in Australia’s northeast.

Home security video captured the moment they locked eyes in a suburban backyard surrounded by a high metal fence.

With deep rumbling growls, the koala advanced towards the retreating dog, for a moment appearing as the aggressor in an encounter that typically ends with a dead marsupial.

But not this time.

From the street, neighbor Sophia Windsor heard growling and barking and raced to the backyard to see the dog shaking the koala by the belly, then the koala grabbing the dog around the neck.

“I wasn’t even really thinking, and I just pried the koala off this poor dog, who was now yelping, and then kind of wrapped up the koala then ran back out the front to the driveway where my daughter was waiting,” said Windsor.

“And she’s like, ‘You’re carrying a wild koala.’”

Koalas are very hard to see at night.

Their gray fur blurs with the bitumen on dimly lit roads, and they move deceptively quickly for a marsupial often seen languidly munching on leaves high in trees.

But for an endangered species whose population numbers are said to be unreliable due to their elusive nature, koala sightings are becoming all too common during breeding season in some areas in and around Brisbane. And not just in trees.

Day and night, they’re spotted close to busy roads, on fences, up power poles, in backyards, near swimming pools, in schools – places they aren’t safe.

Some are on the ground, having been hit by cars or attacked by dogs. Others are clearly sick, with dirty eyes and behinds – telltale signs of chlamydia, an infectious disease that spreads quickly in stressed populations.

And koalas in Queensland are stressed.

Experts believe the population declines that saw them listed as endangered in 2022 have not reversed.

And some fear that by the time Brisbane hosts the Olympic Games in 2032, the only koalas left in the “world’s koala capital” will be in forests far outside the city.

Rescued twice in 24 hours

After Windsor grabbed the koala off the dog, she stood with the injured marsupial tucked under one arm and desperately fumbled with her phone to call for help.

“I was running on adrenaline. I actually paused as I was doing it, and went, ‘Oh my God. They’re really soft and cuddly, like a real teddy bear.’ And that was whilst he was biting my hand.”

“They have a really, really strong bite.”

She called a friend, who phoned John Knights, a veteran koala rescuer from the United Kingdom who’s caught more wild koalas than most Australians see in their lifetime.

Knights, 74, answers calls around the clock, jumping into a utility vehicle loaded with custom-made koala-catching paraphernalia: traps, cages, warning signs, poles, nets and countless tools.

He’s responded to more than 100 emergencies in two months – twice as many as last year – which he puts down to two strong rainy seasons that have led to a koala boom in Brisbane’s southern suburbs.

Knights says he’s not sure how much longer he can keep doing this – his pension doesn’t cover his rent and no one’s paying for this service.

However, before he had time to answer Windsor’s cries for help, she walked to a nearby tree and released the koala.

Big mistake.

Koalas have small brains that don’t cope well with being shaken.

Knights was concerned that after scurrying 20 meters (66 feet) up a tree, high on adrenaline, the koala might slowly deteriorate and die on the branch or be attacked again after climbing down.

So, an expert climber was called to catch it, but a rescue would have to wait until the morning.

Murray Chambers stood on the street, near passing traffic, observing the challenges that lay ahead of him.

“Everything,” he nervously laughed. “You’ve got power lines, which is a no-no for starters. Trees are interlocking, so he can jump from one tree to another.”

What about the height? “Been higher than that,” he said.

Chambers, from Koala Rescue Queensland, has been climbing trees to catch koalas for 20 years.

Now he receives fewer calls each week – sometimes five, sometimes none.

“We’re losing them, so there’s less cases,” he said.

Before long, Chambers inched his way up the tree and after several hushed minutes from onlookers, he caught the koala in a net as it tried to jump between branches.

Every koala transported to the RSPCA Wildlife Hospital for medical help gets a name and a numbered tag. Windsor’s finger-biting wild koala was assigned number 1561 and called “Trent,” after a nearby street.

