American Rare Earths Limited (ARR:AU) has announced Successful Completion-Impurity Removal Neutralization Tests
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American Rare Earths Limited (ARR:AU) has announced Successful Completion-Impurity Removal Neutralization Tests
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Green Technology Metals (GT1:AU) has announced Successful A$4.5m Two Tranche Placement
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Thousands of U.S.-bound packages shipped by UPS are trapped at hubs across the country, unable to clear the maze of new customs requirements imposed by the Trump administration.
As packages flagged for customs issues pile up in UPS warehouses, the company told NBC News it has begun “disposing of” some shipments.
Frustrated UPS customers describe waiting for weeks and trying to make sense of scores of conflicting tracking updates from the world’s largest courier.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Matthew Wasserbach, brokerage manager of Express Customs Clearance, said of the UPS backlog. “It’s totally unprecedented.”
Wasserbach’s New York City-based shipping services firm helps clients move shipments through customs. He said the company has seen a spike in inquiries for help with UPS customs clearance.
More than two dozen people who are waiting for their UPS packages explained the circumstances of their shipments to NBC News.
They described shipments of tea, telescopes, luxury glassware, musical instruments and more — some worth tens of thousands of dollars — all in limbo or perhaps gone.
Others have deep sentimental value: notebooks, diplomas and even engagement rings.
The frustration has exploded online, with customers sharing horror stories on Reddit of missing skin care products, art and collectibles.
They are confused and angry, and they want answers.
“It’s almost impossible to get through to anybody to figure out what is happening,” said Ashley Freberg, who said she is missing several boxes she shipped via UPS from England in September.
“Are my packages actually being destroyed or not?”
Freberg’s boxes of journals, records and books were shipped on Sept. 18, according to tracking documents she shared with NBC News.
Over the next two weeks, she received two separate notifications from UPS that her personal mementos had not cleared customs and as a result had been “disposed of” by UPS.
Then, on Oct. 1, a UPS tracking update appeared for her packages, saying they were on the way. The tracking updates Freberg showed NBC News for that shipment revealed it was the most recent update she had received.
While sentimental value is impossible to measure, other customers fear they will not be able to recover financially if their goods were destroyed.
Tea importer Lauren Purvis of Portland, Oregon, said five shipments from Japan, mostly containing matcha green tea and collectively worth more than $127,000, were all sent via UPS over the last few weeks and arrived at UPS’ international package processing hub in Louisville, Kentucky. Purvis has yet to receive any of the shipments, only a flurry of conflicting tracking updates from UPS.
A series of notifications for one shipment, which she shared with NBC News, said that the shipment had not cleared customs and that UPS had disposed of it.
But a subsequent tracking update said the shipment had cleared customs and was on the way.
“We know how to properly document and pay for our packages,” Purvis said. “There should be zero reason that a properly documented and paid-for package would be set to be disposed of.”
At least a half-dozen people described an emotional seesaw they were put through by weeks of contradictory UPS tracking updates about their shipments. The updates, they said, compounded the stress of not knowing what had really happened to their possessions.
AJ, a Boston man who asked that NBC News use only his initials to protect his privacy, said he shipped a package from Japan via UPS on Sept. 12 including Japanese language books, a pillow and a backpack.
After it sat in Louisville for nearly two weeks, AJ got a tracking update on Sept. 26, one of several that he shared with NBC News. “We’re sorry, your package did not clear customs and has been removed from the UPS network. Per customs guidelines, it has been destroyed. Please contact the sender for more information,” it read.
Three days later, on Sept. 29, he received another, and this one read: “On the Way. Import Scan, Louisville, KY, United States.” For a moment, it appeared as though AJ’s shipment might have been found.
But less than 24 hours after his hopes were raised, another tracking update arrived: “We’re sorry,” it began. It was the same notice that his package had “been destroyed” that he had received on the 26th.
Two minutes later, he got his final update: “Unable to Deliver. Package cannot clear due to customs delay or missing info. Attempt to contact sender made. Package has been disposed of.”
