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The Metropolitan Opera in New York announced Wednesday an agreement to perform in Saudi Arabia and provide artistic training in the oil-rich kingdom as it works to shore up a creaky financial outlook.The prestigious cultural institution, which received a Moody’s credit downgrade just days ago, will travel to Riyadh for five years to perform during the opera house’s winter break under an agreement with the Saudi Music Commission.The performances will be at the Royal Diriyah Opera House, which is expected to open in 2028.The agreement commits Met creative staff to provide training to Saudi opera singers, composers, directors and other artisans. The collaboration also envisions the commissioning of a new opera, according to a joint press release by the Met and Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Culture.”Music is a universal language that transcends borders, uniting people through creativity,” said a statement from Paul Pacifico, the CEO of the Saudi Music Commission.”This collaboration is more than a cultural exchange; it is an opportunity to forge new connections, share our stories through music, and contribute to a vibrant global arts community.” The venture reflects the “increasingly challenging” economics of producing Grand Opera, Met General Manager Peter Gelb told AFP.”The Met cannot survive based on the earned revenue sources and the annual fundraising,” said Gelb, who declined to provide financial details about the venture. “This agreement with the Saudi government helps us meet our financial needs.”On August 27, Moody’s Ratings downgraded the Met two notches to “B3,” placing the institution more deeply into the non-investment grade category, reflecting “persistent and increasing deterioration in the operating performance.”A note from Moody’s emphasized Met moves to tap its endowment to cover deficits, noting a $70 million draw in 2023 and 2024 and another $50 million authorized in 2025.”These draws will reduce future support to budgetary operations as regular draws decline in line with lower reserves,” Moody’s said.Gelb said the Met is actively exploring other sources of raising funds. These include licensing agreements of its intellectual property, as well as naming rights to the Met building at Lincoln Center. 

A dealer dubbed the “Ketamine Queen” pleaded guilty to supplying the drugs that killed “Friends” actor Matthew Perry, when she appeared in a California court on Wednesday.Jasveen Sangha could face over six decades in prison after admitting to a bevy of charges, including one count of distributing ketamine resulting in death or serious bodily injury.Sangha, who is a dual citizen of the United States and Britain, has been in federal custody since August 2024, and is expected to be sentenced on December 10.The 42-year-old is the fifth person to admit playing a part in the death of the beloved actor, who had openly struggled for decades with substance addiction.Perry, 54, was found dead in the hot tub of his Los Angeles home in October 2023.A criminal investigation was launched soon after an autopsy discovered he had high levels of ketamine — an anesthetic — in his system.Dr Salvador Plasencia pleaded guilty to four counts of distribution of ketamine relating to the the weeks before Perry’s death.Another doctor, Mark Chavez, admitted last year to conspiring to distribute ketamine to Perry.Plasencia allegedly bought ketamine off Chavez and sold it to the American-Canadian actor at hugely inflated prices.”I wonder how much this moron will pay,” Plasencia wrote in one text message.Prosecutors said addict Perry was paying $2,000 per vial of ketamine; his dealers paid just $12.Sangha worked with a middleman, Erik Fleming, to sell 51 vials of ketamine to Perry’s live-in personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa.Iwamasa repeatedly injected Perry with the ketamine that she had supplied, including on October 28, 2023, when he administered at least three shots of Sangha’s drugs, which killed the actor.When Sangha heard news reports about Perry’s sudden death, she tried to cover her tracks.”Delete all our messages,” she instructed Fleming.When investigators raided Sangha’s home in North Hollywood they found methamphetamine, ketamine, ecstasy, cocaine, and counterfeit Xanax pills, as well as a money counting machine, a scale, and devices to detect wireless signals and hidden cameras.- ‘Mostly sober’ -Sangha on Wednesday pleaded guilty to one count of maintaining a drug-involved premises, three counts of distribution of ketamine and one count of distribution of ketamine resulting in death or serious bodily injury.Her plea acknowledges that she also sold four vials of ketamine to another man, 33-year-old Cody McLaury, in August 2019. McLaury died hours later from an overdose.”She’s taking responsibility for her actions,” her lawyer Mark Geragos told AFP earlier.The other people involved in the supply of drugs to Perry are expected to appear in court over the coming months to learn their fates.Perry had been taking ketamine as part of supervised therapy for depression.But prosecutors say that before his death he became addicted to the substance, which also has psychedelic properties and is a popular party drug.”Friends,” which followed the lives of six New Yorkers navigating adulthood, dating and careers, drew a massive following and made megastars of previously unknown actors.Perry’s role as the sarcastic man-child Chandler brought him fabulous wealth, but hid a dark struggle with addiction to painkillers and alcohol.In 2018, he suffered a drug-related burst colon and underwent multiple surgeries.In his 2022 memoir “Friends, Lovers and the Big Terrible Thing,” Perry described going through detox dozens of times.”I have mostly been sober since 2001,” he wrote, “save for about sixty or seventy little mishaps.”

