The Federal Reserve is poised to begin at least a six-month operation to buy about $60 billion of Treasury bills per month, as the central bank seeks to ease cash shortages that caused a recent spike in the overnight cost of borrowing.

The announcement on Friday sent three-month bill yields sharply lower, dropping from a high of 1.7% to a low of 1.62%. The size of the operation shocked Wall Street analysts who had expected the central bank to be more conservative.

“They are going for it,” said Ralph Axel, an interest rate strategist at Bank of America. “They are hitting this hard. I think it’s the right thing to do.”

The Federal Open Market Committee said it had instructed the New York Fed to begin buying short-dated Treasury bills at a rate of approximately $60 billion per month, beginning next Tuesday and continuing through until the second quarter of next year.

The move is aimed at restoring the amount of reserves banks hold at the Fed to at least the levels seen early last month, before short-term lending markets suffered a sharp rise in borrowing costs as cash became scarce. When the Fed buys bills from banks, it pays for the purchase by crediting their reserve accounts.

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Fed Chairman Jerome H. Powell revealed plans to resume the “organic growth” of the central bank’s balance sheet earlier this week, implying that it would buy Treasuries in line with the growth of the central bank’s liabilities. But the planned purchases are well in excess of the growth in currency in circulation, which has increased at an average of $5.6 billion per month since April.

“They are buying aggressively,” said Priya Misra, head of global rates strategy at TD Securities. “This is much more than organic — it is building a reserve buffer, which is a good thing.”

The Fed’s plans to buy short-dated bills, rather than longer-term Treasuries, is seen as an attempt to distance the new measures from quantitative easing — the crisis-era stimulus program that the central bank used to lower long-term borrowing costs and boost the economy.

In its statement on Friday, the Fed said the current actions “are purely technical measures to support the effective implementation” of its interest-rate policy, and “do not represent a change” in its monetary stance.

The Fed also said it would extend its current operations lending cash in exchange for Treasuries and other high-quality collateral in the repo market “to ensure that the supply of reserves remains ample even during periods of sharp increases in non-reserve liabilities, and to mitigate the risk of money market pressures that could adversely affect policy implementation.”

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U.S. aviation regulators assessing Boeing Co.’s 737 Max sometimes didn’t follow their own rules, used out-of-date procedures and lacked the resources and expertise to fully vet the design changes implicated in two fatal crashes, a review panel composed of global aviation experts has concluded.

The Federal Aviation Administration, which approved the design of the jet in 2017, dropped the ball on many fronts, the Joint Authorities Technical Review found. A 69-page summary of the findings also said the panel found evidence that Boeing exerted “undue pressures” on some of its employees who had FAA authority to approve design changes.

The conclusions released Friday are the most sweeping to date to examine how the bestselling Boeing jet, which has been grounded for almost seven months, received approval for what is now seen as a flawed design. Last month, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board issued recommendations calling for better flight testing for such systems.

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There were “an inadequate number of FAA specialists” assigned to the 737 Max’s new design and they “had inadequate awareness” of the system implicated in the two crashes, the report released Friday said. Some regulations and policies “were not applied” by the agency as it oversaw design changes on the plane “in a way that failed to achieve the full safety benefit,” the report said.

Boeing spokesman Chaz Bickers said safety is “a core value for everyone at Boeing” and that the company is “committed to working with the FAA in reviewing the recommendations and helping to continuously improve the process and approach used to validate and certify airplanes.”

Later on Friday, Boeing stripped Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg of his chairman title, saying that separating the positions of CEO and chairman would enable Muilenburg to focus full time on running the company and sharpen its focus on “product and services safety.” The board elected David Calhoun, who previously served as an independent lead director, to serve as non-executive chairman. Muilenburg will continue as CEO and president.

The review process was established within weeks of the March 10 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max near Addis Ababa that killed all 157 people aboard and prompted the worldwide grounding of the jet days later. A Lion Air 737 Max went down off the coast of Indonesia on Oct. 29, 2018, under similar circumstances, killing all 189 people aboard.

