Jasmine Laws

I am currently working as a Live News Reporter at Newsweek, and have written the following articles for the publication below.

Newsweek •

Saudi Arabia's $63 billion historic city transformation

Saudi Arabia is planning on transforming a historic city into a tourism and business hotspot as part of a $63 billion project.The city of Diriyah, located on the northwestern outskirts of the country's capital Riyadh, is the setting of Saudi Arabia's new project, which aims to turn the UNESCO World Heritage site into one of the world's most-visited destinations for both tourism and business.Covering a space of approximately 14 square kilometers, it is planned for the site to have 18,000 resident...
Newsweek •

Texas high-speed rail could follow Japan's lead

Members of Dallas City Council recently returned from a week-long trip to Japan, to learn from the country's rail experts on how the state can develop a high-speed rail system of its own.The visit was part of Dallas' effort to explore high-speed rail as a solution for improving regional connectivity and cutting down on traffic congestion. Lessons learned from the trip could play a key role in implementing Texas' proposed Dallas-to-Houston high-speed rail route, local outlet The Texan reported.Th...
Newsweek •

Storm leaves more than half a million customers without power in northwest

A powerful storm swept across the northwest U.S. on Tuesday evening, unleashing strong winds and heavy rain that left more than half a million customers without power and resulted in at least one fatality.Around 650,000 customers early Wednesday were without power in Washington, according to the tracking website poweroutage.us in the wake of a "bomb cyclone," a term used by weather enthusiasts to describe a rapidly intensifying storm in a short period of time. A further 8,000 customers were with...
Newsweek •

Big Pharma stocks drop after RFK Jr. announced as Health Secretary

Stocks tied to Big Pharma have dropped since it was announced that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had been nominated to be America's next Health Secretary.Kennedy Jr., who is part of a political dynasty with an a former president uncle and a father as a former attorney general, is an outspoken opponent of Big Pharma.The Health Secretary nominee has at times attributed America's health problems to insufficient regulation of pesticides, harmful additives, seed oils, processed foods and vaccines.Following P...
Newsweek •

Donald Trump's Cabinet is on track to be the least diverse this century

Donald Trump's new Cabinet is on track to become the least racially diverse administration since the start of the 21st Century.Since winning the race for the White House last week, Trump has turned to the transition and appointing members of his new Cabinet, most of which so far have been been white men.When Trump was elected president in 2016, his Cabinet included 18 white men, making it the least racially diverse Cabinet since former President Ronald Raegan's time in office in 1980, the New Yo...
Newsweek •

Who is Jonathan Spanos? Racist video sparks university resignation

A Pennsylvania college board member has resigned from his role after a video of him saying racial slurs went viral.The man in the video was Jonathan Spanos, who held a position on the Pennsylvania State York Advisory Board at the time.Alongside his role at the college, Spanos is the owner of The Paddock on Market, an American seafood restaurant on Market Street in York, Pennsylvania.On November 10, a video was posted on X, formerly Twitter, of repeatedly saying to another man, "half n***** broth...
Newsweek •

Russian aviation faces tsunami of bankruptcies

More than 30 flight companies in Russia, which drive around a quarter of its total air traffic, are on course to go bankrupt in 2025.The Russian news outlet Izvestia reported that three dozen small and medium-sized airlines are at risk of bankruptcy after the country's economy was described as being at "burnout point."It was reported that the airlines have been struggling with a growing pile-up of debt in relation to foreign aircraft leases.Airlines lease aircraft when they are looking to expand...
Newsweek •

Trump adds more millennials to top team, compared to Biden

President-elect Donald Trump is increasingly tapping into the millennial talent pool, injecting a new generation of young leaders into his top team as he prepares for his second term in office.So far, the 78-year-old Republican—who will be the oldest person to assume the presidency when he's inaugurated in January—has announced he's nominating Elise Stefanik, 40, for the role of U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Matt Gaetz, 42, as attorney general and Tulsi Gabbard, 43, as Director of Natio...
Newsweek •

Meet Knowa De Baraso, the 13-year-old Democrat who became a viral sensation

Last week, as millions woke up to the news that Kamala Harris had been defeated, one Democrat processing the news was only 5-years-old the last time Donald Trump was elected as president.While not yet being old enough to vote, 13-year-old Knowa de Baraso is one of the youngest faces of the Democratic Party, and used his online platform of over 112,000 followers on X, formerly Twitter, to advocate for the Harris campaign.When asked if he was optimistic for the future, Knowa told Newsweek, "to be...
Newsweek •

Department of Government Efficiency: US federal spending in maps, charts

Despite Donald Trump's announcement of his plans to introduce a Department of Government Efficiency, the proportion of money the U.S. government spends appears to be similar to that of other developed nations.The president-elect announced on his social media platform Truth Social that Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy would head up the new committee, otherwise known as "DOGE," in a reference to the dogecoin cryptocurrency, of which Musk is a huge fan.Trump said that the so-called department "will pr...
Newsweek •

Trump's Elon Musk appointment raises questions about conflicts of interest

Elon Musk's role in President-elect Donald Trump's efforts to downsize the federal government could expose "enormous and multiple conflicts of interest," a public policy expert has told Newsweek.Trump announced on Tuesday that the billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX would lead what he called the "Department of Government Efficiency," along with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, to "dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agen...
Newsweek •

Chart shows how successful AMBER alerts are recovering missing children

By the end of 2023, 1,200 minors had been safely found through a system that relies on the American public to assist in the search of missing children.The AMBER Alert system is used widely throughout the U.S., with 82 plans in place to help recover children after they have been determined missing, enabling some missing child reports to be resolved. The alerts can be issued on a state-wide or local scale and more than one child can be involved in the case.The number of children saved directly by...
Newsweek •

