Forbes Diary: US government shutdown amid negative credit rating outlook.

Good morning! We've all been in that situation: trying to talk to people at an event, but it can feel awkward and unnatural, especially if you're alone. Instead of trying to meet everyone, take the time to meaningfully connect with fewer people. Make a strategic list of three to five people you'd like to connect with, but don't just focus on the people you most want to meet. Be open to meeting other interesting people - you never know when those connections might come in handy.

Patients and internally displaced persons are pictured at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza on November 10, 2023, during ongoing fighting between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement.''Gaza's largest medical center, al-Shifa, is no longer functioning after three days without electricity and water and constant bombing and shooting, the WHO said, while Israeli officials insisted Hamas was present in the network of tunnels under the hospital. The Biden administration has warned that it will not publicly support Israel in the coming weeks if there are many civilian casualties.

After 36 days of fighting, more than 11,000 people have died in Gaza and about 1,200 in southern Israel in a revised death toll from the Oct. 7 Hamas attack. The UN says 1.5 million people have been internally displaced in Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted at a possible agreement on the issue''likely to invest extra in their appearance and wellbeing. Soaring sales of drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy have had a negative impact on food and packaged food stocks, but a Morgan Stanley survey last month showed a twofold increase in people's weekly workouts after starting weight loss drugs.

Jeff Green at the groundbreaking of his latest project, the two-tower mixed-use One West Palm facility, 2019.

Jeff Green started investing in real estate as a side income in college and survived the recession in the 1990s before making his first billion by gambling against the residential real estate market in 2008. His fortune is now estimated at $7.5 billion, and he says,''that he's no longer willing to take risks like he used to and advises investors to be as liquid as possible and diversify their assets.

94-year-old Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus has endorsed Donald Trump's campaign.

94-year-old Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus has decided to endorse Donald Trump's campaign for re-election, a victory for the former president as he tries to win back the Republican mega-sponsors who abandoned him. Marcus, whose fortune exceeds $8 billion and who has donated tens of millions of dollars to Republican politicians and causes, stayed away from the 2024 election until his endorsement.

For a decade, the Omegle platform, which connected strangers in video chats,''accompanied by many cases of child abuse, and it was finally shut down last week after multiple lawsuits over alleged child seduction on the app. In 2022, Omegle reported more than half a million cases of child sexual abuse material to the organization to find missing and abused children, more than the volume found on other major sites such as TikTok, Snapchat and Discord.

The FBI seized New York City Mayor Eric Adams' electronic devices last week as part of an investigation into whether his campaign for election received illegal donations from Turkish nationals. The New York Times Government previously reported that there was no evidence that the investigation was targeting Adams,''s tentative agreement with Wynn Resorts on Friday, avoiding a strike just hours before the deadline. It was the last of the major casinos to agree to do so, after Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts International reached agreements with the culinary and bartenders unions last week.

The Grammy nominations were announced Friday, and the movie "Barbie" received 11 nominations in seven categories after its resounding box office success. Although country music had a blockbuster year, the genre did not receive major Grammy nominations.

Air travel generates a lot of carbon pollution, contributing to the climate crisis, which in turn worsens the weather and can make air travel more turbulent and unpleasant. Studies show that''High-speed trains may be a sustainable alternative, but they are not available in the U.S. "The U.S. is suffering a lost profit by not building a high-speed rail system," said Zhen Renhua, a professor of urban planning at Ohio State University.

Elizabeth Deluca on trial in 2017 during her late husband's trial against his former partner in a real estate deal. The head of M.I.'s international relations subsection is several cultural alternative philosophies.