Trump digs in on his plan to take over Gaza
President Trump defended his proposal yesterday to take charge of postwar Gaza and resettle Palestinians, promising to build one of the planet’s “greatest and most spectacular developments” there.
Trump stressed that he would not deploy U.S. troops to Gaza as Israel’s defense minister said he had ordered the military to draft a plan to allow people in Gaza to voluntarily leave.
Trump’s comments left some of the biggest questions about the plan unanswered, including where the Gazans would go, how many people he thought would leave willingly and who would govern and secure the enclave. His fantastical idea also shifted attention away from the cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas. Its initial six-week phase ends in early March.
Trump’s aides had sought on Wednesday to soften the president’s idea, which was sharply criticized by leaders in the Middle East, the Palestinians and U.S. allies. But the following morning, Trump doubled down. “The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” he wrote on Truth Social yesterday.
Analysis: Trump has made it clear that he doesn’t want the war to resume, but he also doesn’t seem to know how to dislodge Hamas from Gaza.
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How the school shooting in Sweden unfolded
Officials have begun to share new details about the attack at an adult education center in Orebro, a quiet university town in central Sweden.
The police said yesterday that they had identified a suspect in the shooting, which killed at least 11 people, and were awaiting DNA confirmation. They did not share details about a possible motive.
But they did describe the chaotic scene at the campus on Tuesday. Arriving at the site, officers encountered smoke from pyrotechnics and a hail of gunfire. The shooting was so intense that they could not tell how many gunmen were there.
Police response: Amid chaos and panic, none of the 130 police officers chose to return fire, Orebro’s police chief said. About an hour later, they found the gunman among the dead, near three weapons and at least 10 empty magazines.
January was the hottest January on record
The planet had its warmest January on record, scientists said yesterday, even as some people in parts of the world shivered. The warmth came as a surprise to climate researchers, since it occurred during La Niña conditions in the Pacific Ocean, which tend to temporarily lower average temperatures.
The Earth has been so warm for so much of the past two years that scientists have begun looking beyond carbon emissions and into whether something else in the planet’s chemistry might have changed to explain what is increasing the temperatures.
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The English language and whale songs might have more in common than you’d think.
An international team of scientists has found that male humpback whales sing long, intricate songs that include repeated phrases and themes, in ways similar to how humans often repeat words like “the” and “of.” Read more about the whale songs.
Lives lived: Valérie André, a brain surgeon, parachutist and helicopter pilot who was also the first Frenchwoman to become an army general, died at 102.
