Flagship

Israel vows to resume fighting

Fighting in Gaza has resumed with “full force,” Israel’s prime minister said, denting hopes of an extended ceasefire in the devastated enclave. Benjamin Netanyahu said air strikes reported to have killed hundreds earlier this week were “just the beginning” and that Israel would continue to “fight to achieve all of our goals,” including the destruction of Hamas. The war is increasingly unpopular domestically, The Wall Street Journal reported: 73% of Israelis support a negotiated ceasefire in exchange for returning the remaining hostages, whose families have accused Netanyahu of abandoning them by resuming hostilities. But with Netanyahu under political pressure from hardline religious parties in his coalition who demand aggressive action, his ability to de-escalate is limited.

Trump’s diplomatic setbacks

US President Donald Trump’s diplomatic setbacks in Ukraine, Gaza, and Panama cast doubt on his dealmaking reputation. Russian President Vladimir Putin appeared to have rejected Trump’s bid for a full ceasefire in Ukraine, instead agreeing only to a limited truce: “Putin told Trump today that he wants a lasting peace, but his negotiating position suggests otherwise,” one expert wrote. At the same time, a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas — pushed by Trump before his inauguration — appeared to be in tatters. And Chinese authorities were angered by an agreement by a BlackRock-led consortium to take control of Panama Canal ports, which the White House had celebrated. Even a deal to address security concerns over TikTok, reportedly nearing agreement, drew criticism from a Republican lawmaker.

Fed’s trade war conundrum

The US Federal Reserve is likely to hold rates steady today but policymakers face a vexing challenge in balancing the risks of President Donald Trump’s trade war. The central bank is grappling with expectations of both accelerating inflation driven by a widening array of tariffs worldwide, and worries over the trade war slowing growth, to say nothing of the political challenge of dealing with a president who has already pressured the Fed over monetary policy. That uncertainty is reflected in the markets, where traders are betting rates will remain unchanged today but are divided over their future path. “It puts the Fed between a rock and a hard place,” Wells Fargo’s chief economist told The Wall Street Journal.

HIV drug shortfalls

Several African nations could soon run out of HIV drugs following Washington’s freeze on foreign aid, although a US court ordered the decision reversed. The White House has sought to shutter USAID as part of efforts to cut government spending: Its funding program for HIV drugs is credited with saving 26 million lives, and its potential closure threatens to “undo 20 years of progress,” the World Health Organization chief said. A US judge said the move “likely violates” the constitution, although the administration said it would appeal, decrying “rogue judges.” It follows a rare rebuke of President Donald Trump by the Supreme Court chief justice after Trump called for a judge’s impeachment, raising fears of a constitutional crisis.

RFK suggests letting bird flu spread

Farmers should let bird flu “run through” their flocks, rather than culling birds when infections are discovered, the US health secretary suggested. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. argued on Fox News that allowing the virus to spread would help “identify… and preserve the birds that are immune to it,” while the agriculture secretary also voiced support for the idea. Scientists told The New York Times they disagreed: Increased numbers of infected birds raise the chances that the virus will mutate into a human-transmissible form and infect farm workers, as well as more severe economic consequences for the US agricultural sector. Bird flu has devastated US chicken and cattle farms, and 70 human cases have been reported, including one death.

Turkey arrests Erdoğan challenger

Turkish police arrested the mayor of Istanbul, days before he was expected to be named as a presidential candidate. Ekrem Imamoğlu is a primary rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and long said he would run against him in a future election. Imamoğlu was arrested on allegations of corruption and terror links, while prosecutors issued warrants for 100 other people. Erdoğan has been in power 23 years, and the Turkish economy is struggling with low growth and high inflation: A Turkish political scientist said that “Erdoğan is bound to lose” even if elections are “rigged,” leaving him with two options, “cancel the elections or remove the contenders. He chose the second.”

