Latest news with #Contra
New York Post
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Post
I plugged in this retro gaming console and blacked out for 6 hours
Discover startups, services, products and more from our partner StackCommerce. New York Post edits this content, and may be compensated and/or receive an affiliate commission if you buy through our links. TL;DR: Bring back the '90s with the Kinhank Super Console X2 Pro Retro Gaming Emulator and streaming console for $89.97 — $70 off the regular price of $159.99. There's a moment right after you boot up a vintage gaming console where the world just vanishes. For me, it happened around level four of Contra. I blinked, and suddenly it was dark out, I hadn't eaten, and the cat was judging me like I'd just finished marathon happy hour in Midtown. Enter the Kinhank Super Console X2 Pro, a mighty little box currently on sale for just $89.97 (down from $159.99). It ships free, which is great because I now use all my remaining budget on sour candy and soda. Advertisement To be clear, this isn't just some plastic nostalgia trap. We're talking over thousands of games, plus the ability to stream and download your modern faves via Android TV. If the PS5 is your sleek Wall Street banker friend, this is your neighborhood stoop guy who also runs an arcade in his basement. A legend. New York Post Composite Setup was weirdly easy. I'm used to retro gaming feeling like you're assembling IKEA furniture without the manual, but this thing basically plug-and-played its way into my heart. It comes with two wireless controllers, which is perfect for when your friend comes over and wants to relive their youth before also returning to their NY Times Wordle streak and second job. Also, it's got Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0, because even though I'm playing GoldenEye, I like to do it in 2025 comfort. Honestly, this box could power an entire childhood sleepover in one sitting. Mario Kart, Tekken, Donkey Kong Country, Street Fighter, Crash Bandicoot — if it once lived on a cartridge or disk, chances are it's in here somewhere, just waiting to be button-mashed. So go ahead. Hit continue. Choose player one. Relive your prime. Or at least distract yourself from the news cycle for a weekend. Don't miss this deal on a Kinhank Super Console X2 Pro Retro Gaming Emulator and streaming console for $89.97 (reg. $159.99) with free shipping. StackSocial prices subject to change.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Why the cofounder of Nextdoor came back after five years of investing in startups
– Home sweet home. They say you can never go home again, but Sarah Leary would disagree. In 2019, the Nextdoor cofounder stepped away from the company she helped build. Five years later, she returned to her old stomping grounds to help usher in a new era of the neighborhood social networking platform—now a $247 million-in-revenue business with 45.9 million weekly active users. Leary says that while she attempted to take some time off (unsuccessfully, she points out) and then pivoted to investing in early stage companies like Contra and Connectly, she was able to reconnect with Nextdoor's original goal of helping people strengthen their real life communities. 'When you step away, you're like, 'Ooh, maybe we could do that a little bit differently,'' she says. While working with small startups, Leary also better understood the rarity of creating a platform that became ubiquitous: Today, there are over 100 million Nextdoor users in 11 countries. Three priorities—time-sensitive information, local insights, and neighborhood news—are powering Nextdoor's next era. A series of partnerships with local news outlets is being unveiled today, and Nextdoor is also improving real-time safety alerts to become an emergency resource. What would 2011 Sarah think of all that her brainchild has turned into? 'I'd be like, 'OK, girl, you did it!' And at the same time, I'd think: 'Wow, building enduring companies is hard work,'' she says. 'Nextdoor is my baby. I put my heart and soul into this. This is a mission that I believe in very strongly.' Sara The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune's daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Today's edition was curated by Sara Braun. Subscribe here. This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
India Today
23-06-2025
- Politics
- India Today
Why US secretly armed Iran with missiles during a war
Secret Swiss bank accounts were set up. Special envoys, with assumed identities, travelled to hostile nations. Arms were air-dropped for rebel guerrillas. And a plane with American nationals was hijacked. The Iran-Contra case, one of the biggest political scandals in American history, involved all the above and missile supply to Iran by the US. That was 40 years before US President Donald Trump decided to join the Iran-Israel war and strike three Iranian nuclear is most interesting is that the US followed Israel's lead in the dealings, using its network of arms smugglers and bank accounts, according to reports by Time magazine. It is an altogether different matter that it was an Israeli gambit that would purpose of the US' sale of weapons to Iran was two-fold — get the American hostages released with Iranian help, and use the funds to assist the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. By