A shooting at a mall in Ocala, Florida resulted in at least one death, local police say.

The shooting occurred around 3:40 p.m. Police originally reported that they were responding to an active shooting but found that the shooter had fled before they arrived.

They believe it may have been an active shooting and note that the shooter is still at-large. No denoscription of the shooter has been released and authorities are asking anyone with more information to call the local Crime Stoppers.

While sweeping the mall, police say they found one deceased male in the common area and a woman with non-life-threatening injuries. It is unclear if those are the only victims, the police previously reported that there were multiple injuries.

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🇮🇷 Amid ongoing tensions over US backing for Israel's latest assault on Gaza, Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi has accused the United States of being the "largest factor of instability" in the entire world.

During the Tehran International Conference on Palestine, Raisi condemned the US, which claims to defend freedom and democracy, as the perpetrator of major crimes and global instability.

"Those who claim to protect freedom and democracy have shown themselves to be the perpetrators of the greatest crimes, racial discrimination, and human rights violations," Raisi said. "It has become clear to everyone that the US is not only not a factor of stability in any region of the world but has been and remains the largest factor of instability and lack of security worldwide, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and other parts of the world."

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⚓️ The US and its allies are “trapped” in the Red Sea and should prepare for the closure of waterways stretching all the way to the western gates of the Mediterranean Sea, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Chief of Staff Mohammad Reza Naqdi has warned.

“The Zionist regime and the United States have gone mad due to the severity of the crimes and brutality they have committed, and they cannot even recognize their own interests,” Naqdi suggested, saying the two powers seem incapable of “learning from past events.”

Naqdi did not elaborate on what kinds of operations specifically may be taken to close regional waterways to US forces and their allies. However, US media and news agencies immediately interpreted the commander’s words as an explicitly Iranian “threat” to “close the Mediterranean.”

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🇪🇹 🇷🇺 Exclusive | Ethiopian Minister talks about Russia's role in the country's nuclear energy path

The two Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) signed between Russia and Ethiopia in 2021 have laid the groundwork for further cooperation in the field of nuclear energy development in the East African country, Dr. Belete Molla, Ethiopia's Minister of Innovation and Technology, told Sputnik Africa in an exclusive interview.

"The MoUs laid the groundwork for further cooperation. In July 2023, Russia and Ethiopia signed a roadmap for developing cooperation in peaceful nuclear energy. This roadmap outlines specific steps for exploring the feasibility of building a nuclear power plant in Ethiopia, as well as establishing a nuclear science and technology center," Minister Molla said.

Molla added that specialized working groups have already been established, and technical visits and seminars have been held to share expertise in nuclear technology.

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🇷🇺 Russian Black Sea Fleet ship crews train to repel UAV attacks using man-portable air defence systems and small arms

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The deputy head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, Andrii Sybiha, named six EU countries that did not join an agreement on security guarantees for Ukraine, Ukrainian news portal reported.

The report showed that Austria, Croatia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Malta did not join the declaration on security guarantees for Ukraine.

On Friday, the head of Zelensky's office, Andriy Yermak, said that more than 30 countries had joined the declaration on security guarantees, and 15 expressed their readiness to begin consultations on bilateral agreements. Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said in early September that Kiev expected 51 countries to become key guarantors of Ukraine’s security.

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🛢 Two tankers, one Norwegian and the other Indian-flagged, have been attacked by unmanned drones in the Red Sea, but no one was injured, US Navy Central Command said.

The Pentagon also stated that a chemical tanker off the coast of India had been attacked by a drone allegedly launched from Iran.

A drone attacked a ship on Saturday, according to media reports, that was sailing under the flag of Liberia and was “affiliated” with Israel. An explosion and fire were reported, but no injuries have been reported yet.

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Ukraine’s military mired in arms procurement corruption case worth $40mln

A joint probe by Ukraine’s Security Service and General Prosecutor’s Office has exposed an attempt to purchase artillery shells for the armed forces at inflated prices.

