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Diplomats aim to restart ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas by next week, according to three officials briefed on the process, rekindling hopes of an end to the fighting in Gaza even as Israel presses ahead with its campaign. There.According to officials, preliminary talks took place this weekend in Paris between David Barnea, director of Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence agency; William J. Burns, the director of the CIA; and Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, a key mediator between Israel and Hamas. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.For months, Qatar, the United States and Egypt have tried to persuade Israel and Hamas to agree to a truce and prisoner exchange that could help end the ...

Countries around the world have failed to reach consensus on the terms of a treaty that would unite the world in a strategy against the inevitable next pandemic, overcoming the nationalist ethos that emerged during Covid-19.The deliberations, which were expected to form a central point of the weekly meeting of the World Health Assembly starting Monday in Geneva, aimed to correct inequalities in access to vaccines and treatments between richer and poorer nations that have become evident during the Covid pandemic. .While much of the urgency around Covid has disappeared since treaty negotiations began two years ago, public health experts are still keenly aware of the pandemic potential of emerging pathogens, familiar threats such as avian influenza and disease, and once eradicated diseases s...

Russia bombed a hardware superstore in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Saturday afternoon, killing at least six people and wounding at least 40 others, Ukrainian officials said. The attack was the latest in a prolonged bombing campaign against the city that has made life increasingly difficult and dangerous for civilians.Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv regional military administration, said 16 people were still missing, suggesting the death toll could rise. He added that another airstrike on Saturday in the center of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, wounded at least 14 people.“For the whole day, Kharkiv was under Russian terrorist attacks. The airstrike in the Kharkiv region has been ongoing for more than 12 hours,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on soc...

TikTok may add a new skill to its resume: the disco time machine.The social platform, normally populated by countless Gen Z dancers – mostly in short choreographed routines that have been practiced and perfected – has recently been infused with the energy of a surprising demographic: their Gen X parents.In the viral videos, adult children ask their parents to dance as they would have done to the 1984 sound bite “Smalltown Boy,” by British synth-pop band Bronski Beat. Most of the posts are tagged #momdancechallenge, #daddancechallenge or #80sdancechallenge and have amassed tens of millions of views.The reactions were perhaps unexpected, because instead of laughing, the videos are great, really great, and act as a portal to another time: when dance was more often improvised and spontaneous...

The Israeli army was carrying out the operation in Rafah on Saturday, according to three Israeli officials, a day after the world's top court appeared to order Israel to "immediately" cease its military campaign in the southern city of Gaza, amid a growing international outcry over the offensive.Officials did not say exactly in which part of the city his forces were striking and fighting. An official said the army continued to advance slowly, but warned that it was too early to conclude how Israel would respond to the court order because it takes time for a military ground operation to change course. The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.Palestinian media reported that an Israeli attack killed one person in central Rafah and that t...

Slowly but steadily, Marlene Nathanson was recovering. She had a stroke in November 2022 at her home in Minneapolis and spent a week in the hospital; Later, when she arrived at St. Paul's Episcopal Homes for rehabilitation, she could not walk. The weakness of her right arm and hand made her unable to feed herself and her speech remained somewhat slurred.But after three weeks of physical, occupational and speech therapy, "she was making good progress," said her husband, Iric Nathanson. “Her therapists were very encouraging.” Mrs. Nathanson, then 85, had begun getting around using a walker. Her arm was getting stronger and her speech was almost back to normal.Then, one Wednesday afternoon, one of his therapists told the Nathansons that their Medicare Advantage plan had denied a req...

But in the bigger picture, said Gabi Siboni, a reserve colonel and fellow at the conservative-leaning Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, the main problem is that the army is only concerned with dismantling the Hamas military system and not of the civil one. Hamas's control over the civilian sphere will be the springboard for rebuilding its army, he said.In his view, there is no alternative to a transitional period of Israeli military rule in Gaza that could last several years.Hayman said that while the military effort to capture the city of Rafah at this pace could last another two to three weeks, the process of dismantling Hamas facilities could take much longer. "The choice is between withdrawing or strengthening control and trying to hide Hamas," she said. “You could ...

Federal regulators on Thursday approved an investment product tied to the cryptocurrency Ether, the most valuable digital asset after Bitcoin, in a major boost for the cryptocurrency industry.The Securities and Exchange Commission said a group of exchanges may begin listing investment products known as exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, tied to the price of Ether. The products would offer people a quicker and easier way to invest in cryptocurrencies, potentially boosting prices and promoting wider adoption of digital currencies.In January, the SEC approved similar products that track the price of Bitcoin, leading to a flurry of new investments that helped push the price of Bitcoin to a record high.The impact of Ether approval may take longer to hit the market. Before exchanges can begin off...

In 2011, a former Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, warned that Israel would face a “political-diplomatic tsunami” of censorship if its conflict with the Palestinians remained unresolved as peace talks faltered and the revolution spread across the country. the entire Middle East.For Israeli foreign policy analysts, the tsunami has never seemed so close.The International Court of Justice, an arm of the United Nations, on Friday ordered Israel to suspend its military campaign in Rafah, southern Gaza, adding to a growing list of diplomatic and legal moves against Israel that have undermined its position international.The ruling came just days after prosecutors at the International Criminal Court, another international tribunal, called for the arrest of Israel's prime minister and defens...

Bovine tissue from a sick dairy cow tested positive for the avian influenza virus, federal officials said Friday.According to the US Department of Agriculture, the cow was ordered to be slaughtered because it was sick and the meat was not included in the food supply. The department continued to emphasize that the commercial food supply remained secure.But the positive test, which is part of an ongoing federal study on the safety of beef, raises concerns that the virus could enter the commercial beef supply, posing a risk to human health.So far the virus, known as H5N1, has only been detected in dairy cattle and not in beef cattle raised for meat. But experts believe the outbreak is larger than the official count of 58 affected dairy farms in nine states.“It is clear that this situation i...