It Seems Like Things Are Actually Cooling Down Between Israel and Iran

A man walks past a banner depicting missiles along a street in Tehran, Iran, on Friday. AFP/Getty Images

A rare bit of calming news from the Middle East: It seems that neither Israel nor Iran wants to widen the war.

The odds of a direct conflict between the region’s two most powerful countries seemed high for much of this month. On April 1, Israel attacked Iran’s consulate in Syria, killing seven senior officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. On April 13, Iran retaliated by launching a massive, multipronged attack—more than 300 missiles and drones, including 110 ballistic missiles—against Israel. Almost all the incoming weapons were shot down (a remarkable feat by U.S., Israeli, British, French, and Jordanian air defenses), no one was killed, and very little damage was sustained, and at just one air base. Still, the attack, which could have been deadly, marked the first time Iran had ever attacked Israeli territory. Israel felt the need to do something in response.

In the wee hours on Friday, three drones flew over an air base in the Isfahan district of southern Iran, not very far from a critical nuclear facility. Iran says they were all shot down. Maybe so, maybe not. The key facts are these: Israel has not acknowledged launching the drones—nor has Iran accused Israel of doing so. In fact, one senior Iranian official blamed the deed on “infiltrators” who fired the drones from inside Iran.

The point is, the widespread fears of mutual escalation—one airstrike sparking another, which sparks another, then another, on and on, for reasons of revenge, pride, a compulsion to “restore deterrence,” or whatever—have proved baseless, at least for now.

After the Saturday night air raid, an Iranian official warned Israel not to retaliate. Even a small Israeli attack, he said, would trigger a much more massive counterstrike from Tehran. President Biden urged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to heed the warning. Most Israelis felt they had to do something to deter future Iranian attacks. They wound up doing about as little as a powerfully armed country can do while still doing something—and Iran pretended that Israel didn’t launch the attack anyway, thus evading their pledge to respond to any such attack massively.

In sum, Iran proved that it can mount a massive attack on Israel, while Israel proved that its weapons have the range to strike targets inside Iran. That seemed to be enough for both sides. The equilibrium has thus been restored, at least for now.

As of midday Friday, the Israeli government seemed content to go along with the game, declining to comment on the drone strike. An exception was Itamar Ben-Gvir, the ultra-right-wing national security minister, who had pushed for a much more forceful response. “Lame!” he tweeted Friday morning in reference to the three-drone airstrike—thus acknowledging that Israel had launched the attack and that some senior officials wanted to do more. Netanyahu usually endorses Ben-Gvir’s radically hawkish statements, or at least doesn’t dispute them. But this time, Channel 12, Israel’s leading TV news station, reported that officials in the prime minister’s inner circle are very upset with the tweet, saying that it damaged Israel’s national security and slamming Ben-Gvir generally as “childish” and “irrelevant to any discussion.”

Meanwhile, the aftereffects of Iran’s attack last weekend continue to benefit Israel. On Wednesday, 48 countries signed a statement condemning Iran for its attack on Israel. The palpable sign of Israel’s continued vulnerability is also likely to boost approval of President Biden’s emergency military-aid package, which the House will take up on Saturday. Before the attack, many of those countries would have been reluctant to endorse any expression of support for Israel—and Biden’s aid package was losing support—as a result of Israel’s “over-the-top” military tactics (as even Biden called them) in Gaza.

The prospect of a major war between Iran and Israel distracted the world’s focus from the fighting and suffering in Gaza, but probably not for long. U.S. and Israeli officials remain locked in disagreement over how to rout the last battalion of Hamas terrorists from the town of Rafah on Gaza’s southern tip, where more than 1 million civilians—most of them refugees from the northern towns—are crowded, many of them starving. Netanyahu and the other members of his war Cabinet want to mount a major offensive against Rafah. Biden and his aides urge them not to take that step unless they come up with a way to avoid killing tens of thousands of the civilians. The Israelis have not come up with any such way. Nor have the Americans thought up a way to rout Hamas’ last battalion without an armed offensive.

This is why U.S., Egyptian, and Qatari diplomats continue to hammer out a plan for a cease-fire, combined with an exchange of Israeli hostages held by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel. Hamas has rejected several proposals, most of them endorsed by Israel. Its one counteroffer—a cease-fire that delays the release of any hostages until all Israeli troops have withdrawn from Gaza—is unacceptable to Israel.

 Bitcoin just completed its fourth-ever 'halving,' here’s what investors need to watch now

The Bitcoin network on Friday night slashed the incentives rewarded to miners in half for the fourth time in its history.

The celebrated event, which takes place about once every four years as mandated in the Bitcoin code, is designed to slow the issuance of bitcoins, thereby creating a scarcity effect and allowing the cryptocurrency to maintain its digital gold-like quality.

There may be some speculative trading on the event itself. JPMorgan said it expects to see some downside in bitcoin post-halving and Deutsche Bank said it "does not expect prices to increase significantly." However, the impact may be bigger months from now, even if bitcoin continues its trend of diminishing returns from its halving day to its cycle top. Two key things to watch will be the block reward and the hash rate.

"While the upcoming Bitcoin halving will create a supply shock as the previous ones had, we believe its impact on the cryptocurrency's price could be magnified by the concurrent demand shock created by the emergence of spot bitcoin ETFs," said Benchmark's Mark Palmer.

The bigger immediate impact will be to the miners themselves, he added. They're the ones that run the machines that do the work of recording new blocks of bitcoin transactions and adding them to the global ledger, also known as the blockchain.