Chinese cars make inroads

Cheap Chinese cars are making rapid inroads in developing nations, challenging the dominance of US and European manufacturers. US President Donald Trump’s tariffs “look powerless” in the face of surging Chinese car exports, which rose to almost five million last year from less than a million five years ago, Bloomberg reported. While policymakers in Washington and Brussels have long fretted about China becoming the dominant player in electric vehicles — prompting the EU to impose import tariffs last year — almost 80% of the cars exported from the Asian giant were gas-powered. One forecast suggested the global market share of Chinese carmakers outside of their country is expected to rise to 13% by 2030 from just 3% today.

State of emergency in Lima

Peru’s president declared a state of emergency in the capital and deployed troops to quell a surge in violence. Lima has been gripped by a crime wave that has seen a sharp rise in killings and extortions in recent months, prompting President Dina Boluarte to call for murderers to face the death penalty, as support for a severe approach against crime gains ground across the country. Several Latin American nations have been gripped by rising gang crime amid soaring cocaine production in neighboring Colombia, with a surge in US- and Europe-bound drugs unleashing vicious fighting among cartels for control over trade routes and ports across the region.

Clue to universe mystery uncovered

The Large Hadron Collider may have found a clue to the mystery of why stuff exists. Mainstream physics suggests that the Big Bang must have produced matter and antimatter in equal quantities. But it also suggests that the two are identical apart from having opposite electrical charges — so-called “CP symmetry” — and that if they ever meet, both are annihilated. So it is surprising that the universe contains lots of matter and almost no antimatter, instead of nothing at all. Experiments at the LHC found tantalizing hints that antimatter behaves subtly differently from matter, a violation of CP symmetry which may help explain why galaxies — and everything else — exist at all.

Printer hatred examined

Almost everyone hates their printer, a fact that tells “an interesting story about capitalism and consumer psychology,” a Financial Times columnist argued. In the US it is possible to pay to smash printers up in a “rage room,” while HP marketed one product as “made to be less hated.” Sarah O’Connor noted that the widespread model of selling printers cheaply and making profit on the ink means hardware is flimsy and the cartridges enragingly pricey. People still buy them, she said, but choose the cheapest because they assume all printers are garbage. Her solution was to spend a bit more on a basic but reliable laserjet: “I have just had to replace my first cartridge after five years.”

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visits Finland while European officials present a new white paper on defense strategy.
• US President Donald Trump hosts oil and gas CEOs for talks amid fears that oil prices are on the downswing.
• The International Olympic Committee holds talks focused on the selection of its next president.

The age in years of the universe in new photos by the Atacama Cosmology Telescope. The images are the clearest yet of the universe’s early existence — equivalent to “hours-old baby pictures of a now middle-aged cosmos,” Princeton University said, and showing the first steps towards the earliest stars and galaxies. The more detailed images allow the most precise measurement yet of the nature of the observable universe: Among other things, they revealed that its total mass is equivalent to 2 trillion trillion suns.

The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express, Europe. Elegant sleeper trains are making a comeback, The New York Times reported, with luxury railcars travelling through beautiful landscapes staffed by high-end chefs available for those willing to spend. They suggest several, including one through Wales, Cornwall, and the Lake District in the UK, and across the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, but surely the place to start is one with the word “Orient Express” in the title: “This opulent train, with its restored 1920s and ’30s carriages,” will take travelers from Paris to Tuscany or Portafino. Italy, in a grand suite with marble bathroom and 24-hour butler service, for a mere $12,100 each. Book tickets on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express here.

President Donald Trump’s claim that the pardons signed by Joe Biden at the end of his term are now “void” began with an outcry among Trump allies about Biden’s mental capacity, Semafor’s David Weigel and Shelby Talcott reported.

Some conservatives claimed that Biden’s use of an autopen to sign orders suggested he hadn’t seen or understood them, hence rendering them void. The controversy follows the current administration’s pattern of Trump or his allies elevating “stories that the rest of his party might not take seriously — but would, if the president did,” Weigel and Talcott wrote.