As the plane feature known as Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System — or MCAS — was given more authority during the design of the plane, “the design assumptions were not adequately reviewed, updated, or validated; possible flight deck effects were not evaluated” and safety assessments didn’t keep pace, the review summary said.

FAA response

FAA Administrator Steven Dickson said in a statement that he will review the recommendations and “take appropriate action.”

“Today’s unprecedented U.S. safety record was built on the willingness of aviation professionals to embrace hard lessons and to seek continuous improvement,” Dickson said in the statement. “We welcome this scrutiny and are confident that our openness to these efforts will further bolster aviation safety worldwide. The accidents in Indonesia and Ethiopia are a somber reminder that the FAA and our international regulatory partners must strive to constantly strengthen aviation safety.”

Before the report’s release, both the FAA and Boeing had already begun taking steps that were similar to the recommendations. For example, that FAA has insisted that the plane be tested by panels of airline pilots instead of relying only on test pilots.

The panel’s findings paint a picture of an agency that was overwhelmed by the complexity of the new jet’s design, lacking in resources and unaware of the broader safety implications of changes.

However, the findings were limited to observations and recommendations and didn’t detail the decision-making to approve the plane. Because it did not require consensus of all its members, it’s impossible to know if some of the conclusions were by a minority of participants.

The panel was made up of experts from FAA, NASA and nine other regulatory agencies from around the world. Participants included the European Aviation Safety Agency as well as representatives from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Japan, Indonesia, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. Its chairman is Christopher Hart, the former chairman of the NTSB.

It was chartered to review how MCAS — the flight-control feature on the 737 Max linked to the two fatal crashes — was approved. It did not examine Boeing’s ongoing work with the FAA to redesign the grounded plane and return it to service.

MCAS was added to Boeing’s Max family of planes to ensure that they met FAA rules for safe handling as the aircraft approached aerodynamic stalls. If the plane was pointed too high, it was programmed to automatically lower the nose. In the crashes, malfunctions caused the feature to activate and repeatedly try to make the plane dive. The failure also led to chaotic cockpit alarms, and both sets of pilots failed to follow Boeing’s procedure to recover and eventually lost control.

Recommendations

In a series of recommendations, the panel urged the FAA to update its regulations, enhance its engineering expertise and to conduct more sweeping safety assessments that examine unintended consequences of high-technology designs.

Like the NTSB’s recommendations last month, the review panel focused on how designs affect the humans — in this case, pilots. The complex emergencies in the two accidents and the high pilot workloads “may not have been anticipated in the certification process,” it said. It called on the FAA to better integrate how the agency’s test pilots assess new designs.

The panel also addressed a concern several pilots unions have raised since the crashes: the lack of reference to MCAS in the 737’s flight manuals.

Boeing’s Aircraft Flight Manual didn’t include some “non-normal” and emergency procedures “as required by regulations,” the JATR said.

Also, the way in which Boeing withheld information from some of its manuals meant an FAA panel of pilot experts “was not fully aware of the MCAS function and was not in a position to adequately assess training needs,” it said.

‘Undue pressure’

Much of the Max’s design was approved by Boeing engineers who were in effect deputized to act on behalf of the FAA. Congress has ordered the agency to expand such programs in recent years, and other regulators around the world use similar processes, in part because aircraft manufacturers have broader expertise.

The panel recommended that the FAA review its staffing levels to ensure it can adequately oversee these deputized workers, known as designees. The Boeing organization that conducts such work has about 1,500 people, while the FAA team overseeing their work has 45. Of that FAA group, only 24 are engineers.

“There are signs of undue pressure” on Boeing employees doing this work, the report said, “which may be attributed to conflicting priorities and an environment that does not support FAA requirements.”

The report did not provide details on what those pressures were or whether they specifically affected the MCAS design.

Activision Blizzard Inc., facing the threat of a boycott, reduced the punishment it meted out to a tournament player who voiced support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy demonstrators.

The company’s Blizzard Entertainment division originally barred the player from events for a year and stripped him of some $10,000 in prize money. But it said at the end of the week that it would cut the ban to six months and pay his winnings.