"Miners with access to inexpensive, reliable power sources are well positioned to navigate the post-halving market dynamics," said Maxim's Matthew Galinko in a note Friday. "Some miners, many that are not public, could exit the market with a combination of poor access to power, efficient machines, and capital. Miners with capital and relatively expensive power will likely find opportunities in the wake of potential consolidation and disruption driven by the halving."

The block reward

Miners have two incentives to mine: transaction fees that are paid voluntarily by senders (for faster settlement) and mining rewards — 3.125 newly created bitcoins, or about $200,000 as of Friday evening, when the mining reward shrunk from 6.25 bitcoins. The incentive was initially 50 bitcoins.

The reduction in the block rewards leads to a reduction in the supply of bitcoin by slowing the pace at which new coins are created, helping maintain the idea of bitcoin as digital gold — whose finite supply helps determine its value. Eventually, the number of bitcoins in circulation will cap at 21 million, per the Bitcoin code. There are about 19.6 million in circulation today.

"Miners utilize powerful, specialized computer hardware to validate transactions on the Bitcoin network and record them permanently on the blockchain," Deutsche Bank analyst Marion Laboure said. "This process, known as mining, rewards miners with newly minted bitcoins. But with each halving, the reward to mining is decreased to maintain scarcity and control the cryptocurrency's inflation rate over time."

The hash rate

Historically after a halving, the Bitcoin hash rate – or the total computational power used by miners to process transactions on the Bitcoin network – has fallen, pricing some miners out of the market. It generally recovers in the medium term, however, Laboure pointed out.

The network hash rate has been hitting all-time highs for months as miners tried to take market share ahead of the halving. Growth in the Bitcoin hash rate dilutes individual miners' contribution to the network hash rate.

"In the past three halvings, the network recovered its pre-halving hash rate levels within an average of 57 days," she said. "It is also likely that the current elevated prices of bitcoin may limit this short-term dip in the hash rate, as bitcoin miners enjoy record high profits in the lead-up to the halving."

Palmer said the impact of the halving on bitcoin miners' economics could be "more than offset over time" if bitcoin's price rallies keep pushing the cryptocurrency to new highs in the months ahead.

 U.S. Mortgage Rates Jump Above 7% for the First Time This Year

Rates on 30-year mortgages — the most common kind among U.S. homeowners — surpassed the 7 percent mark on Thursday, a troublesome sign for an already tight housing market.

Mortgage rates rose above 7 percent for the first time this year, crossing a symbolically concerning threshold that threatens to keep millions of potential home buyers and sellers on the sidelines of a U.S. housing market that is increasingly showing signs of slowing.

The average rate on 30-year mortgages, the most popular home loan in the United States, rose to 7.1 percent this week, Freddie Mac reported on Thursday, the highest since November. Mortgage rates reached a recent high of nearly 8 percent late last year — a level not seen since 2000.

As mortgage rates have risen in recent months, making homeownership costlier for buyers, potential sellers who may feel locked into lower rates on their existing loans have been keeping their houses off the market, in effect pushing prices higher, too. Combined, the forces have fed into a broader feeling of frustration about the economy, at a time when inflation has remained hotter than expected.

“Potential home buyers are deciding whether to buy before rates rise even more, or hold off in hopes of decreases later in the year,” Sam Khater, Freddie Mac’s chief economist, said in a statement. “It remains unclear how many home buyers can withstand increasing rates in the future.”

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At the same time, the market has slowed. Sales of existing homes fell by 4.3 percent in March and 3.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors.

In April 2021, mortgage rates were at about 3 percent, less than half the current rate. They began to climb that year and continued to rise in 2022 when the Federal Reserve started raising its benchmark rate in an effort to combat inflation. Although inflation has since cooled significantly, it’s still above the central bank’s 2 percent target.

The Fed has signaled in recent months that it may keep the cost of borrowing higher for longer amid stubborn inflation. The Fed’s benchmark interest rate is currently the highest it’s been in 22 years.

Mortgage lenders generally watch the 10-year Treasury bond, which is tied to mortgage rates, and expectations that the Fed will keep rates high has pushed up Treasury yields. The 10-year Treasury yield has soared since the start of the year, now sitting at about 4.6 percent.

The N.A.R. agreed to settle litigation last month that would eliminate the standard sales commission, a move housing experts say could bring down home prices. Sellers currently pay a 5 or 6 percent commission to a real estate agent, a cost that’s typically passed onto the buyer through a higher sticker price.

J. Edward Moreno is a business reporter at The Times. More about J. Edward Moreno

Trump Media Stock Plunges, Extending Recent Losses

 Trump Media Stock Plunges, Extending Recent Losses

Funds that bet on a fall were set to profit as the parent of Truth Social came under renewed pressure after it registered new shares for a potential sale.

Since former President Donald J. Trump’s company, Trump Media & Technology, began trading, its shares have fallen by about 60 percent.Credit...Michelle Gustafson for The New York Times

Shares of former President Donald J. Trump’s social media company plunged on Monday after the company filed to register the potential sale of tens of millions of additional shares.

Trump Media & Technology’s stock fell 18.3 percent, erasing hundreds of millions of dollars from the company’s market value — and putting a dent in Mr. Trump’s majority stake. Since a surge in its first days of trading as Trump Media, which lifted the value of the company to about $8 billion at one point last month, the company’s shares have dropped by around 60 percent.