President Donald Trump hosted new Polish President Karol Nawrocki on Wednesday at the White House with a military flyover and an offer to send more US troops to the eastern European ally.Talks were expected to focus on efforts to end the war in Ukraine, where Trump’s peacemaking efforts have been struggling to get traction.Trump called it a “stupid war” and said he thought ending it would have been “much easier” for him.”It’s going to get done,” he vowed to reporters in the Oval Office, with Nawrocki at his side.Nawrocki, a nationalist historian and fervent Trump supporter, was in Washington for his first foreign visit as president after having visited the US leader to seek his backing during the Polish election campaign.Trump gave him a warm welcome, including an offer to boost the US military footprint in Poland.”We’ll put more there if they want,” he said in the Oval Office. “We’re with Poland all the way and we’ll help Poland protect itself.”Nawrocki praised the US troop presence and said it was “the first time in history” that Poland had been happy to host foreign troops, while stressing that Warsaw aims to keep increasing its own military spending within the NATO alliance.The White House said a flyover by F-16 and F-35 jets during Nawrocki’s arrival commemorated the death of a Polish F-16 jet pilot killed last week while preparing for an air show.Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement to AFP that the flyover, which featured a so-called “missing-man formation,” was staged to “honor the memory of a brave Polish fighter pilot, whose life was tragically taken too soon, and capture the special relationship between our two countries.”While Trump and Nawrocki see eye-to-eye politically, Poland is closely watching the US leader’s peace efforts in neighboring Ukraine, which Warsaw has largely been frozen out of.- Ukraine war rages on -Key NATO and EU member Poland has been a strong supporter of Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion and is a vital transit country for military and humanitarian supplies, as well as host to thousands of US troops.Trump’s efforts to get Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to the negotiating table have so far stalled. Putin vowed during a visit to Beijing on Wednesday to keep fighting in Ukraine if a peace deal cannot be reached, while Zelensky said he hoped to talk to Trump on Thursday about possible additional sanctions against Russia.Nawrocki will also be seeking fresh support from Trump amid deep political polarization in Poland between himself and his country’s pro-EU government, led by former European Council chief Donald Tusk.The novice Polish president recently blocked a law extending Ukrainian refugees’ rights proposed by Tusk’s government. Nawrocki has also, like Trump, opposed Ukraine’s desire for NATO membership.The visit is nevertheless a chance for Trump to celebrate the election of yet another right-wing ally in Europe.Trump welcomed Nawrocki to the Oval Office in June before the Polish election, with the White House posting a picture of the pair grinning and giving the thumbs-up sign.During the election campaign, Nawrocki highlighted the importance of ties with the United States and his close ties with Trump. His “Poland First, Poles First” echoed Trump’s “America First” slogan.