One senior Defense Ministry official has been arrested, according to a statement on the ministry’s website.

Apparently, the Defense Ministry's recently established procurement agency jettisoned an earlier signed contract to buy artillery shells at higher than market prices. The new deal removed intermediaries, bringing down costs. However, the detained official extended the previous contract, with a sum of around 1.5 billion hryvnias ($40 million) finding its way to an intermediary firm’s account. The artillery shells have not yet been delivered.

Recently, Europe failed to produce and ship a million shells to Kiev, exacerbating the already tangible “shell hunger” of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

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Ten Ukrainian volunteers used their permission to leave Ukraine for humanitarian aid and did not return, the head of the Kherson military administration, Alexander Prokudin, appointed by the Kiev regime, said on his Telegram channel.

"I gave orders to the representatives of the organizations 'United Ukraine' and 'Adzhalyk' to cross the border. They brought the promised humanitarian aid ... Then they decided to leave for the second time and not to return to Ukraine. We are talking about ten people," he said.

According to the official, the case is now being investigated by law enforcement agencies and the perpetrators will be prosecuted. In addition, Prokudin promised not to issue exit permits to representatives of these organizations.

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🇨🇫 The Central African Republic would like to become a member of BRICS, but it needs to be realistic, since there are a certain number of criteria, the head of the country's Foreign Ministry told Sputnik

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🇦🇷 Argentine President Javier Milei said entrepreneur Elon Musk and the US government expressed their interest in the country's lithium reserves.

"I got a call from Elon Musk. He is very interested in lithium, as is the US government and many American companies. But they need a legal framework to guarantee that property rights are respected," Milei said in a television program on the Canal 13 broadcaster.

Argentina, Chile and Bolivia account for 56% of global lithium reserves, with Argentina and Chile responsible for some 32% of its global production, according to the US Geological Survey.

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❗️Thousands of Australians including protestors as young as 6 years old spent their Christmas marching for Palestine.

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🇷🇺 A business card from Putin from when he was working in the Leningrad City Council of People's Deputies in the 1990s is being sold at auction in St. Petersburg. The highest bid for Putin's business card is 200,000 rubles, organizers say. The auction will take place in 4 hours.

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US resolve to grant Israel ‘license’ in Gaza war will hurt it in long term

The US is determined to go on record as a pro-Israel country in the current Gaza crisis, even if it hurts the United States in the long term, independent journalist Caleb Maupin told Sputnik.

That explains why Washington has been adamant that no resolution pass the UN Security Council that would in any way “tie Israel's hands,” the political analyst said. The UN Security Council finally adopted a UAE-drafted resolution on the ongoing crisis in Gaza that was “watered down to almost nothing,” he noted.

“The US will not stop Israel. They will not oppose Israel. They will give Israel license... Biden now wants 14 billion more dollars for Israel. The whole world is looking on in horror at what Israel is doing. And the United States is saying, ‘make sure that we're involved, make sure that we're complicit.’”

According to the pundit, “This is going to cause more division in the world. This is not a good situation at all. But this is where the Biden White House wants us to be.”

👉 Check out his full analysis

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🇷🇺🪖 Key points of Russian MoD briefing on progress of special military op in Ukraine:

▪️ Foreign-made air defense missile launchers were hit at an airfield in the Khmelnitsky region. Ukrainian aircraft were also hit at the Kanatovo and Dnepr Airfields;

▪️ Air defense systems shot down three Ukrainian Su-27s and one Su-24 in the Zaporozhye and Dnepropetrovsk regions;

▪️ In the Kupyansk direction, four attacks by Ukrainian forces were repelled near Sinkovka. Kiev lost over 40 military personnel, and an ammunition depot of the 113th Territorial Defense Brigade near Liptsy was also hit;

▪️ In the Krasny Liman direction, two attacks by Ukrainian forces were repelled. Enemy losses amounted to up to 100 military personnel;

