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Opening statements set in trial of Lebanese-American who stabbed Rushdie

Lawyers are scheduled to deliver opening statements Monday at the trial of the Lebanese-American man charged with trying to fatally stab author Salman Rushdie in front of a lecture audience in western New York.

Rushdie, 77, is expected to testify during the trial of Hadi Matar, bringing the writer face-to-face with his knife-wielding attacker for the first time in more than two years.

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Egypt announces emergency Arab summit after Trump's Gaza plan infuriates key allies

Egypt announced that it will host an emergency Arab summit on Feb. 27 to discuss "new and dangerous developments" after U.S. President Donald Trump proposed to resettle Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.

Trump's suggestion, made at a White House meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, infuriated the Arab world, including Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia — key allies of Washington.

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Trump repeats pledge to take control of Gaza even as pressure mounts to renew ceasefire

New details and growing shock over emaciated hostages have renewed pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to extend a fragile Gaza ceasefire beyond the first phase, even as U.S. President Donald Trump repeated his pledge that the U.S. would take control of the Palestinian enclave.

Talks on the second phase, meant to see more hostages released and a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, were due to start Feb. 3. But Israel and Hamas appear to have made little progress, even as Israeli forces withdrew Sunday from a Gaza corridor in the latest commitment to the truce.

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6 killed in Israeli drone strike in Lebanon near eastern border with Syria

Six people were killed and two injured in Lebanon on Saturday in an Israeli drone strike in the area of Janata near the eastern border with Syria, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported.

The Israeli military said in a statement that it struck “Hezbollah operatives” who “were operating in a strategic weapons manufacturing and storage site” belonging to the militant group.

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Israeli forces begin to withdraw from key Gaza corridor

Israeli forces began withdrawing from a key Gaza corridor on Sunday, Israeli officials said, part of Israel's commitments under a tenuous ceasefire deal with Hamas that is moving ahead but faces a major test over whether the sides can negotiate its planned extension.

Israel agreed as part of the truce to remove its forces from the 4-mile (6-kilometer) Netzarim corridor, a strip of land that bisects northern Gaza from the south that Israel used as a military zone during the war.

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New Lebanese government announced from Baabda

Lebanon's prime minister named a new government on Saturday, the presidency announced, after an agreement was reached to appoint Fadi Makki as the so-called "fifth Shiite minister." Makki will serve as State Minister for Administrative Development.

Premier Nawaf Salam vowed to "restore confidence between citizens and the state, between Lebanon and its Arab surroundings, and between Lebanon and the international community" and to implement reforms needed to bring the country out of an extended economic crisis.

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Aoun and al-Sharaa seek to calm border clashes

President Joseph Aoun and Syria's interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa discussed fighting that has broken out on the border between the two countries “and agreed to coordinate to control the situation and prevent targeting civilians,” Aoun’s office said in a statement.

Clashes have been ongoing for three days between Syrian security forces and Lebanese clans in the border area.

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Khamenei criticizes proposed nuclear talks with US, upending push to negotiation

Iran’s supreme leader said that negotiations with America “are not intelligent, wise or honorable” after U.S. President Donald Trump floated the idea of nuclear talks with Tehran.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also suggested that “there should be no negotiations with such a government,” but stopped short of issuing a direct order not to engage with Washington.

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Trump calls his Gaza proposal a simple 'real estate transaction'

U.S. President Donald Trump says his suggestions that Gaza’s residents could be resettled and the area redeveloped for tourism potential has “been very well received” around the globe.

The idea has actually been roundly criticized. But Trump insisted Friday that it was a simple “real estate transaction,” and that the U.S. is in “no rush to do anything.”

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Cyprus jails Syrian over child death on migrant boat from Lebanon

A Cyprus court sentenced a Syrian national to three years in prison after finding him guilty of causing the death by negligence of a 3-year-old girl from dehydration aboard an overloaded migrant boat that was adrift for six days without adequate supplies of food and water.

The Attorney-General's Office said Friday the Famagusta criminal court ruled that the 48-year-old captain had failed to ensure the safety of the 60 Syrian migrants aboard the small wooden craft that carried no navigational aids or appropriate communications equipment.

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