ISRAEL
Netanyahu recovering
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was still undergoing tests in a hospital yesterday after a dizzy spell, but was expected to be released later in the day, his office said. The 73-year-old leader was rushed to a hospital on Saturday after feeling mild dizziness. His office said test results yesterday were normal and that he was feeling “very good.” He had spent the previous day at the Sea of Galilee, a popular vacation spot where temperatures climbed to about 40°C, his office said. After a series of tests, the initial assessment was that he was dehydrated. After being hospitalized, Netanyahu released a video on social media last night. Smiling, he said that he had been out in the sun on Friday without wearing a hat and without water. “Not a good idea,” he said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Wallace plans to exit
Secretary of Defence Ben Wallace said in an interview published on Saturday that he would step down at the next Cabinet reshuffle and not contest the next general election. Wallace, 53, has been a leading figure in Western allies’ support for Ukraine against Russia and was the UK’s pick to succeed Jens Stoltenberg as NATO secretary general. He failed to get crucial US backing to succeed him, and Stoltenberg has extended his term at the head of the alliance. The decision was because his constituency in northwest England was being scrapped under boundary changes, he told the Sunday Times. Wallace, a straight-talking former British army officer, has been in the UK parliament for 18 years, and is the longest-serving Conservative defense secretary since Winston Churchill.
FRANCE
War photographer dies at 75
Marie-Laure de Decker, the model who stepped behind the camera to become an internationally recognized war photographer, has died at the age of 75, her family said on Saturday. She died in a hospital on Saturday following a long illness, her family said. Born in Algeria — when it was still a French colony — she started her career as a model before deciding to branch out into photography. She covered the Vietnam War early in her career and met with success despite her relative lack of experience. She is also known for her photos of celebrities, the money from which helped finance her missions in conflict zones, she had said. “When you take photos of the poor, no one’s interested. You have to take photos of the rich to sell [them].” In 2013, her work in conflict zones was recognized by the Albert Kahn International Planet Prize.
UNITED STATES
Prisoner flees on bed sheets
Looking dirty, wet and “worn out” from living in the wilderness to evade arrest, a homicide suspect who used bed sheets to escape a northern Pennsylvania jail has been captured, authorities said. Michael Burham, 34, fled the Warren County jail in the late evening hours of July 6 by climbing on exercise equipment, going through a window and scaling down a rope fashioned from jail bedding, authorities said. He was found on Saturday after authorities received a tip about a suspicious-looking person, they said. Burham had taught himself survival skills and had military reserve training, authorities said. Before his capture, law enforcement personnel had found “small stockpiles or campsites” believed to be associated with him.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home