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The war on woke: How a gay rights index once touted by big brands became a conservative target

As June’s Pride Month festivities were nearing a conclusion, Tractor Supply released a statement that put LGBTQ+ rights proponents on alert.

The farm-focused retailer said it would stop sponsoring events such as pride celebrations and eliminate roles tied to diversity initiatives. Also on its list of actions: Tractor Supply would no longer submit data to the LGBTQ+ group Human Rights Campaign for its annual Corporate Equality Index.

With that move, Tractor Supply became the first domino to fall as companies began pulling out of the Corporate Equality Index. In the following months, businesses ranging from Ford to Lowe’s also announced they would stop submitting data for the index, a two-decade-old benchmark widely considered a gold standard for evaluating companies’ policies and benefits for LGBTQ+ employees.

The latest came on Nov. 25, when Walmart — the largest retailer and private employer in the U.S. — said it would stop sharing data with the HRC. Walmart said it had conversations with Robby Starbuck, the director-turned-conservative activist, ahead of its announcement.

Starbuck has been a public advocate for this shift, launching campaigns centered on companies he believes have run afoul with corporate diversity work. He told CNBC in an interview that he is ramping up these actions and would be homing in on retailers for the holiday season.

While Starbuck has targeted DEI initiatives more broadly, not just LGBTQ+ policies, the Human Rights Campaign has found its index at the center of a politically charged battle. The shift also pushed some allied groups and LGBTQ+-identifying consumers to speak out.

For Tractor Supply and some others, it marked a staunch turn in policy. Just two years ago, the retailer had boasted publicly that it earned a top rating from the HRC. On that same day in 2022, Molson Coors published a press release stating it had received a perfect score for the 19th straight year.

CNBC reached out to every company mentioned in this article; each company either did not provide further comment beyond public statements or did not respond to requests for details on what drove the changes.

“We’re very proud and honored to be recognized by the HRC with a 100 percent ranking for our LGBTQ workplace equality practices and policies,” Dave Osswald, chief people and diversity officer for Molson subsidiary MillerCoors, said in the 2022 release. “No matter the recognition though, we know we can never stop working to ensure a welcoming and inclusive environment.”

In the past two years, experts say, the rising concern around how the federal judiciary could rule on cases tied to diversity work has pushed companies to rethink related internal policies. Continued pressure from right-wing activists to do away with initiatives such as supplier quotas and carbon goals has turned up the heat, they said. 

The tide change among some of America’s most well-known brands on this index is the latest instance of white-collar diversity efforts becoming a political flashpoint. Multiple business professors told CNBC that it adds to a broader picture of corporate America backtracking on this work less than half a decade after the numerous promises made in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.

“These companies that are making these really public statements, like Lowe’s or Ford Motor companies of the world, are really making an unforced error,” said New York University Law professor Kenji Yoshino.

For several companies, withdrawal from participation in the index comes after years of involvement and previous promotion of their scores.

Take Jack Daniel’s parent Brown-Forman, which said in August that it would no longer submit data for the index — four months after being named in Forbes’ “2024 America’s Best Employers for Diversity” list.

The company mentioned that it earned a 100% score for 12 straight years in its 2023 annual report. Brown-Forman also created in 2022 an initiative aimed at increasing the number of salaried employees in the U.S. who identify as LGBTQ+.

Ford, meanwhile, said in a leaked internal memo to employees in August that it would stop participating in the index and other best workplace rankings. Ford published a press release in 2017 centered on its perfect rating, and touted it was the first automaker to receive a 100% score — an achievement the Detroit-based company maintained every year since 2004.

“Ford remains committed to supporting diversity and inclusion because we believe it makes our company stronger,” Meeta Huggins, Ford’s then-chief diversity officer, said in the 2017 statement.

Lowe’s, too, said in August that it would end participation in the index’s survey, along with sponsorships for community events such as parades and fairs. Three years ago, the home improvement retailer posted on its LinkedIn page that it earned a 100% score for the second straight year.

“Lowe’s dedication to diversity and inclusion grows from the steadfast values of our associates and extends to every corner of our company,” the company said in the post.

Walmart leadership also once applauded its place atop the HRC’s ranking. Human resources chief Donna Morris posted on X in 2022 that she was “proud” of the Arkansas-based company for its recognition as a top workplace for the sixth straight year.

Harley-Davidson and Toyota are also on the growing list of companies declining to provide data for the ranking system going forward.

The HRC’s index, which launched in 2002, rates companies on factors such as the equitability of their benefits and their corporate social responsibility efforts. In addition to a survey sent to companies, the HRC also reviews tax filings, legal cases and news reports when evaluating firms.

Business and law experts don’t point to one silver bullet that catalyzed this change in sentiment. Instead, they see both rising political pressure and legal concerns at play.

First, right-wing pressure online has become increasingly hard to ignore, said Stephanie Creary, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Public shaming of companies for their diversity practices was happening long before Starbuck began pressing the issue, Creary said.

“This has become politicized,” Creary said. “It was not a tool, either way, that was leveraged by people running for office in quite the way that it is now.”

Creary said the internet gives people who don’t support LGBTQ+ rights easy access through the index to businesses that they may want to protest against. This backlash has turned what was once seen as a “reputation enhancer” into something that a handful of companies no longer view as worth touching, she said.

NYU’s Yoshino said recent legal rulings and cases have already put companies, universities and other organizations on edge.