The reversal followed an uproar from customers and even U.S. lawmakers, who felt Blizzard was kowtowing to China by punishing the player. Some analysts worried the boycott might take a toll on a company that has already suffered recent upheaval.

“This represents a new risk,” Cowen & Co. analyst Doug Creutz said in a note earlier this week. “Though at present one that is very hard to evaluate.”

It all started when Chung Ng Wai, a gamer who goes by the name Blitzchung, wore a gas mask and chanted a pro-Hong Kong slogan in an interview after a tournament. Blitzchung plays “Hearthstone,” an online card game from Blizzard.

China considers support for the demonstrators an affront to the nation and its people, and Blizzard treated it as a grave offense. Blizzard said he violated its rules against an act that “brings you into public disrepute, offends a portion or group of the public, or otherwise damages Blizzard’s image.”

But customers and some Blizzard workers felt the reaction was too extreme. In the furor that ensued, several employees staged a protest at its offices in Irvine. They covered up a plaque that read “Every Voice Matters” and held up umbrellas — a symbol of the Hong Kong protesters.

“In hindsight, our process wasn’t adequate, and we reacted too quickly,” J. Allen Brack, president of Blizzard Entertainment, said in the statement. Still, he added that “if this had been the opposing viewpoint delivered in the same divisive and deliberate way, we would have felt and acted the same.”

Fans calling for a boycott also complained that they had trouble canceling their subscriptions to the company’s games, which include the hit “Overwatch.” Among the gripes: that they had to show government identification to cancel and that other roadblocks were put in place.

Some of the cancellation complaints may have been overblown. The video-game site Polygon said the roadblocks probably stemmed from Blizzard’s servers being overloaded, not a deliberate attempt to keep users from deleting their accounts.

Video-game companies have had to grapple more with free-speech issues in recent years, now that esports — gaming competitions that are broadcast to millions of fans — are such a big part of the industry. The maker of League of Legends, a division of Tencent Holdings, said this week that it won’t let broadcasters discuss “sensitive” topics, including political or religious issues.

For Activision Blizzard, the boycott threat came at a particularly difficult time. The Santa Monica-based company has struggled to come up with fresh hits, and executive turnover is high. The heads of Activision Blizzard’s three major divisions have been replaced over the past year, as was its chief financial officer, who quit.

And the company is counting on customers embracing a mobile version of its hit shooting game “Call of Duty,” done in partnership with Tencent, which has also invested in Activision Blizzard.

The company also is preparing for Blizzcon, its big fan convention in Anaheim in early November. Attendees have threatened to come dressed as Winnie the Pooh, which has become a symbol of resistance against the Chinese government.

“We suspect that the decision to punish Blitzchung, which almost certainly had input from senior Activision management, was met with dismay by a meaningful portion of Blizzard’s staff,” Creutz said. “Investors are counting on a turnaround at Blizzard to reinvigorate growth, but if the internal culture is in turmoil, there is a lot of risk to that thesis.”

Blitzchung’s punishment stood in stark contrast to how the NBA handled its China controversy this week. In that case, the Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey tweeted his support for the Hong Kong protests, right before the league was due to play a couple of preseason games in China. But the league didn’t punish Morey and has instead endured a backlash from Chinese authorities and sponsors there.

Activision’s reaction also contrasted with that of Epic Games founder Tim Sweeney, the creator of Fortnite. Sweeney, whose company also has Tencent as a significant shareholder, said on Twitter this week that he supports free speech.

“Epic supports the rights of Fortnite players and creators to speak about politics and human rights,” he said.

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New Era released its 2019 NBA Tip-Off Series collection this week, and, man, those hats are really … um …

Well, how exactly do you describe a regular-sized cap that features the team and city names — sometimes in full and sometimes only a portion — four times each, in various sizes and directions, as well as the team logo twice, and the NBA and New Era logos once each?

Interesting? Definitely.

Fun? Sure.

Beyond bizarre? Hell yeah.

Here’s a quick look at these wonderfully weird creations.

The front two panels have a lot going on. The right side features the city (or borough or district or state nickname, as the case may be) name in as many large letters that can fit horizontally on that panel. In most cases, that’s six letters (one annoying exception is Boston, which could easily fit its whole name on there but inexplicably goes with “BOSTO”).