then, the US-backed regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in Iran had been overthrown, and an Islamic Republic had been established by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979 after the Iranian newly-established Islamic Republic was fighting a war with Saddam Hussein-led Iraq, which was unnerved by the setting up of a Shia power centre in its immediate neighbourhood. Saddam, fearing that Khomeini would influence the Iraqi Shias against his Ba'ath Party, initiated the war against low on arms and ammunition and spare parts for US-made systems, Iran looked for had made millions of dollars in payments to the US during the Shah regime and got military hardware, including F14 Tomcat jets, M60 tanks, F4 Phantoms, and helicopters and after the Shah's regime was toppled, US-Iran diplomatic ties snapped, Iranian funds were frozen, and an arms embargo was imposed."Throughout 1981 and 1982, Israel provided Iran with modest amounts of spare parts, jet-plane tires and brakes, ammunition, and radar equipment. The Israelis reportedly set up Swiss bank accounts to handle the financial end of the deals," according to a Time magazine report from December 1986, when the Iran-Contra case blew US was then being led by another Republican President, Ronald Reagan, who served from 1981 to believed that its arms supply to Iran in time of crisis would get it closer to the Iranian military, the leaders of which were from a moderate faction, and would topple Khomeini's regime or capture power after his saw the Iranian army as a distinct entity from the anti-West Iranian Revolutionary bet on Iran army wouldn't pay off but the US would end up using its set-up to further its HIJACKING OF TWA FLIGHT 847 BY HEZBOLLAH FIGHTERSadvertisementOn June 14, 1985, TWA Flight 847 with 153 people onboard was hijacked by Lebanese Hezbollah terrorists armed with grenades and pistols during a routine flight from Athens to Rome, according to the FBI Hezbollah hijackers commandeered the plane to Beirut, Lebanon, demanding the release of Lebanese fighters in Israeli captivity. They expected the plane to have Israeli passengers, but finding none, they turned their focus on June 15, the hijackers decided to send out a strong message and killed a 23-year-old US Navy diver and threw his body on the most of the hostages were released in stages, 39 were set free only after 17 days, and after a botched arms delivery by Israel that was intercepted by the Revolutionary Guards."White House officials hoped the arms transfers through Israel would help secure the release of seven US hostages being held in Lebanon," according to a 2013 Politico recounted how Reagan defended the arms sale to Iran in a speech on November 13, 1986, 10 days after it was exposed by Lebanese newspaper purpose was... to send a signal that the United States was prepared to replace the animosity between [the US and Iran] with a new relationship... The most significant step [for progress in ties] which Iran could take, we indicated, would be to use its influence in Lebanon to secure the release of all hostages held there," Reagan said in the nationally-televised speech.A week later, Reagan retracted his public statement, denying sale of weapons as part of the arms-for-hostages AIDES USED IRAN FUNDS TO SUPPORT NICARAGUA CONTRASThe money generated from the sale of weapons to Iran was used to fund the Contras, a rebel group, fighting the Sandinista government in Nicaragua in Central too went against the US official stand. The US Congress had passed the Boland Amendment, prohibiting military aid to the investigators, The Washington Post reported in 1987, "believe that a total of $10.5 million was skimmed from the Iran arms deals to support Nicaraguan rebels".Key figures in the case included senior Reagan administration officials like National Security Council staff member Oliver North, National Security Advisor John Poindexter, and CIA Director William ARMS WERE SUPPLIED AS PART OF IRAN-CONTRA DEALBy the time the covert sales were discovered, more than 1,500 missiles had been shipped to Iran, according to a report by American public broadcaster to another 1987 Washington Post report, 2,008 TOW anti-tank missiles and spare parts for the HAWK anti-aircraft missile system were part of the supplies to TOW missile is a long-range, anti-tank guided missile, while the HAWK is an all-weather, ground-to-air missile it isn't clear, limited quantities of radar systems, ammunition components, and potentially aircraft spare parts might also have been supplied to Iran, mostly to shore up the Shah-era American systems that the Islamic Republic was using during its war against the shipments weren't massive, they helped when Iran was suffering from battlefield attrition and equipment arrival of advanced US weapons must have boosted the morale and stabilised key fronts. TOW missiles, in particular, helped Iran blunt multiple Iraqi offensives between 1985 and the Iran-Contra case, the biggest scandal of the Reagan regime, is also important is because it highlighted the balance-of-power issue between the President's office and the is very similar to the questions being raised on Trump's powers for getting the US into a new war in the Middle East by striking nuclear sites in Iran without wider bipartisan Reagan avoided direct criminal charges, the covert arms supply and the funnelling of funds in the Iran-Contra scandal damaged his public image and legacy. This was also the only instance when the US ended up arming the Islamic Republic of Iran, and helped it in a war Watch
