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Hurricane Melissa leaves trail of devastation in Jamaica

admin - Latest News - October 29, 2025
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Hurricane Melissa, a monster Category 5 storm, caused catastrophic destruction in Jamaica. Homes were torn apart and streets were inundated with water. Some of the hardest hit communities are impossible to reach. The massive storm made a second landfall in Cuba, before taking aim at the Bahamas. NBC News’ George Solis is there.



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Oct. 29, 2025, 7:31 PM EDTBy Amina KilpatrickNot one couple who met during season nine of “Love Is Blind” had a fairy-tale ending, a shocking conclusion that has made some fans question whether the dating show is worth their time. When the series debuted on Netflix in February 2020, viewers gravitated toward its refreshing premise: Can people fall for each other without seeing each other? The idea especially resonated with people who were starting to feel isolated as the Covid-19 pandemic began to take hold. From their isolated “pods,” contestants speed date each other, engaging in hourslong raw conversations that sometimes can lead to proposals within days of their “meeting.” Netflix then has the lovebirds test whether they actually mesh in person. The journey ultimately leads some of the couples to the altar, where they are tasked with saying yes or no to their matches after just weeks of knowing each other. But the absence of genuine romance this season, coupled with several controversies over the past few years, has fueled disdain for the series from some fans who say the show has become unwatchable. “I think the series has lost its spark, the reason it was created,” said Kadidjha Traore, who was among the many fans who posted about their disappointment on TikTok. She cited the success of season one fan favorites Lauren Speed-Hamilton and Cameron Hamilton, whom she described as “the poster child of loving being blind.”However, as the seasons went on,” Traore said, the show “kind of has deteriorated.”Season nine cast members Kalybriah, left, Nick Amato, Madison Maidenberg, Anton Yarosh and Megan Walerius gather for a reunion episode.Adam Rose / NetflixDating shows continue to vie for viewership in an oversaturated market for such programming. Ratings for the long-running “Bachelor” franchise and its numerous spinoffs have waned amid criticism for being too stale. Even highly popular shows like “Love Is Blind” (both the U.S. and U.K. versions) have faced intense scrutiny from fans over how they have handled cyberbullying of contestants and their mental health. “Love Is Blind” hasn’t faced a dip in viewership during its five-year run. Each season, which has taken place in a different U.S. city, has continued to maintain a spot in the most-viewed rankings on Netflix after it drops. The season eight premiere this year generated 1.07 billion viewing minutes in the United States for the week of Feb. 10-16, according to Nielsen. (Viewing numbers for the latest season aren’t yet available.)However, many viewers online have complained that the show no longer lives up to the premise that captivated them. On the Reddit page dedicated to the show, fans have analyzed the ninth season’s trajectory across hundreds of comments in more than a dozen threads. TikTok users have also dissected the couples in their videos, some of which have racked up millions of views and thousands of likes.A representative for Netflix didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.Keeping viewers engaged is part of the challenge of reality TV, according to Claire Fallon and Emma Gray, co-hosts of the “Love To See It” podcast, which covers other pop culture topics. “The thing about a reality television show is that while producers can intervene and do a lot to shape that narrative, you are still dealing with real people at the end of the day,” Gray said. “And you’re going to get what you can get and have to make do with what was felt.”Fallon said: “There’s something that’s very straightforward about making a reality dating show, right? Like, you don’t need to write scripts or, you know, get people in costume, and, like, it’s low-budget and it’s a pretty simple formula.” “A lot of fans understandably want a season that has good drama, a couple of villains and then at least one love story that’s sort of uplifting that makes them feel inspired and like they can live through the romantic happiness of the people in that relationship,” Fallon added. “And if you don’t have all of those components really firing on all cylinders, especially when people have such high expectations of a show, people are going to start to feel disappointed with the product.” But that’s a production feat that’s “hard to nail in practice,” she said. “Love Is Blind” has received blowback in past seasons, with viewers taking issue with the show’s having technical challenges, short-lived marriages and secret relationships. The candidates’ political beliefs have also sometimes prompted wider discourse surrounding whether ideological differences can still be a deal-breaker when it comes to love. This season, which took place in Denver, fans appeared especially frustrated by the casting choices. Several online questioned the motivation and maturity of those selected for this season, as well as whether their backgrounds (and their dating histories) were actually vetted.As with other reality shows, many contestants from “Love Is Blind” have gone on to become influencers and podcasters following their appearances after having gained notoriety and audience on social media.Ali Lima and Anton Yarosh in season nine of “Love Is Blind.”Netflix“People can use the show to launch other projects to launch their careers, and that’s not something you can really get around, because that is kind of the attention economy that we live in,” Gray said.A storyline that drew a lot of negative reactions involved contestant Patrick Suzuki, who was turned down by his match, Kacie McIntosh. She ended their engagement shortly after they met in person. McIntosh told Suzuki it was because she couldn’t do the show anymore, but to the cameras she said it was because she didn’t think her “attraction to him” would “grow.” (Suzuki is Asian American, and McIntosh said she’d never dated anyone of his ethnicity before.)Contestants Nick Lancaster and Annie Lancaster also garnered backlash after their discussion in the pods about what they would do if their future kids were gay. Amato said he feels being part of the LGBTQ community is a “fad” (he has since apologized on his Instagram account), and Lancaster said she wouldn’t be thrilled. “I watch these reality shows to escape,” Traore said. “I like all those shows just to not think about what’s going on right now. But this season of ‘Love Is Blind,’ like, really just brought you back into it.” Rikkii Wise, who has amassed a following of about 200,000 people on TikTok, where she posts “tea” (or gossip) related to reality shows, said she actually enjoyed that there were “mess and drama” rather than romance. But she understands the fan complaints — of the five featured couples, three broke up before the altar, meaning just two weddings were shown on screen. “Obviously you can’t force people to go to the altar, but I think that maybe they should bring that clause back, because if we had no couples go to the altar, the audience is going to be in an uproar,” said Wise, who goes by storytimewithrikkii on social media. The season nine reunion airs at 9 p.m. ET (6 p.m. PT). Wise, who has posted speculation about what will go down in the episode, said she doesn’t believe love is blind, even after having watched every season. “People have found love on the show,” she said. “People are still married; people do have babies. And I don’t think it’s about love being blind. I think it’s about, OK, these people really wanted to get married, they found each other, and they are attracted to each other, you know?”The creator of “Love Is Blind” maintains that the experiment worked as intended. “In Season 9, at least one member of each couple felt their love was not strong enough to overcome the challenges of the real world, and they chose not to get married,” Chris Coelen told Netflix’s publication, “Tudum.” “That’s exactly how the experiment is supposed to work, so I would say not only is the experiment working, I think it’s working better than ever.”Amina KilpatrickAmina Kilpatrick is a weekend platforms editor for NBC News.