California, Washington and Oregon announced Wednesday they will form a new public health body to issue vaccine guidelines, saying the move is needed to counter the Trump administration’s growing “politicization” of science.The planned “West Coast Health Alliance” comes amid turmoil at the federal level following the ouster of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) director Sue Monarez, who had clashed with Health Secretary and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over immunization policy.The alliance’s formation comes after mass layoffs at the CDC, and a shooting outside the agency’s headquarters in Atlanta by an anti-vaccine gunman that left a police officer dead.”President (Donald) Trump’s mass firing of CDC doctors and scientists — and his blatant politicization of the agency — is a direct assault on the health and safety of the American people,” California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a joint statement with officials from the other two states.”The CDC has become a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science — ideology that will lead to severe health consequences. California, Oregon and Washington will not allow the people of our states to be put at risk,” added Newsom, one of the country’s most prominent anti-Trump politicians.The statement said the alliance will work with scientists and medical associations to finalize shared principles “in the coming weeks.”Under Kennedy’s leadership, the federal health department has restricted access to Covid-19 vaccines, cut off funding for the mRNA technology credited with saving millions of lives during the pandemic, and dismissed a panel of independent experts that advises the CDC on immunization policy.A new panel of handpicked experts promptly voted to remove a vaccine preservative long at the center of conspiracy theories linking it to autism, despite decades of research showing it is safe.Kennedy, who has made promoting the debunked link between vaccines and autism a personal crusade, has vowed to unveil new information on the causes of the neurodevelopmental disorder this month.

The Trump administration is attacking higher education institutions in the United States as authoritarian governments seek to quash independent thought, the former president of Harvard University said Wednesday.The prestigious university is at loggerheads with Trump, who believes Ivy League schools are unaccountable bastions of liberal, anti-conservative bias and anti-Semitism, particularly around the protests against Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Trump has sought to cut more than $2.6 billion of funding to Harvard, and has moved to block entry of international students — a quarter of its student body.”The truth here is that our government, the American government, is attacking higher ed and universities,” Claudine Gay told the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences in Amsterdam.”The agenda here is about destroying knowledge institutions because they are centres of independent thought and information,” she added. “That is the story. Nothing justifies that. Nothing explains that. Other than authoritarians don’t like independent centres of thought and information,” said Gay in rare public comments.- ‘Distressing’ compliance policy -Gay, the first black woman to lead Harvard in its 368-year history, stepped down in January 2024 amid a row over alleged anti-Semitism on campus following protests about the Gaza war.Her resignation followed a heated appearance at a Capitol Hill hearing.Republican lawmaker Elise Stefanik likened student calls for a new intifada — an Arabic word for uprising that harks back to the first Palestinian revolt against Israel in 1987 — to inciting “genocide against the Jewish people in Israel and globally.”When Stefanik asked Gay whether such calls would violate Harvard’s code of conduct, Gay replied: “We embrace a commitment to free expression even of views that are objectionable, offensive, hateful.”When speech crosses into conduct that violates our policies, including policies against bullying, harassment or intimidation, we take action,” she said during the hearing.The blowback to the Congress hearing was rapid and intense.Former Harvard student and multi-million-dollar donor Bill Ackman claimed that the high-profile row had led to “billions of dollars of cancelled, paused, and withdrawn donations to the university”.Gay apologised but eventually resigned in January 2024 after allegations that she improperly cited scholarly sources in her academic work added to the pressure.In her comments in the Netherlands, she said Harvard appeared to be moving towards a policy of “compliance” with Trump’s demands.”This is distressing… Not only for those of us who are on campus and face the consequences directly, but also for all of those in higher ed who look to Harvard for leadership and guidance.”