Trump Media was expected to register the potential sale of new shares after the completion of its merger last month with Digital World Acquisition Corp., a cash-rich shell company known as a SPAC. Companies that merge with SPACs, or special purpose acquisition companies, typically file a registration statement a few weeks after the deal is completed for the sale of additional securities held by early investors.

Matthew Goldstein covers Wall Street and white-collar crime and housing issues. More about Matthew Goldstein

Joe Rennison writes about financial markets, a beat that ranges from chronicling the vagaries of the stock market to explaining the often-inscrutable trading decisions of Wall Street insiders. More about Joe Rennison

70 million Americans under severe weather threat from Northeast to Midwest

 70 million Americans under severe weather threat from Northeast to Midwest

From Sunday through Tuesday, hail, winds and a few tornados are possible.

Andrew Spear/Getty ImagesThe aftermath of tornados that came through the region in Indian Lake

Severe weather is projected to impact 70 million Americans from the Northeast Sunday through to Tuesday in the Midwest.

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has issued an enhanced risk outlook for the multi-region storm system, designating it a level 3 out of 5 risk for severe weather.

In the Northeast, intense thunderstorms are likely to develop late Sunday afternoon in a corridor across the upper Ohio Valley into the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania and the Catskill region in Upstate New York.

Damaging wind, some hail and tornadoes are possible as the storm spreads slowly southward into Sunday evening.

ABC NewsSevere risk forecast for Sunday evening.

A line of these strong to potentially severe storms is projected to impact cities from Pittsburgh to New York Sunday night from 10:00 p.m. ET to 11:00 p.m. ET.

In the Midwest, a dynamic weather system across the Rockies and into the Great Plains from the Dakotas to Texas has the potential to form storms capable of becoming supercells and produce very large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes on Monday.

ABC NewsSevere weather outbreak forecast for Monday and Tuesday.

Scattered severe thunderstorms are likely across the southern to central Great Plains, mainly Monday evening when large hail, damaging wind and a few tornadoes are possible.

Storms may begin as early as 5:00 p.m. CT from Central Texas to Nebraska and then continue to develop overnight across the region.

By Tuesday morning, storms are projected to impact regions from eastern Nebraska to Kansas City, Missouri, and parts of Iowa. These storms may still be strong and possibly severe.

The strongest storms are anticipated in areas from Des Moines, Iowa, to Columbia, Missouri, on Tuesday afternoon.

Scattered severe thunderstorms are likely on Tuesday into the evening from Chicago to east of Dallas.

On Wednesday morning, there may be lingering strong to severe storms in the Ohio River Valley.

Google goes all in on generative AI at Google Cloud Next

 Google goes all in on generative AI at Google Cloud Next

Image Credits: Google

This week in Las Vegas, 30,000 folks came together to hear the latest and greatest from Google Cloud. What they heard was all generative AI, all the time. Google Cloud is first and foremost a cloud infrastructure and platform vendor. If you didn’t know that, you might have missed it in the onslaught of AI news.

Not to minimize what Google had on display, but much like Salesforce last year at its New York City traveling road show, the company failed to give all but a passing nod to its core business — except in the context of generative AI, of course.

Google announced a slew of AI enhancements designed to help customers take advantage of the Gemini large language model (LLM) and improve productivity across the platform. It’s a worthy goal, of course, and throughout the main keynote on Day 1 and the Developer Keynote the following day, Google peppered the announcements with a healthy number of demos to illustrate the power of these solutions.

But many seemed a little too simplistic, even taking into account they needed to be squeezed into a keynote with a limited amount of time. They relied mostly on examples inside the Google ecosystem, when almost every company has much of their data in repositories outside of Google.

Some of the examples actually felt like they could have been done without AI. During an e-commerce demo, for example, the presenter called the vendor to complete an online transaction. It was designed to show off the communications capabilities of a sales bot, but in reality, the step could have been easily completed by the buyer on the website.

That’s not to say that generative AI doesn’t have some powerful use cases, whether creating code, analyzing a corpus of content and being able to query it, or being able to ask questions of the log data to understand why a website went down. What’s more, the task and role-based agents the company introduced to help individual developers, creative folks, employees and others, have the potential to take advantage of generative AI in tangible ways.

Google Cloud Next 2024: Everything announced so far

But when it comes to building AI tools based on Google’s models, as opposed to consuming the ones Google and other vendors are building for its customers, I couldn’t help feeling that they were glossing over a lot of the obstacles that could stand in the way of a successful generative AI implementation. While they tried to make it sound easy, in reality, it’s a huge challenge to implement any advanced technology inside large organizations.

Big change ain’t easy

Much like other technological leaps over the last 15 years — whether mobile, cloud, containerization, marketing automation, you name it — it’s been delivered with lots of promises of potential gains. Yet these advancements each introduce their own level of complexity, and large companies move more cautiously than we imagine. AI feels like a much bigger lift than Google, or frankly any of the large vendors, is letting on.

What we’ve learned with these previous technology shifts is that they come with a lot of hype and lead to a ton of disillusionment. Even after a number of years, we’ve seen large companies that perhaps should be taking advantage of these advanced technologies still only dabbling or even sitting out altogether, years after they have been introduced.

There are lots of reasons companies may fail to take advantage of technological innovation, including organizational inertia; a brittle technology stack that makes it hard to adopt newer solutions; or a group of corporate naysayers shutting down even the most well-intentioned initiatives, whether legal, HR, IT or other groups that, for a variety of reasons, including internal politics, continue to just say no to substantive change.

