Truth in the Bible is not abstract.  Truth in the Bible is real and tangible. Truth in the bible is a person with a personality. Truth in the Bible is Jesus Christ. (John 14:6).

Jesus Christ is truth personified.  Only Jesus who came down from heaven truly expresses God and presents the true ideal of man. Hence, he is the Truth.  He is the logos, the true expression of God. Similarly, the Holy Spirit (the spirit of Jesus Christ) is the Spirit of truth because His function is to guide into all truth.

You can do nothing against the truth but for the truth. (2 Corinthians 13:8). No matter what you do, the truth remains true. Truth is absolute. It refuses to go away.  It cannot be silenced. It does not change.  The only thing that it can do is to change you. Jesus said: You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. (John 8:32). It is the lie that shackles; and the truth that makes free.

God is a God of truth, making truth a basic element of His Person. Because God is truth, He is constant and unchanging. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today and forever. He is the rock and His truth endures unto all generations. God is a God in whom there is no variableness and shadow of turning. This means that God does not change like shifting shadows.

Problematic Jesus

For a long time, Jesus was a big problem in my life. I simply could not handle the truth of God revealed by Jesus. Before I met Jesus, I was convinced that I was the most righteous man on earth. I had never met a man who was as righteous and as truthful as me. I lived my life under a strict code of principles and precepts, which I believed, set me apart from a lot of people, including and especially some so-called Christians. 

But the truth, which I discovered or accepted much later, was that those principles were self-serving. The problem with Jesus was that his righteousness was diametrically opposite to mine.

When I met Jesus, his message was unambiguous. There could only be one conclusion from his teachings: Femi Aribisala is unrighteous. I was confronted with a choice. I would either have to choose the righteousness of Christ, or conclude that he was talking a load of rubbish. I could not come outright to say that Jesus was talking rubbish because I came from a Christian home and was raised as a Christian.

But at the same time, I sought refuge in the misguided conviction that his righteousness was simply impossible to fulfil. I was convinced, for example, that there was no way that a man could get to the point where he never again looked at a woman lustfully. There was no way someone would slap a grown man on the one cheek and he would willingly turn the other cheek. There was no way that a man would forcefully take your coat and you would give him your cloak as well. Unless, of course, if you were stupid. There was no way that a human being could be expected to love his enemies and to pray for those who despitefully use him. There was no way to be the kind of man that Jesus preached about. And I surely had yet to meet any Christian like that.

Avoiding Jesus

So what did I do about the truth of God’s word? I decided that it was better for me to stop reading the Bible. I reached a conclusion, which in retrospect I now realise was an incredible piece of deception. I concluded that if I continued reading the bible, I would end up as an atheist. 

Sooner or later, the illogical nature and the irrationalities of Jesus’ teachings would get to me, and I would conclude that Jesus was a load of rubbish. Since I did not want to reach that conclusion, I decided to keep away from Jesus as much as possible. This was one way I could deal with the truth of Jesus, and I now realise it is completely idiotic.

And so today, you have so many people who believe that Jesus is a prophet, but don’t believe in him. Nicodemus recognised that Jesus was a teacher sent from God and yet, he did not believe in him. Even Moslems believe that Jesus is a prophet of God. 

But please what kind of prophet would call himself God? Only a false prophet would do that. So if Jesus is a prophet of God then Jesus is God. If Jesus is not God then he is not a prophet. There is no middle passage. He has not left us with any fudged view of himself.

Responding to the Truth

Beloved, how do we respond to the truth? Do we fight against the truth? It is a losing battle because the truth is impregnable. To fight against the truth is to fight against God. We cannot win.

John the Baptist spoke the truth to Herodias, you should not marry your husband’s brother. Herodias had a problem dealing with this truth of God’s law. What is the solution to her predicament? She decides to fight against the truth. John the Baptist must be killed. Truth must be silenced. But would the death of John the Baptist change the truth of her adultery? Would the death of John the Baptist make adultery righteous? Certainly not!

Jesus came to provide a way of escape from the sin problem. The wisdom of God in this regard was to simplify the problem of sin.

And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God. (John 3:19-21).

Sin is no longer the doing of evil.  Sin is now the rejection of salvation from sin.

Evil people are not just people who do bad things; they are those who hate the light. They are people who love darkness rather than light. They prefer to be ignorant because to be knowledgeable will put a great demand on them. Knowledge means coming out of the darkness. But they would rather be ignorant than come out of the darkness. The man fears that if he comes to the light his deeds would be seen as worthless, and he would need to turn from them.

Dealing With the Person of Truth

How do you deal with the truth? Remember that you can no longer deal with truth in the abstract because truth now has a personality? How do you deal with truth in the form of a person? Jesus said to this end was he born, and for this end he came into the world, that he should bear witness to the truth.   

Can you honestly live with such a person as this? Or would he or she become insufferable? Can you have a friend who always tells you the truth? Would you only visit him sometimes, or would you like him to abide with you forever?