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum on Wednesday, a day after the United States dramatically escalated pressure on cartels with what it said was a targeted strike near Venezuela.Rubio is scheduled to hold talks with Sheinbaum at 10:00 am local time (1600 GMT) before a joint news conference with Foreign Secretary Juan Ramon de la Fuente, according to the US State Department.Few expect the United States, even under the mercurial President Donald Trump, to carry out a strike similar to Tuesday’s in the Caribbean on the soil of Mexico, where Sheinbaum has focused on cooperation in her country’s complicated relationship with Washington.But Tuesday’s attack, and occasional heated rhetoric by Trump’s allies against the United States’ southern neighbor, have been enough to raise alarm bells in Mexico.Sheinbaum, addressing reporters on Tuesday before the strike, said that any US military “intervention” in Mexico was a red line.Mexico will not “accept violations of our territory,” she said.”We don’t accept subordination. Simply collaboration between nations on equal terms.”Trump said that the United States killed 11 people when it blew up a speedboat in the Caribbean that was leaving Venezuela and was allegedly affiliated with Tren de Aragua, a gang designated by Washington as a terrorist organization.AFP has not been able to verify the number of people in the boat and their identities.The attack marked a major escalation of US action after Trump signed an executive order authorizing military action against drug cartels.Trump has “been very clear that he’s going to use the full power of America, the full might of the United States, to take on and eradicate these drug cartels, no matter where they’re operating from,” Rubio said Tuesday.But Venezuela is a unique case, as the United States does not recognize the legitimacy of President Nicolas Maduro, a leftist firebrand whose last election in 2024 was widely seen internationally and by the opposition as riddled with irregularities.Sheinbaum, who also comes from the political left, has sought a pragmatic relationship with Trump, who has voiced respect for her despite his past harsh comments about Mexicans.Like her predecessor and fellow leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Sheinbaum has largely cooperated with Trump in his key priority of curbing migration to the United States.Mexico has stepped up enforcement on its borders in recent years — including its own southern border, a gateway for Central American migrants to the United States.Sheinbaum has also taken steps to curb imports from China, whose manufacturers have eyed Mexico as a way into the US market.The Trump administration has already imposed a slew of new sanctions in hopes of weakening major cartels in Mexico.Trump blames the cartels for the flow of fentanyl, the powerful painkiller behind an overdose epidemic in the United States.Sheinbaum, in turn, has pursued legal action against US gunmakers over violence inside Mexico.Mexico, which has tighter controls on guns, says that between 200,000 and 750,000 weapons manufactured by US gunmakers are smuggled across the border from the United States every year, many of which are found at crime scenes.

President Donald Trump said US forces had attacked a boat carrying drugs to the United States Tuesday, killing 11 “narcoterrorists” from a gang he alleged was controlled by leftist Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.Trump posted a video online of an open-topped speedboat carrying a number of people traveling on a body of water before it exploded in a ball of flames. The move is a potentially significant escalation in the standoff between Caracas and Washington, after the United States deployed eight warships to Latin America in what it bills as a war on drug trafficking.Trump initially announced at the White House that US forces had “shot out a boat… a drug carrying boat, lots of drugs in that boat” without giving details.The Republican later posted a statement about the strike on his Truth Social network, along with the black and white video of the exploding boat.”Earlier this morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists,” Trump said, without specifying the weapon used.”The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States. The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action.”No US forces were harmed, Trump added.He went on to allege that Tren de Aragua — a Venezuelan group he has frequently referred to as part of his crackdown on undocumented migration — was “operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro.”The United States designated the gang a terrorist organization earlier this year.”Please let this serve as notice to anybody even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE!” Trump added in his post.AFP has not been able to verify the number of people in the boat and their identities.