Vineet Jain, CEO at Egnyte, a company that concentrates on storage, governance and security, sees two types of companies: those that have made a significant shift to the cloud already and that will have an easier time when it comes to adopting generative AI, and those that have been slow movers and will likely struggle.

custom model, says Andy Thurai, an analyst at Constellation Research. “While implementing either solution, companies need to think about governance, liability, security, privacy, ethical and responsible use and compliance of such implementations,” Thurai said. And none of that is trivial.

Executives, IT pros, developers and others who went to GCN this week might have gone looking for what’s coming next from Google Cloud. But if they didn’t go looking for AI, or they are simply not ready as an organization, they may have come away from Sin City a little shell-shocked by Google’s full concentration on AI. It could be a long time before organizations lacking digital sophistication can take full advantage of these technologies, beyond the more-packaged solutions being offered by Google and other vendors.

custom model, says Andy Thurai, an analyst at Constellation Research. “While implementing either solution, companies need to think about governance, liability, security, privacy, ethical and responsible use and compliance of such implementations,” Thurai said. And none of that is trivial.

Executives, IT pros, developers and others who went to GCN this week might have gone looking for what’s coming next from Google Cloud. But if they didn’t go looking for AI, or they are simply not ready as an organization, they may have come away from Sin City a little shell-shocked by Google’s full concentration on AI. It could be a long time before organizations lacking digital sophistication can take full advantage of these technologies, beyond the more-packaged solutions being offered by Google and other vendors.

Hamas Leader Defiant After Israeli Strike Kills 3 of His Sons

 Hamas Leader Defiant After Israeli Strike Kills 3 of His Sons

Israel confirmed the killing of the sons of the Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, and said all three were Hamas military operatives.

The car in which three sons of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh were reportedly killed during an Israeli strike in Al-Shati camp, west of Gaza City, on Wednesday.Credit...Agence France-Presse

An Israeli airstrike on Wednesday killed three sons of one of the most senior leaders of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, who said the strike would not weaken the group’s negotiating position or its resolve in its fight against Israel.

Mr. Haniyeh, who leads the Hamas political bureau from exile, is a longstanding leader of the group. He is also engaged in the stalled negotiations with Israel through international mediators who are seeking to broker a cease-fire and secure the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“The enemy is delusional if it thinks that by killing my children, we will change our positions,” Mr. Haniyeh said in a statement. “We shall not give in, no matter the sacrifices.”

Israeli ground troops have largely pulled out of Gaza, but Israel continues to conduct airstrikes across the territory as well as wage battles in a corridor in central Gaza where the Israeli military has maintained a presence.

Mr. Haniyeh, who has long shuttled between Qatar and Turkey, said in the statement that 60 members of his extended family had been killed by Israel over time and that the strike on Wednesday had killed some grandchildren in addition to the three sons.

Hamas’s critics, including some Palestinians, have accused the organization’s leadership of living luxurious lifestyles abroad as the people in Gaza suffer dire humanitarian conditions. Mr. Haniyeh on Wednesday cast his loss in the broader context of Palestinian suffering.

“All the members of our people and the families of the residents of Gaza have paid a great price of the blood of their children,” he said. “I am one of them.”

Mr. Haniyeh did not specify his sons’ roles in Hamas but called them martyrs, saying in an statement on the group’s official Telegram account that they had remained in the Gaza Strip while he led Hamas’s political bureau from exile.

In confirming the strike on Mr. Haniyeh’s three adult sons — who it named as Amir, Mohammad and Hazem Haniyeh — the Israeli military said all three were Hamas military operatives. The strike was conducted on Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

The killing of Mr. Haniyeh’s family members came as Israel continued to threaten to carry out an offensive in the southern city of Rafah and as both sides were considering new cease-fire proposals.

As part of those cease-fire talks, Hamas informed Israel on Wednesday that it could not locate 40 Israeli hostages in Gaza, who the Israelis had hoped would be released as part of a proposed first step in a deal, a senior Israeli and a senior Hamas official said.

A framework currently under negotiation by international mediators includes the initial swap of 40 living hostages, including female soldiers, invalids and older hostages, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons.

There are about 100 living hostages remaining in Gaza, according to Israeli officials. It was not immediately clear if Israel would now demand that young men and soldiers be included among the first 40 released captives. Those hostages had been expected to have to wait for a later phase of the deal.

Amid the talks for a cease-fire to the conflict in Gaza, Iran and Israel have traded fresh threats in recent days, increasing fears of a wider regional war.

Israeli military says it has withdrawn its forces from Khan Younis after months of fighting

 Israeli military says it has withdrawn its forces from Khan Younis after months of fighting

 

The Israeli military said it has withdrawn its ground forces from Khan Younis in southern Gaza after months of fierce fighting.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Sunday that its 98th division had “concluded its mission” in Khan Younis. The division was leaving the Gaza Strip to “recuperate and prepare for future operations.”

The IDF added that “a significant force led by the 162nd division and the Nahal brigade continues to operate in the Gaza strip, and will preserve the IDF’s freedom of action and its ability to conduct precise intelligence based operations.”

A CNN team along the border where troops enter and leave Gaza has not yet seen large numbers of troops withdraw, but it has seen a large number of tanks pull out of Khan Younis overnight. They are now stationed on the border of Gaza and Israel.

An Israeli brigade typically has roughly a few thousand troops, but it remains unclear precisely how many Israeli troops have withdrawn from Gaza.

Um Ihab stands by the beach along the coast of central Gaza.