In both the Old and the New Testaments, prophets of God were killed because they dared to tell the truth. They told people what they did not want to hear. They convinced people of their sin. Rather than deal with their sin, people decided to deal with the prophet. Jesus prophesied that this propensity would be heightened in the last days. (Luke 21:16-17; John 16:2-3).

Hating the Truth 

Most people don’t like the truth. Some people like the truth sometimes. Most people don’t like the truth at most times. There are times when we want to be lied to. There are times when we seek solace and comfort in lies. 

Sometimes we define friendship as the ability of a companion to know when to tell us the truth and when to comfort us with lies. Sometimes we regard a friend as someone oblivious to our faults. A good friend becomes someone who not only ignores our faults but also dutifully convinces us that our faults are non-existent. 

The question then is this: can Jesus be our friend?  Can we walk with him? CONTINUED.

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Brace yourself before reading.

Content warning: Discussions of death, homicide, and suicide. Some descriptions may be graphic.

On one of my recent late-night scrolls, I came across this thread by Reddit user u/LadyEmry, which asked: "People whose work involves death (e.g., paramedics, hospice carers, morgue attendants, etc.), what is the weirdest thing you've ever seen?" Hundreds of people who work around death shared their stories, which ranged from strange to weird to chilling. Here's everything they wrote:

1. "Sometimes when leftover gas is leaving the body, they'll sort of groan or fart, which is really unnerving."

Fstop123 / Getty Images

—texaspoontappa93

"Also, it sometimes sounds like they are knocking from the inside of the fridges, which is pretty creepy when you are not used to it."

—Melcolloien

2. "In my early days as a first responder, I was in a rural area, and we were the first on the scene. I responded to a multi-vehicle accident where a man had been decapitated; I got in the passenger side, and his head was hanging on by a few tendons on the right side. Without thinking, I grabbed his head and tried to 'put it back on.' I don't know why.

"In retrospect, I think I saw something that wasn't right, and instinct told me, 'This goes here.' The old timers laughed and teased me a few times. One of them pulled me aside and told me, 'It's not the first time someone's done that. It won't be the last.' I have heard of other people doing similar things but haven't personally witnessed it."

3. "A European bloke came in three weeks after falling off a horse. He didn't go to hospital when it happened. Instead, he flew to Australia for a holiday and was admitted to our emergency ward a few days later. He had literally shattered two ribs. He was acting normal when I was talking to him, but then five minutes later, his spleen ruptured when someone tried to move him."

Sopone Nawoot / Getty Images

"It's not uncommon for spleens to rupture weeks after trauma, but this dude lasted three weeks, and only 10 minutes after being admitted did it rupture. If it had happened on a plane, he would've been dead. He lived."

—[deleted]

4. "I worked in a veterinary clinic for a while. I have witnessed the phenomenon of 'jumping ship' twice. Once, we had a cat who was old and sick brought in to be put down. She was covered in fleas, and so when we put the medicine that euthanized her, the fleas were able to tell and immediately started leaving the body in huge numbers to the point where the area around the body was black from fleas."

"The other time I saw it was when we put a dog down in the OR because exploratory surgery showed his tumor was inoperable. He had some ticks that all jumped off as soon as the drug was injected."

5. "My mom was a paramedic for fifteen years and once had to do a body recovery of two teenage girls on a full moon walking through waist-high grass and fog while their wrecked van played 'Uninvited' by Alanis Morissette. She says it was one of the most unsettling moments of her career."

Mikhail Galyshev / Getty Images/iStockphoto

—LittlestDeborah

6. "Hangings are pretty horrible, but we ended up attending to a man who had [died by suicide] after killing his girlfriend. He had caved the back of her head in with a blunt object and hung her in a spare room before hanging himself. The weirdest part of it is that he didn't kill himself straight away. Her body had decomposed more than he had. The police on the scene estimated she had been dead for around four or five days before he killed himself."

7. "Paramedic. Hangings are always very eerie scenes. They somehow seem staged, cinematic, and unreal. And it's odd what sticks in your memory. Like how neatly they placed their slippers beside the ladder or how rough the knot was. Hangings often extend the neck in an inhuman way."

8. "I was transporting a man with liver disease and diabetes. I grabbed his arm gently to help him, and the top layer of skin slid off like a pudding. I wore my fucking gloves after that."

Edwin Tan / Getty Images

—Lucilleisthirsty

9. "EMT here. Sometimes, when you do CPR, the person becomes conscious again and can talk to you while you're doing compressions. I've seen some go into cardiac arrest, and after two compressions, she woke up, grabbed the nurse who was doing the compressions, and went unresponsive again. Everyone in the room was like, 'What the fuck?!'"

10. "I had a 100-year-old patient with colonic mass admitted for new compression fractures, likely secondary to metastatic cancer. The family did not want to pursue further workup, and he was placed in comfort care with a plan to discharge him back to home on hospice. He was feeling well on the day of discharge. His sons came by to make sure he got on the ambulance. Medics loaded him onto the gurney; he closed his eyes, took one more breath, and died right there."

"The sons told us later that they were actually pretty relieved because they didn't want their father to die at home because of how much it would affect their mother. I have never had a patient die while in the process of leaving the hospital. It's weird for a physician to say, but damn, what a good way to go."