International shipping was thrown into chaos after the long-standing “de minimis” tariff exemption for low-value packages ended on Aug. 29.
Packages with values of $800 or less, which were previously allowed to enter the United States duty-free, are now subject to a range of tariffs and fees.
They include hundreds of country-specific rates, or President Donald Trump’s so-called reciprocal tariffs, as well as new levies on certain products and materials.
The result is that international shipping to the United States today is far more complex and costly than it was even two months ago.
The sweeping changes have caught private individuals and veteran exporters alike in a customs conundrum.
It is difficult to know the exact number of the packages that are stuck in UPS customs purgatory. Shipping companies guard their delivery data closely.
UPS reported to investors that in 2023, its international service delivered around 3.2 million packages per day.
This week, the company told NBC News that it is clearing more than 90% of the packages it handles through customs on the first day.
The rest of the packages, or less than 10%, require more time to clear customs and need to be held until they do. That could easily mean that thousands of UPS packages every day are not clearing customs on their first try.
In a statement to NBC News, UPS said it is doing its best to get all packages to their destinations while abiding by the new customs requirements.
“Because of changes to U.S. import regulations, we are seeing many packages that are unable to clear customs due to missing or incomplete information about the shipment required for customs clearance,” it said.
UPS said it makes several attempts to get any missing information and clear delayed shipments, contacting shippers three times.
“In cases where we cannot obtain the necessary information to clear the package, there are two options,” it said.
“First, the package can be returned to the original shipper at their expense. Second, if the customer does not respond and the package cannot be cleared for delivery, disposing of the shipment is in compliance with U.S. customs regulations. We continue to work to bridge the gap of understanding tied to the new requirements and, as always, remain committed to serving our customers.”
NBC News asked UPS precisely what it does with packages when it tells customers their shipments have been unable to clear customs and have been “disposed of.” It would not say.
On Sept. 27, a shipper in Stockholm received a formal notification from UPS that two packages her glassware company sent to the United States — which failed to clear customs — would be destroyed.
“We are sorry, but due to these circumstances and the perishable nature of the contents, we are now required to proceed with destruction of the shipment in accordance with regulatory guidelines,” UPS told Anni Cernea in an email she shared with NBC News.
The email continued, “There is no need to contact our call center for further information or to attempt to clear this shipment.”
Cernea said, “It’s just outrageous that they can dispose of products like this without approval from either the sender or recipient.”
From now on, Cernea said, she plans to ship her products via UPS rival FedEx.
Cernea’s decision to switch carriers hints at the worst-case scenario for UPS, which is that people could abandon the company. It is a potential crisis for the roughly $70 billion company.
The company’s stock price is already down more than 30% this year, which analysts attribute to a mix of tariffs, competition and shifting shopping habits.
As she awaits her missing journals and diplomas from England, Freberg is looking ahead to the biggest shipping months of the year.
“I can’t even imagine how bad the holidays are going to be, because that’s a time where loads of people are shipping stuff overseas,” she said.
“If it doesn’t get solved soon, I can only see it becoming an even bigger issue.”
Isabella Morales contributed reporting.
A prominent Hamas leader lost his temper and stormed off from a live interview after being pressed on the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks — and the devastating impact of the subsequent war in Gaza.
Mousa Abu Marzouk, Hamas’ longtime foreign-relations chief and a co-founder of the terror group, tried to justify his organization’s crimes by saying that Hamas ‘fulfilled its national duty’ and acted as ‘resistance to occupation’ in an interview on Arabic television.
The host shot back and questioned whether the Hamas attacks had helped the Palestinian cause and if they had achieved anything meaningful for the Palestinians, according to The Jerusalem Post.
‘Was what you did on October 7 to lead the Palestinians to liberation?’ the host asked in the Friday night interview.
Marzouk, who is based in Qatar and is one of Hamas’s founding members, bristled and insisted the question was disrespectful and that a small group of fighters could never ‘liberate’ Palestine on its own.
