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BBC News with Sue Montgomery.
President Trump has told Israel it must stop bombing Gaza immediately as Hamas has agreed to release all remaining hostages living and dead, a key demand in the president's proposed peace plan. Writing on social media, Mr. Trump said he believed Hamas was ready for a lasting peace. In a subsequent video, he thanked all the parties involved. "I wanna thank the countries that helped me put this together - Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and so many others. So many people fought so hard. We were given a tremendous amount of help. Everybody was unified in wanting this war to end and seeing peace in the Middle East. And we're very close to achieving that. Thank you all and everybody will be treated fairly." Both Qatar and Egypt, the two mediators, have welcomed Hamas' response, with Cairo describing it as a positive development. They urged Israel and Hamas to seize the opportunity to end the war. The British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called it a significant step forward, while the German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said this was the best chance for peace after two years of war. Emmanuel Macron of France said Hamas' commitment must be followed up without delay. The American rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs has been sentenced to four years and two months in jail by a judge in New York, having been convicted in July on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution. Earlier, the hip-hop mogul had pleaded for mercy from the judge. Rich Preston is outside the court. The defense had argued that he served enough time behind bars. The 13 months he's already served in the Metropolitan Detention Center. They wanted him out in just a few more months. The prosecution had argued he should stay behind bars for 11 years. Now, those two guilty charges each carried a potential sentence of 10 years, so he could have been facing 20 years in prison altogether. Fifty months is the time not served. German authorities say both runways at Munich Airport have been closed, the second time in 24 hours that this has happened, following unconfirmed drone sightings. The airport was closed for the same reason late on Thursday night. Bethany Bell has more details. In a statement, Munich Airport said flights had been suspended until further notice. It said German air traffic control had restricted operations there as a precautionary measure for the second night in a row. The tracking site Flightradar24 showed a list of cancelled or diverted flights. The German Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt has promised to bring forward legislation making it easier for the police to ask the military to shoot down drones. World news from the BBC. A court in North Macedonia has indicted more than 30 people, including a government minister, in connection with the deadly nightclub fire in March, which claimed 62 lives and injured about 200 people. The defendants also include the owner of the venue and the mayor of the eastern town of Kočani. The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog has called on Russia and Ukraine to resolve a situation that's left the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant without external power for 10 days. Rafael Grossi of the IAEA called it unprecedented. Danny Eberhardt reports. This isn't the first time during the war that the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant has had to rely on diesel generators to provide emergency power for cooling its shut-down reactors and spent fuel. But it's by far the longest such period. The IAEA says the generators are working fine and have enough fuel. But Rafael Grossi says the situation must be resolved without further delay, warning of the risks of a meltdown. An initial report by European network of electricity grid operators says the massive blackout that hit mainland Spain and Portugal in April was caused by a power surge. The panel of experts called it the worst such event in Europe in more than two decades. They put it down to a cascading series of events that saw power generation facilities being disconnected, describing it as the first blackout of its kind in Europe. U.S. officials say the Treasury Department is considering making a one-dollar coin that features President Donald Trump to commemorate the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence. Officials shared early drafts of the coin. One includes Mr. Trump's profile on one side, while the other side shows the words "Fight, fight, fight" above the president with his fist clenched. |