On the left side, there’s a representation of the team logo on top. Much of the team name can fit below it vertically. That seems to be about five or six letters. This design for the front two panels works well for teams such as the Miami Heat, with names so short that the hats actually look relatively normal from that angle.

It also works for the Minnesota Timberwolves and other teams with super long names, where you can clearly see the effect the hat designers were trying to achieve.

But the design does not work so well for teams with medium-length names, such as the Atlanta Hawks, which ended up with hats that look like someone left a letter off by mistake.

Moving down to the bill, the designers showed remarkable restraint on the left side, with the full-length city name in nice, easy-to-read letters. But then they went absolutely nuts on the right side, slapping on the team name in letters so large that barely any of it can fit on the hat. The Oklahoma City Thunder and Portland Trail Blazers might be the most extreme examples.

Speaking of extreme, let’s move on to the left side panel. Holy cow. Running vertically on the left side is the team name in humongous letters, which don’t come close to fitting into the allotted space.

Next to that, on the right side of the same panel, is the team name again, only this time it’s horizontal and it fits better, but still not completely. Once again, this leaves some teams, like the Lakers, looking like a letter was accidentally dropped at the end of their name.

Oddly enough, teams with short names, like the Utah Jazz, receive the same treatment as the other teams on this portion of the hat, even though there appears to be plenty of room for every letter in its entirety.

The back features the full city name running vertically on the right panel and a small NBA logo in the middle. On the left panel, there’s a humongous representation of the team logo that often doesn’t quite fit into its space. This is easily the coolest portion of these hats.

And finally we head to the peace and tranquility of the right side panel, which features only the New Era logo underneath the full city name, both fitting quite nicely in the space. Ah, just take a moment to soak in the glorious simplicity.

By the way, the Clippers went slightly rogue with their hats. Instead of using the full city name like everyone else, they went with just “LA” in all references, giving their headgear a bit of a distinctive look.

So there you have it. If you’re looking to make a bold fashion statement as the new season begins — or if for some reason you want people to think you root for a team with a name like “WARRI GOLDEN” or “GRIZZ MEMPH” — you might want to snag one of these bad boys.

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Alicia Keys and Sara Bareilles teamed up at the City of Hope’s Spirit of Life Gala on Thursday for a musical salute to Sylvia Rhone, chairman and chief executive officer of Epic Records, and performed a duet fittingly for the honoree — a mashup of their respective songs, “Girl on Fire” and “Brave.”

“We’re so happy to be here to honor you, Sylvia,” said Bareilles, a seven-time Grammy, three-time Emmy and two-time Tony nominee. “You are such an amazing mentor and a guiding light for me in my career.”

Added Keys, a15-time Grammy Award winner, “I think we all have that power to be brave and to be in our power as we reach back and continue to lift others up along with us.” She said the evening was “a powerful testament to what that does and how that makes us all so much stronger.”

The event

At the Barker Hanger in Santa Monica, the City of Hope’s Music, Film and Entertainment Industry Group honored Rhone at the black-tie affair, which raised more than $4 million for the world-renowned research and treatment center for cancer, diabetes and other illnesses. Rhone is the first African American woman to receive the charity’s Spirit of Life award.

The entertainment

In a night filled with music, Yolanda Adams serenaded the audience with a series of her hit tunes, stopping briefly to address Rhone. “She is the reason I don’t take no for an answer ever anymore,” said the four-time Grammy-winning gospel singer. “Most of those songs that you heard me sing, Miss Sylvia Rhone made sure that they were heard by the world.”

Before guests adjourned for an afterparty in the adjacent tent, DJ Khaled took the microphone to introduce a reunited En Vogue for a surprise performance as the night’s final tribute to the honoree.

The program

Music industry VIPs took turns at the podium, beginning with Evan Lamberg, who spoke of Rhone’s “smashing glass ceilings,” not only for women but also for people of color. Lamberg is president of Universal Music Publishing Group North America.