‘No sane person would claim that on October 7, with just a thousand or so fighters, it was possible to liberate Palestine,’ he said.
The journalist then continued, saying: ‘I am asking you the questions that are being asked on the streets of Palestine, by the residents of Gaza.’
As the exchange grew tense, Marzouk snapped.
‘These are your questions! Show some respect for yourself. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to see you. Cut it out. Cut it out. Go to hell!’ he said.
Marzouk’s comments, which aired on the Egyptian-based Pan-Arab Al-Ghad’s ‘With Wael,’ quickly spread across social media and came amid growing infighting and turmoil within Hamas as the war comes to an end.
Once seen as a polished Hamas spokesperson, Arab commentators saw his on-air outburst as a signal of a widening rift among the organization’s leadership as Gaza lies in ruins.
Jamal Nazzal, a spokesperson for the Palestinian political and nationalist movement Fatah, slammed Marzouk’s remarks.
Nazzal said his comments were ‘a disgrace that exposes the moral and political bankruptcy of a crumbling group that can no longer look people in the eye,’ according to The Jerusalem Post.
Earlier this year, Marzouk expressed regret over the Oct. 7 attacks, telling The New York Times he would not have supported the attack if he had known of the havoc it would wreak on Gaza.
‘If it was expected that what happened would happen, there wouldn’t have been Oct. 7,’ he said.
Marzouk has been described in multiple reports as a billionaire, though his exact fortune remains unclear.
In a statement posted after The New York Times’ story, Hamas said that the comments were ‘incorrect’ and taken out of context.
The Israeli government approved and signed the first phase of the President Donald Trump-brokered ceasefire deal in Gaza overnight Thursday. The agreement includes the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
On Oct. 6, Albanian Appeals Court Judge Astrit Kalaja was shot inside the Tirana courtroom where he oversaw a property dispute case, according to the International Commission of Jurists. Kalaja died of his wounds, and two others were injured in the shooting. The 30-year-old suspect has been arrested.
Kalaja’s killing quickly became a lightning rod for nationwide dissatisfaction with the Albanian judiciary.
Former Albanian Ambassador to the United States and the United Nations Agim Nesho told Fox News Digital that reforms implemented almost a decade ago by the European Union and the U.S. were ‘intended to strengthen the rule of law,’ but have been ‘transformed into a political instrument, undermining democratic institutions and concentrating power in the hands of the executive.’
‘As a result,’ Nesho said, ‘the public’s confidence in the justice system has severely eroded, with institutional dysfunction reaching a level where some segments of society feel driven to take justice into their own hands — a dangerous sign of democratic backsliding.’
Opposition Democratic Party leader Sali Berisha told Fox News Digital that Kalaja’s killing was ‘an abominable act and an alarm bell that should not be ignored.’
Berisha said that the ‘evident support that the act has garnered,’ including the creation of a now inactive GoFundMe to support the killer’s legal rights, demonstrates ‘protest against a dysfunctional judiciary, against a corrupt and politicized judicial system.’
Berisha said judicial reforms ‘left the country without a Constitutional Court and without a High Court for more than five years,’ creating a ‘staggering backlog’ of around 200,000 cases. He said that the process of vetting judicial personnel turned into ‘a witch-hunt against magistrates that were perceived [to be] independent or potentially right-leaning.’ According to Berisha, this led to the ‘weaponization of the judiciary against the opposition.’
A 2020 report on U.S. assistance to Albania describes American and EU efforts to ‘restore the integrity of the Albanian justice system.’ The report states that USAID assisted the High Court with creating a procedure to manage 72% of its 35,000 backlogged cases. It also stated that 125 of 286 judges and prosecutors put through vetting procedures had ‘been dismissed for unexplained wealth, ties to organized crime, or incompetence,’ while 50 judges chose to resign rather than go through vetting.