11. "When a person is really old, they can look dead when they are actually alive and vice versa. I walked into a room, and I could see this guy propped up in bed; his eyes were wide open, and he sounded like he was choking on mucus. So I started to suction it out, and then I realized he never started to breathe. I checked a pulse. He was dead, but his eyes were still open, like he was staring at me. I had to do the thing they show on TV, where the doctor puts their hand over the person's face and closes the eye. We left him in bed peacefully."

Sasithorn Phuapankasemsuk / Getty Images

—Racer13l

12. "Not really weird, just the only thing that stands out in my mind. I work in a hospital in infection control; occasionally, I am needed down in the morgue when there is a containment issue. On this night, a body was brought in under special circumstances. A body was found in a body of water, so the patient was already swollen from that. It has been at least a few days since the time of death. This patient had no positive results from the lab, so I didn't understand why I was called in."

"This is what happened: all suspicious death autopsies are performed at a single location in my state. Since their body was found on a Friday, we were to keep the body in storage until it could be transported on Monday. This is not abnormal, but our body storage is actually just an old walk-in freezer from a cafeteria renovation years ago. After the body was brought in, the freezer broke down sometime over the weekend, and as the body warmed up, so did the gases in the intestines, resulting in the lower torso exploding onto the cart and floor. It was the most putrid thing I've ever had to be a part of."

13. "I work in a mortuary. We had an older lady, maybe mid-60s, who looked like a beautiful, youthful 40-year-old from the chest up but like Frankenstein's monster below that. I'm talking about numerous heavy scars all over, misshapen areas of her torso, lots of discoloration, and fluid build-up. She looked like a lawnmower had attacked her and crudely stapled back together."

Juanmonino / Getty Images

"Come to find out, she was really into plastic surgery, and even though she had an expensive, well-recommended surgeon, things started to go wrong. She got infections, her body wasn't responding well to the surgeries, and every procedure done to fix the previous one just went worse. They pretty much turned her into a living meat puzzle."

14. (Cont'd) "Second example: A seemingly healthy middle-aged guy had a heart attack and passed away early one morning. His wife and adult kids came in that afternoon to make arrangements. A few hours later, at home, while her family was eating dinner, the wife went to lie down, had a heart attack of her own, and passed away. We ended up picking up both the husband and the wife at the same time. And no, those greedy sons-of-bitches didn't offer the family a discount on the removals."

15. "Paramedic here; this isn't involving death, but it's the weirdest thing I've seen. We had a psychiatric call, and I was in the back with the patient; my partner was driving. The patient looks at me and goes, 'Do you know the time?' I told the patient, 'I actually don't' (my phone was dead). The patient says, 'It's okay, it is 8:17.' Then says, 'Do you know how I know?' I look at her and say, 'You have a watch?' She then goes, 'No, Jesus told me.'"

"I then asked my partner what time it was, for the hell of it. Sure enough, she got the time right. There was no way on the truck for her to know the exact time (no clocks, tinted windows). Didn't say a damn word the rest of the ride. I made sure to tell the ER staff that Jesus talks to the patient about time..."

16. "Medical student here and been in the hospitals all year. We had a patient I'd been following since her admission who had liver cirrhosis due to alcohol, and it was horrible to watch. She went from cheerful and talkative to a shaky, catatonic mess within a week. When she died, her skin was neon-yellow; I've seen plenty of dead bodies in my time, but I've never seen anything like that. Her skin looked like that yellow construction paper from elementary school."

Aleksandr Zubkov / Getty Images

—flowercurtains

17. "Not super interesting, but I've dissected a lot of cadavers, and one time, this guy's brain was completely necrosed. Idk why the brain didn't preserve, but my guess was it was part of his cause of death. BTW, the brain turns to liquid when it dies (liquefactive necrosis). We scooped out handfuls of watery gray refried bean brains and had to just leave them in his tub with him until he got cremated."

"Also, one time, a lady had chronic lung problems that caused her heart to work in overdrive to compensate, essentially. Over a long period, the heart grew (just like any other muscle that is worked), and this 110-pound lady ended up with a heart the size of a cantaloupe. But organs always have weird anomalies."

18. "I went to a car accident where a man had a watch embedded in his head. He was driving one-handed when he collided, and the airbag forced the watch into his skull."

19. "I had a patient die in ICU that was in his 60s or so. He was a missionary who came back early from a South American country due to abdominal pain. His bowel had perforated due to parasitic worms. When he died, the abdomen was still wiggling. I cleaned him up, bagged him, and prayed that the worms didn't come through. I hope the morgue freezer killed those things. That was the most gross thing I have ever witnessed in many deaths I have seen."

Ryan Mcvay / Getty Images

—peprjak24

20. "I'm a medicolegal death investigator, which is basically a forensic investigator that works at a medical examiner's office and only investigates death. This week, there was a foot found at a train yard. It turns out it belonged to a homeless guy in another state riding the rails. Somehow, it got cut off; he fell off the train and lived while his little piggies kept going and ended up in my state a few days later."

