WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the United States will take ownership of the Gaza Strip and redevelop it after Palestinians are relocated elsewhere.
Trump made the remarks in a joint press conference with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, without providing details about how to conduct a resettlement procedure.
“The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too,” he said. “We’re going to develop it, create thousands and thousands of jobs, and it’ll be something that the entire Middle East can be very proud of.”
The place could become a home to “the world’s people,” he added.
The president said that he plans to visit Israel and possibly make a trip to Gaza.
HOUSTON – A 15-year-old boy was arrested after demanding a plane with a handgun and an AR-style rifle at an airport in Texarkana, southern U.S. state of Arkansas, on Tuesday, authorities said.
The teen walked into a private facility at the Texarkana Regional Airport on Tuesday morning, placed a gun on the front counter at the terminal, demanded a plane and cocked his rifle, said Paul Mehrlich, the airport’s director.
The boy then forcefully pushed open a door leading out to the airfield, where he confronted with a pilot, said Mehrlich.
The pilot ordered the boy to the ground and disarmed him. Texarkana Police Department officers arrived soon and arrested the youth, said a Fox News report.
“The Texarkana Arkansas Police Department applauds the heroic act by the local pilot,” the agency said in a news release. “The fact that this incident was resolved quickly and peacefully, despite the extreme danger presented, is highly commendable.”
None is injured during the incident, according to the airport.
The youth was charged with aggravated assault, attempted aggravated robbery and terroristic threatening in the first degree, said the Fox News report.
The airport, the primary airport for the twin cities of Texarkana, Arkansas, and Texarkana, Texas, is run by Signature Aviation that functions as a terminal for jets and other private aircraft.
WASHINGTON – The remains of all 67 individuals who died in the helicopter and passenger plane midair collision in Washington, D.C. last week have been recovered by rescue teams, U.S. media reported Tuesday.
Sixty-six of the remains have been positively identified, the ABC News cited the Unified Command as saying.
The Unified Command said its crews are still working to clear wreckage, including large pieces of the plane, from the Potomac River, and large lifts will continue through Tuesday evening. Unloading is expected when “environmental and tidal conditions allow” on Wednesday.
It added that operations will then shift to recovering wreckage from the Black Hawk helicopter.
A passenger jet carrying 64 on board collided Wednesday night with an Army helicopter while landing at the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, with both aircraft falling into the freezing Potomac River. Three U.S. Army soldiers were onboard the helicopter.
This is the deadliest air accident in Washington, D.C. since 1982.
An investigation into the accident is underway, led by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.
A police helicopter flies as a major police operation is underway at Risbergska School, following reports of a serious violent crime, in Orebro, Sweden, February 4, 2025. TT News Agency/Kicki Nilsson/via REUTERS
OREBRO, Sweden – Around 10 people were killed in a shooting at an adult education centre on Tuesday, Swedish police said, marking the country’s deadliest gun attack in what the prime minister called a “painful day.”
Police said the gunman was believed to be among those killed and a search for other possible victims was continuing at the school, located in the city of Orebro. The gunman’s motive was not immediately known.
“We know that 10 or so people have been killed here today. The reason that we can’t be more exact currently is that the extent of the incident is so large,” local police chief Roberto Eid Forest told a news conference.
Forest said police believed the gunman had acted alone and that terrorism was not currently suspected as a motive, though he cautioned that much remained unknown. He said the suspected gunman had not previously been known to police.
“We have a big crime scene, we have to complete the searches we are conducting in the school. There are a number of investigative steps we are taking: a profile of the perpetrator, witness interviews,” Forest said.
The shooting took place in Orebro, some 200 km (125 miles) west of Stockholm, at the Risbergska school for adults who did not complete their formal education or failed to get the grades to continue to higher education. It is located on a campus that also houses schools for children.
Ali Elmokad was outside the Orebro University Hospital, looking for his relative, not yet knowing if he was among the injured or the dead.
“We’ve been trying to get hold of him all day, we haven’t been successful,” he said, adding that he had a friend who also attended the school.
“What she saw was so terrible. She only saw people lying on the floor, injured and blood everywhere.”
Police said it was still going through the crime scene and had searched several addresses in Orebro after the attack.
Late on Tuesday, police vans and personnel were still outside an apartment building in central Orebro that had been raided earlier.
