DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

A Hamas leader said Thursday that the group would soon send a delegation to Cairo to “complete ongoing discussions” on a cease-fire deal for the war in the Gaza Strip, raising hopes of progress in the stalled efforts for a truce. The latest cease-fire proposal, which has been forcefully pushed by the Biden administration in recent days, comes after nearly seven devastating months of war. The deal would include a weekslong temporary truce — the exact duration is unclear — and the release of hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners in Israel. It would also allow the return of civilians to the largely depopulated northern part of Gaza, and enable increased delivery of aid to the territory. Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas’s political wing, said the group was studying the latest proposal from Israel, which includes some Israeli concessions, with a “positive spirit.” A Hamas delegation will go to Egypt soon to seek a deal that “realizes our people’s demands and ends the aggression,” according to a statement by the group.

Persons: Biden, Ismail Haniyeh, ”, “ Locations: Cairo, “, Gaza, Israel, Egypt

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken delivered twin messages to Hamas and Israel on Wednesday, pressing Hamas to accept a cease-fire proposal while at the same time urging Israeli leaders to put off a major ground invasion into the thickly populated southern Gaza city of Rafah. On the last day of a Middle East trip, his seventh visit to the region since the war began in October, Mr. Blinken tried to turn up the pressure on Hamas. “We are determined to get a cease-fire that brings the hostages home and to get it now, and the only reason that that wouldn’t be achieved is because of Hamas,” Mr. Blinken said at the start of a meeting in Tel Aviv with Isaac Herzog, the president of Israel. “There is a proposal on the table, and as we’ve said: No delays, no excuses. The time is now.”The proposed agreement calls for the release of 33 hostages in the initial stage of a cease-fire, and would lead to the release of Palestinian prisoners being held in Israel.

Persons: Antony J, Blinken, “, wouldn’t, ” Mr, Isaac Herzog, Israel, we’ve Organizations: Israel, Mr Locations: Gaza, Rafah, Tel Aviv, Israel

Amid a barrage of airstrikes, Israel sharply expanded its evacuation orders in the Gaza Strip on Sunday in preparation for an expected ground invasion in the southern part of the territory. The new orders, coming three days after the collapse of a weeklong truce, sowed confusion and fear among Gaza residents, some of whom have already been displaced at least once before. Images from Gaza on Sunday showed plumes of dark smoke rising above a rubble-covered landscape and bloodied children wailing in dust-covered hospital wards. Mourners stood beside rows of bodies wrapped in white sheets. Late Sunday night, a military spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said Israel “continues and expands its ground operations against Hamas strongholds all across the Gaza Strip,” but did not elaborate.

Persons: Daniel Hagari, Israel “ Locations: Israel, Gaza

A weeklong cease-fire in the Gaza Strip collapsed on Friday morning, with Israel and Hamas blaming each other for the breakdown of a truce that had allowed for the exchange of hundreds of hostages and prisoners, and that had briefly raised hopes for a more lasting halt to the fighting. The Israeli military said it had launched 200 strikes since the resumption of fighting, some of which the country’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, witnessed from a seat in an Israeli attack helicopter flying over Gaza. “This morning we returned to hitting Hamas with full force,” he wrote on the social media platform X. “The results are impressive.”“Hamas only understands force,” he added. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said in a statement that Israel was “committed to achieving the war aims — freeing our hostages, eliminating Hamas and ensuring that Gaza will never again pose a threat to the residents of Israel.” For days, he and other Israeli leaders had sought to quash any notion of extending the truce indefinitely, despite growing international pressure, stating repeatedly that even if the pause continued for a few more days, Israel’s offensive would resume.