The Sun
17-06-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
Nicaragua ex-president Chamorro laid to rest in Costa Rica
SAN JOSÉ: Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to the Central American country after years of war, was laid to rest Monday in Costa Rica two days after her death at age 95. The first woman president of the Americas, who defeated ex-guerrilla leader and current president Daniel Ortega in 1990 elections, died in exile in neighboring Costa Rica. Addressing her funeral mass in San Jose, her son Carlos Fernando Chamorro said he would take her ashes home to Nicaragua when it 'becomes a republic again' -- a swipe at the increasingly autocratic Ortega. During Chamorro's seven years as president between 1990 and 1997 she helped end a civil war that raged for much of the 1980s between US-backed 'Contra' rebels and Ortega's left-wing Sandinista government. She credited her victory with speaking to Nicaraguans in language 'typical of a homemaker and a mother.' She moved to Costa Rica in 2023 to be close to her children, three of whom are living in exile because of their opposition to Ortega. Ortega, 79, led Nicaragua for a decade after toppling a US-backed dictatorship in 1979. Since returning to power in 2007, he has shown increasingly authoritarian tendencies. He has seized control of all branches of government and shut down thousands of NGOs since major anti-government protests in 2018, which he branded a US-backed coup bid.
Politico
15-06-2025
- Politics
- Politico
Nicaragua's former President Violeta Chamorro dies at 95
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — Violeta Chamorro, an unassuming homemaker who was thrust into politics by her husband's assassination and stunned the world by ousting the ruling Sandinista party in presidential elections and ending Nicaragua 's civil war, has died, her family said in a statement on Saturday. She was 95. The country's first female president, known as Doña Violeta to both supporters and detractors, she presided over the Central American nation's uneasy transition to peace after nearly a decade of conflict between the Sandinista government of Daniel Ortega and U.S.-backed Contra rebels. At nearly seven years, Chamorro's was the longest single term ever served by a democratically elected Nicaraguan leader, and when it was over she handed over the presidential sash to an elected civilian successor — a relative rarity for a country with a long history of strongman rule, revolution and deep political polarization. Chamorro died in San Jose, Costa Rica, according to the family's statement shared by her son, Carlos Fernando Chamorro, on X. 'Doña Violeta died peacefully, surrounded by the affection and love of her children and those who had provided her with extraordinary care, and now she finds herself in the peace of the Lord,' the statement said. A religious ceremony was being planned in San Jose. Her remains will be held in Costa Rica 'until Nicaragua returns to being a Republic,' the statement said. In more recent years, the family had been driven into exile in Costa Rica like hundreds of thousands of other Nicaraguans fleeing the repression of Ortega. Violeta Chamorro's daughter, Cristiana Chamorro, was held under house arrest for months in Nicaragua and then convicted of money laundering and other charges as Ortega moved to clear the field of challengers as he sought reelection. The Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation closed its operations in Nicaragua in January 2021, as thousands of nongovernmental organizations have been forced to do since because Ortega has worked to silence any critical voices. It had provided training for journalists, helped finance journalistic outlets and defended freedom of expression. Born Violeta Barrios Torres on Oct. 18, 1929, in the southwestern city of Rivas, Chamorro had little by way of preparation for the public eye. The eldest daughter of a landowning family, she was sent to U.S. finishing schools. After her father's death in 1948, she returned to the family home and married Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, who soon became editor and publisher of the family newspaper, La Prensa, following his own father's death. He penned editorials denouncing the abuses of the regime of Gen. Anastasio Somoza, whose family had ruled Nicaragua for four decades, and was gunned down on a Managua street in January 1978. The killing, widely believed to have been ordered by Somoza, galvanized the opposition and fueled the popular revolt led by Ortega's Sandinista National Liberation Front that toppled the dictator in July 1979. Chamorro herself acknowledged that she had little ambition beyond raising her four children before her husband's assassination. She said she was in Miami shopping for a wedding dress for one of her daughters when she heard the news. Still, Chamorro took over publishing La Prensa and also became a member of the junta that replaced Somoza. She quit just nine months later as the Sandinistas exerted their dominance and built a socialist government aligned with Cuba and the Soviet Union and at odds with the United States amid the Cold War. La Prensa became a leading voice of opposition to the Sandinistas and the focus of regular harassment by government supporters who accused the paper of being part of Washington's efforts — along with U.S.