World
Trump invites Israel’s Netanyahu to meet with him at White House
The Israeli prime minister will be the first foreign leader to visit in Trump’s second term
US President Donald Trump has invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House next week as the first foreign leader to visit in Trump’s second term, Netanyahu and the White House said Tuesday.
The announcement came as the United States pressures Israel and Hamas to continue a ceasefire that has paused a devastating 15-month war in Gaza, Associated Press reported.
Talks about the ceasefire’s more difficult second phase, which aims to end the war, begin Monday.
In a letter from the White House, shared by Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday, Trump said: “I look forward to discussing how we can bring peace to Israel and its neighbors, and efforts to counter our shared adversaries.”
Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid, and Netanyahu is likely to encourage Trump not to hold up some weapons deliveries the way the Biden administration did, though it continued other deliveries and overall military support.
Netanyahu also reportedly wants Trump to put more pressure on Iran, and renew efforts to deliver a historic normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a rival of Iran and the Arab world’s most powerful country.
Even before taking office this month, Trump was sending his special Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to the region to apply pressure along with the Biden administration to get the current Gaza ceasefire achieved.
But Netanyahu has vowed to renew the war if Hamas doesn’t meet his demands in negotiations over the ceasefire’s second phase, meant to discuss a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and a “sustainable calm,” AP reported.
Trump’s suspension of aid sets off alarm bells
According to Washington-based think tank, the Brookings Institution, there is a lot of uncertainty and unpredictability about Trump’s presidency in the coming months not just domestically but also internationally.
One area of growing concerns is that related to US foreign aid after Trump suspended all funding for 90 days, pending a review.
Humanitarian organisations and U.N. agencies say they could face drastic curbs on their ability to distribute food, shelter and healthcare if the freeze becomes permanent.
The U.S. is by far the biggest contributor to global humanitarian aid, supplying an estimated $13.9 billion in 2024, accounting for 42% of all aid tracked by the United Nations, Reuters reported.
Washington did however say it would grant waivers to the freeze in some areas including emergency food assistance, according to a memo seen by Reuters.
Bangladesh’s government said in a statement that the U.S. had granted a waiver for emergency food aid to more than a million Rohingya refugees sheltering in Bangladesh.
But the exemption does not apply to other humanitarian programming. A Bangladesh-based aid worker said organisations working on shelter, for example, would not be able to buy new materials for building and fixing homes for refugees.
The cuts will also affect the supply of lifesaving drugs for HIV, malaria and tuberculosis around the globe, which millions of people depend on, according to another memo seen by Reuters.
World Food Program Country Director for Afghanistan Hsiao-Wei Lee told Reuters she was concerned about the freeze given that the WFP was already only receiving about half the aid it needed for Afghanistan, and that over 6 million people were surviving on “just bread and tea”.
The WFP received $4.7 billion from the U.S. last year, accounting for 54% of its funding, according to the U.N.
The order to freeze funding has thrown USAID missions and their partners into chaos, with many organisations unsure whether to lay off staff, start selling assets such as cars or tell employees to take unpaid leave, according to a source at the agency.
USAID has been forbidden from communicating with implementing partners except to say funds have been paused, the person told Reuters.
“These are people we work with on a daily basis,” the source added. “We can’t speak with them any more.”
In 2023, the U.S. was the largest landmine action donor with a total contribution of $310 million, representing 39% of all international support, according to the International Campaign to Ban Landmines.
Syria, Myanmar, Ukraine and Afghanistan were among the countries where uncleared mines claim most lives.
The State Department said on Sunday, that the U.S. government must refocus on American national interests in its role as steward of taxpayer dollars.
“President Trump stated clearly that the United States is no longer going to blindly dole out money with no return for the American people. Reviewing and realigning foreign assistance on behalf of hardworking taxpayers is not just the right thing to do, it is a moral imperative,” the State Department said.
World
Death toll from migrant rush into Spanish enclave in North Africa rises to 72
Authorities have reinforced police and army patrols. A 500-metre (1,600-foot) floating barrier was installed off Ceuta on Saturday.