Berisha claimed that in the aftermath of reforms, it now takes about 15–20 years for the resolution of legal disputes. ‘Justice delayed is justice denied,’ Berisha said.
Lawyer Besnik Muçi, formerly a prosecutor and a judge in the Constitutional Court of Albania, told Fox News Digital that judicial reforms aimed ‘to establish a credible, fair, independent, professional, service-oriented justice system that is open, accountable and efficient.’ He said that the Albanian justice system ‘has failed in almost all’ parameters.
Muçi said the courts’ backlog consists of about 150,000 cases. He also noted that the closure of five appeal courts and some district courts has ‘almost blocked the citizens’ access to justice.’ He also explained that most court buildings do not ‘meet…the security conditions and standards necessary.’
‘Citizens do not believe in the justice system,’ Muçi said.
After Kalaja’s murder, the Korça Bar Association and National Bar Association of Albania boycotted court proceedings on Oct. 9 and 10. Korça Bar Association Director Nevzat Tarelli told Albanian news station CNA that Kalaja’s killing highlighted the need for increased security for and trust in judicial personnel. He also said that ‘people who expect justice in a timely manner, if they do not receive it, no longer have faith in justice.’
Engjëll Agaçi, general secretary of Albania’s Council of Ministers, did not respond to Fox News Digital’s questions about nationwide discontent with the judiciary or the size of Albania’s court case backlog.
A State Department spokesperson declined to respond to questions about the success of U.S.-backed judicial reform efforts in Albania or address the issues that Kalaja’s killing has highlighted.
‘We offer our deepest sympathies to the victims of this attack and their families and strongly condemn the use of violence against judges and prosecutors,’ the spokesperson said.
A prominent Hamas leader lost his temper and stormed off from a live interview after being pressed on the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and the devastating subsequent war in Gaza.
Mousa Abu Marzouk, Hamas’ longtime foreign relations chief and a co-founder of the terror group, tried to justify his organization’s crimes by saying Hamas ‘fulfilled its national duty’ and acted as ‘resistance to occupation’ in an interview on Arabic television.
The host shot back and questioned whether the Hamas attacks had helped the Palestinian cause and if they had achieved anything meaningful for the Palestinians, according to The Jerusalem Post.
‘Was what you did on Oct. 7 to lead the Palestinians to liberation?’ the host asked in the interview Friday night.
Marzouk, who is based in Qatar and is one of Hamas’s founding members, bristled and insisted the question was disrespectful and that a small group of fighters could never ‘liberate’ Palestine on its own.
‘No sane person would claim that on Oct. 7, with just a thousand or so fighters, it was possible to liberate Palestine,’ he said.
The journalist then continued, saying, ‘I am asking you the questions that are being asked on the streets of Palestine by the residents of Gaza.’
As the exchange grew tense, Marzouk snapped.
‘These are your questions. Show some respect for yourself. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t want to see you. Cut it out. Cut it out. Go to hell,’ he said.
Marzouk’s comments, which aired on the Egyptian-based Pan-Arab Al-Ghad’s ‘With Wael,’ quickly spread across social media and came amid growing infighting and turmoil within Hamas as the war comes to an end.
Once seen as a polished Hamas spokesperson, Arab commentators saw his on-air outburst as a signal of a widening rift among the organization’s leadership as Gaza lies in ruins.
Jamal Nazzal, a spokesperson for the Palestinian political and nationalist movement Fatah, slammed Marzouk’s remarks.
Nazzal said his comments were ‘a disgrace that exposes the moral and political bankruptcy of a crumbling group that can no longer look people in the eye,’ according to The Jerusalem Post.
Earlier this year, Marzouk expressed regret over the Oct. 7 attacks, telling The New York Times he would not have supported the attack if he had known of the havoc it would wreak on Gaza.
‘If it was expected that what happened would happen, there wouldn’t have been Oct. 7,’ he said.
Marzouk has been described in multiple reports as a billionaire, though his exact fortune remains unclear.