“We saw a lot of police with drawn weapons,” said Lingam Tuohmaki, 42, who lives in the same building. “We were at home and heard a commotion outside.”
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said it was the worst mass shooting in Swedish history.
“It is hard to take in the full extent of what has happened today — the darkness that now lowers itself across Sweden tonight,” he told a news conference.
King Carl XVI Gustav conveyed his condolences. “It is with deep sadness and dismay that my family and I received the news about the terrible atrocity in Orebro,” he said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen expressed her sympathy on X, saying: “In this dark hour, we stand with the people of Sweden.”
‘WE STARTED RUNNING’
Maria Pegado, 54, a teacher at the school, said someone threw open the door to her classroom just after lunch break and shouted to everyone to get out.
“I took all my 15 students out into the hallway and we started running,” she told Reuters by phone.
“Then I heard two shots but we made it out. We were close to the school entrance.
“I saw people dragging injured out, first one, then another. I realised it was very serious,” she said.
Many students in Sweden’s adult school system are immigrants seeking to improve basic education and gain degrees to help them find jobs in the Nordic country while also learning Swedish.
Sweden has been struggling with a wave of shootings and bombings caused by an endemic gang crime problem that has seen the country of 10 million people record by far the highest per capita rate of gun violence in the EU in recent years. However, fatal attacks at schools are rare.
Ten people were killed in seven incidents of deadly violence at schools between 2010 and 2022, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention.
Sweden has a high level of gun ownership by European standards, mainly linked to hunting, though it is much lower than in the United States, while the gang crime wave has highlighted the high incidence of illegal weapons.
In one of the highest-profile crimes of the past decade, a 21-year-old masked assailant driven by racist motives killed a teaching assistant and a boy and wounded two others in 2015.
In 2017, a man driving a truck mowed down shoppers on a busy street in central Stockholm before crashing into a department store. Five people died in that attack.
STOCKHOLM – Swedish police said on Tuesday five people were shot in an attack at a school in the city of Orebro some 200 km (125 miles) west of Stockholm, triggering a massive response by rescue services.
“Five persons are confirmed shot,” police said in a statement.
“This is currently seen as attempted murder, arson and aggravated weapons offence.” Ambulances, rescue services and police are onsite, a spokesperson for local rescue services said.
A police spokesperson declined to comment further when reached by Reuters.
People board a ferry to Piraeus, following an increase in seismic activity on the island of Santorini, Greece, February 4, 2025. REUTERS
SANTORINI – Hundreds of people packed a port in Santorini in the early morning hours of Tuesday to board a ferry and reach safety in Athens as a series of quakes kept shaking the famous Greek tourist island.
Hundreds of quakes have been registered every few minutes in the sea between the volcanic islands of Santorini and Amorgos in the Aegean Sea since Friday, prompting authorities to shut schools in Santorini and the small nearby islands of Ios, Amorgos and Anafi until Friday.
A tremor with a magnitude of 4.7 was recorded by the European Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) at 0653GMT on the island most of whose popular white and blue villages cling to steep cliffs over the sea.
“Everything is closed. No one works now. The whole island has emptied,” said Dori, a 18-year-old local resident who declined to give his last name, before boarding the ferry to Athens.
“We will go to Athens until we see how things develop here.”
More people were expected to fly out on an additional flight on Tuesday.
With seismologists estimating that the intense seismic activity could take days or weeks to abate, people were advised to stay out of coastal areas due to the risk of landslides and avoid indoor gatherings.
Some hotels started emptying their pools as they were told that the water load made buildings more vulnerable.
Greece is one of the most earthquake-prone countries in Europe as it sits at the boundary of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates whose constant interaction prompts frequent quakes.
Santorini took its current shape following one of the largest volcanic eruptions in history, around 1600 BC. The last eruption in the area occurred in 1950.
SYDNEY – A female swimmer has died in a shark attack in the waters off a popular tourist spot on Australia’s east coast, authorities said.
Emergency crews were called to the Woorim Beach at Bribie Island, about 80 kms (50 miles) north of Brisbane around 5 p.m. (0600 GMT) on Monday following reports of a serious shark bite incident, Queensland state police said on Monday.
“The female was swimming when she was bitten by a shark … the female sustained life-threatening injuries and succumbed to those injuries,” a police spokesperson said in an email.
