Uber driver arrested for starting LA blaze that killed 12
A 29-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a devastating wildfire that killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes in Los Angeles ea...
President Donald Trump presided over a policy meeting on Israel's war in Gaza and post-war plans for the Palestinian territory on Wednesday with input from former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and former Trump Middle East envoy Jared Kushner, a senior White House official said.
Trump, top White House officials, Blair and Kushner discussed the hostage crisis, plans to escalate food aid deliveries, post-war plans and more, the official told Reuters.
The official described the session as "simply a policy meeting," the type frequently held by Trump and his team.
Kushner, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka, was a key White House adviser on Middle East in Trump's first term. Blair was prime minister during the 2003 Iraq war over which he has faced widespread criticism.
Trump had promised a quick end to the war in Gaza during his presidential campaign but a resolution has been elusive seven months into his second term.
Trump's term began with a ceasefire which lasted two months, until Israeli strikes killed around 400 Palestinians on 18 March. More recently, images of starving Palestinians in Gaza, including children, have shocked the world and fed criticism of U.S. ally Israel over the deteriorating conditions.
In February, Trump proposed a U.S. takeover of Gaza and a permanent displacement of Palestinians from the coastal territory. The plan was globally condemned and labeled as an "ethnic cleansing" proposal by rights experts and the United Nations. Forcible displacement is illegal under international law.
Trump cast the plan, which he has not publicly mentioned in recent weeks, as a re-development idea to turn Gaza into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
The plan echoed an idea that Kushner floated a year earlier to clear Gaza of its Palestinian inhabitants and turn it into a waterfront property.
The Financial Times reported in July that the Tony Blair Institute participated in a project to develop a post-war Gaza plan. The think-tank had said it "has had many calls with different groups on post-war reconstruction of Gaza but none have included the idea of forcible relocation of people from Gaza."
Separately, the U.S. State Department said Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar in Washington and discussed Gaza and regional issues.
Saar, asked after the meeting what the plan was for a Palestinian state, said there would not be any. Some U.S. allies have in recent weeks announced plans to recognise a Palestinian state.
Israel's assault on Gaza since October 2023 has killed more than 62,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities. It has also caused a hunger crisis, internally displaced Gaza's entire population and prompted accusations of genocide and war crimes at international courts that Israel denies.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered in October 2023 when Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, Israeli tallies show.
Video from the USGS (United States Geological Survey) showed on Friday (19 September) the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii erupting and spewing lava.
At least eight people have died and more than 90 others were injured following a catastrophic gas tanker explosion on a major highway in Mexico City’s Iztapalapa district on Wednesday, authorities confirmed.
At least 69 people have died and almost 150 injured following a powerful 6.9-magnitude earthquake off the coast of Cebu City in the central Visayas region of the Philippines, officials said, making it one of the country’s deadliest disasters this year.
A powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck off Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula on 13 September with no tsunami threat, coming just weeks after the region endured a devastating 8.8-magnitude quake — the strongest since 1952.
Authorities in California have identified the dismembered body discovered in a Tesla registered to singer D4vd as 15-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez, who had been missing from Lake Elsinore since April 2024.
Escalating gang violence in Haiti has displaced 680,000 children, nearly twice as many as last year, as armed groups seize more territory and basic services collapse, UNICEF warned on Wednesday.
A 29-year-old man has been arrested in connection with a devastating wildfire that killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes in Los Angeles earlier this year.
The 7th Moscow Format Consultations on Afghanistan has concluded in Russia with participants issuing a joint statement heavily hinting at a joint opposition to any foreign military infrastructure in Afghanistan.
Former FBI Director James Comey pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to criminal charges, and his lawyer said he would file a barrage of legal challenges to the first prosecution by the Justice Department against one of President Donald Trump's political enemies.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to attend a ministerial meeting in Paris on Thursday with representatives of Europe, the Arab world and other nations to discuss Gaza's post-conflict transition, according to three diplomatic sources.
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