Yoshino pointed specifically to the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action in June 2023, which ruled that policies at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina that gave weight to a would-be student’s race are unconstitutional. The court’s majority opinion said the schools’ affirmative action programs “unavoidably employ race in a negative manner, involve racial stereotyping, and lack meaningful end points.”

“The Supreme Court gave us such a clear window into how it was thinking about race and discrimination in that case,” Yoshino said. “It’s only a matter of time before that way of thinking will trickle over into statutes that do affect the private sector.”

However, he said, “There’s no universe in which giving your data with regard to the number of LGBT people within your ranks, or your support for LGBT rights, or your inclusion of LGBT individuals is going to run afoul of the law.”

Ultimately, this plays into a bigger trend of companies backtracking on diversity promises made after Floyd’s murder by a police officer galvanized racial equity efforts in 2020, said Adina Sterling, an associate professor at Columbia Business School.

When companies pull out of the index or walk back other diversity efforts, it suggests that they were never genuinely interested in the work to begin with, Sterling said. Rather, many corporations were only trying to win goodwill in a moment when diversity was considered a favorable topic in corporate America, she said.

“It’s almost like a rubber band: Organizations frequently will snap back into the state that they were in previously,” Sterling said. “I wish it weren’t that way, and I don’t think it has to be that way.”

While some companies have tried to frame their statements as unrelated to Starbuck’s activism, he told CNBC there are typically conversations between him and executives after he begins researching their businesses.

Companies have responded to Starbuck’s campaigns and general pressure around corporate diversity programs in different ways. Some, including Tractor Supply and Harley-Davidson, released public statements. Ford, on the other hand, sent an internal memo to employees that was obtained and shared online by Starbuck. Several companies have pointed out that they were already in the process of rejiggering their diversity efforts before Starbuck began applying public pressure.

Starbuck started with an emphasis on companies, such as Tractor Supply, that have mainly conservative-leaning customers, but he is broadening his focus. He also hopes to hire more researchers to investigate employee claims. Starbuck said his team initially “stopped counting” after receiving 5,000 complaints from whistleblowers within companies who believe their employers have gone too far on diversity efforts.

Starbuck said he felt inclined to do this work because he believes certain corporate diversity policies have become “blatantly illegal and violates our existing civil rights laws.” Starbuck said he doesn’t argue against the validity of laws ensuring equal protection of employees from marginalized backgrounds, but he said some companies’ current initiatives have created instances of what he sees as discrimination against white people.

“If you’re a public company and you’re expected to serve everybody, you’ve got to fundamentally operate differently,” Starbuck said in an interview. “I think we’ve just veered far off course.”

Starbuck said he sees the incoming Trump administration doing “a lot of good” on this front.

The HRC and other groups are fighting back against what they see as a public disregard for LGBTQ+ issues. The group has pointed repeatedly to data showing consumers were more likely to support businesses that affirmed this community. Four out of five LGBTQ+ consumers, the group said, are opting to boycott companies that are rolling back initiatives. More than half will urge others to do so also.

It’s a group that makes a sizable contribution to the American economy. Data from LGBT Capital clocked purchasing power from the community in the U.S. at $1.4 trillion annually. That’s roughly equivalent to the entire gross domestic products of Mexico and Spain, according to Worldometer.

“Consumers are two times more likely to want to buy from brands that support the community,” HRC President Kelley Robinson told CNBC in an on-air interview. “This is, bottom line, the best thing to do for businesses, and that’s why I think that we’re seeing so much energy from employees, from consumers and from shareholders starting to push back on these decisions.”

Robinson told CNBC that companies withdrawing their participation would have their scores slashed as a result. Prior to Walmart’s announcement, each company saw a 25-point deduction on their scores, out of 100. The HRC confirmed to CNBC that Walmart’s score is currently under review.

She also emphasized that corporations can be rated regardless of whether they submit data. Additionally, the HRC has been quick to point out that overall participation in the index is rising. The HRC was joined by several other civil rights groups on a co-written letter to Fortune 1,000 companies calling on them to recommit to diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, efforts.

“These capitulations weaken businesses and the American economy more broadly,” said the letter from HRC and more than a dozen organizations, including the NAACP and UnidosUS. “These shortsighted decisions make our workplaces less safe and less inclusive for hard-working Americans.”

Several dozen Democrats in Congress also wrote a letter to Fortune 1,000 businesses asking them to embrace DEI. This letter did not explicitly name the HRC index, but an accompanying press release clarified that it was written in response to companies “succumbing to a conservative media campaign.”

Starbuck, on the other hand, said his work has made “companies acutely aware that the HRC is not the powerful influencer that they believed they were.” He said in a post on X that the changes at Walmart specifically were his “biggest win yet” and should send “shockwaves throughout corporate America.” Starbuck also recently shared a meme of a grim reaper walking up to doors with the names of companies deemed “woke” on them.

Still, some smaller organizations and individuals have thrown their support to the HRC. After Tractor Supply’s June announcement, the Tennessee Pride Chamber removed the company as a member. Tractor Supply was nominated for the organization’s corporate partner of the year award in 2024 and had been slated to sponsor a networking event for the group the following month.

“These are not partisan issues, but a matter of human rights and sustainable business practice,” the Tennessee Pride Chamber said in a press release.

Tennessee Pride had just a few hours’ notice from a contact within Tractor Supply that the company’s statement was coming, according to executive director Stephanie Mahnke. She said she had previously been made aware by Tractor Supply representatives that there were some safety concerns tied to the event they were hosting, so they were preparing to enhance security.