After a stirring medley by Adams, Jimmy Jam introduced fellow songwriter-producer Kuk Harrell, listing Harrell’s collaborations with music superstars Rihanna, Beyoncé, Mary J. Blige and others. For his part, Harrell praised the City of Hope as he recounted his fight against prostate cancer.

He fought back tears as he expressed gratitude for his care team’s compassion. “I was overwhelmed with joy because I knew right then I was in the right place,” he said.

The honoree

Stepping up to the podium, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder delivered the tribute to Rhone, who is credited with the launch and guidance of Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes, Tracy Chapman and Metallica, among other music superstars.

“It was not a hard decision for me to make — to be the Spirit of Life honoree,” said Rhone onstage, “because I sat in these rooms for 20 years, wondering if there would be anybody up here that looked like me getting an award, and I sat there with a great deal of respect for those honorees. No question about it. They were amazing men, but it was time for a change. I want each and every one of you, especially for the women and people of color, to understand one of my motivations. … I particularly did it because it will open doors for everybody else, and so, this is for us.”

She closed with advice for the young people in the room. “As you rise in your careers, ” she said, “don’t be afraid to leave your comfort zone. … The door is open, and now the only question is, ‘What do you want to do to make your mark and what are you going to do to give back?’”

The crowd

Among many in the audience were Meghan Trainor, Daryl Sabara, 21 Savage, Zara Larsson, Keltie Knight, Forest Whitaker, Clarence Avant and Robert Stone, president and chief executive officer of City of Hope.

The numbers

Tickets for the 1,150 guests began at $1,500, with tables of 10 ranging to $60,000.

BRUSSELS — 

The European Union said Friday that talks with Britain to find an amicable divorce deal were back on track, despite huge challenges and a looming end-of-month deadline for Britain to leave the bloc.

EU Council President Donald Tusk said he has “received promising signals” from Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar that a Brexit deal is still possible, so he has extended a deadline to continue the Brexit talks.

Tusk, speaking in Nicosia, Cyprus, said “for the first time” Varadkar and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson saw a path toward a deal, adding that “even the slightest chance must be used” to avoid a no-deal Brexit.

An official from an EU nation who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks are ongoing said Britain had offered compromises on how to deal with the only EU-U.K. land border, on the island of Ireland.

The official said EU negotiator Michel Barnier told EU ambassadors that Britain will shift its position on the custom union, the issue of consent of the Northern Ireland legislature on the border and some regulations on trade.

Immediately, the wheels of the negotiating machinery started churning again. Johnson’s Brexit secretary, Stephen Barclay, got a warm welcome from Barnier before they started almost two hours of talks Friday around breakfast.

The EU said later that the two sides would “intensify discussions over the coming days” before an assessment on the Brexit talks would be made on Monday.

“If there is a will, there is, of course, a way. Otherwise people would not be working on this,” said EU Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva.

Originally, Tusk said he was planning to pull the plug Friday on the Brexit talks, but because of the breakthrough he can now see talks going through the weekend, ahead of the EU’s two-day summit, which starts Thursday.

Tusk said “there is no guarantee of success and the time is practically up” but insisted both sides should use every opportunity available ahead of Britain’s scheduled Oct. 31 departure date.

“A no-deal Brexit will never be the choice of the EU,” Tusk said.

Johnson said late Thursday there was a “pathway” to a belated agreement to stave off a chaotic, costly no-deal Brexit on Oct. 31, while Varadkar said the meeting was “very positive.”

After his meeting with Barclay, Barnier said it was essential to keep focused.

“Brexit is like climbing a mountain. We need vigilance, determination and patience,” said the man who once organized the 1992 Winter Olympics in his Savoie region of France.

The main stumbling block remains how to handle Britain’s only land border with the EU, between Northern Ireland and Ireland.

The challenge of keeping this border invisible — something that has underpinned both the local economy and the region’s peace deal — has dominated Brexit discussions for three years, ever since British voters chose in 2016 to leave the EU.

Tusk insisted “even the slightest chance must be used” to avoid an acrimonious split since both the EU and the United Kingdom would be hit hard economically in a no-deal Brexit.