Knights does not recommend people attempt to catch a koala.

As Windsor found out, they have a fearsome bite and sharp claws that can easily rip skin.

National rescue effort underway

Koalas mostly live down Australia’s eastern coast, and they’re endangered in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, as well as Queensland.

In 2022, a 10-year national recovery plan was launched to stop the decline in numbers and improve the size, quality and connectivity of koala habitat in the listed areas.

Millions of dollars have been spent on restoring koala habitat, but two years on, listed populations are still declining, and the long-term survival prospects for wild koalas remain “poor,” according to the annual report released in May.

The Queensland government had already introduced what it calls the “strongest koala habitat protections ever seen” in the state – with some payoff, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Environment, Science and Innovation (DESI).

Koala populations have stabilized in forests outside cities, but not in urban and semi-rural areas due to “human activity and domestic dogs,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

In the last six years, the RSPCA’s two wildlife hospitals in South East Queensland have treated more than 5,000 diseased and injured koalas.

With a euthanasia rate of 66%, most don’t make it.

Veterinarian Tim Portas says the animals are put to sleep if they’re unlikely to recover enough to survive on their own in the wild.

“I think within 20 or 30 years, if things don’t change, they’ll be gone in southeast Queensland,” Portas said.

“I often think, ‘Am I sitting here, seeing the last of Queensland koalas filtering through, as I work with them?’”

One of three subspecies, Queensland koalas are smaller and grayer than their southern cousins, and are the kind often seen in photos with celebrities and foreign dignitaries.

Habitat loss

As part of the national recovery plan, the federal government committed 76 million Australian dollars ($52 million) to the Saving Koalas Fund over four years to “support the recovery and long-term conservation of the koala and its habitats.”

The Queensland government added another 31 million Australian dollars ($21 million) for koala conservation in its latest budget, and says that, of more than 714,000 hectares of mapped koala habitat in the southeast, about half is exempt from any type of development.

Furthermore, the state has set “an ambitious target to commence rehabilitation to restore 10,000 hectares of koala habitat in South East Queensland by 2025,” the spokesperson said in the statement.

But conservationists say it’s nowhere near ambitious enough, given the scale of deforestation that’s occurring elsewhere.

“It’s an incredibly low ambition and woefully inadequate,” said Natalie Frost, from the Queensland Conservation Council.

In Queensland, over 320,000 hectares of “woody vegetation” was cleared during the 2021-22 financial year, according to government figures.

Of that, 88% was cleared for pasture, mostly for cattle grazing, while 1% was for development.

Greenpeace said most of the clearing required no permission.

“What we know from Queensland deforestation data is each year, 70-80% of all deforestation requires no state level approval or oversight. On top of this, the majority of deforestation is never sent to the federal government for approval,” said Gemma Plesman, senior campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific.

“Aussies would be horrified to know that we are bulldozing koala habitat at the rate that we are,” she said.

Most of the clearing was carried out in the Brigalow Belt, north of Brisbane, and in the Mulga Lands, to the southwest – areas identified as having the state’s highest koala population estimates, according to the 2022 conservation advice.

Climate change is also making the state’s inland areas drier and hotter, depleting nutrients in the leaves that koalas rely on to survive.

“A lot of the population modeling suggests that koalas will be shifting eastward and southward … and so along the east coast where we’re getting increased pressures from urban development,” said Frost.

Koala habitat squeezed in cities

With a human population of 2.5 million, Brisbane is one of Australia’s fastest-growing capital cities.

On the city’s outskirts, land is being cleared for new housing developments and amenities to service expanding suburbs.

Jo Murray has been living in Lawnton, a 40-minute drive north of Brisbane’s city center, in the Moreton Bay region, for 40 years.

When she first moved in, she was surrounded by dozens of koalas living in eucalyptus trees, their main source of shelter and food.

“If you went out for a walk early morning or evening, you would be almost sure to see a koala,” Murray said.