Police did not disclose the age of the victim though Australian media widely reported the victim was a 17-year-old girl.
Christopher Potter, a resident, said the beach is frequently used by swimming groups through the day.
“It’s known there are a lot of sharks around Bribie, but this close to shore, it’s still a shock,” he told ABC News.
DUSHANBE – At least five prisoners were killed and three employees were injured in a riot spurred by an attempted escape from a prison in the Tajikistan city of Vahdat, two sources in the country’s security agencies told Reuters on Tuesday.
Nine prisoners armed with homemade knives attacked guards on Tuesday, according to the justice ministry which said the prisoners had tried to kill the guards and escape from the penal colony 20 km (12 miles) east of Dushanbe.
“As a result of the attack, three employees were seriously injured,” the ministry said. They are in a stable condition, it said.
Among those injured was the head of the prison’s administration, who was taken to hospital in serious condition, a source told Reuters on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.
Unverified video on Telegram channels showed what they said were the dead prisoners in puddles of blood. At least one prisoner wore a hat with the official Islamic State flag.
Andrei Serenko, an analyst of the region, said that Islamic State supporters had started the escape attempt – and that they had briefly raised the flag of the Sunni Muslim militant group over the prison.
Reuters could not independently confirm the reports about Islamic State. No group has yet claimed responsibility for the riot.
A criminal investigation into the incident has been launched, the Prosecutor’s Office told Reuters.
In May 2019, 29 prisoners and three guards were killed at the penal colony when a riot broke out. Tajikistan authorities said at the time that the riot was instigated by members of extremist groups, and later the Islamic State claimed responsibility.
In 2018, 21 prisoners and two guards were killed in a prison in the northern city of Khujand in Tajikistan.
MOSCOW – Russia will deploy its Oreshnik missile systems in Belarus in accordance with the agreements reached between the leaders of the two countries, a senior Russian diplomat confirmed on Tuesday.
“In line with our allied commitments … Russia is ready to provide Minsk with the necessary support and take measures to protect our common defense space,” Alexey Polishchuk, head of the Second Department of the Commonwealth of Independent States at the Russian Foreign Ministry, said in an interview with TASS news agency.
He emphasized that the medium-range ballistic Oreshnik missiles will be stationed in Belarus as part of these agreements.
Polishchuk added that Belarus already hosts a joint Regional Forces Group, modern Russian defense systems, and non-strategic nuclear weapons, emphasizing that the country’s armed forces and security agencies are capable of handling both external and internal threats independently.
In late January, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko announced that Russia’s Oreshnik hypersonic missile system would arrive in Belarus “any day now,” adding that the system may be deployed closer to the Smolensk region.
WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sign executive orders on Tuesday to withdraw from the United Nations Human Rights Council and stop funding for the UN Palestinian relief agency (UNRWA), local media reported, citing a White House official.
Also on Tuesday, Trump is scheduled to meet visiting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long criticized the UNRWA.
During Trump’s first term in June 2018, the United States withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights Council, saying that it has rendered membership to unworthy nations and harbored “disproportionate focus and unending hostility towards Israel.”
However, in February 2021, then U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement that the Biden administration would reengage with the council as an observer.
Since 1950, UNRWA has been assisting Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
KHARTOUM – At least 67 people were killed on Sunday in an artillery shelling by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on El Fasher, the capital city of North Darfur State in western Sudan, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) announced on Monday.
“Among the victims were 30 women, 17 children, and 20 men,” the army’s 6th Infantry Division said in a statement, identifying them as all civilians.
Clashes took place between the SAF and the RSF in the eastern part of El Fasher on Sunday and Monday, during which the SAF destroyed several RSF combat vehicles.
The armed confrontations between the SAF and the RSF have recently escalated on three fronts, including the capital Khartoum, the Gezira State in central Sudan, and around El Fasher city in western Sudan.
According to eyewitnesses, the Sudanese Air Force launched airstrikes on Monday targeting the south Khartoum area controlled by the RSF.
The SAF has recently made significant progress in Khartoum State, advancing its operations in the Bahri city and capturing several areas. However, the RSF still maintains a key stronghold in the city’s East Nile area.