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As of January, the 98th division was the military’s biggest-ever division, as it was specifically bolstered to fight Hamas in Khan Younis.

IDF Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said at a news conference Sunday the military is “far from stopping” its operations in the Gaza Strip following the withdrawal.

“We will not leave any Hamas brigades active – in any part of the Gaza Strip. We have plans and will act when we decide,” he said, adding that the military’s goals in Gaza have not been fully achieved, including the return of all hostages, the return of displaced residents to the north and the dismantling of Hamas throughout Gaza.

In response to a question about the effect of the military’s withdrawal of ground forces from Khan Younis in southern Gaza, Halevi said, “the military wing of Hamas is deterred, the vast majority of its battalions are dismantled and lost their capabilities. That military framework, which had many capabilities, is currently running as small terrorist cells.”

Halevi reiterated that the IDF has not left the Gaza Strip and that there are “many troops at this very hour” in the strip.

“This is a long war; we can’t maintain the same (extent of) troop deployment,” he said, adding, “many achievements are yet to come on our way to the victory.”

People walk past damaged and destroyed buildings in Khan Yunis on April 7, after Israel pulled its ground forces out of the area. 

Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images.

It’s unclear what the withdrawal means for Israel’s plans to invade Rafah, the southernmost part of Gaza that has become a shelter for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Israel has said an incursion into Rafah is essential to achieve its goal of eliminating Hamas from Gaza.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Sunday that the troops were leaving Gaza to prepare for follow-up missions, including in the Rafah region.

“The troops exit and prepare ahead of their follow-up missions. We saw examples of such missions in action in Shifa. And also for their follow-up mission in the Rafah region,” Gallant said in remarks during his visit to the military’s Southern Command.

“We are reaching a situation where Hamas does not control the Gaza Strip and that it does not function as a military framework that poses a risk to the citizens of the State of Israel,” Gallant said, noting that he has completed a situational assessment of the IDF Southern Command as its forces are pulling out of Khan Younis.

The defense minister added that Israeli forces in Khan Younis were successful in destroying “enemy targets, warehouses, weapons, underground [infrastructure], headquarters [and] communication rooms.”

Israeli public broadcaster and CNN affiliate Channel 11 on Sunday reported that the remaining forces would be located along the so-called Netzarim Corridor, a route that splits the Gaza Strip in two. Named after the former Israeli settlement of Netzarim in Gaza, the corridor intersects one of Gaza’s two main north-south roads, Salaheddin Street, to create a strategic, central junction.

Before pulling out, the IDF on Sunday said that commando units had raided and searched more than a hundred locations in the Al-Amal neighborhood of Khan Younis, where it found a long tunnel and “eliminated terrorists.” CNN cannot independently verify those claims.

Speaking to ABC’s “The Week,” White House National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby said it was unlikely the move was sign of some incoming new operation but rather a “rest and refit.”

“They’ve been on the ground for four months. The word we’re getting is they’re tired, they need to be refit.”

The US is Israel’s major ally but has been pressuring the country to do more to protect civilians and allow in aid.

In a call this week between US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Biden told Netanyahu to take steps to address the crisis or face consequences.

nternational pressure has been mounting on Israel, with close ally the US calling for more to be done to protect civilians. Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images

The IDF began its campaign against Hamas in Gaza’s north soon after the October 7 attacks that killed about 1,200 people. Early in the war, the Israeli military designated Khan Younis as a safer zone and told residents from northern Gaza to seek shelter there.

But as the IDF increasingly switched its focus to the south, the city became a battleground.

On December 1, the Israeli military launched a massive air raid operation on Khan Younis, dropping leaflets into the city telling residents to immediately evacuate.

Since then, it has been a site of intense fighting, leaving the area devastated. Visiting the scene earlier in the year, CNN found buildings completely destroyed or others beyond repair.

The IDF says the city is a Hamas stronghold, adding that the tunnel network underneath civilian buildings in the city was likely where Hamas planned the October 7 attacks from. The city is the hometown of Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar.

Hamas has denied hiding in hospitals and other civilian structures and CNN cannot independently verify either claim.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

Earthquake of magnitude 6.1 strikes Japan; no tsunami warning issued

 Earthquake of magnitude 6.1 strikes Japan; no tsunami warning issued

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.1 hit Iwate and Aomori prefectures in northern Japan on Tuesday.

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.1 hit Iwate and Aomori prefectures in northern Japan on Tuesday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

The epicenter was northern coastal part of Iwate Prefecture(Rep image)

The epicenter was northern coastal part of Iwate Prefecture, the agency said, adding that a tsunami warning had not been issued.

There were no reports of immediate damage.

Japan’s SLIM moon lander survives another lunar night against all odds

 Japan’s SLIM moon lander survives another lunar night against all odds

Japan's SLIM lander has survived two lunar nights despite landing in a less-than-favourable position.

The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM), is seen in this handout image taken by LEV-2 on the moon, released on January 25, 2024. Photo credit: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), TAKARA TOMY, Sony Group, Doshisha University /via Reuters

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on Thursday confirmed that its SLIM Moon lander survived two lunar nights without its instruments freezing. The Smart Lander for Investigating Moon launched in September last year and landed on the Moon on January 19. It was able to do something that ISRO’s Chandrayaan-3 could not — not once but twice.

SLIM’s landing made Japan just the fifth country in the world to soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon after the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India. But it was not exactly a walk in the park — the 200 kilogram lander actually landed on its nose that day and it went dark shortly after since it was not in a great position for its solar panels to harvest sunlight. But it came back to life again on January 28, and it went on to gather science data.