“We were completely caught off guard,” Mahnke said.

After, Mahnke said other companies quickly stepped up to fill the void left by Tractor Supply in running the July event. In conversations, Tennessee Pride members still appear committed to the organization and its values — with the caveat they are being quieter around DEI issues, given the environment, she said.

For former Tractor Supply customer Ashe Taylor-Austin, the retailer’s announcement pushed them to look elsewhere when purchasing supplies for their horse. Taylor-Austin said they were grateful to have alternatives, knowing LGBTQ+ shoppers in more rural areas likely wouldn’t. 

“When we got the news about Tractor Supply, I immediately started shopping around,” said Taylor-Austin, who switched to buying from a small business. “Once you do that and you show, I guess, who you are, then I believe it.”

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

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Art Cashin, New York Stock Exchange fixture for decades, dies at 83

Art Cashin, UBS’ director of floor operations at the New York Stock Exchange and a man The Washington Post called “Wall Street’s version of Walter Cronkite,” has died. He was 83 and had been a regular on CNBC for more than 25 years.

In the intensely competitive and often vicious world of stock market commentary, Cashin was that rarest of creatures: a man respected by all, bulls and bears, liberals and conservatives alike. He seemed to have almost no enemies.

He was a great drinker and raconteur, a teller of stories.

For decades, he assembled a group of like-minded friends every day after trading halted, first at the bar at the NYSE luncheon club, then across the street at Bobby Van’s Steakhouse, where the group came to be known as the “Friends of Fermentation.” His drink was Dewar’s, always on the rocks.

Cashin’s success was attributable to a combination of charm, wit, intelligence, and a stubborn insistence on refusing to adopt many of the conveniences of the modern world. He was a link to an NYSE tradition. Every year, on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, he led the singing of the 1905 song “Wait ’Till the Sun Shines, Nellie.”

Cashin refused to use credit cards and paid for everything, particularly his voluminous bar bills, with cash, saying he cherished his anonymity. He never learned to use a computer–his notes were hand-written and then sent to his assistant. For years, he used an obsolete flip phone that he rarely answered.

His desk was piled high with papers he had accumulated over the decades. At times, it resembled a recycling facility.

Cashin’s suits were usually rumpled and his ties were always obsolete.

However, neither his appearance nor his attitude was haphazard. It was part of a persona that was carefully constructed over more than 50 years on Wall Street.

Arthur D. Cashin Jr. was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1941. His parents were superintendents of an apartment building. His business career began in 1959 at Thomson McKinnon, a brokerage firm, when he was 17 and still in high school. Cashin had been obliged to join the workforce when his father died unexpectedly that year.

In 1964, at age 23, he became a member of the NYSE and a partner of P.R. Herzig & Co.

At that time, the vast majority of all trading took place on the NYSE floor. Cashin’s early memories revolve around the noise of thousands of brokers shouting at each other. He claimed to be able to tell if the market was moving up or down by the pitch of the screaming, because sellers sounded panicky. “And so if the pitch of the noise was high, I would know the sellers were headed my way. Or if it was a rumble, I would know that it was probably buyers coming,” he said in a 2018 interview.

In the mid-1970s, disgusted by the corruption in his hometown of Jersey City, Cashin ran for mayor. “I think I ran 12th in a field of five,” he said. “But once they discovered I was honest, there wasn’t much chance I was going to get elected.”

He returned to Wall Street. In 1980, he joined PaineWebber and managed its floor operation, continuing to do so after PaineWebber was bought by UBS in 2000.

Then came 2001.

Cashin would often recall what it was like to escape from Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2001, after terrorists crashed two jetliners into the World Trade Center towers, killing more than 2,600 people in the heart of the nation’s financial center.

“Many of us got out that Tuesday walking through streets onto which ash, smoke and business envelopes fell snow-like, blocking both your view and your breathing,” he wrote in a commentary 13 days later. “Yet when a stranger was met, they were invited to join the convoy and offered a spare wet cloth (carried in pockets) through which to breathe as they walked. When we reached the East River (Brooklyn side of Manhattan), there was a volunteer group of tugboats, fishing boats and mini-ferries that looked like the evacuation of Dunkirk. No charge. No money. Just — “May I help you!” No one got anyone’s name. No thank you cards will be sent. But Americans — even New York Americans — who freely give to strangers but argue with neighbors were suddenly one group. In the days since, as we wander via new strange ways back to Wall Street, we all internalize the survivor’s quandary. We are lucky to be alive — but why us.”

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Cashin chaired the NYSE “Fallen Heroes Fund,” which provided millions of dollars to the families of first responders killed in the line of duty.

Though he was a respected market historian, he was most renowned as a storyteller for the stock market. He was a meticulous observer of fundamental and technical trading patterns but never let data get in the way of explaining the market in a folksy manner that made it accessible to even casual observers. He often spoke of Wall Street as a community of people with many different opinions. In his world, the bulls and bears would fight it out every day, as if it were all a John Wayne Western: “The bulls are circling the wagons, trying to defend the highs” was a common refrain.

His daily market commentary, Cashin’s Comments, was distributed to clients continuously for more than 40 years and was widely read on Wall Street. It invariably began with an analysis of an important event that occurred on that date (“On this date in 1918, the worldwide flu epidemic went into high gear in the U.S.”), and after a brief history lesson tied that event to the day’s market events (“Pre-opening Wednesday morning, U.S. stock futures looked like they might be coming down with the flu. Several earnings reports were less than glowing and some of the outlooks were cloudy”).