In Gezira state, the independent Sudan Tribune news portal reported that Abdallah Hussein, a key RSF commander in Gezira state, was killed on Monday along with a number of his forces in airstrikes on the outskirts of Al Kamlin city, north of Gezira state. The SAF is advancing to seize Al Kamlin, the RSF’s last stronghold in the state.
Sudan has been gripped by a devastating conflict between the two parties since mid-April 2023, which claimed at least 29,683 lives and displaced over 15 million people, either inside or outside Sudan, according to the latest estimates by international organizations.
ISTANBUL – Turkey said on Sunday it had killed 23 Kurdish militants in northern Syria, the latest in a series of strikes against them which have continued since U.S. President Donald Trump took office last month.
The defence ministry said the militants belonged to the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.
Turkey regards the PKK and YPG to be identical, while the United States views them as separate groups, having banned the PKK as terrorists but recruited the YPG as its main allies in Syria in the campaign against Islamic State.
Turkey has long called on Washington to withdraw support for the YPG, expressing hope that Trump would revise the policy of the previous administration of President Joe Biden.
Turkish forces and their allies in Syria have repeatedly fought with Kurdish militants there since the toppling of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad in December.
Turkey has said that the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF – a U.S.-backed umbrella group that includes the Kurdish YPG – must disarm or face military intervention.
Under the Biden administration the United States has had 2,000 troops in Syria fighting alongside the SDF and YPG.
TEHRAN – Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy has unveiled an underground base accommodating “hundreds” of homegrown anti-destroyer cruise missiles with operational ranges of up to over 1,000 km.
State-run IRIB TV reported on Saturday that the base was unveiled during a visit by IRGC’s Chief Commander Hossein Salami to monitor the combat preparedness level of the naval forces’ missile units.
The report said the missiles could be fired from the underground base, rather than brought to the ground.
Among the weapons stored in the base was the “Qadr-380” precision-guided cruise missile, which was unveiled for the first time. According to IRIB TV, IRGC Navy’s Commander Alireza Tangsiri said the missile could hit targets within a range of over 1,000 km and possessed anti-jamming capabilities.
According to the report, Salami said the display is intended to “increase the accuracy of the enemies’ calculations (about Iran’s power) and prevent them from making mistakes that would trouble themselves and others.”
The base is on the southern coasts of Iran, IRGC’s official news outlet Sepah News reported on Saturday.
Earlier this month, the IRGC unveiled an underground missile base, housing advanced Iranian missiles, including the “Emad, Qadr, and Qiam,” all liquid-fueled.
A few days later, the IRGC’s Navy unveiled an underground base accommodating various combat vessels.
GAZA – Gaza’s Civil Defense said on Saturday that it had recovered 64 bodies from the Gaza Strip while warning the dire humanitarian conditions in the Palestinian enclave.
In a press statement, the Civil Defense announced that 37 bodies were retrieved from northern Gaza.
According to the statement, Israeli forces had used bulldozers to relocate bodies from various burial sites around Kamal Adwan Hospital, gathering them in open areas. Civil Defense teams later reburied them in Beit Lahia Cemetery.
Meanwhile, the Gaza health authorities reported that 27 bodies arrived at hospitals in the past 24 hours.
This brings the total death toll from the Israeli offensive to 47,487, with 111,588 injured since Oct. 7, 2023, according to the health authorities.
Many victims remained trapped under rubble and in the streets, where emergency and Civil Defense teams were unable to reach them, said the authorities.
In a separate statement, the Civil Defense warned that Gaza residents are facing an extremely dire humanitarian crisis, with tens of thousands left homeless without shelter or necessities for survival.
The statement noted that the region is expected to face multiple storms, posing a severe threat to hundreds of thousands of people living in tents and structurally unsafe buildings.
In addition, large amounts of unexploded ordnance and other remnants of Israeli military operations remain scattered in the streets and beneath the rubble of destroyed homes and buildings, endangering civilians.
The Civil Defense urged the international community and human rights organizations to take immediate action to save lives before it is too late.
PARIS – A fire broke out Saturday at a retirement home in Bouffemont, Val-d’Oise department, leaving three senior residents dead and nine others injured, French news channel BFMTV reported.
The blaze occurred at around 7:15 a.m. local time (0615 GMT) on the third floor of the facility, BFMTV said, citing the Prefecture of Val-d’Oise.
