Veterans unemployment rate drops in September, Israel marks one-year anniversary of Hamas attack as Hezbollah rockets hit Haifa, and South Korea says North Korean showing off nuclear might to get U.S. attention.
1. Military veterans also benefited in last month’s improving national employment figures, according to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. A better-than-expected 254,000 jobs were added to the economy in September, and the overall unemployment rate ticked down from 4.2% to 4.1%, said a bureau report released Friday. For veterans, the jobless rate fell from 3.5% in August to 2.7% in September, according to the report.
2. Israelis were holding vigils and somber ceremonies on Monday to mark a year since the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack, the deadliest in the country’s history, which sparked the war in Gaza and scarred Israelis indelibly. The surprise cross-border attack, which caught Israel unprepared on a major Jewish holiday, shattered Israelis’ sense of security and shook their faith in their leaders and their military. Its aftershocks still ripple one year later. The war in Gaza rages on and Israel is fighting a new war against Hezbollah, which began attacking Israel on Oct. 8. There is also an escalating conflict with Iran — which backs both Hamas and Hezbollah militant groups — that threatens to drag the region into a far more dangerous conflagration.
3. Hezbollah rockets hit Israel's third largest city Haifa early on Monday as the country looked poised to expand ground incursions into southern Lebanon on the first anniversary of the Gaza war, which has spread conflict across the Middle East. Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group fighting Israel in Gaza, said it targeted a military base south of Haifa with "Fadi 1" missiles and launched another attack on Tiberias, 65 km (40 miles) away. The spiraling conflict has raised concerns that the United States, Israel's superpower ally, and Iran will be sucked into a wider war in the oil-producing Middle East.
4. North Korea’s recent disclosure of a nuclear facility was likely an attempt to grab U.S. attention ahead of next month's presidential election, and the North will likely stage major provocations like a nuclear test explosion and a long-range missile test, South Korea’s president says. President Yoon Suk Yeol shared his government’s assessment on the recent moves by North Korea with The Associated Press, before he leaves Sunday for a three-nation trip that includes a stop in Laos for summits with Southeast Asian and other world leaders. At Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-related meetings, Yoon says he’ll emphasize that North Korea’s nuclear disarmament is essential to regional peace.
5. Ukraine’s military claimed it struck a major oil terminal Monday in Crimea that provides fuel for Russia’s war effort as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the war has entered a key phase. Both sides are facing the issue of how to sustain their costly war of attrition — a conflict that started with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and that shows no signs of a resolution. Ukraine’s General Staff said on social media that the oil terminal in Feodosia, on the south coast of the Russia-occupied Crimea Peninsula, has been supplying the Russian army with fuel and that the strike was part of an ongoing effort to “undermine the military and economic potential of the Russian Federation.”
- News