In a statement posted after The New York Times’ story, Hamas said that the comments were ‘incorrect’ and taken out of context.
The Israeli government approved and signed the first phase of the President Donald Trump-brokered ceasefire deal in Gaza overnight Thursday. The agreement includes the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
Former President Joe Biden is entering a new phase of treatment for the prostate cancer he was diagnosed with in May.
Biden is now undergoing radiation therapy, a spokesperson for the former president told Fox News on Saturday. Previously, he had been receiving routine scans, the spokesperson added.
‘As part of a treatment plan for prostate cancer, President Biden is currently undergoing radiation therapy and hormone treatment,’ the spokesperson said.
Biden was diagnosed four months ago with an ‘aggressive form’ of metastatic prostate cancer after health officials detected a prostate nodule following increasing urinary symptoms. His office said the disease, though aggressive, is hormone-sensitive, meaning it may be effectively managed.
Biden, who turns 83 years old next month, also underwent surgery on Sept. 4 to remove cancerous skin cells through a procedure known as Mohs surgery, according to his spokesperson.
During his presidency, Biden had a cancerous skin lesion removed from his chest, the White House previously said. Former White House physician Kevin O’Connor noted in February 2023 that a biopsy of skin tissue taken during a health assessment revealed cancerous cells, all of which were successfully removed.
Biden, who became the oldest U.S. president to serve in office, had placed a major focus on cancer treatment.
While in office, he and former first lady Jill Biden revamped the ‘Cancer Moonshot’ initiative to accelerate progress in cancer research. The project aimed to reduce the cancer death rate by 50% over the next 25 years.
In 1988, Biden had two life-threatening brain aneurysms at 45 years old. Doctors said he had a 50% chance of surviving while serving as a U.S. senator for Delaware.
Biden’s surgeries were successful, and there have been no reports of an aneurysm since.
The news of Biden’s radiation treatment comes as President Donald Trump was reported to be in ‘excellent overall health,’ according to a memo released by the White House on Friday.
Trump underwent a routine semiannual physical last week at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
In the evaluation summary, the president’s physician, Navy Capt. Sean P. Barbabella, stated that Trump, ‘remains in exceptional health, exhibiting strong cardiovascular, pulmonary, neurological, and physical performance.’
Fox News Digital’s Stepheny Price and Peter Doocy contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump railed against Democrats over the ongoing government shutdown Saturday, and said he is directing Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to make sure military service members get paid next week.
‘Chuck Schumer recently said, ‘Every day gets better’ during their Radical Left Shutdown,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social. ‘I DISAGREE! If nothing is done, because of ‘Leader’ Chuck Schumer and the Democrats, our Brave Troops will miss the paychecks they are rightfully due on October 15th.’
He said he had directed Hegseth ‘to use all available funds to get our Troops PAID on October 15th. We have identified funds to do this, and Secretary Hegseth will use them to PAY OUR TROOPS.’
‘I will not allow the Democrats to hold our Military, and the entire Security of our Nation, HOSTAGE, with their dangerous Government Shutdown,’ he added. ‘The Radical Left Democrats should OPEN THE GOVERNMENT, and then we can work together to address Healthcare, and many other things that they want to destroy. Thank you for your attention to this matter!’
The government shut down on Oct. 1, after Democrats and Republicans failed to pass a spending bill to fund the government, with Democrats concerned that expiring Affordable Care Act tax cuts could raise premiums and that Medicaid cuts could leave people without coverage.
Trump on Monday blamed Democratic lawmakers for the shutdown, saying he’d be ‘happy to work with the Democrats on their failed healthcare policies’ once the government reopens.
‘Democrats have SHUT DOWN the United States government right in the midst of one of the most successful economies, including a record stock market, that our country has ever had,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social. ‘This has sadly affected so many programs, services, and other elements of society that Americans rely on — and it should not have happened.’
‘I am happy to work with the Democrats on their failed healthcare policies, or anything else, but first they must allow our government to re-open,’ he added.