-financed rebels, dubbed 'Contras' by the Sandinistas for their counterrevolutionary fight — to undermine the leftist regime. Chamorro later recounted bitter memories of what she considered the Sandinistas' betrayal of her husband's democratic goals and her own faith in the anti-Somoza revolution. 'I'm not praising Somoza's government. It was horrible. But the threats that I've had from the Sandinistas — I never thought they would repay me in that way,' she said. Chamorro saw her own family divided by the country's politics. Son Pedro Joaquin became a leader of the Contras, and daughter Cristiana worked as an editor at La Prensa. But another son, Carlos Fernando, and Chamorro's eldest daughter, Claudia, were militant Sandinistas. By 1990 Nicaragua was in tatters. The economy was in shambles thanks to a U.S. trade embargo, Sandinista mismanagement and war. Some 30,000 people had died in the fighting between the Contras and Sandinistas. When a coalition of 14 opposition parties nominated an initially reluctant Chamorro as their candidate in the presidential election called for February that year, few gave her much chance against the Sandinista incumbent, Ortega. Even after months of campaigning, she stumbled over speeches and made baffling blunders. Suffering from osteoporosis, a disease that weakens the bones, she broke her knee in a household fall and spent much of the campaign in a wheelchair. But elegant, silver-haired and dressed almost exclusively in white, she connected with many Nicaraguans tired of war and hardship. Her maternal image, coupled with promises of reconciliation and an end to the military draft, contrasted with Ortega's swagger and revolutionary rhetoric. 'I bring the flag of love,' she told a rally shortly before the vote. 'Hatred has only brought us war and hunger. With love will come peace and progress.' She shocked the Sandinistas and the world by handily winning the election, hailing her victory as the fulfillment of her late husband's vision. 'We knew that in a free election we would achieve a democratic republic of the kind Pedro Joaquin always dreamed,' Chamorro said. Washington lifted trade sanctions and promised aid to rebuild the nation's ravaged economy, and by June the 19,000-strong Contra army had been disbanded, formally ending an eight-year war. Chamorro had little else to celebrate during her first months in office. In the two months between the election and her inauguration, the Sandinistas looted the government, signing over government vehicles and houses to militants in a giveaway that became popularly known as 'the pinata.' Her plans to stabilize the hyperinflation-wracked economy with free-market reforms were met with stiff opposition from the Sandinistas, who had the loyalty of most of the country's organized labor. Chamorro's first 100 days in power were marred by two general strikes, the second of which led to street battles between protesters and government supporters. To restore order Chamorro called on the Sandinista-dominated army, testing the loyalty of the force led by Gen. Humberto Ortega, Daniel Ortega's older brother. The army took to the streets but did not act against the strikers. Chamorro was forced into negotiations, broadening the growing rift between moderates and hardliners in her government. Eventually her vice president, Virgilio Godoy, became one over her most vocal critics. Nicaraguans hoping that Chamorro's election would quickly bring stability and economic progress were disappointed. Within a year some former Contras had taken up arms again, saying they were being persecuted by security forces still largely controlled by the Sandinistas. Few investors were willing to gamble on a destitute country with a volatile workforce, while foreign volunteers who had been willing to pick coffee and cotton in support of the Sandinistas had long departed. 'What more do you want than to have the war ended?' Chamorro said after a year in office. Chamorro was unable to undo Nicaragua's dire poverty. By the end of her administration in early 1997, unemployment was measured at over 50 percent, while crime, drug abuse and prostitution — practically unheard of during the Sandinista years — soared. That year she handed the presidential sash to another elected civilian: conservative Arnoldo Aleman, who also defeated Ortega at the ballot. In her final months in office, Chamorro published an autobiography, 'Dreams of the Heart,' in which she emphasized her vision of forgiveness and reconciliation. 'After six years as president, she has broadened her definition of 'my children' to include all Nicaraguans,' wrote a reviewer for the Los Angeles Times. 'So even political opponents like Ortega are briefly criticized in one sentence, only to be generously forgiven in the next.' After leaving office, Chamorro retired to her Managua home and her grandchildren. She generally steered clear of politics and created the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation. In 2011 it was revealed that she suffered from a brain tumor. In October 2018, she was hospitalized and said by family members to be in 'delicate condition' after suffering a cerebral embolism, a kind of stroke.