21. "My husband worked in the medical field for years. Once, he was in an elevator with someone from a science donation pushing a cart. Another woman on the elevator asked what was in the cart. Without saying anything, the guy opened a drawer, which was just a drawer of torsos that were going to thoracic studies. I didn't know they cut up the bodies like that."

And lastly:

22. "Paramedic here. It was my first ever time working with someone who had a cardiac arrest; I was 19 years old at the time. We get called for a 60-something man, short of breath. We get our stair chair and attempt to get him from his bed into the chair. He collapses, has a syncopal episode, and comes to a few seconds later. We attempt to sit him up so we can lift him onto the chair, and he starts exclaiming, 'Don't sit me up; I can't sit up!' I say, 'We have to get you on this chair. We need to get you down the stairs to get you on the stretcher.' He tells us not to sit him up two more times when I ask him, 'Why can't you sit up?' he says... 'I'll show you.' AND THEN HE FUCKING DIED."

"I shit you not, his last words (at the time) were: 'I'll show you...' We ended up shocking him, getting him back, got him downstairs where he died again, shocked him, got him back. We did this four or five times before getting him into the resuscitation room in the ER. Every time we shocked him, he would be back almost talking with us, but obviously still out of it since, y'know, he just died and all. I never got to ask him how he knew or what he saw since it was a crazy, dynamic call, but I'll never forget him looking directly into my eyes, saying, 'I'll show you.' He ended up walking out of the hospital five weeks later. It was so whacky."

Buzzfeed

The Chief Executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, Gbenga Komolafe, has disclosed that the country’s average daily production was 1.61 million barrels per day as of July 23.

Komolafe revealed that at the House of Representatives Special Committee’s two-day public/investigative hearing on oil theft/losses.

“As of July 23, 2024, Nigeria’s average daily production stands at 1.61mbpd,” he disclosed.

This is coming barely two weeks after the commission announced that the average daily oil production for June was 1.25mbpd.

According to Komolafe, Nigeria had continued to dominate as Africa’s largest producer of crude oil, boasting proven reserves of 37.50 billion barrels and a production capacity of approximately 2.19mbpd.

On the statutory mandates and regulatory strategies of the NUPRC, he said the Petroleum Industry Act 2021 grants the commission several statutory mandates in the areas of calibration and certification of metering systems and equipment, publication of reports and statistics on upstream operations, regulatory oversight and issuance of quality and quantity certificates for exports, and determination of fiscal prices for crude oil and condensate.

Komolafe added that the strategies of the commission aimed to optimise production, enhance regulatory oversight, and ensure accurate measurement and accounting.

He maintained that the NUPRC had prioritised improving rig availability and reducing non-productive time through unlocking heavy crude oil reserves via industry workshops.

Those initiatives, he noted, also supported new Petroleum Prospecting License awardees to achieve their first oil, among other initiatives.

The NUPRC boss admitted that Nigeria was facing significant challenges regarding crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism, especially affecting terminals at Bonny, Brass, and Forcados.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited stated in September 2022 that it lost $700m every month to oil theft.

Also, the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative added that Nigeria lost 619.7 million barrels, valued at N16.3tn, to crude oil theft from 2005 to 2021.

In 2023, the NNPC spent N136 billion on security, repairs, and maintenance of vandalised infrastructure, per Dataphyte.

“This has prompted the commission to employ end-to-end production monitoring and a mass balance methodology to accurately account for losses and differentiate them from operational losses. These interventions have significantly reduced theft, with zero incidents reported in July 2023,” Komolafe stated.

He noted that NUPRC had introduced several innovative measures to enhance transparency and accountability.

He highlighted, “Other innovations include the Advanced Cargo Declaration Regulation that ensures no crude oil is exported without proper accounting and assigns a unique identification number to each cargo, the Upstream Metering Regulation, which mandates reliable metering systems to account for all hydrocarbon production and exports, and real-time cargo tracking and digital documentation to improve visibility and efficiency in cargo operations.”

He, therefore, reaffirmed NUPRC’s commitment to continued engagement with stakeholders to optimise Nigeria’s oil production and maintain its leadership position in Africa’s energy sector.

Our correspondent reports that crude oil thieves and illegal refiners have continued to defy government efforts, impacting the nation’s crude production daily.

Punch

At least seven Nigerian soldiers were killed after a mine exploded on a highway in Borno state, the hotbed of a Boko Haram militant insurgency, two vigilante officers said on Friday.

Nigeria faces a raft of security challenges including a long-running Islamist insurgency in the northeast, separatist violence in the southeast, rampant oil theft in the Niger Delta and kidnapping for ransom by criminal gangs.

Shaibu Musa, a local vigilante officer helping to combat the insurgents, said a military vehicle was travelling along the road linking the villages of Monguno and Baga on Thursday when the vehicle detonated an improvised explosive device.

The military did not immediately respond to request for comment on the incident.

Another security official, Isa Bukar, said the explosion occurred on Thursday morning after soldiers on patrol triggered the mine, which killed seven of them.