He was a keen observer of human behavior, a behavioral psychologist long before the word was coined. He had seen his fellow humans panic time after time, and had seen the effects of succumbing to the initial desire to sell immediately without thinking. “It tells me that people have a tendency to overreact — and to not think things through carefully,” he said. “And you break up, again, into two sets of people, those who look with some suspicion at events, and others who say, ‘Oh, I’ve got to react to that.’ Those who react immediately rarely do well. Those who are somewhat suspect, they do much better.”

He had two great loves in his life: his family and the New York Stock Exchange. In the age of computerized trading, the fabled NYSE trading floor still survives, though in greatly diminished form. When it was closed during the Covid pandemic, he said he was “disappointed … but it was understandable.” 

Cashin was philosophical when asked about the rise of electronic trading, which has slowly but surely eroded the influence of that floor. “I miss those magnificent days when your spirit hung on the fact that you were good for your word or you’re outta here,” he once said at Bobby Van’s, but admitted that electronic trading had improved the speed and accuracy of trading, particularly recordkeeping.

Among his many friends, he will perhaps be best remembered for his modesty. He seemed genuinely puzzled about his popularity. “People have an interest in — in Arthur Cashin. I can’t fully understand why,” he said.

And when The Washington Post ran a long profile of his career in 2019, calling him Wall Street’s version of CBS newsman Cronkite, he quipped: “I think I owe an apology to Walter Cronkite.”

In lieu of flowers, the family kindly requests donations be made to the Arthur D. Cashin Jr. Memorial Scholarship at Xavier High School. Contributions may be sent to Xavier High School, 30 West 16th Street, New York, NY 10011.

— CNBC’s Martin Steinberg contributed to this report.

This post appeared first on NBC NEWS

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Former defense minister accuses Israel of ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza

A highly decorated former Israeli defense minister has caused a firestorm by accusing Israel of carrying out ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in northern Gaza.

Moshe Ya’alon, who served for three decades in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), including in the elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit, and as the military’s chief of staff, also said that he believed Israel was losing its identity as a liberal democracy and becoming a “corrupt and leprous fascist Messianic state.”

“Conquering, annexing, ethnic cleansing – look at northern Gaza,” Ya’alon told Israel’s Democrat TV.

The interviewer expressed surprise at Ya’alon’s use of the phrase “ethnic cleansing,” asking, “Is that what you think – that we’re on the way there?”

“Why ‘on the way?’” he responded. “What’s happening there? There’s no Beit Lahia. There’s no Beit Hanoun. They’re currently operating in Jabalya, and essentially, they’re cleaning the area of Arabs,” he said, referring to the IDF.

The Israeli military has for two months been carrying out an intense and deadly operation in northern Gaza, targeting what it says are resurgent Hamas militants. It has told all civilians that for their own safety, they must go to a humanitarian area in southern Gaza. Thousands of Palestinian civilians have refused to leave, after more than a year of being told to evacuate to areas of Gaza that are then also targeted by Israeli strikes. Vanishingly few aid deliveries have been allowed into northern Gaza, according to the World Food Programme.

The Israeli military, responding to Ya’alon, denied that it was ethnically cleansing northern Gaza and said that it operated “in accordance with international law, and evacuates civilians based on operational necessity, for their own protection.”

The government has not yet presented a plan for post-war governance in Gaza. It has also denied it is implementing a “surrender or starve” proposal in northern Gaza put forward by a retired military general, Giora Eiland – though it did consider the plan.

“I held up a mirror to the statements of many ministers and Knesset (parliament) members in the government,” Ya’alon said in a second interview, with Channel 12. “Under this title, ethnic cleansing is effectively being carried out; I don’t have another word for it.”

The interviewer said that such a phrase evoked “dark periods” in history.

“That’s right, and I purposely used this term to ring the alarm bells,” the former defense minister responded.

Extremist factions in Israeli politics have called for Jewish settlement in Gaza nearly since the outset of the war , following Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack. Soldiers serving in Gaza have regularly promoted the return of Gush Katif – Gaza settlements destroyed when Israel unilaterally withdrew from the territory in 2005. And the ideas have gained traction: In October, hundreds of activists and several senior sitting ministers attended a Gush Katif conference near the Gaza border.

“We need to stay there, we need to establish a flourishing Jewish settlement there,” Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said in an interview with Israel TV channel Kan on Monday. “Both because this is the land of Israel and also because this guarantees the security of the residents of the South.”

Ya’alon joined a growing chorus in recent weeks referring to Israel’s military operation in northern Gaza as “ethnic cleansing.”

Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an editorial at the end of October titled: “If it looks liked ethnic cleansing, it probably is.” Human Rights Watch last month said in a 154-page report that Israel had overseen the forced mass displacement of Palestinians in Gaza in a deliberate and systematic campaign that amounts to a war crime and a crime against humanity. Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, said he believes that “it is not by chance that the words ‘ethnic cleansing’ are increasingly used to describe what is going on in north Gaza.”

The International Criminal Court last month issued arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, saying it had “reasonable grounds” to believe that Netanyahu bears criminal responsibility for war crimes including “starvation as a method of warfare” and “the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.” It also issued a warrant for a senior Hamas official.

