Egyptian and US mediators report signs of compromise but many analysts remain pessimistic

• Middle East crisis a live updates

Hopes of a ceasefire in Gaza rose on Saturday as a Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo to continue indirect talks, with what is believed to be a response to a new proposal, reportedly agreed by Israel, to halt fighting for an initial 40 days and exchange hostages for Palestinian prisoners.

Egyptian and US mediators have reported signs of compromise in recent days and Egyptian state news channel Al-Qahera said on Saturday that a consensus had been reached in the indirect talks over many of the disputed points but gave no further details.

Flood watch in effect through Sunday with evacuations in some areas as more rain forecast for already soaked region

The Houston area was under threat of worsening flood conditions on Saturday, a day after heavy storms slammed the region a and authorities warned those in low-lying areas to evacuate ahead of an expected acatastrophica surge of water the likes of which havenat been seen since Hurricane Harvey.

A flood watch remained in effect through Sunday afternoon as forecasters predicted additional rainfall on Saturday night, bringing another 1-3in (2.5-7.6cm) of water to the soaked region and the likelihood of major flooding.

While semesters at other schools speed toward a violent close, several universities have sought a more amicable solution

For about a week, the cluster of tents raised by students at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, stood in solidarity with Palestinian civilians in Gaza and with students protesting at other campuses across the US.

Then, on Tuesday, the tents quietly vanished from the grassy quad at the heart of campus. There were no riot-gear-clad crackdowns from police and no assaults from masked groups to spur disbandment. Instead, Brown chose a different path: it negotiated.

As she tries to limit the fallout from her dog- and goat-killing anecdotes, factual inaccuracies in her book are coming to light

As she entered a second consecutive weekend trying to manage fallout from revelations in her upcoming memoir that she shot her dog to death, South Dakotaas governor, Kristi Noem, had conceded that she would need to correct multiple factual inaccuracies in other parts of the book.

Meanwhile, a Republican fundraiser which Noem was supposed to headline had to be canceled after threats against the event staff, hotel venue and governor, according to organizers.

Kyiv says Moscow forces have gained afootholda in area north of Donetsk city after pounding depleted defenders

• Putin on our doorstep: Ukrainians watch as the frontline edges closer

The Ukrainian village of Ocheretyne has been battered by fighting, drone footage obtained by the Associated Press shows. The village has been a target for Russian forces in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine.

Russian troops have been advancing in the area, pounding Kyivas depleted, ammunition-deprived forces with artillery, drones and bombs. Ukraineas military has acknowledged Russia has gained a afootholda in Ocheretyne, which had a population of about 3,000 before the war, but says that fighting continues.

Interior minister Nancy Faeser promises atough actiona to protect democracy as political assaults rise

The German interior minister Nancy Faeser has vowed to fight a surge in violence against politicians after a German member of the European parliament had to be taken to hospital following an attack while he was campaigning for re-election.

Matthias Ecke, 41, a member of Faeseras Social Democrats (SPD), was hit and kicked by a group of four people while putting up posters in Dresden, capital of the eastern state of Saxony, police said. An SPD source said his injuries would require an operation.

Berkshire Hathaway CEO stressed relationship at annual meeting attracting Apple CEO Tim Cook, Bill Gates and Bill Murray

The billionaire investment tycoon Warren Buffett has stressed his empire will remain a key investor in Apple after it sold billions of dollarsa worth of shares in the iPhone maker.

Thousands of shareholders in Berkshire Hathaway, Buffettas sprawling conglomerate, have flocked to Omaha, Nebraska, for the firmas annual meeting a dubbed Woodstock for Capitalists a this weekend.

Jerry and Rita Alter, now deceased, are suspected of having stolen artworks in the 80s, including Willem de Kooningas Woman-Ochre

The mystery of a nondescript, middle-aged couple who hung a stolen $150m Willem de Kooning painting behind a bedroom door in their Cliff, New Mexico, home may be closer to being resolved after the FBI agreed to assist in tracking down two other paintings that had been in the coupleas possession.

A new twist to the story of Jerry and Rita Alter, a pair of New Mexico teachers who somehow funded a life of travel and adventure to the point that they are suspected international art thieves, emerged recently when the USas top federal law enforcement agency confirmed it was getting involved in the case.

Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota urged the Texas congressman to step down after charges against him were unveiled

The Minnesota congressman who unsuccessfully challenged Joe Biden in the Democratic presidential primary became the first member of their party to call on fellow US House representative Henry Cuellar to resign after federal bribery charges were unveiled against the Texas politician on Friday.