World's second longest high-speed rail project hits milestone

The world's second longest high-speed railway line recently completed another milestone in its development, ahead of the scheduled opening next year.The line, which has been built in China, known as the Shanghai-Wuhan-Chengdu high-speed line, or Huhanrong HSR, covers 2,078 kilometers in total, Railway Technology reported.The latest part of the line's construction, on the Zhanghe rail bridge, has now been completed, paving the way for the railway track's full completion in 2025, according to Chin...
Newsweek •

Russian losses in Ukraine break grim record two days in a row

On Monday, Russian troops suffered the highest number of casualties in a single day since Moscow invaded Ukraine, breaking a grim record set only the day before.Russia lost 1,950 of its troops on November 11, according to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, adding to the 1,770 casualties reported by Kyiv on Sunday.The estimations suggest that Russian President Vladimir Putin's military forces have now lost a total of 712,610 men during the conflict, which started on February 24, 20...
Newsweek •

European soccer rocked by two antisemitic attacks in one week

A soccer team in Germany was reportedly threatened with knives and sticks a few days after Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam were attacked.The two incidents, not even a week apart, have both been described as antisemitic attacks.According to reports in the local German news outlet Tagesspiegel, there were alleged attacks on the Jewish under-17 soccer players of the Makkabi Berlin football team.It was reported that the incident occurred at the grounds of the soccer team DJK Schwarz-Weiß Neukölln f...
Newsweek •

Map shows states that regulate ghost guns

Ghost guns—untraceable firearms assembled from kits or 3D-printed components—have become a focal point in the U.S. gun control debate. These weapons lack serial numbers, making them difficult to trace and regulate. In response, several states have enacted laws to address the proliferation of ghost guns.As of November 2024, 15 states have implemented regulations targeting ghost guns. The specific measures vary by state but generally encompass the following:Newsweek has mapped out the different re...
Newsweek •

Bitcoin hits record high in wake of Trump victory

Bitcoin reached a new record high of $82,000 on Monday following Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election on November 6.The former and future president has been a big proponent of cryptocurrency and now that he will enter the White House in January, the Bitcoin market, the world's biggest and best-known cryptocurrency, is soaring.The price of Bitcoin has risen by nearly $15,000 since November 4, and over the last 24 hours, it went up more than three percent. This marks an increase of...
Newsweek •

Only 1 in 5 Americans think Trump will try to fulfill all campaign promises

One in five Americans believe the President-elect Donald Trump will try to fulfill all of his promises he made during his campaign, a new poll shows.Following Trump's Election Day victory, focus has turned to what actions the 47th president will take when he takes office.Main focuses of his campaign included the economy and immigration and throughout the White House run he pledged a number of actions he said he would carry out in his second term.According to a YouGov survey conducted on Thursday...
Newsweek •

Why Kamala Harris lost Latino voters, according to ally who predicted win

California Representative Robert Garcia, who co-chaired Kamala Harris' campaign, has shared his thoughts on why she didn't secure a greater proportion of the Latino vote in the presidential election.Despite winning a larger proportion of the Hispanic/Latino vote than Donald Trump, Harris lost ground compared to Biden's win in 2020, and only secured 6 percentage points more support than Trump did, according to a CNN exit poll.Garcia had appeared on CNN's The Lead and was asked by host Jake Tapper...
Newsweek •

Map shows where America's richest people live

The country's richest man, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, resides in Texas. But it is California that is home to most of the country's wealthiest people, the Forbes 400 List shows.Forbes' report from October found that the top 400 richest people in America were worth a record $5.4 trillion combined, up nearly $1 trillion from 2023.A dozen also have $100 billion-plus fortunes, breaking another record.The report allows us to see which states are the most appealing to billionaires.The majority of the 400 wea...
Newsweek •

Democrats 'failed to address' key issue for workers, union leader says

A union leader has spoken out about his thoughts on why Kamala Harris didn't win the support of workers during the election campaign.The president of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades (IUPAT), Jimmy Williams, wrote a thread of posts on X, formerly Twitter, after the election, saying he spent the last several months speaking to thousands of union members across the Rust Belt about the election.While Harris did as well as Biden with union voters or better, according to some exi...
Newsweek •

Ex-DNC chair compares D.C. to middle school, has advice for Democrats

A prominent former Democratic politician has shared his thoughts on where the party went wrong during the 2024 presidential campaign.Howard Dean, formerly governor of Vermont, spoke with Kasie Hunt on CNN This Morning on Thursday. Hunt asked how he would "diagnose" the problem Democrats face, and what they should do about it."The problem is, we haven't done a damn thing since 2008 about getting out into the grassroots," Dean said. "The Democratic Party ought to be putting a lot of money into sch...
Newsweek •

Majority of voters say 2024 was most important election of their life: poll

The majority of American voters say the 2024 election was the most important presidential cycle of their lives, a new poll shows.A YouGov poll conducted on Wednesday found that 76 percent of Americans felt this year's election was either "somewhat more important" or "much more important" than previous years.It has now been announced that former President Donald Trump will be the U.S.' next and 47th commander in chief, after securing more than 270 Electoral College votes.His opponent, Vice Presid...
Newsweek •

Donald Trump Jr. trolls Kamala Harris in victory post

Donald Trump Jr. appeared to mock Kamala Harris' response to Joe Biden's victory in 2020, posting on social media, "We did it Joe!!!" to celebrate his father's presidential win.It harks back to footage of Harris on a phone call with Biden on November 7, 2020, after it was announced he had won that year's presidential election cycle.In the video, which accumulated more than 24 million views on the vice president's Instagram account, she started by saying, "We did it Joe."The comment spread across...
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