A Ukrainian delegation has arrived in Saudi Arabia for meetings in preparation for a possible visit by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a Ukrainian minister said Sunday, at a time of intense speculation over planned U.S.-Russia talks in the kingdom to end Moscow’s war on its neighbor. It also comes as a top U.S. envoy revealed that he and a fellow negotiator appointed by U.S. President Donald Trump were heading to Saudi Arabia. Ukrainian Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, who also serves as first deputy prime minister, didn't clarify whether there is a link between Zelenskyy’s possible trip and the previously announced U.S.-Russia talks. In a Facebook post, she said that the Ukrainian delegation’s focus is on strengthening economic ties, as Kyiv “prepares to sign important economic agreements with countries in the region.” Svyrydenko didn’t say anything about when Zelenskyy might go to Saudi Arabia and who he might meet with. No further details were immediately available. Andriy Yermak, a top adviser to Zelenskyy, said earlier Sunday that there was no possibility of Ukrainian and Russian representatives meeting directly in the immediate future. In a Telegram post, Yermak said the Ukrainians weren't planning to do so “until we develop a plan” to end the war and bring about a “just peace.” Mykhailo Podolyak, another Zelenskyy adviser, on Saturday denied that Ukraine will participate in any planned U.S.-Russia meetings in Saudi Arabia. US State Secy Rubio in Israel says Hamas must be eradicated “There is nothing on the negotiating table that would be worth discussing,” Podolyak said on Ukrainian television. But Svyrydenko's remarks came within hours of an announcement by Steve Witkoff, Trump’s close ally and special envoy to the Middle East, that high-level meetings were imminent in Saudi Arabia to discuss a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine. Speaking to Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” program, Witkoff said that he and national security adviser Mike Waltz will be “having meetings at the direction of the president,” and hope to make “some really good progress with regard to Russia-Ukraine.” Witkoff didn't specify who they would be meeting and what they would discuss, but he said that he was leaving for Saudi Arabia on Sunday evening. Following a lengthy phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, Trump noted that they “agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately” on ending the fighting. The president appointed Witkoff and Waltz to lead those talks, alongside U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. NATO tests new deployment model without US Earlier this week, Russian officials and state media took a triumphant tone after Trump jettisoned three years of U.S. policy and announced that he would likely meet soon with Putin to negotiate a peace deal in the almost three-year war in Ukraine. Trump’s announcement created a major diplomatic upheaval that could herald a watershed moment for Ukraine and Europe. Zelenskyy said that he wouldn't accept any negotiations about Ukraine that don't include his country. European governments have also demanded a seat at the table. Putin has been ostracized by the West since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022 In 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader. Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy, didn't directly respond to the question about whether Ukraine would have to give up a “significant portion” of its territory as part of any negotiated settlement. “Those are details, and I’m not dismissive of the details, they’re important. But I think the beginning here is trust-building. It’s getting everybody to understand that this war does not belong continuing, that it should end. That’s what the president has directed us to do,” he said.

Israeli authorities confirmed they received three Israeli men held hostage in the Gaza Strip on Saturday after Hamas handed them over to the Red Cross in exchange for more than 300 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. The three are Iair Horn, 46, Sagui Dekel Chen, 36, and Alexander (Sasha) Troufanov, 29. All are dual nationals. Hamas says it will release more Israeli hostages as planned Horn was abducted along with his brother, Eitan, who remains in captivity. Among the most prominent of the more than 300 Palestinian prisoners set to be released is Ahmed Barghouti, 48, a close aide of militant leader and iconic Palestinian political figure Marwan Barghouti. It's the latest indication that the fragile ceasefire deal, which teetered in recent days, will hold. Nearly all the 73 remaining hostages are men, including Israeli soldiers, and about half are believed to be dead. Israel threatens 'all hell will break loose' on Hamas in latest Gaza ceasefire crisis The two sides have carried out five swaps since the ceasefire began on Jan. 19, freeing 21 hostages and over 730 Palestinian prisoners so far during the first phase of the truce. The war could resume if no agreement is reached on the more complicated second phase, which calls for the return of all remaining hostages captured in Hamas' attack on Oct. 7, 2023, and an indefinite extension of the truce.      

