Today’s News Briefs: Sudan famine; Electric scooters banned; Harris campaign edits news headlines

Electronic scooters are now banned in Melbourne, Australia after officials said they posed risks to others. It’s a reversal for the city which welcomed them only in 2022. “However, hundreds of accidents since then have sparked complaints and outrage from the public,” reports the BBC. Melbourne’s mayor said he was “fed up” with the bad behavior of some scooter users. “Too many people riding on footpaths. People don’t park them properly. They’re tipped, they’re scattered around the city like confetti, like rubbish, creating tripping hazards,” Nicholas Reece told local radio station 3AW. After allowing them in the last five years, many cities have abandoned the scooters after they became a public nuisance.

US Envoy says war with Hezbollah can be avoided

U.S. presidential deputy assistant Amos Hochstein said in Beirut on Wednesday that he believes that an all-out war between Israel and Iran’s Lebanese terror proxy Hezbollah can be averted. “I hope so and I believe so,” the diplomat replied when asked at a news conference whether a major confrontation between the two sides can be prevented. The White House dispatched Hochstein to Lebanon as part of a regional effort to try to calm down rising tensions amid continued attacks on Israel by Hezbollah and Hamas and threats from Iran. Hezbollah has attacked northern Israel nearly every day since joining the war in support of Gaza-based Hamas on Oct. 8, killing 22 people and causing widespread damage. Tens of thousands of Israeli civilians remain internally displaced due to the ongoing violence.

26 million at risk of starvation in Sudan over next few months

Civil war has brought Sudan to a “breaking point,” a UN agency says.  Millions of Christians and others now need food, water, shelter and medical care with eight million people having been displaced since fighting erupted between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) last year. The UN says it has plunged the country into what the UN has called “one of the worst humanitarian disasters in recent memory.”  Othman Belbeisi, the Middle East and Africa director for the International Organization for Migration (IOM), said in a statement. “We are at breaking point, a catastrophic, cataclysmic breaking point,” he said. “Without an immediate, massive, and coordinated global response, we risk witnessing tens of thousands of preventable deaths in the coming months.”  Half of those affected are children. “Over the next three months, an estimated 25.6 million people will face acute food insecurity as the conflict spreads and coping mechanisms are exhausted,” the IOM statement said.

Harris edits headlines for paid Google search results

The Kamala Harris campaign has been caught manipulating news headlines in paid advertising. The campaign then paid to put the articles at the top of search results on Google. Axios reported Tuesday that the Harris campaign has edited articles from several news organizations, including CNN, NPR, Reuters, the Associated Press, CBS News, The Guardian and Time Magazine with the intent of boosting both Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Multiple news organizations confirmed they were unaware that their articles were being used by the Harris campaign in such a manner.A spokesperson for The Guardian told Axios, “While we understand why an organization might wish to align itself with the Guardian’s trusted brand, we need to ensure it is being used appropriately and with our permission. We’ll be reaching out to Google for more information about this practice.”