Reuters

The Federal Government on Friday disclosed that 125 Boko Haram terrorists and financiers were convicted in the resumed mass trial held over two days in Kainji, Niger State.

The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, in a statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Communication & Publicity, office of the AGF, Kamarudeen Ogundele, noted that the convicts were tried on charges bordering on terrorism, terrorism financing, rendering material support, and cases relating to International Criminal Court criminality.

He said the trials were held under Giwa Project Kanji Phase Five, between Tuesday and Wednesday, before five Federal High Court judges led by Binta Nyako. Others are Joyce Abdulmalik, Emeka Nwite, Obiora Egwuatu, and Mobolaji Olajuwon.

He added that all 125 of the Boko Haram members were found guilty of the charges brought against them.

The statement read in part: “the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, is superintending over the trial in conjunction with the Office of the National Security Adviser.

“The prosecution team was led by the Director of Public Prosecution of the Federation, Mohammed Babadoko Abubakar, while the defence team was led by Abdulfatai Bakre from the Legal Aids Council” the statement disclosed.

“Others in attendance as international observers are the National Human Rights Commission, the Nigerian Bar Association, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crimes among others.

“The courts convicted 85 persons for terrorism financing, 22 for ICC related crimes while others were convicted for terrorism. They were sentenced to various jail terms.

“It is also noteworthy that 400 defendants who have completed their sentence have also been moved to Operation Safe Corridor in Gombe State for rehabilitation, deradicalisation and subsequent reintegration”.

Punch

Netanyahu meets with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, offering measured optimism on a Gaza cease-fire

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu worked to mend ties with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday and offered measured optimism about progress toward a cease-fire deal for Gaza as he neared the end of a contentious U.S. visit that put on display the growing American divisions over support for the Israeli-Hamas war.

At Trump’s Florida Mar-a-Lago estate, where the two men met face-to-face for the first time in nearly four years, Netanyahu told journalists he wanted to see U.S.-mediated talks succeed for a cease-fire and release of hostages.

“I hope so,” Netanyahu said, when reporters asked if his U.S. trip had made progress. While Netanyahu at home is increasingly accused of resisting a deal to end the 9-month-old war to stave off the potential collapse of his far-right government when it ends, he said Friday he was “certainly eager to have one. And we’re working on it.”

As president, Trump went well beyond his predecessors in fulfilling Netanyahu’s top wishes from the United States. Yet relations soured after Netanyahu became one of the first world leaders to congratulate Joe Biden for his 2020 presidential victory, which Trump continues to deny.

The two men now have a strong interest in restoring their relationship, both for the political support their alliance brings and for the luster it gives each with their conservative supporters.

A beaming Trump was waiting for Netanyahu on the stone steps outside his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Florida. He warmly clasped the hands of the Israeli leader.

“We’ve always had a great relationship,” Trump insisted before journalists. Asked as the two sat down in a muraled room for talks if Netanyahu’s trip to Mar-a-Lago was repairing their bond, Trump responded, “It was never bad.”

For both men, Friday’s meeting was aimed at highlighting for their home audiences their depiction of themselves as strong leaders who have gotten big things done on the world stage, and can again.

Netanyahu’s Florida trip followed a fiery address to a joint meeting of Congress on Wednesday that defended his government’s conduct of the war and condemned American protesters galvanized by the killing of more than 39,000 Palestinians in the conflict.

On Thursday, Netanyahu had met in Washington with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who appears on track to becoming the new Democratic presidential nominee after Biden decided to step out of the race. Both pressed the Israeli leader to work quickly to wrap up a deal to bring a cease-fire and release hostages held by Hamas.

Trump’s campaign said he pledged in Friday’s meeting to “make every effort to bring peace to the Middle East” and combat antisemitism on college campuses if American voters elect him to the presidency in November.

Netanyahu handed Trump a framed photo that the Israeli leader said showed a child who has been held hostage by Hamas-led militants since the first hours of the war. “We’ll get it taken care of,” Trump assured him.

In a speech later Friday before a group of young Christian conservatives, Trump said he also asked Netanyahu during their meeting how “a Jewish person, or a person that loves Israel” can vote for Democrats.

He also laced into Harris for missing Netanyahu’s speech and claimed she “doesn’t like Jewish people” and “doesn’t like Israel.” Harris has been married to a Jewish man for a decade.

For Trump, the meeting was a chance to be cast as an ally and statesman, as well as to sharpen efforts by Republicans to portray themselves as the party most loyal to Israel.

Divisions among Americans over U.S. support for Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza have opened cracks in years of strong bipartisan backing for Israel, the biggest recipient of U.S. aid.

For Netanyahu, repairing relations with Trump is imperative given the prospect that Trump may once again become president of the United States, which is Israel’s vital arms supplier and protector.

One gamble for Netanyahu is whether he could get more of the terms he wants in any deal on a Gaza cease-fire and hostage release, and in his much hoped-for closing of a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, if he waits out the Biden administration in hopes that Trump wins.

“Benjamin Netanyahu has spent much of his career in the last two decades in tethering himself to the Republican Party,” said Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. diplomat for Arab-Israeli negotiations, now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

For the next six months, that means “mending ties with an irascible, angry president,” Miller said, meaning Trump.