Persons: Yoav Gallant, ”, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, “ Locations: Gaza, Israel

Thirty Palestinian women and minors were released from Israeli prisons on Tuesday as part of the agreement, according to an official list. It was the fifth exchange of hostages and prisoners since Friday. Since Friday, when a cease-fire deal covering hostages, Palestinian prisoners and aid for Gaza went into effect, Hamas has released more than 60 hostages seized in its Oct. 7 raid in Israel that set off the war. Egypt, Israel and the United States dispatched their top intelligence officials to Qatar to negotiate further exchanges. director, joined David Barnea, the head of the Mossad, Israel’s spy service, and Abbas Kamel, Egypt’s spy chief, for meetings with Qatari officials, including the prime minister.

Persons: Israel, William J, Burns, David Barnea, Abbas Kamel, Egypt’s Organizations: Hamas, United Locations: Gaza, United States, Israel, Egypt, Qatar

☆ America’s Wildfire Fighters
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-22 | by ( Thomas Fuller | More About Thomas Fuller | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

It was a relatively quiet wildfire season in the U.S. But there is no summer vacation for the Tallac Hotshots, a federal firefighting crew based near Lake Tahoe in California. The crew members spent early July in triple-digit heat in Arizona, fighting a wildfire for 14 straight days. “It’s really physical, but it’s extremely mental, too,” said Kyle Betty, the superintendent of the Tallac Hotshots, who has been a federal firefighter for 22 years. “The things that you see, the things that you face — every day you have to get up and do it again.”

Persons: ”, Kyle Betty Organizations: Klamath National Locations: U.S, Lake Tahoe, California, Arizona, Oregon, Klamath, Klamath National Forest, Northern California, Tennessee

Early this summer, while many Americans were gathering for Fourth of July barbecues, the Tallac Hotshots were in triple-digit heat in Arizona, fighting a wildfire for 14 straight days and sleeping on the ground next to their trucks. The federal firefighting crew had only three days off before darting to a fire raging in a thickly wooded evergreen forest in Oregon. They then decamped to the Klamath National Forest across the border in California, working overnight in dense and steep terrain filled with poison oak. After a few days of rest, they were dropped by helicopter in early September into some of the most remote wilderness in Northern California to battle a fire blazing despite near-freezing temperatures.

Organizations: Klamath National Forest Locations: Arizona, Oregon, Klamath, California, Northern California

Colonel Tsury acknowledged the pressure on Israel to show evidence of Hamas activity at the hospital, but said it might be days before troops descended into the shaft. Another military official said Israeli troops had captured and interrogated a Hamas operative at the hospital, but offered no further detail. Israel has the backing of the Biden administration in its assertion that Hamas is operating under the Al-Shifa complex. At the same time, the Biden administration has cautioned Israel not to conduct airstrikes against Gaza’s hospitals, where thousands of Palestinians continue to take refuge. Amid pressure from European allies and a resolution by the U.N. Security Council calling for greater aid to civilians in Gaza, Israel on Friday agreed to permit two tankers of fuel to enter the Gaza Strip on a daily basis.

Persons: Tsury, Biden, Israel, Tzachi, Mr, Hanegbi, —, Abeer, ” Organizations: Shifa, Senior U.S, . Security, United Nations, Food, “ Locations: Al, Israel, Gaza

Israeli tanks and troops have surrounded several hospitals in Gaza, hospital administrators and the Gazan Health Ministry said on Friday. A spokesman for the Israeli military said of the hospitals, “we’re slowly closing in on them” and urged people to leave them. Israel has long maintained that Hamas uses the hospitals as shields, operating from within them, while thousands of Palestinian civilians have taken refuge on their grounds. The chief of Al Shifa Hospital said it was struck four times on Friday, killing seven people, with several others wounded. And we want to do everything possible to prevent harm to them and to maximize the assistance that gets to them.”