Schumer recently told Punchbowl News: ‘Every day gets better for us,’ regarding the Democrats’ shutdown strategy.
He added, ‘It’s because we’ve thought about this long in advance and we knew that health care would be the focal point on Sept. 30 and we prepared for it … Their whole theory was — threaten us, bamboozle us, and we would submit in a day or two.’
Republicans have blamed Schumer for the shutdown, saying it was meant to appease the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, particularly in his home state as Zohran Mamdani maintains the lead in New York City’s mayoral race and buzz swirls regarding Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is potentially challenging Schumer in the next primary. She has not formally declared a Senate bid.
‘Chuck Schumer just said the quiet part out loud: Democrats are gleefully inflicting pain on the American people over their push to give illegal aliens free health care,’ White House deputy press secretary Abigail Jackson said in a statement provided exclusively to Fox News Digital.
Schumer recently shared with Fox News Digital remarks he made on the Senate floor.
‘Every day that Republicans refuse to negotiate to end this shutdown, the worse it gets for Americans — and the clearer it becomes who’s fighting for them. Each day our case to fix healthcare and end this shutdown gets better and better, stronger and stronger because families are opening their letters showing how high their premiums will climb if Republicans get their way. They’re seeing why this fight matters — it’s about protecting their healthcare, their bank accounts and their futures.’
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un displayed a new long-range intercontinental ballistic missile at a military parade in Pyongyang that included foreign leaders on Friday.
The yet-to-be-tested Hwasong-20 was described by the state-owned Korean Central News Agency as having the ‘most powerful nuclear strategic weapons system.’
The government also displayed shorter-range ballistic, cruise and supersonic missiles at the military parade, which marked 80 years since the founding of the Worker’s Party.
Kim said at the parade that the military ‘must continue to evolve into an invincible force that eliminates all threats.’
The foreign dignitaries at the parade included Chinese Premier Li Qiang, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and Vietnam’s Communist Party chief To Lam.
Kim also met with Medvedev on Friday, who praised the sacrifice of North Korean soldiers fighting with Russia in Ukraine.
Kim said he hoped to strengthen ties with Russia and work together toward common goals.
Last summer, Kim’s sister Kim Yo Jong warned the U.S. to not attempt to restart talks centered around denuclearization, adding that Pyongyang would view any attempt to pressure North Korea to denuclearize as ‘nothing but a mockery.’
‘If the U.S. fails to accept the changed reality and persists in the failed past, the DPRK- U.S. meeting will remain as a ‘hope’ of the U.S. side,’ Kim Yo Jong said, referring to the nation by its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth on Friday announced that the Department of War (DOW) is establishing a new counter-narcotics Joint Task Force in the Caribbean Sea.
Hegseth said the task force’s aim would be to ‘crush the cartels, stop the poison, and keep America safe. The message is clear: if you traffic drugs toward our shores, we will stop you cold.’
The task force is launching at the direction of President Donald Trump, he said, in the SOUTHCOM area, which covers the Caribbean and Latin America.
The U.S. Southern Command said in a release that the task force was being launched under the II Marine Expeditionary Force on Friday ‘to synchronize and augment counter-narcotics efforts across the Western Hemisphere.’
‘Transnational criminal organizations threaten the security, prosperity, and health of our hemisphere,’ Admiral Alvin Holsey, the commander of SOUTHCOM, said in a statement. ‘By forming a JTF around II MEF headquarters, we enhance our ability to detect, disrupt, and dismantle illicit trafficking networks faster and at greater depth – together with our U.S. and partner-nation counterparts.’
This comes as the administration has begun strikes against boats in the Caribbean it says are linked to drug trafficking networks.
The administration has conducted a series of fatal strikes against four small boats believed to be carrying drugs over the last few months.
It said 21 people were killed in the strikes.
The attacks have alarmed Democratic lawmakers as the administration hasn’t detailed what evidence it had against the targeted boats or their passengers.
