Israel reduced its demands, raising hopes of a ceasefire
Israeli negotiators have reduced the number of hostages they want Hamas to release in the initial phase of the truce from 40 to 33, Israeli officials said yesterday: offering a clue of hope for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.
Ceasefire talks have been stalled for weeks, but an Israeli delegation planned to travel to Cairo today to resume negotiations – but only if Hamas agreed to attend, according to two of the officials. Hamas did not respond to a request for comment on whether it would send representatives to Cairo.
Patrick Kingsley, Times bureau chief in Jerusalem, told me that “there are a lot of stumbling blocks” before a possible deal.
“Hamas wants a truce that gives it a chance to survive the war as a military force, while Israel wants a deal that would give its army the chance to resume fighting and rout Hamas,” he said. Patrick said. “This is why Israel wants a short-term ceasefire, while Hamas wants a longer ceasefire that could extend to becoming permanent.”
Ukraine withdrew from villages on the Eastern Front
Russian troops captured or entered a handful of villages on Ukraine’s eastern front over the past week, capitalizing on under-equipped and outnumbered Ukrainian forces before the last of the U.S. military aid could arrive, military experts said.
Congress recently approved $60 billion in military aid to Ukraine, and President Biden signed the deal last week, pledging to speed up the shipment of weapons. But before aid arrives, Ukraine faces attacks in several vulnerable areas.
Russian forces are steadily advancing beyond Avdiivka, which they captured in February after months of fighting. Ukrainian forces fell back to a new defensive line along a series of small villages about five kilometers to the west, but this line has now been overrun. Nearly 25,000 Russian soldiers are also trying to take Chasiv Yar, which lies on strategic terrainabout seven miles west of Bakhmut.
Fears of new ethnic massacre mount in Darfur
The impending attack on a town in Sudan’s Darfur region, where genocidal violence killed up to 300,000 people two decades ago, has drawn warnings from U.N. and U.S. officials Who fear that massive bloodshed is imminent.
El Fasher is the last town held by the Sudanese army in Darfur and the latest flashpoint in a year-old civil war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group that the Sudanese army has fed and who became a bitter rival.
If the RSF manages to capture El Fasher, the group could control around a third of Sudan, with the country divided into rival fiefdoms. But experts say an attack on El Fasher would be risky for the RSF, and many Western and Arab officials hope international pressure can persuade both sides to back down.
The northern spotted owl, a rare and fragile subspecies of the spotted owl, is being displaced from its limited habitat in the Pacific Northwest of the United States by larger barred owls and is now threatened with extinction. Barred owls also pose a threat to the California spotted owl, another subspecies.
In response, the US Fish and Wildlife Service proposed culling up to half a million barred owls over the next 30 years. The plan has angered some animal and wildlife protection organizations.
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Do not stop Believing : Rory McIlroy won the Zurich Classic.
ARTS AND IDEAS
A glimpse into the minds of the “super-ages”
When it comes to aging, we tend to assume that cognition deteriorates as we age.
But this is not the case for everyone. For a little over a decade, scientists have studied a subset of people they call “super-aged” people, that is, individuals aged 80 and over who possess the capacity for memory. of a person 20 to 30 years younger.
New research shows that the brain of super-ages seem to atrophy less than those of their peers, and that there is no obvious recipe for staying alert. The super-aged people in the study exhibited a wide range of behaviors and all tended to have strong social relationships.
For the youngest, a new study strengthens the link between physical fitness and better mental health.
That’s all for today’s briefing. Thanks for reading and see you tomorrow. -Dan
You can reach Dan and the team at briefing@nytimes.com.
Thanks to Patrick Kingsley.