Shortly after that, JAXA teams put the lander in hibernation mood ahead of its first lunar winter. SLIM had already succeeded with its main mission objectives — demonstrate a soft-landing, collect science data and deploy two small rovers. And it was expected that its instruments would not survive the harsh lunar night when temperatures can be below minus hundred degrees Celsius. But it survived the lunar night not once but twice, according to a JAXA post on X, formerly Twitter.

“According to the acquired data, some temperature sensors and unused battery cells are starting to malfunction, but the majority of functions that survived the first lunar night was maintained even after the second lunar night,” said a post shared by the agency on the platform.

Death toll in Moscow concert attack rises to 140 after another victim dies

Death toll in Moscow concert attack rises to 140 after another victim dies

A total of 80 people injured in the attack remain hospitalized, the official added, and 205 others have sought outpatient medical assistance.

The death toll from last week's Moscow concert hall attack rose to 140 on Wednesday after another victim died in a hospital, Russian officials said.

That person was one of five still hospitalized in extremely grave condition, and the doctors did everything they could to save them, Russia's Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said.

A total of 80 people injured in the attack remain hospitalized, the official added, and 205 others have sought outpatient medical assistance.

The Friday night massacre in Crocus City Hall, a sprawling shopping and entertainment venue on the northwestern outskirts of Moscow, was the deadliest terrorist attack on the Russian soil in nearly 20 years. At least four gunmen toting automatic rifles shot at thousands of concertgoers and set the venue on fire.

An affiliate of the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the violence, while US intelligence said it had information confirming the group was responsible. French President Emmanuel Macron said France also has intelligence pointing to an IS entity as responsible for the attack.

Russia's Federal Security Service, or the FSB, said it had arrested 11 people the day after the attack, including four suspected gunmen. The four men, identified as Tajik nationals, appeared in a Moscow court on Sunday on terrorism charges and showed signs of severe beatings. One appeared to be barely conscious during the hearing. ALSO READ: Russia blames Ukraine for concert attack despite its denial, Isis claim

Russian officials, however, have insisted Ukraine and the West had a role, claims Kyiv vehemently denies. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, of trying to drum up fervor as his forces fight in Ukraine.

FSB chief Alexander Bortnikov also alleged that Western spy agencies could have been involved. We believe that radical Islamists prepared the action, while Western special services assisted it and Ukrainian special services had a direct part in it, Bortnikov said, without giving details.

He repeated Putin's claim that the four gunmen were trying to escape to Ukraine when they were arrested, casting it as proof of Kyiv's alleged involvement.

But that assertion was undercut slightly by Belarus' authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko, who said Tuesday the suspects were headed for Ukraine because they feared tight controls on the Belarus border.

The Islamic State group, which lost much of its territory following Russia's military action in Syria after 2015, has long targeted Russia. In October 2015, a bomb planted by IS downed a Russian jetliner over the Sinai desert, killing all 224 people aboard, most of them Russian vacationers returning from Egypt.

The group, which operates mainly in Syria and Iraq but also in Afghanistan and Africa, also has claimed several attacks in Russia's volatile Caucasus and other regions in the past years. It has recruited fighters from Russia and other parts of the former Soviet Union.

On Monday, Putin warned that more attacks could follow, alleging possible Western involvement. He didn't mention the warning about a possible imminent terrorist attack that the US shared confidentially with Moscow two weeks before the raid.

Three days before the attack, Putin denounced the US Embassy's March 7 notice urging Americans to avoid crowds in Moscow, including concerts, calling it an attempt to frighten Russians and blackmail the Kremlin ahead of the presidential election.

Bortnikov said Russia was thankful for the warning but described it as very general.

 

Many Questions’: Putin Acknowledges Jihadist Role In Moscow Terror Attack But Implies Ukraine Played A Part

Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Moscow attack was carried out by Islamists but said it was to the benefit of Ukraine.

Russian President Putin said the Moscow terror attacks benefited Ukraine as Russian authorities detained (from top left to bottom) Saidakrami Murodali Rachabalizoda, Shamsidin Fariduni, Isroil Islomov and (from top right to bottom) Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Muhammadsobir Fayzov and Aminchon Islomov

Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that the attack on the concert hall in suburban Moscow was carried out by Islamic militants on Monday but suggested that it benefitted Ukraine and that Kyiv may have played a role.

He said 11 people had been detained, including the four suspected gunmen, who he said had made their way to the Bryansk region and tried to slip into Ukraine.

In the deadliest attack inside Russia for two decades, four men burst into the Crocus City Hall on Friday night, spraying bullets during a concert by the Soviet-era rock group Piknik.

The Russian President said that the motive of the attack was to ‘sow panic’ among Russian citizens and could also be intended to “show their own population that not all is lost for the Kyiv regime", in a reference to Ukraine .

Alexander Bastrykin, head of Russia’s Investigative Committee, told the Kremlin meeting the death toll had risen to 139, with 182 people wounded.

“We know that the crime was carried out by the hand of radical Islamists with an ideology that the Muslim world has fought for centuries. The question that arises is who benefits from this?" Putin asked, according to the report by Reuters.

“This atrocity may be just a link in a whole series of attempts by those who have been at war with our country since 2014 by the hands of the neo-Nazi Kyiv regime. We know by whose hand the crime against Russia and its people was committed. But what is of interest to us is who ordered it," he further added, while speaking at a meeting held after the attack to discuss measures taken in response to the attack.