The death toll from a mass rush of migrants from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta last week reached at least 72 on Sunday, as five more bodies were found along the North African coast, officials said, Reuters reported.
The number of fatalities was considerably higher than what was announced by Moroccan authorities on Sunday.
More than 50,000 people crossed into Ceuta by land and sea in an unprecedented surge that began on Thursday at one of the European Union’s only two land borders with Africa, prompting alarm across the bloc. More than 48,000 returned to Morocco within 48 hours and more did so over the weekend, Spanish authorities said.
The Spanish government representative in Ceuta, Miguel Angel Perez, told reporters on Sunday that, in addition to the 72 fatalities, more than 1,000 people had been treated by health services. The situation in the enclave had improved markedly, he said, but more remained to be done to re-establish normality.
Some migrants drowned and others were crushed while trying to climb a breakwater and border fence. Many had been driven to migrate by economic hardship and encouraged by social media rumours.
Morocco’s Interior Ministry said in a statement on Sunday that 11 people had died, mostly by drowning while trying to cross into Spanish territory, noting that it was fact-checking reports on deaths from the other side of the border, read the report.
The ministry blamed the rush of migrants on social media misinformation, human trafficking networks and misinterpretation of a Spanish ruling banning immediate returns of migrants intercepted at sea. That statement is similar to the Spanish Foreign Ministry’s comments on the matter.
Moroccan authorities set the number of those involved in the crossing at 40,000, far lower than the figure used by Spanish officials, adding that 1,135 were stopped from entering Melilla, another Spanish enclave.
The statement reiterated that Morocco was committed to countering illegal migration and called for the burden of managing migration to be shared.
“It pains me deeply that young people are dying at sea. It’s not right that, in the year 2026, women with children as young as two months old should be crossing the sea only to die,” Karima Abenaz, a French national in Ceuta with family in Morocco, said while holding back tears.
“In Morocco, there’s food, there’s everything we need,” she added. “If we don’t have a decent job, we should go on strike and demand our rights from the government. We shouldn’t be dying at sea, it’s not right.”
Ceuta leader Juan Jesus Vivas told the newspaper El Pais the city’s morgue had received 88 corpses, including some who had died in earlier, smaller attempts to reach the territory in hazardous night-time swims over the past two weeks. He said Moroccan authorities were also recovering bodies from the sea, but no official information was available.
Authorities have reinforced police and army patrols. A 500-metre (1,600-foot) floating barrier was installed off Ceuta on Saturday.
Twenty-two European Union member states wrote a letter asking for coordinated action to protect external borders and other measures after the Ceuta incident. Italy suspended passport-free Schengen travel arrangements with Spain for one month, Reuters reported.
Spain has adopted a more open stance on migrants than most other EU countries, introducing a programme to grant residency to more than half a million undocumented people.
It has rejected suggestions that the scheme encouraged the rush into Ceuta, saying that those who entered the enclave irregularly could not travel on to mainland Spain or elsewhere in the Schengen zone.
World
Three killed, two injured in shooting at Idaho shopping center
Authorities said at least two other people were wounded and transported for medical treatment. Their conditions were not immediately released.
Three people, including the suspected gunman, were killed and at least two others were injured after a shooting at a busy shopping area in Twin Falls, Idaho, on Saturday, local authorities said.
The incident occurred at around 2:30 p.m. local time near an In-N-Out Burger restaurant in a high-traffic commercial district, according to Josh Palmer, the city’s public information coordinator.
Twin Falls Police Chief Matthew Hicks said the suspected shooter was among the dead and confirmed that the threat to the community had been eliminated.
“At this point, the shooter is no longer a threat,” Hicks told reporters, adding that investigators are working to identify the suspect and determine a motive for the attack.
Authorities said at least two other people were wounded and transported for medical treatment. Their conditions were not immediately released.
Following the shooting, the Twin Falls Police Department temporarily closed roads surrounding the scene, including a nearby bridge, as officers secured the area and launched an investigation.
Twin Falls, with a population of about 47,400, is located in Idaho’s Magic Valley region.
Police have not yet released additional details about the victims or the circumstances surrounding the shooting, and the investigation remains ongoing.
World
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