Comment on Purim - A Message to the West

Today, more than half the world’s population lives in cities—a figure expected to grow by 2.4 billion by 2050. Cities are at the heart of humanity’s future, but they are also ground zero for some of our biggest challenges: climate change, social inequality, and economic fragility. To house the growing urban population and achieve the U.

TORONTO — Embattled Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will shuffle his Cabinet Friday. The prime minister’s office confirmed late Thursday that Trudeau will participate in the swearing-in ceremony and chair a meeting with his new Cabinet later Friday. Trudeau is facing rising discontent over his leadership, and the abrupt departure of his finance minister on Monday could be something he can’t recover from. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] A rising number of Liberal lawmakers are calling on Trudeau to resign but new Finance Minister Dominic LeBlanc said Thursday Trudeau has the “full support of his Cabinet.” LeBlanc said he respects the views of Liberal lawmakers who want Trudeau to resign. “That’s a view they are expressing.

BRISBANE, Australia — Australian breaker Rachael “Raygun” Gunn has tried to be a good sport about the jokes and criticism that poured in from around the globe after her controversial performance at the Paris Olympics. But maybe “Raygun: the Musical” was a bridge too far. Comedian Stephanie Broadbridge called off the show just hours before it was set to premiere in Sydney, after Gunn’s lawyers contacted its comedy club venue and threatened legal action. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Broadbridge told her social media followers that the lawyers had trademarked the poster for the musical and told the comedian she could not do Gunn’s notorious kangaroo dance because the Olympian who went viral for her performance in Paris owns it. Gunn, a 37-year-old Sydney university lecturer, has said the fallout from her gig at the August debut of Olympic breaking left her “devastated” and forced her to retire from competition.

AVIGNON, France — Gisèle Pelicot said after 51 men were all found guilty Thursday in the drugging-and-rape trial that turned her into a feminist hero that the ordeal had been “very difficult” and expressed support for other victims of sexual violence. “We share the same fight,” she said in her first words after the court in the southern French city of Avignon handed down prison sentences ranging from three to 20 years in the shocking case that stunned France and spurred a national reckoning about the blight of rape culture. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Pelicot—whose courage and stoicism have turned her into an internationally recognized figure and an icon for many women—said she was thinking of her grandchildren after enduring more than three months of court hearings that dealt with the nearly decade of rapes and other abuse inflicted on her by her now ex-husband and his accomplices. “It’s also for them that I led this fight,” she said of her grandchildren. The court sentenced her ex-husband, Dominique Pelicot, to 20 years in prison for drugging and raping her and allowing other men to rape her while she was unconscious. The sentence was the maximum possible under French law.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A series of intense Israeli airstrikes shook Yemen’s rebel-held capital and a port city early Thursday and killed at least nine people, officials said, shortly after a Houthi missile targeted central Israel. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Thursday’s strikes risk further escalating conflict with the Iranian-backed Houthis, whose attacks on the Red Sea corridor have drastically impacted global shipping.

Catastrophic floods across Europe have caused death and destruction in recent months, including in Austria, the Czech Republic, Poland and Romania in September and the Spanish region of Valencia in October, where they claimed more than 220 lives. Experts say floods like these could have been less disastrous if the region counted on more nature-based solutions such as floodable parks or green roofs to absorb and slow down the large masses of water.