Meanwhile, France joined the US in saying intelligence indicated Islamic State was responsible.

The US earlier said that it warned Russia under the ‘duty to warn’ protocol about an imminent attack and that intelligence indicates an Afghan affiliate, Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), was responsible.

Moscow’s Basmanny district court remanded four men of Tajik origin on terrorism charges on suspicion of carrying out the attack. Three men were remanded in custody on suspicion of complicity. Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the attack and has released what it says is footage from the massacre.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy derided Putin’s comments in his nightly video address, saying that for the Kremlin leader “everyone is a terrorist, except himself, though he has been thriving on terror for two decades."

When he is gone, the need for terror and violence will disappear with him," Zelenskiy said.

Ukraine has denied any role in Friday’s shooting and Zelenskiy has accused Putin of seeking to divert blame.

‘Ear Cut, Stuffed Into Mouth’

Unverified videos of interrogations on social media showed one of the perpetrators ear cut off and stuffed into his mouth. Detained Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, leaned against a glass cage as the terrorism charge was read out. Saidakrami Rachabalizoda, his ear in bandages, remained sitting.

 

Donald Trump gets lifeline in $454 million fraud case, 'hush money' trial set for April 15 as court slashes bond amount

A New York state appeals court slashed a potentially crippling $454 million bond payment due on Monday to $175 million and gave the former president 10 extra days to pay.

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at 40 Wall Street after a pre-trial hearing at Manhattan criminal court

Donald Trump's legal battles pinballed from victory to defeat Monday as he was offered a lifeline in his struggle to stave off a half billion dollar fraud judgement while a New York judge rejected efforts to delay a separate criminal trial.

A New York state appeals court slashed a potentially crippling $454 million bond payment due on Monday to $175 million and gave the former president 10 extra days to pay.

The Republican presidential candidate got the unexpectedly positive news about his New York civil fraud case while he was sitting in court for another case -- a hearing in his upcoming criminal trial over paying hush money to a porn star.

Judge Juan Merchan rejected demands from Trump's lawyers to delay the first ever criminal trial of a former president for at least 90 days and ordered jury selection to begin on April 15.

Trump faces charges of falsifying business records for the payments made on the eve of the 2016 presidential election to make sure porn star Stormy Daniels did not publicize a sexual encounter.

"You are literally accusing the Manhattan (District Attorney's) office and the people assigned to this case of prosecutorial misconduct and trying to make me complicit in it," a visibly exasperated Merchan told Trump's attorneys during the hearing in a Manhattan courtroom.

Trump had also been facing a Monday deadline to pay the huge original bond pending an appeal against a judge's decision that he is liable for fraudulently conspiring to inflate his net worth.

Trump made clear he was unable to find the $454 million and he risked seeing New York state confiscate parts of his property empire if he failed to come up with the bond.

The 77-year-old Trump welcomed the appellate panel ruling while denouncing the hush money case as "election interference" and a "witch hunt."

"I greatly respect the decision of the appellate division and I will post $175 million in cash and bonds or security or whatever is necessary, very quickly, within the 10 days," he told reporters.

The hush money trial had been scheduled to begin on Monday but was delayed because thousands of pages of potential evidence were belatedly produced by prosecutors.

On Truth Social, Trump denounced both cases as a politically motivated attack ahead of the November 5 presidential election when he will likely again face incumbent Democrat Joe Biden.

"These are Rigged cases, all coordinated by the White House and DOJ for purposes of Election Interference," Trump wrote. "No crime. Our Country is CORRUPT!"

Some of 300 abducted schoolchildren in northwest Nigeria freed after over two weeks in captivity

 Some of 300 abducted schoolchildren in northwest Nigeria freed after over two weeks in captivity

Parents wait for news about the kidnapped LEA Primary and Secondary School Kuriga students in Kuriga, Kaduna, Nigeria on March 9, 2024. |

At least 137 of nearly 300 Nigerian children abducted more than two weeks ago from their school in the northwestern state of Kaduna were released on Sunday, the West African nation’s military said.

An earlier statement from the government suggested that all the students were freed.

Kaduna State Gov. Uba Sani did not give details of the release of the students, who were abducted from their school in the remote town of Kuriga on March 7. In a statement, he thanked Nigerian President Bola Tinubu “particularly ensuring that the abducted Kuriga school children are released unharmed”.

Abductions of students from schools in northern Nigeria are common and have been a major source of concern since 2014, when Islamic extremists kidnapped over 200 schoolgirls in Borno state’s Chibok village.

In recent years, abductions have been concentrated in the country’s northwestern and central regions, where dozens of armed groups often target villagers and travellers for ransom.

UN chief says blocked Gaza aid is a ‘moral outrage’, calls for war to end

 UN chief says blocked Gaza aid is a ‘moral outrage’, calls for war to end

On a visit to the Rafah crossing, Antonio Guterres urges Israel to give people in Gaza unfettered access to humanitarian aid.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it is 'time to truly flood Gaza with life-saving aid' [Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters]

The line of blocked aid trucks stuck on Egypt’s side of the border with the Gaza Strip while Palestinians face starvation on the other side is a “moral outrage”, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on a visit to the Rafah crossing.

“I have come to Rafah to shine a spotlight on the pain of Palestinians in Gaza,” the UN chief said on Saturday, addressing a news conference in El Arish, in Egypt’s northern Sinai, where much of the international relief for Gaza is stockpiled as Israel continues to block aid from entering.