Over time, blocks have been cleared for housing and, earlier this month, woodcutters arrived next door and cut down towering Eucalyptus tereticornis trees, known as forest red gums, up to 28 meters (over 90 feet) tall, to make way for another prospective residential development.

Landowners are able to clear 500 square meters – about the size of an NBA basketball court – without formal permission. Separate exemptions exist for firebreaks and road access, among other reasons.

Garth Nolah, from Nolah Property Developments, who advised residents of the tree-clearing, said a development application would be submitted soon and declined to comment further.

She said she has saved local koalas Beau and Louis multiple times over the years and can’t face having to do it again.

“Once those trees all go, Beau and Louis are not going to be with us,” she said. “I don’t want to be the one who picks either of them up.”

Months earlier, when Murray learned that the neighboring lot had been advertised for sale, she started a petition and wrote emails to the state government pleading for something to be done to protect the trees.

Murray said the lack of response to her emails – and the subsequent loss of the trees – had made her question Queensland’s commitment to protecting urban koalas.

“If they’ve decided that they don’t want koalas in urban areas, and they’re not prepared to protect them, then they should just tell us,” she said.

Declining numbers

Most of the ambition for vast tracts of new koala habitat in Queensland lies outside Brisbane’s established inner-city suburbs.

Creating corridors within older residential areas requires much more inventive measures, according to Dr Bill Ellis, an expert in koala ecology from the University of Queensland.

Fences have been built with log climbers that offer escape routes from busy roads, and two years ago Brisbane City Council built a bridge over a thoroughfare near a wildlife reserve.

The bridge has helped many possums cross the road, and at least one koala, based on footage from a wildlife camera from the last eight months.

“Brisbane is the koala capital of the world and we are committed to making sure it stays that way,” Brisbane Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said in a statement.

Ellis said the bridge is a promising start, but that “some relatively dramatic interventions” are required to ensure koalas survive in suburban Brisbane.

“It may be that we need a whole lot of those bridges, and we’ll get a whole lot of movement, I’m not sure,” he said.

“But the capacity to move koalas from one side of a road to the other is not beyond us. It’s just a question of willpower and money.”

He hopes that koalas will survive in suburban Brisbane long enough for international visitors coming to the Olympics to see them in 2032.

“Either we change what we’re doing in southeast Queensland, or we’re going to be sending people well out of the city and well out of our suburbs in order for them to see a koala,” he said.

“And I think that’d be pretty sad.”

Trent’s second chance

In some ways Trent was lucky – the husky who shook him was a pleasant pet called Nine Nine who, at 12 years old, was not a natural predator for a lost koala.

According to the vet’s notes, Trent suffered superficial wounds to his chin, some chest trauma and mild abdominal bleeding.

“Stress attributed to hospital environment, ready to go back out there,” the notes added.

So, five days after the dog attack, Knights chose a tree several meters off the track on Mount Gravatt Outlook Reserve in Brisbane’s southern suburbs where Trent could feel more at home.

He was accompanied by some members of an eclectic and growing team of volunteers, who come together when called to hold a torch, carry a net, or “tree-sit” – sometimes through the night – to stop koalas from wandering into traffic.

The group includes a midwife, tattoo artist, public servant, automotive spray painter, student, speech pathologist, software engineer and at least one retiree – all local residents who are desperately concerned for the welfare of an Australian national icon.

Releasing koalas is one of the rewards of what can be a heartbreaking task.

So far this year, they’ve counted at least 52 dead koalas within a six-kilometer radius of nearby Whites Hill Reserve. Another 26 are assumed to have been euthanized by wildlife vets due to injury.

Having received a tetanus shot for her koala bite – a rare injury even in Australia – Windsor watched as Knights opened the cage and Trent bounded up a tree.

“That was amazing. That was worth every bite one thousand times!” Windsor said.

Knights reckons he’s saved thousands of koalas during his 10 years of service.