According to the news channel, the three people were killed by smoke inhalation.
An investigation is ongoing to determine the cause of the fire, but the authorities said that the fire was probably accidental.
NEW DELHI – The death toll of the mishap in a canal in India’s northern state of Haryana rose to 7 while five persons were still missing, a local official confirmed on Saturday.
The mishap occurred late Friday night when a vehicle carrying them fell into the Bhakhra canal in Haryana’s Fatehabad district. Two persons, the vehicle’s driver and an 11-year-old boy, managed to swim out of the canal.
The dead included children and women.
One dead body was recovered Friday night while six dead bodies were recovered on Saturday from the neighboring state of Punjab, the official said, adding that efforts were being made to find the five persons still missing.
There were a total of 14 persons inside the vehicle when it fell into the canal with water flowing in strong currents. The victims were returning from a wedding in Punjab state.
At least seven people died when a medevac plane crashed in Philadelphia on Friday, including six Mexicans aboard the plane and one person who was on the ground, Mexico’s president and Philadelphia’s mayor said on Saturday.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker told a press conference that the person who died on the ground had been in a car at the site of the crash.
“Thus far, our count is that there are 19 injured victims,” Parker said.
Separately, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said in a post on X that she had asked consular officials to support the families of the six Mexican citizens who were on the plane and died when it crashed.
Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, based in Mexico and licensed to operate in the U.S., on Friday said its aircraft crashed with four crew members, one pediatric medical patient and the patient’s mother on board.
The child was a girl on her way home with a final destination of Tijuana, Shai Gold, who works on corporate strategy with Jet Rescue Air Ambulance, told CNN on Friday. Her mother was also aboard, he said.
KHARTOUM – At least 45 civilians were killed and 82 others injured in a shelling by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on Saturday on a crowded market in Omdurman, north of the Sudanese capital Khartoum, a volunteer group and a medical source said.
“The RSF militia committed a new massacre today (Saturday) with a deliberate bombing of the Sabreen Market in the Karari locality,” the Al-Thawra Resistance Committee, a volunteer group, said in a statement.
“So far, 45 civilians have been killed and 82 others injured,” the statement added, without providing further details.
Meanwhile, a medical source at Al-Nao Hospital in Omdurman said, “The hospital has received over 24 bodies, along with dozens of injured individuals.”
“The situation is catastrophic in every sense of the word. We need blood donors and medical supplies,” the source told Xinhua.
In the meantime, a Xinhua correspondent in Omdurman reported that the shelling targeted the Sabreen Market, a major market frequented by residents of the Karari locality in the northernmost part of Omdurman.
He said the shelling simultaneously targeted residential areas near the market, expecting the death toll to exceed the reported figures.
No official statement has been issued, and the RSF has not commented on the incident.
The Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) frequently accuses the RSF of bombing the Karari locality from its positions in Bahri, a city in Khartoum State.
Karari is the only area in Omdurman that remains densely populated and fully under army control.
Military confrontations between the SAF and the RSF have intensified recently in Khartoum.
The SAF has recently made significant progress in Khartoum State, reopening its position along the Bahri city axis and liberating several areas, but the city’s East Nile area remains a key base for the RSF.
The SAF is also conducting ground operations to end the RSF’s control over the Umbada area west of Omdurman, while the RSF continues to control the southern area of Khartoum.
Sudan has been gripped by a devastating conflict between the SAF and the RSF since mid-April 2023, which claimed at least 29,683 lives and displaced over 15 million people, either inside or outside Sudan, according to the latest estimates by international organizations.
TEHRAN – India has asked for Iran’s assistance in finding three of its nationals whom New Delhi says have gone missing in Iran.
“Three Indian nationals who had gone to Iran for business purposes are missing. We are in touch with their families,” Indian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said on Friday in a weekly briefing.
“We have taken up the matter with the Iranian Embassy in Delhi and with the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran,” said Jaiswal.
He added that India’s Foreign Ministry and its embassy in Tehran remain in touch with Iranian authorities and have requested their assistance in locating the missing nationals and ensuring their safety.
The three missing Indians were identified as Yogesh Panchal, Mohammad Sadeeque, and Sumeet Sud.
There was no immediate confirmation from Iranian officials.