▪️ In the Donetsk direction, eight attacks by Ukrainian forces were repulsed, with Kiev’s losses amounting to up to 350 military killed and wounded. A US-made M777 artillery mount was also hit;

▪️ In the South Donetsk direction, a blow was struck against Ukrainian forces near Novomikhailovka. Kiev lost up to 110 military personnel, and as part of a counter-battery battle, M109 Paladin, Akatsiya, and Gvozdika self-propelled guns were hit;

▪️ In the Kherson direction, Ukrainian losses amounted to up to 80 military personnel, and US-made M109 Paladin self-propelled gun was also hit;

▪️ In the Zaporozhye direction, Kiev lost up to 70 military killed and wounded.

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Iran’s Navy boosted with new cruise missiles, electronic warfare system-equipped choppers

The Navy got weapons and equipment including:

▪️ Talayieh strategic smart cruise missiles with a 1,000+ km range

▪️ Nasir short-range cruise missiles with a 100+ km range and a 130 kg warhead

▪️ Sanjar smart loitering munitions fitted to Iran’s Jamaran destroyer

▪️ A multipurpose drone-based electronic warfare system

▪️ Helicopters equipped with optical and intelligence-gathering systems and a brand new electronic warfare platform with the ability to deceive enemy missiles.

The upgrade comes amid escalating regional tensions in the face of the ongoing Gaza conflict and the Houthi campaign of hijackings, drone and missile strikes against Israeli-affiliated commercial cargo vessels traversing the Red Sea, with the US assembling a coalition to counter the Houthis and accusing Iran of supporting them militarily. Tehran has denied the claims.

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Russian military successfully counters Ukrainian attack drones

Military personnel from the BARS-8 volunteer detachment regularly repel attacks by Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles in the Zaporozhye direction.

In addition to air defenses and electronic warfare systems, Russian military personnel actively use layered defense and air surveillance posts.

Having discovered an aerial target, the detachment quickly “lands” it using anti-drone guns, or shoots it down with small arms fire. After clearing the munition, the drone can be used as a spare parts “donor” for similar UAV models available to Russian military personnel.

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Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister has rejected US accusations that his country was "deeply involved" in attacks by Yemeni forces on Israel-linked commercial ships travelling across the Red Sea.

"The resistance has its own tools... and acts in accordance with its own decisions and capabilities," Ali Bagheri was cited by Mehr news agency as saying.

"The fact that certain powers, such as the Americans and the Israelis, suffer strikes from the resistance movement... should in no way call into question the reality of the strength of the resistance in the region," he added.

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🪖 The Ukrainian Armed Forces have said they do not know how to mobilize 500,000 more troops, as volunteers have "run out"

"The volunteers who wanted to join the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces have run out... To say exactly when mobilization will be and how qualitatively, it is difficult to say... how to implement it physically, there is no understanding," said Major General of Ukrainian forces Dmitry Marchenko in an interview with Deutsche Welle.

According to Marchenko, only 20 people will be mobilized to replace every 100 military personnel lost at the front. At the same time, he reacted positively to the proposal to lower the age limit from 27 to 25 years and attempt to extradite those who had fled the country, adding that "it is not worthwhile to fill the holes at the front with women when the mass of men are hiding abroad."

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🇷🇺 Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of RT and Rossiya Segodnya, Sputnik's parent media group:

"To understand that Russia has no intention of attacking any NATO member, but vice versa, it is entirely possible, where it is enough to look at simple arithmetic statistics from history. How many times in history have the nations, currently part of NATO, the peoples and representatives of nations now NATO members, attacked Russia? It would be difficult for me to count: starting from Alexander Nevsky and onward, both France, and Britain in the Crimean War, and many others — countless times.

How many times has Russia attacked any country currently in NATO? For example? Remember! Only in response. Retaliating in response is not attacking. Retaliating — is defending. These are different things — to attack and to defend. Russia defended itself and defeated you — those who attacked — many times. But Russia never attacked first."

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