He says they need more trees to be able to move safely through urban areas and rejects any suggestion that koalas have become urbanized or accustomed to navigating suburban streets.

“They’re frightened. They’re lost,” he said.

“If they were urbanized, they wouldn’t be running into the traffic, they wouldn’t be turning up in backyards, they wouldn’t be falling into swimming pools. They’re not urbanized at all,” he said.

“They’re looking for somewhere to live.”

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The last 48 hours in the Middle East – in which Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and continued to bombard the Iran-backed group across Lebanon – have once more ratcheted up fears that this long-running conflict could spiral into a wider regional war.

Nasrallah’s killing, in a huge set of Israeli airstrikes on his underground headquarters in Beirut on Friday, marks a significant escalation in the conflict between Israel and the Lebanon-based militant group, which has been firing on Israel since the start of its war against Hamas in Gaza.

It is also the latest in a string of major blows to Hezbollah, which has now lost multiple commanders and was already reeling after pagers and walkie-talkies owned by its members exploded earlier this month, killing dozens and maiming thousands.

Israel has warned that a “new era” of war was beginning with its “center of gravity” moving north, in a reference to the Lebanon border. One of its stated war aims is to return tens of thousands of its own civilians displaced by cross-border fighting.

Hundreds of thousands have been displaced within Lebanon due to the recent fighting, while more than a thousand have been killed since the airstrikes escalated last week, according to Lebanese government officials.

Israel has raised the possibility of a ground incursion into Lebanon, which, if undertaken, would be the fourth Israeli invasion of the country in the past 50 years.

Hezbollah has vowed that it will “continue its fight to confront the enemy,” while Iran, which backs the group as part of its network of regional proxies, has given an assurance of its solidarity.

Here’s what we know so far and where things might go next.

Escalating conflict

Israel has pounded what it says are Hezbollah targets in the Lebanese capital of Beirut and elsewhere in the country on Friday and Saturday, including the attack on the capital’s southern suburbs that killed Nasrallah.

Some of the strikes have come in densely populated areas, flattening residential buildings. Israel has said Hezbollah stores weapons in civilian buildings, which the group denies, and accuses Hezbollah of using residents as “human shields.”

Lebanese civilians say they cannot heed warnings from Israel’s military to avoid places where Hezbollah is operating, because the group is highly secretive. The warnings also often come just minutes before a building is struck.

Residents from Beirut’s southern suburbs have been fleeing to escape Israeli bombardment, with many seen sleeping in public places with no space left in makeshift shelters.

The latest attacks come after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brushed off a ceasefire proposal brokered by the United States and France that called for a 21-day pause in fighting across the Israel-Lebanon border.

The White House has said it had “no knowledge of or participation in” Israel’s Friday attack on Beirut, with US President Joe Biden describing Nasrallah’s death as a “measure of justice for his many victims,” including Americans, while calling for de-escalation in conflicts across the Middle East.

Earlier Saturday, Israel Defense Forces spokesman Peter Lerner said the military was preparing for the possibility of a ground incursion, but it was only one option being considered.

What will Hezbollah – or Iran – do?

In the wake of Nasrallah’s killing – and the attack on pagers and walkie-talkies – Hezbollah’s remaining leaders are likely to be assessing how to meet, communicate and respond.

Some of the factors that will impact that response – such as the extent to which Israeli strikes have reduced the group’s munitions – remain unknown. But analysts say the setbacks faced by the group are unlikely to leave it completely weakened.

“Hezbollah has taken the biggest blow to its military infrastructure since its inception,” said Hanin Ghaddar, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute and author of “Hezbollahland.”

The group, however, still retains skilled commanders, as well as many of its most powerful assets – including precision-guided missiles and long-range missiles that could inflict significant damage to Israel’s military and civilian infrastructure, said Ghaddar.

So far, there has not been a major barrage of rockets from Hezbollah that has caused significant, known damage to Israeli targets. And even in the wake of Nasrallah’s killing the group has yet to launch a major retaliation at the level that could see Israel’s Iron Dome air defense system overwhelmed and its power grid affected.