The former defense minister said that upon seeing what’s happening in Gaza, he could no longer use the oft-cited monicker for the IDF as the “most moral” military in the world.

“The IDF is not the most moral army today,” he said. “It’s hard for me to say that.”

His intervention drew harsh criticism from former military colleagues. “To lie and harm the State of Israel and the IDF is not following a compass – this is lawlessness,” the politician Benny Gantz, who also served as IDF chief of staff, said in a statement. “The IDF has bent over backwards to minimize loss of civilian life,” Naftali Bennett, who also served in the Sayeret Matkal commando unit, said. “The population is moved away from danger for its own safety. It is not only the IDF’s right to do so, itis its obligation.”

Ya’alon said that while military commanders may believe their actions are purely operational, politicians have other plans in mind – and his words were aimed at them.

“I’m talking about soldiers moving populations, thinking it’s for operational purposes,” Ya’alon said. “But the intention of Smotrich, Ben Gvir, Strook, and Daniela Weiss” – all avowed settlers – “is an open and declared one.”

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Oxford’s word of the year is a modern condition familiar to most of us

There’s a name for that feeling you get after spending too long scrolling aimlessly, and Oxford University Press (OUP) has chosen it as its word for the year for 2024.

“Brain rot” took the title in a vote in which more than 37,000 people participated, as well as public commentary and analysis of OUP’s language data.

In a statement released Monday, OUP, which publishes the Oxford English Dictionary, defined “brain rot” as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging.”

While the use of “brain rot” rose 230% this year, it actually first appeared more than a century ago.

According to OUP, it was first used by author Henry David Thoreau in his book “Walden” as he criticised society’s tendency to devalue complicated ideas in favour of simple ones.

“While England endeavours to cure the potato rot,” wrote Thoreau, “will not any endeavour to cure the brain-rot – which prevails so much more widely and fatally?”

All these years later, it seems brain rot is well and truly established.

The term has gained traction over the past year, however, especially as worries grow about the impact of over-consuming low-quality content online.

Earlier this year, a behavioral healthcare provider in the United States began offering treatment for brain rot, describing it as a condition of “mental fogginess, lethargy, reduced attention span, and cognitive decline.”

The healthcare company cited doomscrolling and social media addiction as examples of brain rot behavior, which could be prevented by setting limits on screen time or doing a digital detox.

“’Brain rot’ speaks to one of the perceived dangers of virtual life, and how we are using our free time,” said Casper Grathwohl, president of Oxford Languages, in Monday’s announcement.

“I also find it fascinating that the word ‘brain rot’ has been adopted by Gen Z and Gen Alpha… These communities have amplified the expression through social media channels, the very place said to cause ‘brain rot,’” he added.

“It demonstrates a somewhat cheeky self-awareness in the younger generations about the harmful impact of the social media that they’ve inherited.”

The word beat out five other shortlisted contenders, which included “lore,” meaning a body of (supposed) facts, background information and anecdotes required to fully understand something; “romantasy,” a portmanteau for literature combining elements of romantic fiction and fantasy; and “slop,” which refers to low-quality content generated by artificial intelligence.

“Demure,” a word that went viral over the summer following a popular TikTok video, was also shortlisted. The word, which means being reserved in appearance or behavior, had already been named word of the year by Dictionary.com last week.

Last year, Oxford chose “rizz” as its word of 2023. Derived from the word charisma, it refers to a person’s ability to attract a romantic partner.

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French lawmakers push through no-confidence motion that could topple government

French lawmakers said they had introduced a motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Michel Barnier on Monday, setting up a vote that could see the far right topple his government within days.

The motion was presented after Barnier attempted to pass part of his government’s budget for 2025, which includes 60 billion euros ($62.8 billion) worth of tax hikes and spending cuts aimed at bringing the deficit down to 5% next year and back in line with European rules by the end of the decade.

Barnier, who was tapped as the leader of a minority government backed by centrists and conservatives in September, attempted to enact the budget using a constitutional clause that allows him to bypass a vote in the legislature. However, that maneuver in turn grants lawmakers the opportunity table no-confidence motions against him – and lawmakers on the left, who have repeatedly vowed to bring down Barnier’s government, did just that.

A pre-debate vote is expected on Wednesday.

“This is one power grab too many by an illegitimate government,” Mathilde Panot, a left-wing lawmaker who has opposed Barnier’s government, wrote on social media.

She added a warning to French President Emmanuel Macron, writing: “We have tabled a motion of no confidence. Barnier’s downfall is a foregone conclusion. Macron will be next.”

Should the measure pass, it would throw France into political chaos. In the immediate term, the budget bill would be shot down and Barnier and his ministers would serve in a caretaker capacity until Macron named a new premier.

A government collapse would also frighten financial markets concerned whether Europe’s second-largest economy has both the fiscal discipline and political will to bring its finances in order. France’s budget deficit is slated to hit 6.1% of GDP in 2024, more than double the amount allowed by the European Commission.

Concerned investors have already deemed French credit almost as risky as that of Greece.

While Barnier’s budget has temporarily appeased both the markets and Brussels, it has drawn the ire of Marine Le Pen and her party, the far-right National Rally, who have vowed to join lawmakers on the left and take down Barnier unless he concedes to several of their demands – only some of which he has agreed to.

“We are going to support this no confidence vote because the French have had enough of being mistreated. They thought things would change with Barnier, but it’s worse,” Le Pen told reporters on Monday.

