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Israel-Hamas hostage deal nears

Israel and Hamas seemed close to a ceasefire deal in exchange for the release of some hostages held by the Palestinian militant group. A spokesman for Hamas said it had discussed releasing up to 70 women and children for a five-day ceasefire, while The Washington Post’s David Ignatius quoted an Israeli official saying “the general outline of the deal is understood.” The apparent progress came as fighting between Israel and Hamas intensified in Gaza, and U.S. President Joe Biden said the enclave’s biggest hospital “must be protected” amid dueling accusations: Palestinians say that Israel has put operations and patients’ lives at risk by encircling the building; Israel claims that Hamas operates a command center under it.

US life expectancy gap widens

The gap between men’s life expectancy and women’s in the U.S. grew to its widest in 30 years. Women lived to an average of 79.3 years and men to an average 73.5 in 2021. For over a century, women have outlived men, but the gap narrowed by 2010, largely thanks to declining male smoking rates. Since then, the chasm has widened, driven partly by increasing opioid overdoses, The New York Times reported. Men are also more likely to die violently or by suicide, and of diabetes or heart disease. The almost six-year gap in 2021 was also partly because men died from COVID-19 at a higher rate, for biological reasons and social ones, being more likely to work in exposed industries.

Hopes for Alzheimer’s test

A blood test to help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease could be available within five years. Distinguishing Alzheimer’s from other forms of dementia is difficult. Alzheimer’s is diagnosed by the presence of large amounts of certain proteins, needing either a spinal-fluid test or an expensive PET scan. But blood tests are used in research with good accuracy. A coalition of U.K. funders launched a project to find the best one for clinical use: It could be ready in five years, New Scientist reported. Rapid diagnosis could lead to faster treatment, although existing drugs for Alzheimer’s have only modest benefits and significant side effects. Meanwhile, artificial-intelligence tools are increasingly used to determine the brain features associated with Alzheimer’s, Nature reported. Researchers hope it too could lead to earlier diagnosis.

China expands Muslim surveillance

A Chinese video-surveillance giant won a contract to develop a “smart campus” monitoring system that alerts authorities to when Muslim students are suspected of fasting. Though Hikvision denied actually following through on the project, the surveillance-focused outlet IPVM noted the deal was among several awarded by Chinese authorities to develop vast and intrusive oversight of China’s mostly Muslim Uyghur population, part of a broader crackdown that the U.S. and other countries have called a genocide. “You can’t scream from the mountain tops that it is unfair or that this person doesn’t deserve such cruelty,” a Made in China Journal piece cataloging the disappearance of a Uyghur anthropologist noted, “since all your friends and family … could suffer the same fate.”

Brazil’s green bet

Brazil raised $2 billion in its first-ever “green” bond, highlighting investors’ backing of the country’s ambitious environmental agenda. The issuance comes days after authorities in Brasília announced that deforestation fell to the lowest level in five years, reducing the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 7.5%. “We are changing the image of the country,” Brazil’s environment minister said. Investors’ appetite for the bond — demand for which outstripped supply by 300% — also underscores Brazil’s return to international capital markets after the country lost all its investment-grade scores in the aftermath of a 2016 recession.

Controlled burns reduce wildfire risk

Controlled burns — deliberately setting woodland on fire — can significantly decrease the risk of wildfires, according to new research. California, where the new study focused, has seen increased wildfires in recent years, and saw its deadliest fire on record in 2018. Much of the rest of North America has seen record-breaking fires this year. Climate change is likely a factor, but controlled burns have declined, in California and elsewhere, in recent decades, often due to budget shortages. The new study looked at satellite images of 40,000 square miles of forest over 20 years, and found that regular low-intensity burns in conifer forests removed flammable materials while leaving full-grown trees intact, and reduced the risk of out-of-control fires by 60%.

