|
Hello, I'm Chris Barrow with the BBC News.
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he's ordered the start of negotiations for the release of all remaining hostages held by Hamas and an end to the war in Gaza on Israel's terms. He's also approved widely criticized plans to seize Gaza City. Jo Floto is in Jerusalem. Benjamin Netanyahu has made it quite clear that defeating Hamas and getting the hostages back are basically two sides of the same coin. And what he appears to be saying there is Israel's going to carry on fighting while it negotiates. And how that's compatible with the deal that's on the table, we don't know. How that's compatible with Hamas actually saying they're ready to stop, I don't know. I think effectively what we're getting is a rejection of the deal that's on the table and we're entering new territory now. Donald Trump has described as a total victory a decision by a New York appeals court to dismiss a half a billion dollar penalty imposed on him for fraud. Mr. Trump said everything he did had been correct, but the judge didn't throw the case out, saying harm had occurred. He described the penalty as excessive. Mr. Trump had been found liable for overstating his wealth to mislead lenders and insurers in New York. California's Democrat-controlled state legislature has passed a series of bills aimed at redrawing electoral districts to help the Democrats gain five more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The measure would counter similar moves benefiting the Republicans in Texas. But unlike in Texas, it must still be approved by a public vote in November. The Democrat Robert Rivas is the state assembly speaker. "Californians, we believe in freedom. We will not let our political system be hijacked by authoritarianism. And today we give every Californian the power to say no. To say no to Donald Trump's power grab, and yes, to our people, to our state and to our democracy." Both parties are trying to gain control of the narrowly divided lower house of Congress in midterm elections next year. Wildfires in the European Union are now believed to have ravaged more than one million hectares across the bloc so far this year, a record since monitoring statistics began in 2006. Here's Olivia Noon. According to analysis by the AFP news agency, fires have now burned an area larger than Cyprus. The figure is expected to rise as several areas of both Spain and Portugal remain ablaze. Spain has been the most affected in the EU, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the total. But this year's scorching summer heatwave has spared few countries, and resulting fires have also caused destruction in Romania, France, Germany and Slovakia. Meteorologists say extreme temperatures are becoming more frequent and intense due to human-induced climate change. This is the World News from the BBC. Large crowds of protesters have marched through the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, and the western city of Batumi in support of independent media. People have gathered nightly now for 267 nights to protest in favor of alignment with Europe. Thursday's march was organized to protest against what they call the Georgian government's assault on the free media. Google has agreed to provide its Gemini artificial intelligence tools to U.S. federal agencies for less than a dollar. The Gemini for government package includes cloud services and AI capable of generating video, images and ideas, as well as digital agents able to manage complex tasks. The German sportswear giant Adidas has apologized to an indigenous Mexican community for using the design of a traditional sandal in a new range of footwear. The move followed criticism by the Mexican President, Claudia Sheinbaum, and the authorities in Oaxaca state that the slip-on sandals replicated those of traditional huarache sandal makers without giving them credit. British scientists have discovered a new species of a large plant-eating dinosaur that had a sail-like structure along its back and tail. Fossils of the animal, related to the better-known Iguanodon, were found on the Isle of Wight off England's south coast. Here's Rebecca Drought. It was while examining fossils thought to be one of the two known species of Iguanodontian that Jeremy Lockwood, a Ph.D. student at the Natural History Museum and University of Portsmouth, noticed something very unusual. The skeleton suggested the animal would have had a pronounced sail-like structure along its back and tail. In modern reptiles, Dr. Lockwood said sail structures were thought to have involved to impress mates or intimidate rivals, and he thinks it's likely to be the same for the dinosaur. He's named it Istiorachis macaruthurae after the world record-breaking sailor and Isle of Wight native Dame Ellen MacArthur. BBC News |