An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 struck Russia’s Altai Republic in southern Siberia on Saturday morning, according to Russian seismologists. The quake occurred at 8:48 a.m local time (0148 GMT), according to Russian state news agency Interfax, citing the Unified Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences reported. Tremors were also felt in neighboring regions. A 7.6 magnitude earthquake shakes the Caribbean, some islands urge residents to leave coastlines Writing on Telegram, regional head Andrei Turchak said that there were no casualties, but that a “high-alert regime” had been introduced, with public events canceled and possible problems with water supply in areas close to the epicenter. Turchak said that preliminary assessments indicated minor damage in some areas, but dismissed claims of wider destruction circulating on social media. “I urge residents to rely on officially confirmed information and to remain calm,” Turchak wrote.

A fire broke out at a resort construction site in the South Korean city of Busan on Friday, killing at least six people, fire officials said. About 100 workers managed to evacuate the site, while another 14 were rescued by helicopter from the top of the structure, said Hong Moon-shik, chief of the Busan Gijang District Fire Department. Hundreds of firefighters were deployed to the site and had largely extinguished the blaze by Friday afternoon, hours after it was reported at around 10:20 a.m. Hong said six people were found unconscious on the first floor of the structure, near where the fire was believed to have started. All six were later pronounced dead at hospitals. At least other 25 people sustained minor injuries. He said the cause of the fire wasn’t immediately clear. Television footage showed gray-black smoke and flames rising from the site and a helicopter approaching the building as part of rescue efforts. Shortly after the blaze was reported, the country’s acting president, Choi Sang-mok, instructed officials to deploy “all available personnel and equipment” to put out the fire.

NATO is testing its ability to rapidly deploy across eastern Europe — without direct U.S. assistance — as Washington shifts its approach toward European defense and the war in Ukraine. The six-week Steadfast Dart 2025 exercises across Bulgaria, Romania and Greece are taking place as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approaches the three-year mark. They involve some 10,000 troops from nine nations and represent the largest NATO operation planned this year. The U.S. absence from the exercises comes as European nations scramble to build greater military self-sufficiency over their concerns about the Trump administration’s commitment to common defense and demands for increased European military spending. President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced his intention to negotiate with Russia directly. And U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said at his first meeting with NATO colleagues in Brussels on Wednesday that European nations should dramatically increase their defense spending and shoulder the “overwhelming share” of funding for Ukraine. Greek and Spanish marines led Thursday’s military demonstration, an amphibious assault near the central Greek city of Volos, in the first full-scale operational deployment of NATO’s new Allied Reaction Force. Established last July, the force represents NATO’s latest strategic evolution, designed to deploy at scale within 10 days and combining conventional forces with cyber and space-based technologies. “This is what we’ve been training for,” the ARF's commander, Italian Lt. Gen. Lorenzo D’Addario, told The Associated Press after the 90-minute demonstration. “The thinking is that NATO wanted to have a force that is ready, that is flexible, that can operate across the five domains — air, sea, land, but indeed cyber and space — in a way that ensures it answers the (needs) of defending the alliance, but also deterring (conflict),” he said. Western military officials — anticipating lasting tension with Russia and President Vladimir Putin, possibly beyond the Ukraine conflict — argue that NATO’s new capability is becoming increasingly important to reinforce its eastern flank. “As we soon approach the anniversary of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, we see today a revitalized and refocused NATO," said Canadian Lt. Gen. Peter Scott, the deputy commander of NATO's Joint Force Command in Naples, Italy, who also attended the exercise. He described the exercise as “a significant milestone, an accomplishment in the modernization and expansion of NATO’s readiness to defend every inch of allied territory.” Scott said preparations for the exercise started two years ago and followed cooperation with planners from non-participating countries including the United States. “But in future exercises, there’ll be a different make up of countries that are going to participate. But purely for this one, that’s just the way it rolls out.” The current exercise involves forces from nine NATO members, including regional rivals Greece and Turkey, deploying 17 naval vessels, more than 20 aircraft and over 1,500 military vehicles. Britain leads the operation with 2,600 military personnel and 730 vehicles, assuming command of all land forces during the drills. The drills, which end Feb. 26, focus on rapid deployment scenarios and multi-domain operations across air, land, sea and special forces, underscoring NATO’s shifting military posture along its eastern boundaries. Participating nations are Bulgaria, France, Greece, Italy, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey and the United Kingdom. Earlier this week, Communist-backed groups staged small protests near the training area in central Greece, opposing the country’s involvement in overseas deployments.  

