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UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- The poverty rate in Palestine will soar by 34 percent, thrusting nearly half a million additional people into poverty, if the war in Gaza continues for a second month, warns a UN report.

In such a scenario, Palestine's gross domestic product (GDP) will plummet by 8.4 percent -- a loss of 1.7 billion U.S. dollars, according to initial estimates by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA).

UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) -- UN humanitarians said on Thursday that they released 25 million U.S. dollars to jumpstart relief from the once-in-a-century flooding in Somalia that has already affected nearly 1.2 million people.

The United Nations and its partners estimate that 1.6 million people could be affected by flooding in the current rainy season from October to December, with 1.5 million hectares of farmland potentially being destroyed, said the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s lawyers made a longshot bid Thursday to immediately end to the New York civil fraud trial that threatens his real estate empire, arguing that state lawyers had failed to prove that the former president intended to dupe banks, insurers and others by inflating his wealth on financial statements.

Trump’s lawyers sought a directed verdict, asking Judge Arthur Engoron to clear the 2024 Republican front-runner, his namesake company and other defendants of wrongdoing at the halfway point in the trial of state Attorney General Letitia James’ lawsuit.

NEW YORK, Nov 8 (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday that the number of civilians killed in the Gaza Strip shows that there is something "clearly wrong" with Israel's military operations against Hamas Palestinian militants.

Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, after the militants killed 1,400 people and took more than 240 hostages in an Oct. 7 attack. Israel has struck Gaza - an enclave of 2.3 million people - from the air, imposed a siege and launched a ground invasion.

NEW YORK (AP) — Ivanka Trump testified Wednesday that she had no role in her father’s personal financial statements, echoing her adult brothers about documents central to the civil fraud trial that could reshape Donald Trump’s family business.

The former president’s elder daughter, who has been in his inner circle in both business and politics, rounds out a major stretch in the trial. Her father took the stand on Monday, and her brothers Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. testified last week.

NEW YORK (AP) — A defiant Donald Trump sparred with a New York judge and slammed the state attorney general suing him Monday, using the witness stand at his civil fraud trial to defend his riches and lash out at a case that imperils his real estate empire.

The former president’s barbed testimony spurred the judge to admonish, “This is not a political rally.”

NEW YORK (AP) —Exonerated “Central Park Five” member Yusef Salaam is poised to win a seat Tuesday on the New York City Council, marking a stunning reversal of fortune for a political newcomer who was wrongly imprisoned as a teenager in the infamous rape case.

Salaam, a Democrat, will represent a central Harlem district on the City Council, having run unopposed for the seat in one of many local elections playing out across New York state on Tuesday. He won his primary election in a landslide.

UNITED NATIONS, Nov 6 (NNN-AGENCIES) — At least 4.4 million people in 95 countries are stateless or of undetermined nationality, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said.

In its annual report marking the 9th anniversary of its #IBelong campaign, the UNHCR said the actual figure globally is believed to be significantly higher, “given the relative invisibility of stateless people in national statistical exercises.”

The agency noted that stateless people, often belonging to minority groups, are often deprived of human rights and access to basic services.

NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump began testifying Monday morning in his civil fraud trial, producing a spectacle of a former president and the leading Republican presidential candidate defending himself against allegations that he dramatically inflated his net worth.

His turn on the witness stand, in a case that cuts to the heart of the business brand he spent decades crafting, amounts to a remarkable convergence of his legal troubles and his political ventures.

NEW YORK (AP) — Robert De Niro’s former top executive assistant said she found it “creepy” when the actor insisted she scratch his back, an example of behavior she found controlling and abusive before she quit her job in 2019, she testified Friday at a New York civil trial.

In a full day of testimony, Graham Chase Robinson became emotional several times as she claimed that the trauma she endured before she quit working for De Niro in 2019 after 11 years has left her jobless and depressed.