ISRAEL - The decision came less than two days after Israel opened the Erez Crossing and Ashdod port to transfer humanitarian aid. The IDF on Sunday announced that it had concluded the active invasion stage of the war for now while leaving open the possibility of a future new invasion of Rafah in deep southern Gaza. In terms of IDF soldiers, this means that the IDF has withdrawn all of Division 98 from Khan Yunis in southern Gaza while maintaining one plus brigades - the Nahal brigade and portions of Brigade 401 – in northern and central Gaza.

ISRAEL - The Israeli military has destroyed 19 of Hamas’ 24 regional battalions in Gaza over the past six months, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed. In a statement ahead of a cabinet meeting on Sunday marking six months since the start of the Gaza war, Netanyahu said Israel was “one step away from victory.” “Today we mark six months since the war began… We eliminated 19 out of 24 of the Hamas battalions, including their senior commanders. We killed, wounded or captured a significant number of Hamas terrorists... We destroyed their factories manufacturing rockets, weapons, ammunition,” the prime minister said.

ISRAEL - The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced Sunday that it had withdrawn its forces from southern Gaza, following a demand from US President Joe Biden last week for an “immediate ceasefire.” Hamas declared victory on the news. The decision, coming on the day Israelis marked six months since the October 7 attack, came as a surprise, and as Israeli negotiators flew to Cairo for hostage negotiations. Hamas has demanded a ceasefire before any new deal. The IDF will leave one brigade in Gaza, whose role will be to allow Israeli troops access to return as necessary. It will also carry out targeted operations, such as the successful raid at Shifa Hospital last month.

USA - American and Chinese defense officials met in Hawaii this week to discuss how both nations’ fleets can operate safely in the Pacific region. The meetings were the first of their kind since Beijing severed military relations with Washington two years ago. The Military Maritime Consultative Agreement (MMCA) working group talks were held in Honolulu on Wednesday and Thursday, US Indo-Pacific Command said in a statement on Friday. Some 18 officials from China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) took part, as did representatives of the US Indo-Pacific command, US Pacific Fleet, and US Pacific Air Forces.

USA - Like clockwork, as we head into another election season, the medical establishment and the mainstream media are sounding the alarm on another potential pandemic: the bird flu. Just days after word that bird flu had spread to cows, word broke that two individuals in Texas had been infected. According to the Daily Mail, this development has officials in the Biden White House worried. The White House is on red alert for bird flu after health officials revealed a Texan dairy farmer caught a deadly bird flu strain from a cow.

USA - Officials say multiple aftershocks followed the 4.8-magnitude earthquake that hit the northeast early Friday. Tremors were felt from Washington, DC, to New York City to Maine, and the US Geological Survey (USGS) said it was the strongest earthquake to hit New Jersey in more than 200 years, CNN reported Saturday. When the earthquake hit, officials began working to determine if there was any damage incurred, according to Breitbart News. However, authorities reported very slight or no damage, and the NYPD said no one was reported to be injured.

USA - Global borrowing topped a record $300 trillion last year. Major economies that fail to address their mounting debt issues will die a “fiscal death,” the head of investment and wealth advisory Laffer Tengler Investments, Arthur Laffer, has warned. In an interview with CNBC this week, he predicted a “decade of debt,” adding that the borrowing crisis has embraced both developed and emerging countries, and it is not going to “end well.” Global debt has surged by $100 trillion from a decade ago and hit a record of $307.4 trillion last September, amid the biggest surge in global interest rates in 40 years, according to the economist.

USA - Financing Ukraine does not serve America’s national security interests, Marjorie Taylor Greene says. The US is instigating a global conflict that could result in World War III by sponsoring Ukraine and waging a proxy war against Russia, Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has warned. In an interview with journalist Tucker Carlson on Thursday, Greene, who represents Georgia, said “funding a foreign war” is not in the interests of US national security. Washington has provided Ukraine with $113 billion in various forms of assistance since the start of hostilities in 2022.