A head-on collision between a bus and a truck killed 24 people in Zimbabwe on Thursday, police said. Police spokesperson Paul Nyathi said the accident happened near Beitbridge, a town on the southern border with South Africa. The bus was traveling from the capital, Harare, to Beitbridge with 65 passengers on board. Nyathi said preliminary investigations indicated that the bus was trying to overtake another vehicle when it collided with the haulage truck. He said police are uncertain how many people were injured. State media showed pictures of some covered bodies lying on the ground and the mangled wreckages of the bus and truck. The State-run Herald newspaper quoted a government medical officer in Beitbridge as saying 17 people died at the scene of the accident, while seven others died from head injuries at a hospital in Beitbridge. The newspaper reported that 30 others were injured and in the hospital. President Emmerson Mnangagwa said he was horrified and heartbroken and declared the crash a national disaster. He said the government will take care of funeral and burial expenses. “Our nation does not deserve this at all, let alone experiencing such a bloody incident at the beginning of the year,” Mnangagwa said in a statement, urging drivers to exercise “extreme caution on the roads.” Road accidents involving buses are frequent in the southern African country, where drivers often exceed the speed limit in order to make as many trips as possible per day. Roads are also poor. The road where the accident occurred was recently resurfaced as part of government attempts to improve infrastructure.

A Saudi educator known for his charity work and instructing prisoners won the $1 million Global Teacher Prize on Thursday. Mansour al-Mansour received the award at the end of the World Governments Summit in Dubai, an annual event that draws leaders from across the globe. Al-Mansour is also an author and is known for work in his community, including a program that helped ensure people had access to air conditioning maintenance during Saudi Arabia's scorching summer months. The prize is awarded by the Varkey Foundation, whose founder, Sunny Varkey, established the for-profit GEMS Education company that runs dozens of schools in Egypt, Qatar and the UAE. Al-Mansour is the ninth teacher to win the award from the foundation, which first began handing out the prize in 2015. Saudi Arabia bans children from accompanying Hajj pilgrims Past winners have included a Kenyan teacher from a remote village who gave away most of his earnings to the poor, a Palestinian primary school teacher who teaches her students about non-violence and a Canadian educator who taught a remote Arctic village of Inuit students. GEMS Education, or Global Education Management Systems, is one of the world's largest private school operators and is believed to be worth billions. Its success has followed that of Dubai, where only private schools offer classes for the children of the foreigners who power its economy. GEMS plans to open a school later this year targeting the children of the ultra-wealthy families now moving to booming, skyscraper-studded Dubai. The Gems School of Research and Innovation in Dubai, which is planned to have a robotics lab, an Olympic-size swimming pool and an elevated football pitch that doubles as a helipad, will charge fees running from $31,000 for students in pre-K and kindergarten to $56,000 for high-school seniors.

Thomson Reuters has won an early battle in court over the question of fair use in artificial intelligence-related copyright cases. The media and technology company filed a lawsuit against Ross Intelligence — a now-defunct legal research firm — in 2020, arguing they had used materials from Thomson Reuters' own legal platform Westlaw to train an AI model without permission. Judge Stephanos Bibas of the 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision Tuesday that affirmed Ross Intelligence was not permitted under US copyright law to use the company’s content in order to build a competing platform. Thomson Reuters and Ross Intelligence did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Sam Altman calls Elon Musk "insecure" amid ongoing feud In his summary judgment, Bibas said that “none of Ross’s possible defenses holds water” and ruled in favour of Thomson Reuters on the issue of “fair use.” The “fair use” doctrine of US laws allows for limited uses of copyrighted materials such as for teaching, research or transforming the copyrighted work into something different. Thomson Reuters' win comes as a growing number of lawsuits have been filed by authors, visual artists and music labels against developers of AI models over similar issues. What links each of these cases is the claim that tech companies ingested huge troves of human writings to train AI chatbots to produce human-like passages of text, without getting permission or compensating the people who wrote the original works. OpenAI and its business partner Microsoft have also battled copyright infringement cases led by writers such as John Grisham, Jodi Picoult and “Game of Thrones” novelist George R. R. Martin; and another set of lawsuits from media outlets such as The New York Times, Chicago Tribune and Mother Jones.