According to Indian media outlets, Panchal had recently started an export firm dealing in dry fruits and apples, and had taken a flight from Mumbai to Tehran on December 5 to explore business opportunities there. Sadeeque traveled to Iran in December 2024, while Sud traveled to the country in early January.
GAZA – Israel released 183 Palestinian prisoners on Saturday in the fourth prisoner-for-hostage swap under the ongoing truce deal with Hamas, according to Palestinian sources.
Abdullah Zaghari, head of the Palestinian Prisoners Club, told Xinhua that Israeli authorities handed the released prisoners over to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Of the freed prisoners, 150 were from the Gaza Strip, 32 from the West Bank, and the remaining one, who holds Egyptian citizenship, will be returned to Egypt.
Prisoners from the West Bank were released from Ofer Prison near Ramallah, while prisoners from Gaza, released from Ketziot Prison in southern Israel, would be transported to southern Gaza through the Israeli-controlled Kerem Shalom crossing, Zaghari added.
Local witnesses reported that buses carrying Palestinians released by Israel have arrived in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis.
The Palestinian Liberation Organization’s commission for prisoners’ affairs said in a press statement that among the 183 released on Saturday, seven prisoners will be deported, without specifying which countries will receive them.
The release of Palestinian prisoners follows Hamas’ release of three Israeli hostages earlier in the day, marking the fourth such exchange during the first phase of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. The deal was enforced on Jan. 19 and its first phase will last for six weeks.
Rescuers work at the site of an apartment building hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Poltava, Ukraine February 1, 2025. Press service of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in Poltava region/Handout via REUTERS
KYIV – Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles on Ukraine on Saturday, killing eight people and damaging dozens of residential buildings as well as energy infrastructure across the country, Ukrainian officials said.
The Interior Ministry said that a Russian missile struck a residential building in the central city of Poltava, killing four people and injuring 13, including three children.
The ministry posted pictures on the Telegram messaging app showing the building with several top floors smashed and thick columns of smoke rising into the sky. Firefighters and dozens of rescuers were searching through the rubble.
One person was killed and four were wounded in the city of Kharkiv in the northeast in a drone attack, the mayor said.
Three police officers were killed during the attacks as they patrolled streets in a village in the northeastern region of Sumy, regional officials said.
“Last night Russia attacked our cities using various types of weapons: missiles, attack drones, and aerial bombs,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, adding damage was caused in six regions.
“Each such terrorist attack proves that we need more support in defending ourselves against Russian terror. Every air defence system, every anti-missile weapon, saves lives,” he said on the Telegram app.
INFRASTRUCTURE TARGETED
In Poltava, a small city located around 120 kilometres (75 miles) from the Russian border, about 18 apartment buildings, a kindergarten, and energy infrastructure were damaged, city authorities said.
Ukrainian officials said that damage was also registered in the city of Zaporizhzhia in the southeast, Kharkiv and Sumy regions in the northeast, and Khmelnytskyi in the west.
Kharkiv Governor Oleh Syniehubov said Russian forces used six missiles and 17 Shahed drones to target gas infrastructure and other facilities.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said that its forces had launched attacks aimed at Ukraine’s gas and other energy infrastructure and had shot down 108 Ukrainian drones in the last 24 hours, Russian news agencies reported.
Since March 2024, Russia has launched multiple missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s power sector and other energy infrastructure, knocking out about half of the country’s available generating capacity and forcing rolling blackouts.
As the war approaches its three-year mark this month and Russian forces make small but steady gains in eastern Ukraine, edging closer to the strategic logistic hub of Pokrovsk, both sides are using drones to hit infrastructure and disrupt military supply lines.
Moscow’s strikes early on Saturday followed a Russian missile attack the previous evening which damaged the historic centre of the Black Sea port of Odesa.
COLOMBO – Two people died and 35 others were injured when a privately owned bus collided with a van at Habarana in Sri Lanka’s North Central Province on Saturday, said police.
The injured have been taken to two regional hospitals for treatment, with the bus driver being arrested, the police said.
Local media reported that roughly 50 passengers were on board of the bus at the time of the accident.
Road accidents are common in Sri Lanka, with many involving buses, official data shows. In response to the increasing number of bus accidents, Sri Lankan authorities have been intensifying legal actions against individuals who violate traffic regulations on buses.