Le Pen last week gave Barnier a Monday deadline to respond to her party’s demands.

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Iranian dissident rapper Toomaj Salehi released from prison

Toomaj Salehi, an Iranian dissident rapper and activist, has been released from prison, according to a statement issued Monday by his international legal team.

Salehi, 32, had been held in the Dastgerd prison in the city of Isfahan for 753 days in total, according to his team.

The rapper was arrested in October 2022 for supporting the nationwide Woman Life Freedom protests, which erupted following the death of Mahsa Jhina Amini, a young Kurdish-Iranian woman who was detained for wearing her headscarf improperly and later died in police custody.

Salehi had long been a voice of anti-government dissent in Iran. He had often used his music and social media posts to make political statements criticizing the repressive nature of the Iranian regime.

During the Woman Life Freedom demonstrations, he called on Iranians to protest against the government and posted videos of himself alongside protesters on the streets.

“Someone’s crime was dancing with her hair in the wind, someone’s crime was that he or she was brave and outspoken,” read the lyrics in one of his songs from October 2022, posted shortly before his arrest.

When he was briefly released from prison last year, Salehi posted a video to social media describing how he was tortured and held in solitary confinement. He was re-arrested shortly after, on charges of making false claims and spreading lies, according to Iranian judiciary news agency Mizan.

Earlier this year, the United States imposed sanctions on 12 Iranian officials over human rights abuses. One of the officials oversees the province where Salehi was allegedly tortured while in prison.

In April, a lower court in Isfahan sentenced Salehi to death for “spreading corruption on earth.” But in June, Iran’s Supreme Court overturned that sentence.

“The regime tried to silence Toomaj with a death sentence, tortured him to death to break his spirit and now, after so much pain and injustice, they released him,” his cousin Arezou Eghbali Babadi said in a statement Monday. “Toomaj should never have been in prison at all.”

Though Salehi’s case was processed in Iranian courts, his family had the support of international lawyers. The London-based Doughty Street Chambers and non-profits the Index on Censorship and the Human Rights Foundation filed appeals and complaints to the United Nations to challenge his detention.

“This is a time of celebration: Our brave, brilliant client Toomaj Salehi is finally free,” Caoilfhionn Gallagher, a lawyer with the Doughty Street Chambers who is the international counsel for the Salehi family, said in a statement.

Gallagher said Salehi had been targeted for years by the Iranian authorities, who attempted to silence him through arrests, imprisonment, torture, assaults and the death penalty for his support of human rights in Iran.

“This is also a time for vigilance,” she cautioned, crediting Salehi’s release to sustained pressure put on the Iranian authorities from both inside and outside the country.

“The world must not look away now: We must ensure Mr Salehi remains free and is never again subjected to the egregious violations of his rights.”

Calls for caution were reiterated by Salehi’s political sponsor in Europe, German member of parliament Ye-One Rhie. Such sponsors are parliamentarians across Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Canada who advocate for the release of individual political prisoners in Iran.

“We should remain cautious and keep both eyes on his freedom and safety. Especially with how sudden his release happened tonight,” she wrote on X.

Last month, Iranian journalist and activist Kianoosh Sanjari took his own life in Tehran, after threatening to kill himself if four activists detained by the Islamic Republic were not released. One of them was Salehi.

Salehi returned to his family last night, according to a statement by Negin Niknaam, his friend and the manager of his social media accounts.

“While expressing joy and happiness … we will wait for the end of all cases and false accusations, and for Toomaj’s complete and unconditional freedom.”

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Rebel groups have taken Syria’s second-biggest city. Here’s who they are

Eight years ago, Syria’s civil war shifted in President Bashar Al-Assad’s favor after a Russian blitzkrieg on Aleppo helped him regain control over the country’s second biggest city.

In just over 72-hours last week, a coalition of Syrian armed rebel groups operating under the banner of Deterrence of Aggression captured the city in a surprise attack, dealing a significant blow to Assad and causing a major escalation to a largely dormant war.

The rebel coalition consists of well-established armed Islamist factions who, despite their differences, are united in fighting Assad, ISIS and Iran-backed militias.

Here are some of the groups forming the coalition.

Hayat Tahrir Al Sham

The most prominent and formidable one of those rebel groups is Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), also known as the Organization for the Liberation of the Levant. HTS was founded by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, a military commander who gained experience as a young fighter for al Qaeda against the United States in Iraq during the US invasion before his capture and imprisonment in Iraq.

Upon his release, he travelled to Syria to create Jabhat al-Nusra, al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate and operated the group until a public split with al Qaeda in 2016 over ideological differences and opposition to ISIS. Jolani then formed HTS in early 2017.

Despite Jolani’s effort to distance his new group from al Qaeda and ISIS, the United States and other Western countries designated the HTS a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2018 and placed a $10 million bounty on him.

Over the years Jolani’s influence grew despite bouts of infighting and local rivalries. Rebel groups were delivered a severe blow after the loss of Aleppo to the Syrian regime in 2016. HTS was constricted to Idlib, a city in northwestern Syria with a population of 4 million, mostly those displaced by the infighting across Syria. In a 2021 PBS interview, Jolani rejected the terrorist designation, saying his group does not pose a “threat to Western or European society.”

“(HTS) has been able to build that empire by primarily controlling most of the economic sectors in Idlib. … They are more of an independent force than many groups,” Natasha Hall, senior fellow with the Middle East Program at the Washington DC based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

HTS was primarily responsible for the offensive on Aleppo last week, Hall said.