One way to do that could be to extend the Oct. 31 deadline so that negotiators have more time to work things out in legally binding detail. But Johnson has insisted that Britain is leaving on Oct. 31 “do or die” — with or without a divorce deal.

France has also long said that deadlines cannot be extended forever, since Britain was originally slated to leave the bloc on March 31.

In Paris, France’s European affairs minister, Amelie de Montchalin, had another take on the debate, saying that a no-deal Brexit “is probable, at this stage.” De Montchalin told France Inter radio that she does not see an obvious reason to grant a further Brexit extension to the U.K.

“I have a fundamental question: Why give more time? If it is time for the sake of time? It has taken one year, even three years, and we don’t really get it,” she said.

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Amman, Jordan — 

Turkish artillery and warplanes on Friday battered Kurdish-held territories across northeast Syria, while ground troops and allies overran 14 villages on the periphery of two strategic towns along the border, Turkey’s military said.

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, referring to Kurdish fighters, said 342 “terrorists have been neutralized” since the start of cross-border military operations on Wednesday, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.

The incursion called Operation Peace Spring involves a heavy barrage in a region controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces, Kurdish-led militias that for years have received U.S. backing in the fight against Islamic State militants.

The assault announced by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan began after President Trump announced early this week that U.S. troops would be withdrawn from the area, in effect allowing Turkey, an ally, to attack the Kurds, also allies — a move viewed by many U.S. observers, both Democrats and Republicans, as a betrayal.

Turkey has said it wants to push Kurdish fighters from a 20-mile band of territory it calls a safe zone extending along the Syrian-Turkish border. It also has said it aims to resettle millions of refugees who went to Turkey since the start of war in Syria in 2011.

In his speech, Akar said that “only terrorists and their shelters, positions, weapons, ammunition depots and equipment are targeted,” and that the attack would avoid targeting “innocent people.”

Yet there were civilians among the dead on both sides of the border. The Kurdish Red Crescent reported 11 civilians killed, while Kurdish shelling on Turkish border towns including Akcakale killed six people, including an 11-month-old baby, according to Turkish media.

The funeral for the child, Mohammad Omar Saar, was broadcast from Akcakale, with footage depicting Turkish soldiers in ceremonial attire carrying and then saluting a small coffin draped in the red of the Turkish flag.

Later Friday, several artillery shells landed near a U.S. observation post in the Kurdish-controlled city of Kobani, some 35 miles northwest of Tal Abyad, Syria. A U.S. official, speaking on background, said no troops were harmed. Turkey’s Defense Ministry denied it had targeted the observation post.

The Turkish military has the coordinates for U.S. positions; the attack was not considered a direct one, said the U.S. official, even if it was “reckless.” The U.S. personnel departed the post.

More than 100,000 people have fled the violence, the United Nations said Friday, while the International Rescue Committee aid group estimated that a total of 300,000 could be forced to abandon their homes.

It has disrupted life throughout the Kurds’ enclave, which they established as a semiautonomous area in northeast Syria with U.S. support.

On Friday, a spokesman for the Syrian National Army, a Turkish-backed grouping of Syrian rebel factions, said they had controlled villages surrounding Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ayn, two strategic areas Turkey needs to bolster its drive into Kurdish-held territory, but had yet to enter the towns.

The aid group Doctors Without Borders said the main hospital in Tal Abyad had been closed after medical staff left with their families.

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Some hospitals elsewhere in Kurdish-controlled areas had also shuttered their doors, activists said, while those still receiving the wounded were “stretched beyond their capacity.”

The shelling also struck critical infrastructure, including water stations, causing shortages in many areas.

In the turmoil, Islamic State planted a car bomb near a restaurant in the city of Qamishli, the group said, leaving behind “dozens” of casualties among the Kurdish fighters. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition watchdog group, said six people were killed.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, at a news conference Friday with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, acknowledged what he called “Turkey’s legitimate security concerns,” but said he expected Turkey “to act with restraint.” He said he was concerned about further destabilizing the region, and “even more human suffering.”