Israel’s defense minister on Wednesday vowed that “all hell will break loose” on Hamas if it fails to free hostages this weekend as planned, stepping up threats against the militant group as mediators worked to salvage their ceasefire. There were signs that the gaps could be bridged. The dispute was sparked when Hamas accused Israel of failing to meet some commitments under the truce, including the delivery of tents and other aid, and said it would delay the next hostage release on Saturday. Hamas official Mahmoud Merdawi told The Associated Press there were “positive signals” the three hostages will be released as planned on Saturday but the group had not yet received a commitment from Israel that it would adhere to the deal. An Egyptian official with knowledge of the talks said the two sides were close to an agreement. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private negotiations, said Israel had committed to delivering more tents, shelters and heavy equipment to Gaza. Israeli officials had no immediate comment. Israel says it is fulfilling its obligations under the deal, which went into effect on Jan. 19 and has paused the 16-month war in Gaza, bringing respite to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Israeli hostages' families fear as Gaza ceasefire falters In the ceasefire’s current first stage, which is to last 42 days, Israel is to deliver large quantities of aid. Hamas is meant to free 33 hostages taken during its cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that sparked the war. Eight of them are said to be dead. Twenty-one have been released so far, along with hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli custody. Israel and Hamas trade threats Hamas’ threat to delay the hostage release sparked fury from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who vowed to resume the fighting if Hamas didn’t follow through and ordered troops to be strengthened around Gaza. They pulled back from the territory's populated areas during the ceasefire. On Wednesday, Defense Minister Israel Katz said he was echoing U.S. President Donald Trump by threatening that “all hell will break loose” if there is no hostage release on Saturday as planned. “If Hamas stops releasing the hostages, then there is no deal and there is war,” he said during a visit to a military command center. He said the “new Gaza war” wouldn’t end until Hamas was defeated, which would allow for Trump’s “vision” on transferring Gaza’s population to neighboring countries to be realized. Hamas spokesperson Hazem Kassem rejected “the language of U.S. and Israeli threats” and called on Israel to implement the terms of the ceasefire deal. Among other claims, Hamas says Israel is not allowing an agreed-upon number of tents, prefabricated homes and heavy machinery into Gaza. Trump's remarks test the delicate truce The ceasefire’s stability has also been rocked by Trump, who has proposed relocating Palestinians out of Gaza to neighboring Arab countries so the U.S. can “own” and rebuild the territory – not necessarily for its current inhabitants. Trump wants Jordan and Egypt to take in Palestinians from Gaza. Here's why the idea is rejected Jordan and Egypt, where Trump wants Palestinians moved, have repeatedly and vehemently rejected the proposal. Jordan's King Abdullah II did so again after his meeting with Trump at the White House on Tuesday. Trump has also suggested Hamas release all the hostages yet to be freed under the ceasefire’s first phase at once – which emboldened Israel to call for more hostages to be freed on Saturday. The releases have been gradual and almost weekly so far. The latest ceasefire dispute came as Israel and Hamas were expected to begin negotiations on a second phase of the deal, which would extend the truce, bring about the full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza and see the remaining living hostages freed. But there appears to have been little progress on those talks. Netanyahu is under pressure from his political partners, on whom he relies to remain in power, to resume the war after the first phase. But he also faces surging outrage from many Israelis, who are stunned by the emaciated condition of the three hostages released last Saturday and want him to follow through with the deal.  