USA - A lot of people seem to have forgotten about the war in Ukraine. That’s a mistake. Russia is slowly but steadily defeating Ukraine, which is becoming increasingly obvious to everyone except the most anti-Russian diehards. That’s leading to desperation in elite Western circles determined to stop Russia one way or the other. In their minds, they simply can’t let Putin win. They think that if Putin wins in Ukraine, he’ll next move on to the Baltic states, Poland and elsewhere. You know the West is getting desperate based on recent threats by France’s Emmanuel Macron to send troops to Ukraine.

USA - There are more dormant office towers in the United States than at any point since 1979, according to a new report from Moody's Analytics, which began tracking office leasing vacancies that year. The rising supply of office space is due to a combination of surging remote and hybrid work that forces companies to reduce corporate footprints. Also, companies are exiting imploding progressive cities and high-taxed blue states for red ones while downsizing space. In the report, office tower vacancies rose to a record 19.8%, up from 19.6% in the fourth quarter of 2023. The high office vacancy rate continues to be terrible news for landlords and developers eager to fill their buildings, and the Fed's hiking cycle has made refinancing very challenging.

USA - After three years in which its streets became a hellscape of open drug use, rocketing fatal overdoses and rampant crime, Oregon has learnt a painful lesson. And hopefully so has everyone else who believes that the best way to deal with the menace of deadly drugs such as fentanyl and heroin is to decriminalise them. Oregon governor Tina Kotek this week reversed large parts of a controversial 2021 law known as Measure 110 and restored criminal penalties for possession of hard drugs and court-ordered treatment for offenders. From September 1, drug possession in the West Coast state will be punishable by up to six months in prison.

MIDDLE EAST - The Palestinian Authority (PA) has formally requested that it be admitted as a full-fledged member of the United Nations. The State of Palestine has held observer status at the UN since 2012, but full membership would amount to a recognition of Palestinian statehood, which Israel opposes. “Today, the State of Palestine, and upon instructions of the Palestinian leadership, sent a letter to the Secretary General requesting renewed consideration to [our] membership application,” the Palestinian Authority’s permanent envoy to the UN, Riyad Mansour, wrote in a post on X on Tuesday.

UK - Expert explains that’s why chemicals, surgery are ‘such an outrage’. In direct opposition to the suspect claims of transgender activists that children who are “gender-confused” must have medical “care” that goes up to and includes surgical body mutilations, a new 15-year study confirms that most of those kids, if left alone, “grow out of it.” A report from the Daily Mail confirms the study results show that “being trans is usually just a phase for kids.” “The results of the current study might help adolescents to realize that it is normal to have some doubts about one’s identity and one’s gender identity during this age period and that this is also relatively common,” the study found. Under the openly radical push by Joe Biden and his administration, the transgender ideology has exploded in popularity over the last few years.

USA - A human being has a right to life STARTING AT CONCEPTION AND NOT ONE MOMENT LATER. Democratic politicians and the abortion lobby are fond of saying that “the government should not be involved in abortion.” They don’t know how right they are. The government did get too “involved” with abortion the moment it presumed to be able to authorize it, emanating from the US Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v Wade, 410 US 113 (1973). According to the Declaration of Independence, governments exist to secure the right to life, not to take it away. The position of anti-abortion advocates, consistent with that Founding American document, is that government does not have the authority to permit the ending of a baby’s life.

USA - US Intelligence officials have branded Israel's strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria as "reckless" and fear a wider war in the Middle East. The CIA has warned Israel that Iran will attack the country in the next 48 hours, it has been reported. Israel killed two Iranian military commanders with a strike on Tehran's consulate in the Syrian capital Damascus this week. Iran vowed that it would take revenge for the attack, and now foreign media is reporting that US intelligence is fearful of an attack on Israel. Tehran is said to be planning a combined attack with a "rain" of drones and missiles fired from its bases at strategic locations inside Israel, according to Al Mayadeen. This comes after US officials raised fears that the Israeli strike could lead to a wider war in the Middle East.