“We have a common enemy — Daesh,” Stoltenberg said, referring to Islamic State by its Arabic acronym. “A few years ago, they controlled significant territory in Iraq and in Syria. Working together in the global coalition, we have liberated all this territory and millions of people. These gains must not be jeopardized.”

U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, meanwhile, spoke to his Turkish counterpart by phone, according to a Pentagon statement released Friday, in which he said that the incursion could risk “serious consequences for Turkey” and that its action could harm remaining U.S. personnel in Syria.

Esper, the statement said, “strongly encouraged Turkey to discontinue actions in northeast Syria” before the situation became “irreparable.”

Erdogan, speaking later in Istanbul, said Turkey was receiving pressure to stop but “will not turn back,” according to Anadolu.

The Pentagon said it’s ramping up the deployment of U.S. forces to the Middle East to “assure and enhance the defense of Saudi Arabia” against Iran at the same time President Trump has vowed to start bringing troops home from the region.

The Pentagon plans to dispatch about 1,800 additional troops to Saudi Arabia, officials said. Combined with other recent deployments, about 3,000 personnel are being sent or are having their missions extended in the Mideast, they said. Since May, an additional 14,000 U.S. personnel are in the region, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said Friday.

The deployment to Saudi Arabia comes as Trump and his top aides defended his decision to pull back some U.S. forces in northern Syria, a move that cleared the way for Turkey to send its forces into the country and attack American-allied Kurdish militias. Esper, speaking to reporters at the Pentagon, said most U.S. troops remain “co-located” with Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria.

“We are not abandoning our Kurdish partner forces,” Esper said at a briefing alongside Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley.

The latest deployment appeared at odds with statements Trump has made repeatedly in recent days about pulling U.S. forces out of “endless wars” in the Mideast.

“It’s time to bring them home,” Trump said at a rally in Minneapolis on Thursday night. “We’ve done our job, we’ve defeated everyone that we’re supposed to defeat.”

Esper and Milley said they’ve told their Turkish counterparts that they oppose Ankara’s attacks in northern Syria and said the U.S. never “greenlighted” the operation despite the White House announcement Sunday that American troops “would no longer be in the immediate area” if Turkey moved into Syria. Amid denunciations, including from many Republican lawmakers, Trump later said he had warned Turkey that the incursion was “a bad idea.”

Esper and Milley are likely to face tough questioning on whether Trump served as an enabler for Turkey’s incursion when they testify in a closed session of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday on “The Situation in Syria and the Wider Region.”

So far, Milley estimated, Turkey has sent hundreds of ground troops into the region to work with as many as 1,000 members of the Syrian Free Army but has primarily attacked with fighter jets, armed drones, artillery and tank fire. He called the Turkish operation on the ground “relatively limited.”

Crude oil prices were already climbing after a pair of explosions on an Iranian oil tanker in the Red Sea on Friday. The Islamic Republic’s tanker company initially said the attacks probably came from Saudi Arabia, but later withdrew the claim.

The deployment to Saudi Arabia announced Friday will include a previously previewed delivery of additional Patriot and THAAD missile defense systems that were initially held in reserve. The two systems will provide Saudi Arabia a layered air defense to intercept ballistic missiles at different altitudes and distances, extending coverage.

Esper said that move was in response to last month’s missile and drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities, a strike the U.S., Saudi Arabia and some European nations have blamed on Iran.

MEXICO CITY — 

At least one man died when a small boat filled with migrants from the Central African nation of Cameroon capsized Friday off the Pacific coast of southern Mexico, authorities said.

Two passengers were still missing late in the day, said prosecutors in Chiapas state.

The single-engine boat most likely originated in Mexico or nearby Guatemala with the aim of smuggling the migrants up the coast of Mexico so they could avoid traveling by land through Chiapas.

Thousands of African migrants trying to get to the United States have been stranded in southern Mexico as authorities there — under pressure from the Trump administration — have refused to issue them transit visas to continue north. Many plan to seek political asylum or other forms of humanitarian protection in the United States.

Mexican and U.S. authorities have reported detaining record numbers of undocumented African nationals this year.

Activists were quick to assign blame for the tragedy.