The ‘Syrian National Army’ (SNA)

One main coalition group taking part in the offensive on Aleppo is the “Syrian National Army,” an umbrella group incorporating dozens of factions with various ideologies that receive funding and arms from Turkey.

That coalition has become a proxy group for Turkey, and includes the National Liberation Front, which includes factions like Ahrar al-Sham who’s stated aims are to “overthrow the (Assad) regime” and “establish an Islamic state governed by Sharia law.”

Experts consider Ahrar Al Sham to be a moderate Islamist group. After last week’s capture of Aleppo, the group’s deputy commander Ahmed al-Dalati gathered Muslim leaders in a mosque to deliver instructions and called on them to protect ethnic and religious minorities of the city.

“The instructions of the general command of the military operations department are strict and clear. It is forbidden to harm anyone or encroach on their property… not just Muslims, but everyone else, whether Christians or Armenians or any sect present in Aleppo. … No one is to come close to them,” he said.

Kurdish forces have been embroiled in a long-running conflict with Turkey. In its decades of tension with the Kurdish fighters, Turkey launched several military operations against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a militant group that Turkey deems terrorist.

Hall said Syrian groups relying on Turkey has become “problematic” as it sets its target on Kurdish controlled areas instead of the Assad regime.

“Being entirely reliant on Turkey, rather than fighting the good fight for the Syrian people they’re fighting the fight for the Turkish government. … They have set their targets on Kurdish controlled areas rather than the (Assad) regime, which is what all these groups and fighters had initially been fighting,” Hall said.

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Tycoon on death row for $12 billion fraud loses appeal in Vietnam court

A court in Vietnam on Tuesday upheld a death sentence for real estate tycoon Truong My Lan after rejecting her appeal against a conviction for embezzlement and bribery in a high-profile $12 billion fraud case, state media reported.

Lan, the chairwoman of real estate developer Van Thinh Phat Holdings Group, was sentenced to death in April for her role in Vietnam’s biggest financial fraud case on record.

The High People’s Court in southern Ho Chi Minh City determined there was no basis to reduce Lan’s death sentence, reported online newspaper VnExpress.

If Lan is able to return three-quarters of the money embezzled while on death row, it is possible the sentence could be commuted to life imprisonment, the report said.

She is one of the most famous business executives and state officials jailed in the communist country’s lengthy anti-graft campaign known as “Blazing Furnace.”

“The consequences Lan caused are unprecedented in the history of litigation and the amount of money embezzled is unprecedentedly large and unrecoverable,” the prosecution was quoted as saying at the appeal hearing by state-run online newspaper VietnamNet.

“The defendant’s actions have affected many aspects of society, the financial market, the economy,” it said.

State media cited Lan’s lawyer as saying she had many mitigating circumstances, including “having admitted guilt, showing remorse and paying back part of the amount of money embezzled,” but prosecutors said that was insufficient.

Reuters could not immediately reach Lan’s lawyers for comment.

Lan still has the right to request a review under Vietnam’s cassation or retrial procedures.

Lan’s arrest in 2022 sparked a run on one of the country’s largest private banks by deposits, Saigon Joint Stock Commercial Bank (SCB), which was at the center of the fraud and largely owned by Lan through her proxies.

Documents reviewed by Reuters showed Vietnam’s central bank had as of April pumped $24 billion in “special loans” into SCB in an “unprecedented” rescue.

Apart from the death sentence, Lan was handed a life sentence at a separate trial in October after being found guilty of obtaining property by fraud, money laundering and illegal cross-border money transfers.

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After days of Israeli strikes, Hezbollah hits back, each accusing the other of ceasefire violations

For the first time since a ceasefire went into effect last week, Hezbollah has fired two projectiles toward Israeli-occupied territory, responding to repeated Israeli strikes since the agreement.

Israel has carried out daily strikes in Lebanon since Thursday, the day after a ceasefire went into effect. One person was killed in a strike in southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Health.

Hezbollah had fired two projectiles, which landed in an open area on Monday, according to the Israeli military, which said no one was injured. The military did not specify the type of projectile fired.

Hours later, Israel’s military said it began striking “terror targets” in Lebanon after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to retaliate in a statement, calling Hezbollah’s attack “a serious violation of the ceasefire.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said earlier on Monday that its own cross-border strikes, despite the ceasefire, had been “in response to several acts by Hezbollah in Lebanon that posed a threat to Israeli civilians, in violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.” It said it had struck military vehicles at a Hezbollah missile manufacturing site in the Beqaa Valley and tunnels near the Syrian border in northern Lebanon.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar told his French counterpart in a phone call that his country is, in fact, enforcing the ceasefire – which stipulates Hezbollah’s withdrawal from the Israel-Lebanon border area – rather than violating it, Sa’ar said on X on Monday.

“The presence of Hezbollah operatives south of (Lebanon’s) Litani is a fundamental violation of the agreement and they must move north,” Sa’ar said, adding that Israel is “committed to the successful implementation of the ceasefire understandings.”

Hezbollah, in a statement, said that it targeted Israeli military positions “in light of the repeated violations initiated by the Israeli enemy of the ceasefire agreement.” Hezbollah accused Israel of breaking the ceasefire by “firing on civilians and airstrikes in different parts of Lebanon, resulting in the martyrdom of citizens and injuries to others, in addition to the continued violation of Lebanese airspace by hostile Israeli aircraft reaching the capital, Beirut.”