Netanyahu and Trump last met at a September 2020 White House signing ceremony for the signature diplomatic achievement of both men’s political careers. It was an accord brokered by the Trump administration in which the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain agreed to establish normal diplomatic relations with Israel.

For Israel, it amounted to the two countries formally recognizing it for the first time. It was a major step in what Israel hoped would be an easing of tensions and a broadening of economic ties with its Arab neighbors.

In public postings and statements after his break with Netanyahu, Trump portrayed himself as having stuck his neck out for Israel as president, and Netanyahu paying him back with disloyalty.

He also has criticized Netanyahu on other points, faulting him as “not prepared” for the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks that started the war in Gaza, for example.

In his high-profile speech to Congress on Wednesday and again Friday at Mar-a-Lago, Netanyahu poured praise on Trump, calling the regional accords Trump helped broker historic and thanking him “for all the things he did for Israel.”

Netanyahu listed actions by the Trump administration long-sought by Israeli governments — the U.S. officially saying Israel had sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria during a 1967 war; a tougher U.S. policy toward Iran; and Trump declaring Jerusalem the capital of Israel, breaking with longstanding U.S. policy that Jerusalem’s status should be decided in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

“I appreciated that,” Trump told “Fox & Friends” on Thursday, referring to Netanyahu’s praise.

Trump has repeatedly urged that Israel with U.S. support “finish the job” in Gaza and destroy Hamas, but he hasn’t elaborated on how.

AP

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia deploys cheap drones to locate Ukraine's air defences

Russia has begun including new, cheaply-made drones in its long-range attacks on Ukraine, to try to identify air defences, film any damage and act as decoys, a Ukrainian military spy official said.

The two new types of drone, which Russia has used in five drone attacks in the last two to three weeks including an overnight strike on Thursday, are produced from materials like foam plastic and plywood, the official told Reuters.

One type carries a camera and a Ukrainian mobile phone SIM card to send images back to the Russian military.

"They identify where our mobile groups are positioned, where the machine guns are that can destroy them. They're trying ... to get a picture of where all our air defences are located," said Andriy Cherniak, a military spy agency spokesperson.

The previously unreported details from Cherniak are further evidence of Russia seeking to adapt its tactics and try new technology to gain an edge during its daily missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.

Iranian-designed Shahed attack drones, which fly to their target and detonate on impact, have become a staple of Russian aerial attacks since they began being used in the first year of Russia's full-scale invasion launched in February 2022.

Ukraine, which has been appealing to the West to provide more air defences to repel increased Russian airstrikes on its power facilities since March, tries hard to conceal the locations of its air defence systems.

The new Russian drones with cameras do not carry explosives but closely resemble regular Shahed drones and fly with groups of them, Cherniak said.

The second new type of drone contains no explosive charge or only a small one and is being used as a decoy, Cherniak added.

Because it is virtually indistinguishable from a regular attack drone from the ground, it still needs to be shot down, revealing where Ukraine's air defence systems are located.

He said the new drones probably cost as little as $10,000 each despite their long range, making them far cheaper to produce than air defence missiles.

The drones can also fly at an altitude of 1,000 m (3,000 ft), putting them out of range of machine guns and automatic rifles, he said.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has served as a testing ground for drone warfare technology, with both sides using attack and reconnaissance drones on the battlefield extensively. Kyiv has poured energy into domestic drone production to narrow the gap between its strike capabilities and Moscow's, staging long-range drone attacks on Russian targets including oil refineries.

Russia says its long-range aerial attacks are used to degrade Ukraine militarily. Ukraine says Russia's attacks have hit civilian buildings and caused serious damage to civilian energy facilities and loss of civilian life.

Russian troops occupy around 18% of Ukrainian territory and have been making incremental gains in the east in recent months, putting Kyiv on the back foot along a 1,000-km (600-mile) front line.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russian missile destroys secret Ukrainian arms depot – MOD

The Russian military has destroyed a Ukrainian warehouse in Donbass, which allegedly stored several multiple launch rocket systems and more than a dozen armored vehicles, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has claimed. Officials also released a video of the alleged strike.

In a statement on Friday, the ministry said that Moscow’s forces used an Iskander-M short-range ballistic missile to strike the facility in the key regional hub of Kramatorsk, currently occupied by Ukraine, where artillery of Ukraine’s 56th separate motorized infantry brigade was stored.

The missile strike destroyed a US-supplied HIMARS system, five Soviet-era Grad multiple launch rocket systems, five tanks, and up to ten armored combat vehicles, officials added.

The ministry also released black-and-white aerial footage of the strike showing the industrial zone in the city of Kramatorsk, not far from a major railway junction. A large plume of smoke and fire can be seen rising from one of the large buildings in the area.

Iskander missiles – which can carry a payload of 700kg of explosives up to 500km and travel at hypersonic speeds – have been actively used by Russia in the Ukraine conflict to strike Kiev’s staging areas, command and control centers, airfields, defense industrial facilities, and other military targets.