But the latest development raises the potential for a shift.

Another key question is the extent to which Iran could get involved.

The state has appeared wary of moving into direct conflict with Israel, even as their long-standing shadow war has been pushed further into the open in recent months – and observers say direct Iranian retaliation could also draw the US further into the conflict.

A senior US official said the US believes Iran will intervene in the conflict if they judge that they are about to “lose” Hezbollah. The combined effects of Israel’s operations against Hezbollah had already taken hundreds of fighters off the battlefield, according to that official and another person familiar with the intelligence.

Iran’s embassy in Lebanon in a social media post Friday called Nasrallah’s killing a “serious escalation that changes the rules of the game,” and said its perpetrator “will be punished and disciplined appropriately.”

The Iranian envoy to the United Nations on Saturday also requested an emergency meeting of the Security Council to “condemn Israel’s actions in the strongest possible terms.”

But the space for diplomacy seems limited, especially as months of work on a ceasefire deal for the war in Gaza have seen little lasting progress.

“At best, it’s a question of deterrence, management and maybe, if Hezbollah, the Israelis and the Iranians are open to it… agreements that will contain conflict,” he said.

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Sitting at the end of the runway, with just seconds before getting clearance for take-off, the spinning propeller of the plane I am in sitting in unexpectedly judders to a quick, and ominous, halt.

Sitting next to me, pilot and instructor Adam Twidell, senses my nerves.

“It’s just another thing that is so great about electric planes” he grins. “Unlike a conventional plane which would sit idling and burning fossil fuels, an electric plane just stops and we conserve energy.”

And with that, the propeller starts to whirr once again and we charge down the runway and up into the skies over Surrey.

With just two seats, the Pipistrel Velis Electro is an all-electric powered aircraft designed for pilot training and short hops.

It is the first zero emissions aircraft certified for normal operations. In fact, its only emissions are generated during its construction, maintenance, eventual end-of-life disposal and from the electricity used for charging.

On board it feels remarkably smooth, it is quieter because there is no combustion engine and there are fewer vibrations.

Fairoaks Airport in Surrey now has the UK’s first fossil fuel free flying school.

Student pilot Cameron Taylor is taking the first steps towards his generation flying in a complete fossil fuel free sky.

Sitting inside the Pipistrel Velis Electro he is being trained to fly, he explains that it is much simpler to control than regular aircraft.

“Regular aircraft have a lot more moving parts, there is a lot more that you have to think about, but with this aircraft there are only four switches that control the main instruments,” he says.

Aviation sustainability solutions provider 4AIR helps advise the aviation industry on how to become greener and is behind the flying school with partner Synergy Flight Training.

4AIR’s Kennedy Ricci, believes new environmentally engaged pilots will demand the journey to ‘jet zero’ happens more quickly.

“As the younger generation learns to fly this aeroplane their want for more aircraft that are electric, and larger, is only going to grow,” he says.

The aircraft takes just 45 minutes to charge and powering a full battery only costs a few pounds, something else which appeals to students paying for their own lessons. 4AIR offsets the energy used.

Electric planes may one day make good commuter aircraft for short journeys, and more than a dozen UK airports currently have charging points.

It’s an unlikely thought that battery-powered airliners will ever carry us across the Atlantic.

Sustainable aviation fuels (SAFs) are being developed but SAF is expensive and so far we are producing only a very small amount of what is needed.

Airlines are also investing in more fuel-efficient aircraft operational improvements, such as optimising flight paths and reducing weight.

Research is also being carried out into long-term solutions such as hydrogen-powered aircraft.

Back in the air and I keep half an eye on the battery power monitor.

Adam assures me he doesn’t suffer from “range anxiety” and we have an hour’s worth of flying in the battery, but he always lands at least 15 minutes before time is up.