“What happened today with the African migrants is completely the fault of the Mexican government that has accepted the caprices and orders of President Trump,” said Irineo Mujica, a member of the Pueblos Sin Fronteras group that has assisted migrants traveling through Mexico.

Mexican officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Eight other Cameroonian nationals — seven men and one woman — survived and were treated in an area hospital and released.

Mexican authorities were questioning them to determine where the boat had originated, how long it had been at sea and other details.

The attorney general’s office in Chiapas state vowed to “clarify the matter” and identify those responsible.

The boat capsized about 7 a.m. near the fishing town of Puerto Arista, part of the municipality of Tonala, police said.

The dead man was identified as Emanuel Cheo Ngu, 39. Photos circulated on the internet of his fully clothed body in the brush along a beach.

Immigration authorities in Costa Rica had issued him a transit visa on Sept. 6 that gave him 25 days to pass through that Central American nation, according to a document made public in Mexico.

For years, smugglers have transported migrants in boats along the Pacific coast to points north of Chiapas, which has a heavy presence of police, soldiers and immigration agents tasked with deterring illicit migration.

Immigration checkpoints — bolstered by recently deployed Mexican National Guard forces — line the major northbound routes in Chiapas state.

Stranded African migrants have staged angry demonstrations in the southern Mexican city of Tapachula and have camped in protest outside Mexico’s federal immigration lockup there. Most had flown to Ecuador or other places in South America and made their way overland to Mexico.

Cameroonians represent the largest group among the African migrants arriving in Mexico. Many are part of that country’s English-speaking minority and say they face repression from a government dominated by the French-speaking majority.

Special correspondents Maria de Jesus Peters Pino in Tonala and Cecilia Sanchez in Mexico City contributed to this report.

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On Thursday October 11, the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra invited a number of esteemed guests to join Vogue Australia in celebrating its rich 60-year history with the opening of its highly-anticipated new exhibition, Women in Vogue: Celebrating Sixty Years in Australia.

The VIP celebration, which was hosted by Australia editor-in-chief Edwina McCann (above) and National Portrait Gallery director Karen Quinlan, with thanks to Paspaley, Moët Chandon and hotel partner Ovolo Nishi, saw former Foreign Minister of Australia, The Hon. Julie Bishop, take to the stage to unveil the celebrated exhibition. 

With the likes of former Vogue Australia editors Nancy Pilcher and and Juliet Ashworth in attendance, together with Vogue Australia cover stars Samantha Harris, Anneliese Seubert and Ursula Hufnagl, the event proved to be one that was not to be missed. 

“The elegant and contemporary exhibition will draw on our archive and highlight Vogue Australia’s role in documenting the changing roles and diversity of Australian womanhood over two generations,” shared McCann, prior to the opening of the showcase. “I couldn’t think of a better way to start our 60th anniversary celebrations.”

The exhibition, which is split up into three different segments–Looking Back, featuring images from the 1960s and 1970s; Looking Out, a visual representation of the second wave of feminism; and Looking Forward, depicting the faces currently shaping the country–will be open to the public from October 11, 2019 to November 24, 2019.

To view iconic portraits of everyone from Kylie Minogue, Elle Macpherson, HRH Crown Princess Mary and Nicole Kidman, to Cate Blanchett, Margot Robbie, Miranda Tapsell and Adut Akech, be sure to plan a visit to the National Portrait Gallery.

Julie Bishop, Samantha Harris and Edwina McCann.

Pia Miller.

Jake Terrey and Matilda Dods.

Camilla Freeman-Topper and Marc Freeman.

Carla Zampatti.

Graace.

Alison Veness.

Julie Bishop.

Nicky Oatley and Melissa Doyle.

Tessa and Beth MacGraw.

Nancy Pilcher.

Nicholas Gray and Anneliese Seubert.

Pia Miller.

Karen Quinlan.

Karen Quinlan , Ursula Hufnagl, Edwina McCann, and Samantha Harris.

Juliet Ashworth and Marc Freeman.

Graace on a Kawai crystal piano.Click Here: Atlanta United FC Jersey