The IDF said the two Hezbollah projectiles were fired toward Shebaa Farms, known in Israel as Har Dov (Mount Dov), which under international law is considered occupied Syrian territory. Israel seized Shebaa Farms, along with the Golan Heights, from Syria after it was attacked in 1967. The U.S. recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights in 2019.

A shaky start

Both sides have, since the early hours of last week’s ceasefire, accused each other of violations, and the escalating tensions risk endangering the agreement altogether.

A senior Israeli official said Friday that the military intends to aggressively and unilaterally act against any ceasefire violations by Hezbollah.

US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said Monday that the ceasefire has not broken down. “Broadly speaking,” the ceasefire “has been successful,” he said.

“Obviously, when you have any ceasefire, you can see violations of it,” Miller acknowledged. He noted that the US and France had set up a mechanism “to look at all of these reports of violations of the ceasefire and deal with them through the channels that the mechanisms set up, and that’s what we’ll do over the coming days.”

The State Department official would not say whether the US had determined that any of the alleged violations were violations, saying that the work was ongoing. He also would not comment on reports that US envoy Amos Hochstein had raised violations in a letter to the Israeli government.

The ceasefire deal stipulates a 60-day cessation of hostilities, which negotiators have described as the foundation of a lasting truce. During that time, Hezbollah fighters are expected to retreat some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Israel-Lebanon border, while Israeli ground forces withdraw from Lebanese territory.

UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last all-out war between the two countries in 2006, has been the basis of the deal and the negotiations have mainly revolved around the treaty’s enforcement.

Under the agreement, Lebanon would implement a more rigorous supervision of Hezbollah’s movements south of the country’s Litani river, to prevent militants from regrouping there.

United Nations peacekeeping troops, the Lebanese military, and a multinational committee will be tasked with supervising the Iran-backed group’s movements.

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‘Unlimited’ enemy troops, no sleep: Ukrainian soldiers fight to hold on to Russia’s Kursk region

The dawn assault inside Russia’s Kursk region never even got to a gunfight, yet betrayed the intensity of the battle in Kremlin territory. Five Russians edged forward in the grey Sunday dawn but, as thermal drone imagery shows, were killed or wounded by a drone as they tried to hide in the treeline.

“I have this impression that (the Russians) have unlimited people,” said Oleksandr, a unit commander with the 225th assault battalion, describing the clash from a cafe in the Ukrainian city of Sumy, 11 hours later.

“They send groups, and almost no one remains alive. And the next day, the groups go again. The next Russians, it seems, do not know what happened to the previous Russians. They go there, into the unknown. No one tells them anything about it, and no one comes back.”

Oleksandr and two colleagues with whom he is sitting are hard of hearing from the constant shelling. They provide a rare insight into the nearly four-month-long Ukrainian occupation of Kursk.

The August invasion marked a rare tactical success and strategic gain for Kyiv, although the use of significant manpower and armor in the assault has led to criticism that shortages created by the invasion contributed to Russia’s advance across the Donbas eastern front.

Advocates of the Kursk operation suggest it provided Kyiv with vital leverage for any future peace talks – perhaps initiated by US President-elect Donald Trump – which means Ukraine needs to retain a foothold in the area into spring at the least.

Oleksandr expressed confidence his unit could hold on, but less certainty as to why. “I don’t know what the goal really is,” he said. “Maybe we should walk around here for four months and turn around and leave, for example… If the goal is to hold on to it until a certain point, we will.”

Asked what his message for Trump would be, Oleksandr demanded the West uphold the security guarantees it gave Ukraine in return for Kyiv giving up its nuclear weapons, in a 1994 treaty known as the Budapest Memorandum, in which Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States gave Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan assurances for giving up their Soviet-era nuclear weapons.

“You took away our nuclear weapons? You promised us your roof,” Oleksandr said, using a slang word for protection. “Keep your word. We’re being slaughtered, and you’re still trying to play games, to defend your interests. You had to give everything you could to end this war in two days. Who will believe the words of the US or England, who are pissing themselves in front of Russia? Pardon my English,” he said laughing, in explanation of his profanity.

Recent Russian assaults in his area of Kursk have proven as ineffective as costly, he said. Separately, Ukrainian officials have admitted that 40% of the territory they took in the late summer has since been reclaimed by the Russians. Oleksandr’s unit has not slept for three days, he said, or left the frontline for eight months, and has been involved in ferocious combat in the Ukrainian cities of Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Chasiv Yar.

He said the Russian troops Ukrainians faced in Kursk were a mixture of well-trained paratroopers from the 76th Brigade, but also less organised Chechens, and African mercenaries. But he has seen no sign of the 12,000 North Korean troops that, according to the Pentagon, have been sent to Kursk. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky also told the Japanese Kyodo news agency Sunday that some North Koreans had been killed by Ukrainian forces and that they would ultimately be used as “cannon fodder” by the Kremlin.

“When we catch them or see a body,” Oleksandr said, “then I’ll know for sure that they’re here.”

Three weeks earlier, his unit had faced an assault from 40 armored vehicles and about 300 infantry, he said. His drone commander, callsign “JS” for Java Script, said the unit killed 50 Russians that day. “The vehicles that managed to get through unloaded the infantry,” JS recounted, “then we finished off the infantry. And it went like this for nearly 24 hours, no sleep, and the next day we finished off those who managed to hide from the drone-bombing on the first day.”

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