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Nov. 29, 2025, 10:07 PM EST / Updated Nov. 30, 2025, 5:57 PM ESTBy Courtney Kube, Gordon Lubold and Raquel Coronell UribeBoth the House and the Senate have started inquiries into a reported second strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean in September that killed the survivors of an initial strike.The Defense Department conducted a second strike on a boat the Trump administration says was carrying drugs from Venezuela after the first strike on the boat failed to kill all of its occupants, one U.S. official and a source familiar with the Pentagon’s actions that day told NBC News. The first of the two strikes conducted on Sept. 2 left at least two survivors, the officials said. The second strike killed the remaining survivors, according to the officials. ​The boat was carrying 11 people, the Pentagon said at the time. Both strikes that day were the first of several known U.S. strikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea that the administration alleges carry drugs to the U.S. Since then, the Pentagon has conducted more than 20 strikes on vessels it says were transporting drugs from Venezuela, killing more than 80 people. The Washington Post was the first to report about the second strike in the Sept. 2 boat attack. The Post reported that the second strike was ordered by the Joint Special Operations commander overseeing the strike who was complying with a previous order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to “kill everybody.”NBC News has not confirmed that detail. The second strike is significant as some legal experts say that if it was ordered to kill people who would be otherwise incapacitated, it amounts to a war crime. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said Sunday on CNN that if the reporting on the second strike is true, “it seems to” constitute a war crime. “If what has been reported is accurate, I’ve got serious concerns about anybody in that, you know, chain of command stepping over a line that they should never step over,” Kelly said. “We are not Russia. We’re not Iraq. We hold ourselves to a very high standard of professionalism.” Uproar after lawmakers urge troops to defy illegal orders04:23Speaking to reporters Sunday, President Donald Trump said he didn’t know anything about the reported second strike, adding that Hegseth “said he did not say that, and I believe him 100%.”Asked whether he thought it would be legal if a second strike had taken place to kill those wounded in the first, Trump said, “I don’t know that that happened. And Pete said he did not want that — he didn’t even know what people were talking about. “We’ll look into it. But no, I wouldn’t have wanted that. Not a second strike. The first strike was very lethal. It was fine, and if there were two people around, but Pete said that didn’t happen. I have great confidence,” he added.“Pete said he did not order the death of those two men,” Trump said.The top Republican and Democrat on the GOP-led Senate Armed Services Committee said in a statement Friday that the committee was aware of recent reports.“The Committee has directed inquiries to the [Department of Defense], and we will be conducting vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances,” Sens. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and Jack Reed, D-R.I., said in the statement.The Republican-led House Armed Services Committee followed suit Saturday, with Reps. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., and Adam Smith, D-Wash., saying in a joint statement that the House committee is “committed to providing rigorous oversight of the Department of Defense’s military operations in the Caribbean.”“We take seriously the reports of follow-on strikes on boats alleged to be ferrying narcotics in the SOUTHCOM region and are taking bipartisan action to gather a full accounting of the operation in question,” Rogers and Smith wrote.Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell told the Post in a statement that “this entire narrative is completely false.” He told the newspaper that the “ongoing operations to dismantle narcoterrorism and to protect the Homeland from deadly drugs have been a resounding success.”Hegseth posted Friday evening on X that the strikes were intended to be “lethal, kinetic strikes.”“The declared intent is to stop lethal drugs, destroy narco-boats, and kill the narco-terrorists who are poisoning the American people. Every trafficker we kill is affiliated with a Designated Terrorist Organization,” he wrote.“Our current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both U.S. and international law, with all actions in compliance with the law of armed conflict — and approved by the best military and civilian lawyers, up and down the chain of command,” he added.The Trump administration is ratcheting up pressure on Venezuela. Trump is weighing military action against the country following nearly two dozen known U.S. strikes on vessels in the region, which have killed at least 82 people. Trump said Saturday morning that Venezuela’s airspace should be considered “closed.”The strikes have raised concerns in Congress about a lack of information from administration officials. Trump last month indicated that his administration will not seek congressional approval for targeting drug traffickers, saying, “I think we’re just gonna kill people that are bringing drugs into our country.”“We’re going to kill them. They’re going to be, like, dead,” Trump added.Courtney KubeCourtney Kube is a correspondent covering national security and the military for the NBC News Investigative Unit.Gordon LuboldGordon Lubold is a national security reporter for NBC News.Raquel Coronell UribeRaquel Coronell Uribe is a breaking news reporter. Brennan Leach and Kyle Stewart contributed.
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