- ‘Full might’ -Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a vociferous critic of Maduro, vowed separately to keep using the “full might” of the United States to “eradicate” drug cartels.Trump has “been very clear that he’s going to use the full power of America, the full might of the United States, to take on and eradicate these drug cartels, no matter where they’re operating from,” Rubio told reporters as he left Miami for a visit to Mexico.Rubio earlier said on X that the vessel had “departed from Venezuela.”Venezuela’s Maduro has cast the recent US deployment as a threat to the country.There are currently eight US Navy ships involved in counter-narcotics efforts in Latin America: three amphibious assault ships, two destroyers, a cruiser and a littoral combat ship in the Caribbean and a destroyer in the eastern Pacific, a US defense official said Tuesday on condition of anonymity.The announcement of the strike followed days of mounting tension between Washington and Caracas, with Maduro declaring a state of “maximum readiness” to defend against what he says are US military threats.Maduro has been in Trump’s crosshairs since the Republican’s first term from 2017 to 2021.But the US president’s policy of maximum pressure, including an oil embargo, has failed to dislodge the Venezuelan leader from power.Washington has doubled to $50 million a bounty for the capture of Maduro, whose re-election in 2024 and 2018 were not recognized by the United States or much of the international community amid allegations of fraud and voter oppression.Analysts have told AFP that the deployment of the US warships was likely aimed at ramping up pressure on Maduro, who has repeatedly accused Trump of attempting to bring about regime change.Last week, Caracas petitioned the United Nations to intervene in the dispute by demanding “the immediate cessation of the US military deployment in the Caribbean.”And on Monday, Maduro said Venezuela was prepared for “a period of armed struggle in defense of the national territory” in case of an attack.Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said in a video message on Tuesday that the fall of the Maduro administration was “not far off” and that “Venezuela will soon be free.””With each passing day, the net cast by Western democrats over the narco-terrorist cartel… closes in,” she said in a video shown at a Venezuelan opposition event in Panama City.dk-wd-sct-hol/mtp

From manipulated images to out-of-context photos, false claims that Donald Trump is seriously ill — or even dead — have swirled online, with the misinformation persisting even after the US president publicly rejected it on Tuesday.At a White House press conference, Trump dismissed social media rumors about his health as “fake news,” following the 79-year-old’s noticeable absence from public appearances and press events last week.Since last Friday, there were around 104,000 mentions of the hashtag “Trump dead” on the Elon Musk-owned platform X, generating a cumulative 35.3 million views, according to an analysis from the misinformation watchdog NewsGuard.Some social media users cited online maps purportedly showing road closures near Maryland’s Walter Reed National Military Medical Center as evidence that Trump was being treated for a serious ailment at the facility.But there were no credible reports of road closures around the medical facility.Other social media users shared an image of an ambulance parked outside the White House, claiming it was taken last month and citing it as evidence of a health crisis involving Trump.It was actually an old photo posted by a journalist on X in April 2023 — while Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, was still in office, according to NewsGuard.Some users claiming that Trump was dead shared an out-of-context image of the White House flag flying at half-staff, a traditional gesture used to honor the death of a prominent official.In reality, Trump had issued a proclamation last week ordering flags at the White House, military posts, and naval stations across the country to be lowered in honor of the victims of a school shooting in Minneapolis.Some users also posted a zoomed-in image of Trump’s face, claiming it showed a deep line above his eye that indicated a recent stroke.But NewsGuard found that the original image was out-of-focus and showed no signs of a line over Trump’s eye. The image used in the false posts was digitally enhanced using an AI tool.The misinformation — which appeared to originate from liberal anti-Trump accounts on X, Bluesky, and Instagram — persisted even after Trump stated on Truth Social over the weekend: “NEVER FELT BETTER IN MY LIFE.”The falsehoods continued to circulate following Trump’s press conference on Tuesday, where he publicly dismissed the health rumors.Shortly after the conference, one Bluesky account falsely claimed that the “White House just announced” the president was dead.The falsehoods highlight how facts are increasingly under assault on a misinformation-filled internet landscape, an issue exacerbated by public distrust of institutions and traditional media.The health of US presidents has always been closely watched, but with the White House seeing its two oldest ever occupants since 2017 the scrutiny is now heavier than ever.Trump — the oldest man ever to be elected US president — has alleged that Democrats covered up the mental and physical decline of Biden, who was 82 when he left office in January.Biden’s health was a key issue in the 2024 election, and the then-president was forced to drop his campaign for a second term after a disastrous debate performance against Trump.