The Israel-Hamas War seems to be escalating.  However, Egypt is beginning to allow foreigners to enter from the Rafah Gate in southern part of the Gaza Strip.   Updates here,   From the morning  New York Times: That is the conclusion of   a new study   by Patrick Sharkey and Megan Kang at Princeton. Stricter gun laws passed by 40 states from 1991 to 2016 reduced gun deaths by nearly 4,300 in 2016, or about 10 percent of the nationwide total. States with stricter laws, such as background checks and waiting periods, consistently had fewer gun deaths, as this chart by my colleague Ashley Wu shows: But on to our cruise.  Aomori is the the capital city of Aomori Prefecture.  Means Blue Forest, with a current population of around 265,000, the northern most of Honshu Island.  There were 319,000 people living here in 2000, and this number has since then been declining, as is the entire country, which was up to 127 million in 2007, but is today down to 125 million. What distinguishes Aomori is

First, though: Maine shooter  Robert Card is dead , self-inflicted. Are we headed to war with Iran?   The Hamas-Israel War and Syrian incidents were all orchestrated by Iran.  What about Russia and China? Before you go to sleep Saturday night, turn back your clock one hour.  By a  63% to 16% majority , Americans don't like to do this, and statistics show these two changes/year are just not good for society.  Congress is attempting do something, and, if anything, will keep it always at daylight savings time.  Hawaii, and a few other locations in the U.S., don't make any changes. When is Halloween Night?  Every year it is observed on October 31, which is a Tuesday this year.  The celebration marks the day before the Western Christian feast of All Saints, or All Hallows Day, from where comes Halloween.  Goes back to the Celts and the festival of  Samhain , mentioned in the earliest Irish literature from the 9th century. Not much to say about our Honolulu to Tokyo flight because we

The Hamas today released two more hostages .  Both female and full citizens of Israel, one is 79 and the other 85.  Supposedly, they had breathing and medication problems.  Qatar and Egypt mediated.  Thus, this attack by the Hamas to capture hostages no doubt was a good part of their plans to insure for their future.  By dribbling out hostages, they buy time to gain international support and solidify their defenses.  Also, a third truck convoy entered the Gaza Strip. The world benefit is that Israel cannot send their troops into the Gaza Strip until this all plays out, thus minimizing a Hezbollah attack from the north and other incursions from Jordan and Syria by Iranian-supported terrorists.  While revenge and future safety factors will never go away until Israel does something to control future Hamas attacks, for now, this Middle East war has not escalated as the  Yom Kippur War did, throwing the future of the world at stake . In the meantime, the Republicans in the House are further