He lets me take control for a couple of minutes, and my clammy hands gently move the steering column. As we swoop over Surrey we spot Thorpe Park out of one window and even Heathrow and its gas-guzzling jets out of the other.

Back safely on the ground, I catch up with Cameron again.

“It’s really refreshing knowing I am contributing to an eco-friendly future” he says. “I am helping prove this is something we can do. A lot of people don’t realise just how far the technology has come”.

This post appeared first on sky.com

It’s easy to get carried away when looking into upgrading your gaming hardware.

Just recently Sony announced their new PS5 Pro to much fanfare (and astonishment at the £699 price tag), meanwhile Nintendo fans hotly anticipate the Switch 2, whose launch date has reportedly been brought forward.

However, one vital part of the gaming rig often goes forgotten when gamers build their ‘battlestations’ – the screen.

To many people, all flatscreen TVs are created equally – but nothing could be further from the truth.

So what should gamers look out for when choosing the perfect gaming screen?

Firstly, there are big differences between television screens and computer monitors. PC monitors often boast higher pixel-density than TVs, which simply means they manage to cram in more pixels per inch of screen, which results in sharper image quality.

Monitors are also designed for minimal input-lag, which refers to the time it takes between the user pressing a key on their keyboard, and the letter appearing on screen. This can make all the difference in competitive gaming where buttons are pressed after split-second decisions.

PC screens are also much better adapted for gaming specifically.

The emergence of OLED technology has led to a revolution in display technology. Colours look more vivid than ever, while motion blur is reduced, meaning players can still identify objects in fast-moving environments.

Ultra-high definition, also referred to as 4K is becoming a common feature in high-end monitors. ‘4K’ refers to a resolution of around 4,000 pixels, making it a good choice for gaming or professional video editing.

But arguably the most important figure to focus on when checking the technical specs of a screen is the refresh rate.

The aforementioned input lag can make or break a professional esports game where every split-millisecond counts.

AGON by AOC manufacture gaming monitors, and their senior product manager, Cesar Acosta, told Sky News a “high refresh rate such as 240Hz is essential for competitive gaming. It reduces the time between frame updates, minimising input lag and providing smoother motion. This can give players a competitive edge.”

He went on to say that curved monitors, which are becoming more ubiquitous on the market now, “can also enhance immersion by better matching the natural curvature of human vision and enveloping the user to boost the immersion.”

Mr Acosta did warn however that OLED has a higher rate of screen burn, a process where an image can become emblazoned on a display left on for too long.

So why are gaming enthusiasts shelling out so much for displays when most games aren’t even in 4K?

Well, game graphics are progressing at an alarming rate. NVIDIA may be best known for building AI chips these days, but the third biggest company in the world has its roots in graphics processing units (GPUs).

Despite finding fame on Wall Street, NVIDIA is still a market leader in GPU production, even applying AI to its hardware to upscale older games, as well as make the most of new ones.

Bryan Catanzaro, vice president of applied deep learning research at Nvidia, told Sky News “We want to enable video games that look like they’re straight from the movies – realistic lighting, driven by full ray tracing, at 4k and beyond.”

These graphics cards aren’t cheap, but they are able to make older games look like modern-day releases. Their proprietary ‘DLSS’ technology uses machine learning to artificially insert frames and pixels to improve visuals. Catanzaro pointed out DLSS can artificially generate 7 out of every 8 pixels on screen, which can improve game graphics up to 4 times. This would upscale a game released in 1080p HD in 2014 to 4K today.

The market for monitors is large, there are many options. Fans of first-person shooters may want something with a lower resolution but higher refresh rate, and those who want to put their swanky new graphics card through its paces may look for a 4K OLED panel. The decision, as with everything in the varied, pricey world of gaming, comes down to the player, their priorities, and their wallets.

This post appeared first on sky.com

SpaceX has commenced its rescue mission to retrieve the two astronauts stranded on the International Space Station (ISS).

