Israel-Gaza war live: Israel warns it could take Lebanon ‘back to the Stone Age’ as defence minister wraps up Washington trip ( www.theguardian.com )
Chinese woman jailed for reporting on Covid in Wuhan to be freed after four years ( www.theguardian.com )
Citizen journalist Zhang Zhan’s search for the truth during the early days of the pandemic was seen as a threat by the authorities...
Yacht sinks after latest incident involving orcas in strait of Gibraltar ( www.theguardian.com )
An unknown number of orcas have sunk a yacht after ramming it in Moroccan waters in the strait of Gibraltar, Spain’s maritime rescue service has said, in the latest in a series of similar incidents involving the animals....
New York governor to launch bill banning smartphones in schools ( www.theguardian.com )
Hopes of Gaza ceasefire rise as Hamas delegation arrives in Cairo ( www.theguardian.com )
Egyptian and US mediators have reported signs of compromise in recent days and Egyptian state news channel Al-Qahera said on Saturday that a consensus had been reached in the indirect talks over many of the disputed points but gave no further details....
TIL Many bronze age peoples forgot what stone age tools were, and thought discovered ones as some kind of mystical talismans or signs from a thunder god ( www.theguardian.com )
Also mistaken for fulgurite by the more naturalistically minded, apparently. Maybe most common in the Nordics, based on viking references?...
Oldest wine ever discovered in liquid form found in urn with Roman remains ( www.theguardian.com )
Reddish-brown liquid found in untouched 2,000-year-old Roman tomb is a local, sherry-like wine...
High levels of weedkiller (glyphosate/e.g. Roundup) found in more than half of sperm samples, study finds ( www.theguardian.com )
The levels (of glyphosate that the) French researchers found in sperm were four times higher than in the men’s blood...
EU restates readiness to launch trade war with China over cheap imports ( www.theguardian.com )
The European Commission chief said she was “convinced that if the competition is fair” from China, then Europe “will have thriving durable economies”....
South Korea thinktank suggests girls start school earlier to raise birthrate ( www.theguardian.com )
Critics label as ‘absurd’ idea from government-backed thinktank as country seeks to address population decline...
Israel calls on ‘civilised nations’ to boycott ICC arrest warrants against its leaders ( www.theguardian.com )
Israel has urged what it called “nations of the civilised world” to refuse to implement any international criminal court arrest warrants issued against its leaders....
More than 550 hajj pilgrims die in Mecca as temperatures exceed 50C | At least 320 of the dead are from Egypt and Saudi officials report treating more than 2,000 people for heat stress ( www.theguardian.com )
Biden is dramatically out of touch with voters on Gaza. He may lose because of it ( www.theguardian.com )
On the issue of Gaza, Biden is dramatically out of touch with the voters he needs to win re-election. If he will not be moved by morality to stop his support of this war, he should be moved by vulgar self-interest. Gaza is not a distant foreign conflict: it is an urgent moral emergency for large swaths of voters. Biden will lose...
‘Everything’s just … on hold’: the Netherlands’ next-level housing crisis ( www.theguardian.com )
Amsterdammers find themselves at the nadir of a Europe-wide housing shortage. But some bold initiatives offer hope...
Google Cloud accidentally deletes a financial institution account due to ‘unprecedented misconfiguration’ ( www.theguardian.com )
A week of downtime and all the servers were recovered only because the customer had a proper disaster recovery protocol and held backups somewhere else, otherwise Google deleted the backups too...
Ukraine unveils AI-generated foreign ministry spokesperson ( www.theguardian.com )
Nikki Haley writes ‘finish them’ on IDF artillery shells during Israel visit ( www.theguardian.com )
Ireland, Spain and Norway to recognise Palestinian state ( www.theguardian.com )
Ireland, Spain and Norway have announced they will formally recognise a Palestinian state on 28 May, triggering an immediate response from Israel, which said it would retaliate by recalling its ambassadors from Dublin, Madrid and Oslo, and withholding vital funds from the Palestinian Authority....
Nato’s failure to save Ukraine raises an existential question: what on earth is it for? ( www.theguardian.com )
‘Total outrage’: White House condemns Israeli settlers’ attack on Gaza aid trucks ( www.theguardian.com )
The White House has condemned an attack on an aid convoy heading to Gaza by Israeli settlers who threw packages of food into the road and set fire to the vehicles....
UN denies Gaza death toll of women and children has been revised down ( www.theguardian.com )
The UN has denied that the estimated death toll of women and children in the war in Gaza has been revised downward, pointing towards a confusion between the total numbers of dead bodies recorded, and the number of those who have so far been fully identified....
Conservatives crushed by ‘worst local election result’ in years ( www.theguardian.com )
Spread of Tory losses leads former minister to say there’s ‘no such thing as a safe seat any more’...
Homelessness jumps 16% in England, laying bare scale of housing crisis ( www.theguardian.com )
Nearly 45,000 households had nowhere to live in the three months to December last year, official figures show...
OpenAI says Russian and Israeli groups used its tools to spread disinformation ( www.theguardian.com )
Networks in China and Iran also used AI models to create and post disinformation but campaigns did not reach large audiences...
Thousands protest in Israel amid anger at Netanyahu over hostages held in Gaza ( www.theguardian.com )
