The man convicted of stabbing Salman Rushdie on a New York lecture stage in 2022, leaving the prizewinning author blind in one eye, is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday.
A jury found Hadi Matar, 27, guilty of attempted murder and assault in February.

Most contestants at the Eurovision Song Contest are seeking as much publicity as possible.
Israel's Yuval Raphael is keeping a low profile.

Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip on Friday killed at least 64 people, hospitals said, as U.S. President Donald Trump wraps up his Middle East visit that skipped Israel and offered no prospect for a ceasefire in the war-battered territory.
At least 48 bodies were brought to the Indonesian hospital and another 16 bodies were taken to Nasser Hospital, health officials said, as strikes overnight into Friday morning hit the outskirts of Deir al-Balah and the city of Khan Younis.

President Donald Trump said Friday he's moving to set up direct talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin as soon as he can.
Trump's push for a face-to-face meeting comes after Putin opted to skip talks between Russia and Ukraine set for Friday in Turkey.

President Donald Trump President Donald Trump wrapped up a Mideast tour in the United Arab Emirates with a breakfast for business leaders and a visit to an interfaith place of worship named for the Abraham Accords he negotiated.
As part of the accords, the UAE and some other countries in the Middle East recognized Israel. Trump departs Abu Dhabi after his visit to the Abrahamic Family House.

Russia and Ukraine are due to hold their first direct peace talks in three years Friday, gathering in Istanbul for Turkish-brokered negotiations, but officials and observers expect them to yield little immediate progress on stopping the more than 3-year war.
A Ukrainian delegation led by Defense Minister Rustem Umerov was due to meet with a low-level Russian team headed by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky.

A clash erupted Friday morning between a UNIFIL patrol and residents of the southern town of al-Jmeijmeh in the Bint Jbeil district.

Thai officials said Wednesday they seized 238 tons of illegally imported electronic waste from the United States at the port of Bangkok, one of the biggest lots they've found this year.
The waste, which came in 10 large containers, was declared as mixed metal scrap but turned out to be circuit boards mixed in a huge pile of metal scrap, said Theeraj Athanavanich, director-general of the Customs Department. It was found Tuesday in a random inspection.

U.S. wholesale prices dropped unexpectedly in April for the first time in more than a year despite President Donald Trump's sweeping taxes on imports.
The producer price index — which tracks inflation before it hits consumers — fell 0.5% last month from March, the first drop since October 2023 and the biggest in five years. Compared to a year earlier, producer prices rose 2.4% last month, decelerating from a 3.4% year-over-year gain in March, the U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday.

By Mireille Rebeiz, Dickinson College
(THE CONVERSATION) Within a span of two weeks from late April to early May 2025, Israel launched two aerial attacks ostensibly targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon: The first, on April 27, struck a building in Beirut's southern suburbs; the second, an assault in southern Lebanon, left one person dead and eight others injured.