Exxon moves into lithium mining

ExxonMobil wants to start producing lithium by 2027. The fossil fuel giant acquired rights to a 120,000-acre plot in Arkansas known to hold significant lithium deposits, and aims to mine enough of the mineral to supply over 1 million electric vehicles a year by 2030. As the EV industry expands, fossil-fuel companies are diversifying: An Exxon executive said that the company wanted to “get in early” on domestic lithium. There are concerns over the supply of minerals and the impact of mining them, but the environmental scientist Hannah Ritchie wrote that the world has more than enough minerals to power the low-carbon transition, including lithium, and that they will involve extracting smaller volumes of rock than fossil fuels do.

Nepal bans TikTok

Nepal banned TikTok for disturbing “social harmony,” highlighting how even as momentum towards a ban in the U.S. appears to have slowed, other parts of the world are cracking down on the Chinese-owned video sharing app. India was the first major country to outlaw TikTok outright, in 2020, but several others have since followed suit, including Afghanistan, Malaysia, and Somalia, while a boycott campaign is gathering pace in Saudi Arabia, according to Al-Monitor. In the U.S., by contrast, a once seemingly inevitable ban now appears off the table, with politicians reportedly concerned about the impact such a decision would have on their standing with young voters.

India’s US postgrads overtake Chinese

Indian graduate students in the U.S. outnumbered Chinese ones for the first time. The 2022-23 academic year saw 166,000 Indian postgraduates in the U.S. university system, compared to 126,000 Chinese. Chinese undergraduates still outnumbered Indian ones, The Indian Express reported, but the gap was narrowing as Chinese numbers dropped. In part, this is due to rising anti-Chinese sentiment in the U.S., as well as higher-paid jobs and improving universities in China, the South China Morning Post said. Noting that Boeing’s first aeronautical engineer was Beijing-born, the SCMP added: “In the future, America will need to rely more and more on those students from India and other countries to maintain its leadership in areas of scientific research, defence technology and hi-tech industry.”

SAfrica offers shared parental leave

South Africa became the first country in Africa to offer shared parental leave. Previously, mothers were entitled to four months off while fathers or partners were allowed 10 days. A new high court ruling said both parents should have the right to time off, and could choose how to divide the time between them. In many African countries, fathers’ paid leave remains below three weeks, and some allow only two days, according to The Guardian. About 30% of South African employment, however, is informal, and the ruling will likely not affect those. Some campaigners said that rather than dividing existing maternal leave, a non-transferable “use it or lose it” leave for fathers should be implemented as in Sweden. Still, the decision, one activist said, “represents a promising step.”

• Liberians go to the polls in a presidential runoff between incumbent president and ex-soccer star George Weah and former Vice President Joseph Boakai.
• New U.S. inflation data is expected to show slow progress towards curbing price increases.
• Britain plans gun salutes to mark King Charles III’s 75th birthday.

The fee El Salvador’s government has begun charging travelers from 57 African countries and India amid U.S. pressure to limit onward migration to its southern border. Other regional countries which see themselves as antagonists of the U.S., including Nicaragua, have instead eased restrictions: Since Managua removed visa requirements for travelers from Haiti, more than 260 flights from the Caribbean country have landed in Nicaragua. Most countries in the region recognize migration is a “bargaining chip” with the U.S., a Central America expert told the Associated Press. “They will either become partners or adversaries on this issue.”

A novel set in fascist Italy won France’s top literary prize. Jean-Baptiste Andrea was awarded the Goncourt Prize for his novel Veiller sur elle (Watch Over Her), a 600-page love story revolving around a sculptor. Andrea, who is also a filmmaker behind movies including Big Nothing — starring the Friends actor David Schwimmer — started writing novels in his 40s, AFP reported. “I wanted to write something bigger than what I had written before, to leave behind all the limits that I had initially imposed on myself in 20 years of cinema,” he said last month.

• The latest entry in the escalating global struggle between news publishers and giant digital platforms is a paper that makes the case that Google owes U.S. publishers billions.
• As Israel intensifies its attack on the Gaza Strip and the enclave’s humanitarian situation deteriorates, questions are growing over the Israeli army’s war strategy.
• Singers and other creators are dabbling with AI-powered translation tools, opening up content to new audiences around the world.