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Israel’s military chief warned against a full takeover of Gaza, according to three Israeli sources familiar with the discussions. In a meeting with top officials on Tuesday evening, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir cautioned that fully conquering Gaza would trap the military within the enclave and put the remaining hostages at risk, the sources said. Such a move, Zamir said, would also increase the burden on Israeli forces when the military is already suffering from attrition and burnout rates amongst reservist forces. According to two of the sources, Zamir’s plan called for encircling Gaza…

Facebook Tweet Email Link Kyiv, Ukraine  —  A Trump-Putin meeting has been floated by both sides for some time. So why might either side want it to happen now? US President Donald Trump wants to bring the force of his personality to bear on forging a deal, believing that six months of intransigence from Moscow might be overcome by meeting the Kremlin head face to face. He seems still to cling to the idea the Kremlin can be cajoled into stopping the war, despite his Russian counterpart recently suggesting the maximalist position that the Russian and Ukrainian people are one,…

Facebook Tweet Email Link Amtrak’s NextGen Acela highspeed trains are set to debut this month after years of delays. New faster Acela trains will begin revenue service on August 28 along the Northeast Corridor between Washington, New York and Boston, Amtrak announced on Thursday. “In just a few weeks, history will be made with the debut of NextGen Acela as we launch a new standard for American train travel,” said Amtrak President Roger Harris, in a statement. Five of the new trainsets will be part of the initial launch, with a total of 28 expected to enter service by 2027.…

Facebook Tweet Email Link A new image has revealed the clearest glimpse yet of an interstellar visitor zipping through our solar system. The Hubble Telescope and its Wide Field Camera 3 got an incredible view of the comet named 3I/ATLAS, which came from beyond our solar system, on July 21 when the object was 277 million miles (445 million kilometers) from Earth. In the image, a teardrop-shaped dust cocoon can be seen streaking from the comet’s icy nucleus. A comet’s nucleus is its solid core, made of ice, dust and rocks. When comets travel near stars such as the sun,…

Facebook Tweet Email Link President Donald Trump just enacted a new wave of tariffs on dozens of America’s trading partners, marking a substantial escalation in ongoing trade tensions that could constitute the biggest change to the global economy in nearly a century. The historic new trade policy follows months of false starts to Trump’s so-called “reciprocal” tariff rollout and countless bilateral trade negotiations, a handful of which resulted in agreements that fended off even higher tariffs. Trump and his economic advisers have celebrated the considerably higher tariffs that have already gone into effect, correctly noting that they have raised more…

Facebook Tweet Email Link President Donald Trump has remade the global trading system. He’s just getting started. Trump’s “reciprocal” tariff regime went into effect just after midnight, solidifying the new world order fueled Trump’s long-standing – and oft-doubted – aspiration to reorient seven decades of global commerce. But the days leading up to this moment provide a window into a president who advisers tell CNN is increasingly emboldened, confident and unyielding in his belief that his unprecedented use of tariffs for, well, just about everything, hasn’t carried any downside. It’s a view corporate executives, foreign leaders and a veritable phonebook…

Facebook Tweet Email Link Bangkok Reuters  —  Thai prosecutors on Thursday indicted 23 suspects including a construction tycoon and a Chinese state-owned firm for violations that led to the collapse of a building during a powerful earthquake, killing nearly a hundred workers. The partially built 30-story State Audit Office tower in Bangkok was the only building to collapse from tremors emanating from the powerful 7.7 magnitude quake in neighboring Myanmar on March 28. At least 95 people were killed in the incident. The construction of the State Audit Office building was a joint venture between Italian-Thai Development, one of Thailand’s…

Facebook Tweet Email Link Apple CEO Tim Cook should be breathing a sigh of relief. The White House on Wednesday ratcheted tariffs on Indian imports up by an additional 25%, raising the total levies on one of the United States’ most crucial trading partners to 50% when they kick in later this month. But smartphones are exempt from President Donald Trump’s new levies on India, marking a crucial win for the tech giant as it approaches its most important time of the year: its annual September iPhone launch followed by the holiday season. Apple will also dodge incoming new tariffs…

Facebook Tweet Email Link Reuters  —  Cambodia’s prime minister said on Thursday he has nominated US President Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, lauding his “extraordinary statesmanship” in halting a border conflict between Cambodia and Thailand. Hun Manet made the announcement in a Facebook post late on Thursday, accompanied by a letter he said had been sent to the Norwegian Nobel Committee hailing Trump’s intervention as an example of his “exceptional achievements in de-escalating tensions in some of the world’s most volatile regions”. “This timely intervention, which averted a potentially devastating conflict, was vital in preventing a great loss…

Facebook Tweet Email Link President Donald Trump’s deadline for Russia to end its war in Ukraine or suffer severe economic punishment expires Friday, but it’s unclear how he plans to proceed amid new efforts toward a summit with Vladimir Putin and delicate trade negotiations with China. Trump promised earlier this week to apply new sanctions on Russia even as he questioned how effective they would be. The White House said Wednesday he still intended to slap “secondary sanctions” on countries that continue to purchase Russian energy. But by Thursday — after he initiated preparations to try and meet Putin face-to-face…