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday opened a visit to Mexico which warned against violations of its sovereignty, as the United States said it carried out a deadly strike on a drug-smuggling boat from Venezuela.Rubio is paying the highest-ranking visit to the US neighbor since President Donald Trump returned to office in January with an agenda of cracking down on migration and drug cartels.Mexico so far has navigated the treacherous terrain with Trump, with President Claudia Sheinbaum seeking to avoid confrontation.Sheinbaum will meet Wednesday with Rubio, who was personally welcomed on the tarmac under overcast skies by Mexican Foreign Secretary Juan Ramon de la Fuente.But hours before Rubio’s arrival, Sheinbaum said she would draw a line on US military “intervention” in Mexico.”The United States is not going to act alone because there is an understanding,” she told reporters.”We have been working for months on an understanding to collaborate on security matters,” she said.Mexico will not “accept violations of our territory, we don’t accept subordination. Simply collaboration between nations on equal terms.”Trump said the United States killed 11 people Tuesday by destroying a speedboat allegedly from a gang linked to Venezuela’s leftist leader Nicolas Maduro.Rubio, speaking to reporters in Miami before departure, suggested it was not the last US attack and warned that the “days of acting with impunity” were over.Trump has “been very clear that he’s going to use the full power of America, the full might of the United States, to take on and eradicate these drug cartels, no matter where they’re operating from,” Rubio said.The United States does not recognize Maduro and few expect similar attacks on Mexican soil, even if some of Trump’s allies in Congress have mused of war.- Sheinbaum focuses on cooperation -Sheinbaum hails from Mexico’s left but has been able to earn the respect of Trump, much like her predecessor and ideological ally Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador did in Trump’s first term.Mexico has cooperated on enforcement of the border against US-bound migrants, who mostly come from Central America or elsewhere rather than Mexico, and extradited people wanted by the United States.She has also taken steps to curb imports from China, whose manufacturers have eyed Mexico as a way into the US market.”President Sheinbaum from the beginning decided that she is going to seek a cooperative and collaborative relationship” with the Trump administration, said Jason Marczak, vice president and senior director at the Atlantic Council’s Latin America Center.”She has been emphatic in defending Mexican sovereignty, but at the same time reaching out to the United States and seeing where they can work together,” he said.The stability in the relationship marks a sharp contrast to Trump’s pressure campaigns against the outspoken leftist leaders of two other Latin American powers, Brazil and Colombia.Trump earlier this year even took the uncharacteristic step of crediting her with an idea on combatting fentanyl, the painkilling drug behind an overdose epidemic in the United States.”I know everything, and I never learn anything from anybody, and I spoke to this woman, and as soon as she said it, I said, ‘Exactly, what a great idea,'” said Trump, who has also commented favorably on the appearance of Mexico’s first female president.Sheinbaum is riding high in polls with the support of three-quarters of Mexicans, in part over how she has managed Trump, who rose to political prominence vowing to erect a wall to seal off the Mexican border.The image of the United States has deteriorated more sharply in Mexico than in any other country since Trump returned, according to a Pew Research Center survey published in July, which found that 91 percent of Mexicans lacked confidence in Trump.

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday blamed AI for a viral video that appeared to show a black bag being thrown out of a White House window.Trump’s claim came despite US media earlier quoting a White House official as saying that a contractor had been disposing of trash during renovations.”No, that’s probably AI-generated,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when a reporter asked about the video. “Actually, you can’t open the windows. You know why, they’re all heavily armored and bulletproof.” Trump asked the journalist, Peter Doocy of Fox News, to show him the video.The brief clip that went viral over the weekend appears to show a black plastic bag being thrown out an open window on the second floor of the White House, where the private presidential residence is located.After Doocy approached the lectern and showed him, the 79-year-old said it was a “little bit scary” how realistic artificial intelligence-generated videos could be.But before Trump was asked about it, US media including the New York Times quoted the White House press office as saying that the video was real, although it showed nothing suspicious.Instead it showed a contractor doing “regular maintenance” while Trump was absent.The internet rumor was not the only one that Trump was forced to debunk on Tuesday — he also dismissed as “fake news” a series of social media-driven rumors about his health, including that he might even be dead.