Two recent strikes targeted a tank factory and a foreign mercenary base in Ukraine’s border region of Kharkov, according to the Defense Ministry.

Reuters/RT

I am not that old, but one time, I was telling my younger cousins about how Netflix used to be a mailing service, and they were absolutely gobsmacked. I myself was kinda shocked too, because I'd just assumed that was common knowledge. (Wait till I tell them about the mythical world of Blockbuster.) So when redditor u/MrDNLasked the people of r/AskOldPeople to share the common knowledge from their time that younger generations might have a hard time believing, I was all in. Here are some of the responses that will either make you feel totally nostalgic or completely puzzled:

1. "When the internet first came out, you couldn't talk on the phone and be online at the same time."

—u/LosBrad

2. "Going to get gas was more of an experience. When you went, the gas station attendants would put gas in your car, clean your windshield, and check your oil. After that, you just paid them through your car window; you never had to get out of the car."

—u/3D-ironowl

3. "I'm just old enough to remember smoking on planes. It still blows my mind that that was a thing!"

—u/Linzcro

4. "We used to make our Christmas or birthday wishlists from looking in store catalogs, like Sears. You could actually order and pay for things via snail mail, and it was safe to do so."

—u/LeeAnnLongSocks

5. "This wasn't that long ago, but there used to be no security screenings at airports. You could literally walk the person to the boarding area and watch them board the plane."

—u/LCCR_2028

6. "Whenever you wanted to download something online, you'd have to basically threaten everyone in the house with their lives if they picked up the phone during the amount of download time it took. It would take hours to download a game or an image, and if someone used the phone, the download would START OVER from the beginning. Plus, in the mid-'90s, you'd have to pay by the hour."

—u/Shaydie

7. "My 20-year-old son liked hearing this one: When driving in unfamiliar territory, you had to get directions by either stopping at the gas station and asking an attendant, or buying a map/atlas."

—u/littlemissnoname-

8. "Seatbelts weren't taken seriously by most people until the '90s."

—u/Top-Philosophy-5791

9. "There were ashtrays everywhere: homes, businesses, restaurants, hospitals, malls, designated areas in schools, and more. Even if you didn't smoke, it was normal to have ashtrays available for your guests in the house — like on the coffee table or in the kitchen."

—u/oldcatsarecute

10. "My boss blew my young coworker's mind the other day when she explained that there is a special kind of black paper that you can put between two regular pieces of paper, and when you write on the top page, it also shows up on the bottom page."

—u/mr_roborto

11. "Drunk driving wasn't a serious crime until a group of moms got together and advocated (MADD)."

—u/MizzGee

12. "There was a room called the 'coal room' in the basement of our house. We'd shovel coal from that room into a coal furnace whenever we needed to heat our house up. The coal was delivered by a truck that had a coal chute, which was inserted through a basement window in the coal room."

—u/Logybayer

13. "It was normal for an entire household to share a single phone number."

—u/AlexMango44
​

"And you only had to dial seven digits — four, if you were in a small town."
​

—u/notproudortired

14. "The drinking age was 18 back in my day, but you could walk into a bar at 16 and order a drink. Nobody really cared."

—u/jefuchs

15. "People used to actually write letters, put a stamp on them, and mail them to their friends and relatives! As a kid, I would write letters to my school friends over summer break just to tell them how my summer was going, and most would write back telling me how things were with them. I still remember when stamps went from 18 cents to 20 cents, and my grandma complained about how outrageous that was. Today, a first-class stamp is 68 cents, and I only mail Christmas cards and thank-you notes nowadays."

—u/SiroccoDream

16. "If you misbehaved in school, the teacher could — and would — dish out some corporal punishment. I had a couple of teachers who absolutely loved punishing kids with those big wooden paddles."

—u/Felon73

17. "When you watched TV, you had to watch what was on, and if you wanted to watch something in particular, you had to wait for it to come on."

—u/BreakfastBeerz
​

"No pause, fast-forward, or rewind, either. If you missed it, you missed it."
​

—u/Wonderland_4me

18. "Phone numbers were memorized, and there was no speed dial, caller ID, or voicemail. I still remember my home number and my best friend's number from over 50 years ago."

—u/ethottly

19. "Kids could leave home, and people didn't bat an eye about it. My grandfather was 8 when he left home and made his way in the world. He had no education and worked jobs for people, and no one even questioned why an 8-year-old was alone. He signed up for World War II when he was 17 because no one checked for identification."

—u/My_fair_ladies1872

20. "Houses in the same area had to share a telephone 'party line' where you could listen in on everyone else's conversations."

—u/mrxexon

21. "I remember that you couldn't know the sex of your kid until the baby was born. Apparently, there were ways to tell, though. I remember my mom's friends would hold a necklace with a weight over the woman's belly. They thought that you could tell the sex by whether the necklace swung up and down or back and forth."

—u/Shaydie

22. "In the '50s, the milkman would come in through our always unlocked back door and put the milk straight in our refrigerator. Unbelievable."