After 16 months of excruciating uncertainty, Idit Ohel finally received word this week that her 24-year-old son, a hostage in Gaza, is still alive. She said she fainted upon hearing the brutal details of his captivity from freed hostages who had been held with him by Hamas since Oct. 7, 2023. Bound by chains in an underground tunnel, Alon Ohel has subsisted on a piece of bread or less each day. “He hasn’t seen sunlight in 493 days,” she told reporters on Monday. As the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas seems increasingly at risk of falling apart — Hamas says it will not free three hostages on Saturday as planned, and Israel says it's ready to resume the war if it doesn't — families of the hostages are struggling to maintain hope. They are pleading with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to give up on the ceasefire framework, and to speed up the timeline of releases if possible. Their worries about the ceasefire collapsing have been exacerbated by President Donald Trump's demand that all of the hostages be freed by Saturday — and his insistence that Gaza be emptied of all Palestinians and redeveloped as a tourist enclave controlled by the United States. The emaciated state of three hostages released last Saturday has infuriated Israelis and terrified families of the remaining hostages, especially as more details come out about the conditions of their captivity. The situation is especially difficult for relatives of hostages who are not on the list of 33 hostages expected to be released in the ceasefire's first, six-week phase, which began on Jan. 19. The agreement requires Israel to free 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees, whose families are also worried about how their enemy treats them. Two hostages released on Saturday, Or Levy and Eli Sharabi, were held together with Alon Ohel, and a fourth hostage, Eliya Cohen. The four were held underground since their kidnapping, Idit Ohel said. Cohen is expected to be released in the ceasefire's first stage; Ohel would be freed in the second stage, if Israel and Hamas reach that point. Levy, Ohel, and Cohen were kidnapped from a bomb shelter near a music festival in southern Israel, along with Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli who was killed in captivity in August. “It breaks my heart to know he was chained and to know what happened to him in the tunnels from people in the tunnels,” Cohen’s fiancée, Ziv Abud, 27, told reporters on Tuesday. The returned hostages said that Cohen had lost more than 20 kilograms (44 pounds) and had a bullet in his leg that did not receive medical attention. While they were with him, Cohen was unaware that Abud had survived the Hamas attack on the bomb shelter where they were hiding. During the Oct. 7 attack, militants tossed grenades and sprayed bullets inside the concrete bomb shelter near the music festival, where almost 30 people had crammed inside. At least 16 people inside the shelter were killed. Abud said she was protected by the crush of bodies above her. Going in and out of consciousness, she spent hours laying beneath the bodies of her nephew and his girlfriend. For families of hostages who are not scheduled for release in the first phase of the ceasefire, its uncertainty is even more difficult to bear. Israel and Hamas were set last week to begin talks on a second phase of the ceasefire that would include an end to the war and the release of the remaining hostages. But those efforts have been frozen while the two sides trade accusations about whether the other is living up to the terms of the first phase. Tamir Nimrodi, 20, an Israeli soldier kidnapped from his post at a main crossing between Israel and Gaza, is not on the list to be freed in the first stage. His mother, Herut, said Hamas’ plan to delay the next hostage release came as a shock. “We try to analyze it, think, what are the possibilities? Is this psychological terrorism they are pulling on us?” she said. It’s been difficult watching the hostage releases over the past few weeks, Nimrodi said, especially the emotional videos of hostages reuniting with their families. On the one hand, each reunion is a step closer to bringing back her son, whom she described as a creative person who loves riding horses and drinking sweet cocktails made with pineapple juice. But Nimrodi does not know if her son, who also holds German citizenship, is alive. The other two soldiers he was kidnapped with were killed, and she has not received any sign of life from him. “I know there is a chance I won’t get to the point where I can hold my son,” she said. According to Israeli media, returning hostages have provided proof of life for at least seven Israeli hostages, including Cohen and Ohel. Nimrodi doesn’t know what is worse — to believe her son is dead, or to receive information that he is alive, but held in conditions like Alon Ohel. “I’m scared if Tamir is still alive, I have no idea what he’s going through, I’m scared to even imagine,” she said. Idit Ohel received the information about her son's condition less than an hour before she went on Israel’s Channel 12 news program earlier this week. She sat at the news desk sobbing on live TV, pleading with the government to continue to the second stage of the ceasefire and bring all of the hostages home as soon as possible. Alon, who also has German and Serbian citizenship, is a talented pianist. The family has placed pianos across Israel in his honor, many of which are yellow, the color associated with the struggle for the hostages. The family marked Alon's second birthday in captivity on Monday evening in Tel Aviv, where his mother addressed the Israeli government. “After all the sights you saw, after all the testimonies you heard from the survivors of captivity, how do you allow this situation to continue?” she said. Alon did remember his younger sister, Inbar, had a birthday on Saturday and delivered her a message through the hostages who were released that day. “She got her birthday wish, to hear from her brother, which is incredible,” Idit said, through tears.