Pilot Sunita “Suni” Williams and Commander Barry “Butch” Wilmore were onboard a test flight to the ISS on Boeing’s newest spacecraft on 5 June.

They were meant to stay in orbit for eight days – however, issues with Starliner’s propulsion system meant they were left stranded in space for months.

NASA confirmed in August that the two will not return to Earth until 2025, with SpaceX now in charge of rescuing the astronauts on a Crew Dragon flight.

The US’s Nick Hague and Russia’s Alexander Gorbunov are on board the capsule which blasted off on Saturday evening.

Mr Hague and Mr Gorbunov will not return with Ms Williams and Mr Wilmore – who will take two empty seats made clear on Crew Dragon – until February next year.

By then, the two stranded astronauts will have been in space for eight months.

Speaking before take-off, Mr Hague said: “There’s always something that is changing [with spaceflight].

“Maybe this time it’s been a little more visible to the public.”

Arriving in Cape Canaveral last week, he also said: “We’ve got a dynamic challenge ahead of us.

“We know each other and we’re professionals and we step up and do what’s asked of us.”

NASA deputy program manager Dina Contella said the two astronauts watched the SpaceX launch from the ISS, with Ms Williams cheering “go Dragon!”

Boeing’s Starliner undocked from the ISS and flew back to Earth in September without the crew. It suffered multiple thruster failures and propulsion-system helium leaks on its way to the station.

And in a news conference from space the same month, Ms Williams and Mr Wilmore said the space station had become their “happy place”.

“That’s how it goes in this business,” she said, adding that “you have to turn the page and look at the next opportunity”.

Mr Wilmore also added: “It’s been quite an evolution over the last three months, we’ve been involved from the beginning through all the processes of assessing our spacecraft.

“And it was trying at times. There were some tough times all the way through.”

Crew Dragon is set to dock with the ISS by 10.30pm on Sunday. A live stream will be available on NASA’s website.

This post appeared first on sky.com

A House Democrat running for Senate in a key swing state bashed voters who supported then-President-elect Donald Trump in a resurfaced interview.

‘I think Donald Trump ran a xenophobic campaign that drew out the worst people in the world that we are not going to appeal to and never will,’ Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., said in a 2016 interview directly after Trump won the presidential election.

Gallego also said in the interview that he will try to ‘protect’ Americans from the policies of Trump, including those who were ‘dumb enough’ to vote for him.

Fox News Digital reached out to the Gallego campaign for comment but did not receive a response. 

‘Ruben Gallego thinks you are a bad person if you support President Trump,’ NRSC spokesperson Tate Mitchell told Fox News Digital. ‘Gallego is running to be a Senator for the far-left, not all of Arizona.’

The presidential race in Arizona is expected to be one of the closest in the country with the Real Clear Politics (RCP) average showing Trump with a tight lead, but the RCP average also shows that Gallego has a lead over his GOP opponent, Kari Lake.

On the campaign trail, Gallego has been a fierce critic of Trump despite the former president’s popularity in the state.

Gallego called Trump a ‘craven politician’ in an interview with MSNBC earlier this year and has routinely gone after the former president on social media, including posts suggesting Trump and Lake are threats to democracy.

Lake has made the case on the campaign trail that Gallego is a rubber stamp for a Biden-Harris administration.

‘President Trump’s consistently strong lead in Arizona proves that Arizonans are tired of and dissatisfied with the policies of Kamala Harris and Ruben Gallego that have caused record-high inflation and made our state less safe by opening the border to millions of unchecked illegal immigrants,’ a Lake spokesperson told Fox News Digital earlier this year. 

‘As voters learn the truth about Gallego’s voting record and the fact that he has voted for Biden-Harris policies 100% of the time, they will reject Radical Ruben just as they reject Kamala Harris.’

The Cook Political Report ranks the Arizona Senate race as ‘Lean Democrat.’

Fox News Digital’s Julia Johnson contributed to this report

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