—u/Building_a_life

23. "On the evening news, every night they would show the 'Doomsday Clock.' It's an analog clock that, when it hits midnight, means we're in a nuclear war. It was usually very close to midnight — like five minutes before. Imagine having the very real threat of nuclear war looming over your head every single day."

—u/pingwing

24. "There were telephones EVERYWHERE: streets, shops, sidewalk corners, etc. And you paid for calls with COINS."

—u/PawzzClawzz

25. "Cigarette machines were pretty much everywhere. As long as you put the money in, you could get a pack of smokes no matter what age you were."

—u/No_Worldliness_6803

26. Lastly: "My adult children and all of their friends didn't believe me when I first told them that married women weren't allowed to have a credit card in their own name until 1974. Before that, women could only have a card through their husband."

—u/jmac94wp

I don't know about you guys, but I'm still stuck on the fact that people were allowed to smoke on planes?! Alright, if you have some fascinating facts or experiences about life back then that younger people would be surprised to hear, drop them in the comments below, or you can submit anonymously using this Google form!

Buzzfeed

The Pirangi Cashew Tree in Brazil’s Rio Grande do Norte is considered the world’s largest cashew tree. It has a circumference of around 500 meters and covers an area of 8,400 square meters.

Legend has it that the Pirangi Cashew Tree was planted in 1888 by a local fisherman who later died at the age of 93 under the shade of the humongous tree. However, experts believe that, based on its growth characteristics, “the tree is estimated to be more than a thousand years old”. One thing is for sure, though, this is no ordinary cashew tree. It is the size of 70 normally sized cashew trees and actually has to be seen from a special lookout point high above to be truly appreciated. It produces over 60,000 cashew fruits per year and also attracts hundreds of thousands of tourists from all over Brazil.

But just how did the world’s largest cashew tree get so big? Well, apparently, it has to do with a genetic anomaly that causes its branches to grow sideways rather than upwards. Weight and gravity cause the branches to bend toward the ground, and as they make contact with the soil, new roots begin to form and the tree continues to expand. Nowadays, it is almost impossible to distinguish the initial trunk from the rest of the tree.

Located on Pirangi do Norte beach, in Rio Grande do Norte, the Pirangi Cashew Tree became one of the main local tourist attractions after the tree was recognized by Guinness Records as the world’s largest cashew tree, covering an area of almost 8,500 square meters.

According to the Institute of Sustainable Development and Environment, which manages the famous Pirangi Cashew Tree, around 300,000 tourists visit the tree every year.

Interestingly, the Pirangi Cashew Tree has some home soil competition for the title of the world’s largest cashew tree. According to the state secretary of Tourism of Piauí, a cashew tree on the coast of Piauí is actually the world’s largest, covering an area of around 8,800 meters. However, that claim has yet to be officially verified by Guinness.

Oddity Central

Nigeria’s petroleum products import from Malta increased by 342 percent in 2023 to $2.08 billion amid an allegation by the Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote that officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited own blending plants in Malta.

Statisense disclosed this in data released through its X account outlining Nigeria’s petroleum imports in the last 10 years from 2013- 2023.

The data synchronized with that of Trade Map, a global database on International trade.

Further analysis of the data showed that from 2013-2016, Nigeria’s imports from the South European island of Malta were $237.81 million.

However, from 2017-2022, Nigeria did not import any petrol products from Malta.

Meanwhile, most recently, in 2023 Nigeria’s import from Malta swelled to $2.08 billion, according to Statisense data.

Nigeria’s imports from Malta were $2.25 billion in the same period, according to the United Nations Comtrade database on international trade.

Further insights from the National Bureau of Statistics data in the third Quarter of 2023 showed Malta was among the top five import destinations for Nigeria.

In Q3 alone, Nigeria’s import worth from Malta alone was N561.37 billion.

However, in Q1 and 2, Malta was not among the top five import destinations for Nigeria.

The data comes amid Chairman Dangote’s allegation on Monday that some officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and oil traders owned blending plants in Malta from where they import substandard products into Nigeria.

“Some of the terminals, some of the NNPC people and some traders have opened blending plants somewhere off Malta. We all know these areas. We know what they are doing,” Dangote said.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Group Chief Executive Officer, Mele Kyari, dismissed Dangote’s claim.

He denied knowing of any blending plant in Malta, adding that he does not know of any employee of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited who owns a plant in Malta.

“To clarify the allegations regarding the blending plant, I do not own or operate any business directly or by proxy anywhere in the world except a local mini Agric venture.

“Neither am I aware of any employee of the NNPC, that owns or operates a blending plant in Malta or anywhere else in the world”, Kyari said through his official X account on Tuesday.

In the past few days, Dangote Refinery and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority have been embroiled in a dispute over the latter’s comment.

The Chief Executive Officer of NMDPRA, Farouk Ahmed claimed that diesel from Dangote Refinery was of inferior quality compared to imported ones.

The accusation had spurred a wide range of outrage from Nigerians leading to a call for the suspension of the NMDPRA boss by the House of Representatives pending investigation into the matter.

The development comes on Dangote’s announcement that his refinery would commence petrol supply in the Nigerian domestic market from August 2024.

Daily Post