“Here, from this crossing, we see the heartbreak and heartlessness of it all. A long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates, the long shadow of starvation on the other,” he said.

KEEP READING :

🔸Israel seizes 800 hectares of Palestinian land in occupied West Bank

🔸Is­rael’s war on Gaza: List of key events, day 169

🔸What Aida of Khan Younis can teach us about courage

“That is more than tragic. It is a moral outrage. Any further onslaught will make things even worse – worse for Palestinian civilians, worse for hostages and worse for all people in the region.”

The visit by Guterres, which is a part of his annual “solidarity trip” to Muslim countries during Ramadan, comes as Israel faces global pressure to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, which has been devastated by more than five months of war.

“You cannot see so many people being killed, you cannot see so much suffering without feeling hugely frustrated,” Guterres said while taking questions from reporters. “We don’t have the power to stop [the war in Gaza], I appeal to those who have the power to stop it to do it,” he added.

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UN chief says blocked Gaza aid is a ‘moral outrage’, calls for war to end

On a visit to the Rafah crossing, Antonio Guterres urges Israel to give people in Gaza unfettered access to humanitarian aid.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks as he visits the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Rafah, Egypt, March 23

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said it is 'time to truly flood Gaza with life-saving aid' [Mohamed Abd El Ghany/Reuters]

Published On 23 Mar 2024

23 Mar 2024

The line of blocked aid trucks stuck on Egypt’s side of the border with the Gaza Strip while Palestinians face starvation on the other side is a “moral outrage”, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on a visit to the Rafah crossing.

“I have come to Rafah to shine a spotlight on the pain of Palestinians in Gaza,” the UN chief said on Saturday, addressing a news conference in El Arish, in Egypt’s northern Sinai, where much of the international relief for Gaza is stockpiled as Israel continues to block aid from entering.

“Here, from this crossing, we see the heartbreak and heartlessness of it all. A long line of blocked relief trucks on one side of the gates, the long shadow of starvation on the other,” he said.

KEEP READING

list of 3 items

list 1 of 3

Israel seizes 800 hectares of Palestinian land in occupied West Bank

list 2 of 3

Is­rael’s war on Gaza: List of key events, day 169

list 3 of 3

What Aida of Khan Younis can teach us about courage

end of list

“That is more than tragic. It is a moral outrage. Any further onslaught will make things even worse – worse for Palestinian civilians, worse for hostages and worse for all people in the region.”

The visit by Guterres, which is a part of his annual “solidarity trip” to Muslim countries during Ramadan, comes as Israel faces global pressure to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, which has been devastated by more than five months of war.

“You cannot see so many people being killed, you cannot see so much suffering without feeling hugely frustrated,” Guterres said while taking questions from reporters. “We don’t have the power to stop [the war in Gaza], I appeal to those who have the power to stop it to do it,” he addedd

‘Flood Gaza with life-saving aid’

Several NGOs and rights organisation have accused Israel of deliberately blocking aid to Gaza as warnings of famine in the besieged strip rise.

Receiving Guterres at the airport in El Arish, regional governor Mohamed Shusha said some 7,000 trucks were waiting in North Sinai to deliver aid to Gaza, but that inspection procedures demanded by Israel had held up the flow of relief.

The UN chief stressed that it was time for Israel to give an “ironclad commitment” for unfettered access to humanitarian goods throughout Gaza and said that the UN would also continue to work with Egypt to “streamline” the flow of aid into Gaza.

“It’s time to truly flood Gaza with life-saving aid. The choice is clear: either surge or starvation,” Guterres said.

This week, a global food monitor warned that famine was imminent in northern Gaza and could spread to other parts of the territory if a ceasefire is not agreed.

In a post on the social media platform X, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), said a food convoy had been denied access to northern Gaza for the second time this week.

Lazzarini noted the last time the UNRWA was able to deliver aid to the northern part of the enclave, where starvation is spreading, was two months ago.

“This is a man-made hunger & looming famine which can still be averted,” he said. “The Israeli authorities must allow delivering food aid at scale to the north including via UNRWA, the largest humanitarian organisation in Gaza.”

Israel has kept all but one of its land crossings into the enclave closed. It opened the Karem Abu Salem crossing (which Israel calls Kerem Shalom) close to Rafah in late December and denies accusations by Egypt, rights groups and UN agencies that it has delayed deliveries of humanitarian relief.

Wounded Palestinians, including children, are taken by horse-drawn carriage to al-Ahli Baptist Hospital after Israel hit Palestinians waiting for humanitarian aid at Kuwait Junction in Gaza City on March 23, 2024 [Dawoud Abo Alkas/Anadolu Agency]

‘Aid distribution with a humanitarian ceasefire’

Since October, more than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to local health authorities.

Guterres highlighted that the continuing war has become an obstacle for delivering aid in the region with continuous violence and bombardments killing people and humanitarian workers at aid distribution points.

On Saturday, near the time of Guterres’s news conference, at least 19 people were killed in Israeli shelling as aid was being distributed at the Kuwait Roundabout in Gaza City, authorities in Gaza said.

This attack at a food distribution point, a primary location for delivering assistance to the northern part of the strip, comes days after at least 21 Palestinian people were killed by Israeli troops in Gaza City, while waiting for aid.

“There is no way to have an effective aid distribution in Gaza without a humanitarian ceasefire,” the UN chief told reporters, adding that it was also time for all captives being held by Hamas in Gaza to be released.