NEW DELHI – One person was killed and 11 others went missing after a vehicle fell into the Bhakra canal in the northern Indian state of Haryana, police said Saturday.
The accident took place Friday night near Sardarewala village in Fatehabad district, about 201 km west of Chandigarh, the capital city of Haryana.
According to police, there were 14 people aboard the vehicle, out of which a driver and an 11-year-old boy managed to get out. However, 12 were swept away by strong water currents.
Immediately after the accident, rescuers were rushed to the spot to trace the missing. So far, one body has been recovered from the canal.
ISLAMABAD – Eighteen Pakistani security personnel and 12 terrorists were killed in an in operations in the country’s southwest Balochistan province, the Pakistan army said on Saturday.
KABUL – Two commuters lost their lives and five others were injured due to a road accident in eastern Afghanistan’s Ghazni province late Friday, a local official reported on Saturday.
The incident took place on a road in the province’s Moqar district along the highway linking the capital of Kabul to southern Kandahar province when two passenger vehicles collided, leaving two dead, including a child, on the spot and five others injured, state-run Bakhtar news agency quoted Khalid Sarhadi, provincial police spokesman, as saying.
On Thursday night, a road accident in the eastern Laghman province led to the death of one person and injuries to three others.
Road accidents resulting in fatalities are prevalent in Afghanistan due to substandard road conditions, careless driving, difficult terrains, overloading of vehicles, overtaking and overspeeding.
DAMASCUS – Gunmen have shot dead 10 people in an Alawite-majority village in central Syria, a war monitor said on Saturday.
“Armed men committed a massacre” on Friday that killed “10 citizens in Arza village in the northern Hama countryside that is inhabited by citizens of the Alawite sect” of ousted leader Bashar Assad, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Israeli hostage Yarden Bibas waves on a stage before being handed over to members of the Red Cross in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on Feb. 1, 2025. (AFPTV/ AFP)
GAZA/CAIRO – Palestinian militant group Hamas handed over three Israeli hostages on Saturday, in the latest stage of a truce aimed at ending the 15-month war in Gaza.
Ofer Kalderon, a French-Israeli dual national and Yarden Bibas were handed over to Red Cross officials in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis before being transferred to Israel. Israeli-American Keith Siegel was handed over separately a few hours later at the Gaza City seaport.
Bibas is the father of the two youngest hostages, baby Kfir, only 9 months old when he was kidnapped by Hamas-led gunmen on Oct. 7, 2023, and Ariel, who was 4 at the time of the cross-border attack.
Hamas said in November 2023 that the boys and their mother Shiri, who was taken at the same time, were killed in an Israeli airstrike. There has been no word on them since.
Israel is expected to transfer 182 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, Hamas said.
At the newly reopened Rafah crossing on the southern border, the first Palestinian patients to be allowed to leave Gaza, including children suffering from cancer and heart conditions, were expected to cross over to Egypt in a bus provided by the World Health Organization.
Saturday’s handover saw none of the chaotic scenes that overshadowed an earlier transfer on Thursday, when Hamas guards struggled to shield hostages from a surging crowd in Gaza.
But it was once again an occasion for a show of force by uniformed Hamas fighters who paraded in the area where the handovers took place in a sign of their re-established dominance in Gaza despite the heavy losses suffered in the war.
Kalderon, whose two children Erez and Sahar were released in the first hostage exchange in November 2023, and Bibas both briefly mounted a stage in Khan Younis, in front of a poster of Hamas figures including Mohammad Deif, the former military commander whose death was confirmed by Hamas this week, before being handed over to the Red Cross officials.
“Ofer Kalderon is free! We share the immense relief and joy of his loved ones after 483 days of unimaginable hell,” French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement.
Negotiations on release of remaining hostages
Eighteen hostages, including five Thais freed on Thursday, have now been released in exchange for 400 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
Negotiations are due to start by Tuesday on agreements for the release of the remaining hostages and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza in a second phase of the deal.
During the first phase of the ceasefire, 33 children, women and older male hostages as well as sick and injured, were due to be released, with more than 60 men of military age left for a second phase which must still be negotiated.
The initial six-week ceasefire, agreed with Egyptian and Qatari mediators and backed by the United States, has so far stayed on track despite a number of incidents that have led both sides to accuse the other of violating the deal.
The Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023 killed some 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostage, according to Israeli figures.
Israel’s campaign in response has destroyed much of the densely populated Gaza Strip and killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health authorities.
NEW YORK – A small plane crashed in a neighborhood of northeast Philadelphia on Friday, sparking a large fire, authorities said.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had reported only two people aboard the plane, but later updated the number to six. It’s unclear whether the passengers were ejected or managed to escape. Several people on the ground were reported to have been injured.
The Learjet 55 plane, en route from Philadelphia for Springfield, Missouri, had just taken off from the Northeast Philadelphia Airport when the tragedy happened, said the FAA in a statement. It came down in a busy intersection near Roosevelt Mall in a densely populated residential area. The crash set multiple homes and cars on fire.
Emergency crews are responding to the fire on site, CBS News reported.
“We are offering all resources as (emergency services) respond to the small private plane crash in Northeast Philly,” Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro wrote on the social platform X. “We’ll continue to provide updates as more information is available.”
The FAA confirmed that the National Transportation Safety Board will lead the investigation into the crash.
The crash came just days after a deadly collision between an American Airlines jet and a U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopter over Washington, D.C., which claimed 67 lives, marking the deadliest airplane crash in the United States since 2009.
SEOUL – One person was confirmed dead and three others went missing Saturday after two fishing boats carrying 15 crew members ran aground in waters off South Korea’s southern resort island of Jeju, according to Yonhap news agency.
It was reported to the coast guard at about 9:24 a.m. local time (0024 GMT) that a 32-ton fishing vessel with seven people on board and a 29-ton vessel carrying eight were stranded in waters off the island.
Twelve people were rescued around noon (0300 GMT), and three remained unaccounted for.
Among the rescued, a captain of the 32-ton vessel in his 50s was taken in cardiac arrest to a hospital while receiving first-aid treatment such as cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), but he died later.
The others showed symptoms of hypothermia, but it was not a life-threatening injury.
The captains of both vessels were South Koreans, while the other crew members were foreigners, such as Vietnamese and Indonesians.
Search and rescue operations had been underway for the missing three crew members.
WASHINGTON, Jan 31 – An official with Meta Platforms’, popular WhatsApp chat service said Israeli spyware company Paragon Solutions had targeted scores of its users, including journalists and members of civil society.
The official said on Friday that WhatsApp had sent Paragon a cease-and-desist letter following the hack. In a statement, WhatsApp said the company “will continue to protect people’s ability to communicate privately.”
Paragon declined to comment. The WhatsApp official told Reuters it had detected an effort to hack approximately 90 users.
The official declined to say who, specifically, was targeted. But he said those targeted were based in more than two dozen countries, including several people in Europe. He said WhatsApp users were sent malicious electronic documents that required no user interaction to compromise their targets, a so-called zero-click hack that is considered particularly stealthy.
The official said WhatsApp had since disrupted the hacking effort and was referring targets to Canadian internet watchdog group Citizen Lab. The official declined to discuss how it determined that Paragon was responsible for the hack. He said law enforcement and industry partners had been informed, but declined to give details.
The FBI did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
Citizen Lab researcher John Scott-Railton said the discovery of Paragon spyware targeting WhatsApp users “is a reminder that mercenary spyware continues to proliferate and as it does, so we continue to see familiar patterns of problematic use.”
Spyware merchants such as Paragon sell high-end surveillance software to government clients and typically pitch their services as critical to fighting crime and protecting national security.
But such spy tools have repeatedly been discovered on the phones of journalists, activists, opposition politicians, and at least 50 U.S. officials, raising concerns over the unchecked proliferation of the technology.
Paragon – which was reportedly acquired by Florida-based investment group AE Industrial Partners last month – has tried to position itself publicly as one of the industry’s more responsible players.
Its website advertises “ethically based tools, teams, and insights to disrupt intractable threats,” and media reports citing people familiar with the company say Paragon only sells to governments in stable democratic countries.
Natalia Krapiva, senior tech-legal counsel at the advocacy group Access Now, said Paragon had the reputation of being a better spyware company, “but WhatsApp’s recent revelations suggest otherwise.”
“This is not just a question of some bad apples — these types of abuses (are) a feature of the commercial spyware industry.” AE did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