Persons: we’re, Al Shifa, Antony J, Blinken, ”, Israel’s, ” Mr Organizations: Gazan Health, Al Locations: Gaza, Israel, New Delhi, Eastern

Former President Donald J. Trump surrendered at the Fulton County jail in Atlanta on Thursday and was booked on 13 felony charges for his efforts to reverse his 2020 election loss in Georgia. It was an extraordinary scene: a former U.S. president who flew on his own jet to Atlanta and surrendered at a jail compound surrounded by concertina wire and signs that directed visitors to the “prisoner intake” area. As Mr. Trump’s motorcade of black S.U.V.s drove to the jail through cleared streets, preceded by more than a dozen police motorcycles — a trip captured by news helicopters and broadcast live on national television — two worlds collided in ways never before seen in American political history. The nation’s former commander in chief walked into a notorious jail, one that has been cited in rap lyrics and is the subject of a Department of Justice investigation into unsanitary and unsafe conditions, including allegations that an “incarcerated person died covered in insects and filth.”The case is the fourth brought against Mr. Trump this year, but Thursday was the first time that he was booked at a jail.

Persons: Donald J, Trump, Trump’s, S.U.V.s Organizations: Department of Justice, Mr Locations: Fulton, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S

As sunshine returned to Southern California on Monday, residents and officials said the region had avoided catastrophic damage from Tropical Storm Hilary, which broke records for August rainfall as it passed into California on Sunday but was much diminished from the fearsome Category 4 hurricane that had alarmed meteorologists days earlier when it was over the Pacific Ocean. Under sheets of rain, some neighborhoods in the desert cities east of Los Angeles became a soupy mess and at one point on Monday the mayor of Palm Springs said the city was cut off by road closures. In San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, videos showed creek beds filled with sludge-colored torrents that ominously carried boulders and tree trunks. Yet in one of the most heavily populated parts of the country — Los Angeles and San Diego Counties alone have a combined population of more than 13 million — there were no reports of deaths related to the storm as of Monday afternoon.

Persons: Hilary Organizations: Riverside Counties, San Locations: Southern California, California, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, San Bernardino, San Diego

The 5.1-magnitude earthquake centered near Ojai, Calif., was unlikely to have caused serious damage. But residents in Los Angeles, 60 miles southeast of the epicenter, felt swaying that lasted long enough to take notice. A 3.5-magnitude earthquake often feels like a quick jolt, as if someone just bumped into your desk. The Ojai earthquake was slightly more significant than that and may have caused some minor cracking in walls, according to Jana Pursley, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey. Though the earthquake was felt in much of Santa Barbara County, just 15 miles from Ojai, there haven’t been reports of damage so far, said Jackie Ruiz, public information officer for the Santa Barbara County Office of Emergency Management.

Persons: Jana Pursley, haven’t, Jackie Ruiz Organizations: U.S . Geological Survey, Santa, Santa Barbara County, Emergency Management Locations: Oregon, Ojai, Calif, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara County, Santa Barbara

In the hunt to determine what caused the fire that consumed Lahaina, the focus has increasingly turned to Hawaii’s biggest power utility — and whether the company did enough to prevent a wildfire in the high winds that swept over Maui last week. Lawyers for Lahaina residents suing the utility, Hawaiian Electric, contend that its power equipment was not strong enough to withstand strong winds, and that the company should have shut down power before the winds came. Wildfire experts who have studied the catastrophic fires in California over the past two decades also see shortcomings in Hawaiian Electric’s actions. Nearly a week after the wildfire tore through the island town of Lahaina, state and local officials have not determined a cause for the blaze that killed at least 99 people. That is why utilities in California and other states have at times shut down power in recent years before strong winds arrive.

Organizations: Wildfire Locations: Lahaina, Maui, California, United States

London Breed sailed to victory as the mayor of San Francisco. Times were good; the pandemic had yet to happen. If homelessness and crime worried San Franciscans, few of them blamed her. Now San Francisco is reeling, its downtown plagued by fentanyl markets and tent camps, its employers straining to repopulate office buildings with a decidedly more remote labor force. More than 70 percent of voters have told pollsters that the city is on the wrong track, and some 66 percent disapprove of the mayor’s job performance.

Persons: London Breed, pollsters, Breed, Ahsha, Daniel Lurie, Levi Strauss Organizations: London, Times, San Francisco, Supervisors, San Locations: San Francisco, Francisco

Search resuls for: "More About Thomas Fuller"

14 mentions found