In a post on X, Dean Phillips urged Cuellar to step down, along with other politicians faced with pending criminal cases a including Bidenas presidential predecessor and Republican rival Donald Trump as well as Democratic US senator Bob Menendez.

Labour incumbent beat Tory candidate Susan Hall, despite inaccurate claims by aexcited Toriesa that she might run him close

• UK politics a latest updates

Sadiq Khan has been elected mayor of London, winning a historic third term after a dramatic contest.

Khan was declared the winner over the Conservative candidate, Susan Hall, on Saturday afternoon, with 43.8% of the vote.

Last yearas deadly Maui wildfire revealed the extent of short-term rentals and their contribution to the stateas housing shortage

Hawaii lawmakers have voted to put limits on short-term rentals such as Airbnbs. On Friday, the governor, Josh Green, signed a bill that would give counties the power to regulate short-term rentals and even phase them out to become long-term housing for local residents.

The move on short-term rentals was one of several legislative decisions to come out of Fridayas meeting of the state legislature. It also appropriated $1b to go toward the ongoing recovery from the Lahaina fire on 8 August, including more than $120m in rental assistance for people who are ineligible for aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and $500m for emergency housing for residents who remain displaced, according to ABC News.

With the ex-president punished for violating a gag order, the third week of the hush-money trial resembled his fraud case

It was deja vu for Donald Trump at his Manhattan criminal trial this week in more ways than one.

Six months ago a New York judge threatened to throw a former US president in prison for violating a gag order. Remarkably, in a courthouse up the street just six months later, Trump was again threatened with jail time.

The seaside tourist community, like the southern state as a whole, has seen huge demographic change since 2020

The area around Wilmington, North Carolina, was once rock-ribbed Republican red. No longer. Itas contested territory in what may be the most contested state in the country this year.

Donald Trump had planned a rally in Wilmington earlier this month but was rained out at the last moment. Trump promised to return with a bigger and better rally later. Joe Biden visited Wilmington on Thursday, after a detour to Charlotte to meet with the families of four law enforcement officers killed on Monday while serving an arrest warrant. It was his second visit to North Carolina this year and is unlikely to be his last.

Effects of heat are expected to worsen after bill prohibiting municipalities from enacting shade and water protection is passed

For Javier Torres and other workers whose jobs are conducted outdoors in south Florida, the heat is unavoidable. A new law recently signed by Ron DeSantis, Floridaas Republican governor, that prohibits any municipalities in the state from passing heat protections for workers ensures that it is likely to stay that way.

Torres has seen a co-worker die from heatstroke and another rushed to the emergency room in his years of working in construction in south Florida. He has also fallen and injured himself due to heat exhaustion.

Many say the bill would help survivors be heard, broadening the range of people able to petition to see their sentence reviewed

In 1995, on the day before Kelly Savage-Rodriguez planned to flee her abusive husband, she ran some final errands while her children, ages three and one, napped. She hoped to take them on the early morning Amtrak from Porterville, California, to Los Angeles and stay with her brother, but when she returned, she said, she found that her husband had beaten and killed her three-year-old son, Justin. She called 911. The police arrested her along with her husband.

Savage-Rodriguez was jailed as she awaited trial, and said her lawyer did not have training in advocating for clients who suffered domestic violence. The judge used her history of abuse against her, she said, and said she was equally at fault for her sonas death under Californiaas afailure to protecta charges that can criminalize the non-abusive parent in a domestic violence case because she had not fled. She was later convicted and sentenced to life without parole, same as her abuser.

The troubled child actor turned chatshow host faces flak for her toe-curling interview with Kamala Harris. But oversharing is all part of her shtick

An office-style desk was once the key prop on a television chatshow a a standard piece of kit beloved of Johnny Carson and David Letterman, not to mention Britainas Jonathan Ross. Then the comfy sofa took over and guests began to scooch along, making room for each other. Now, though, under the auspices of Drew Barrymore, host of a daytime show on CBS, itas the lowly rug that is taking centre stage.

Barrymore, who is still best known internationally for her childhood role as the little girl in ET, likes to interact with her guests on a fluffy rug in the middle of her set in New Yorkas Broadcast Center. She has prostrated herself upon it more than once in front of her studio audience and prefers it to the showas pink satin armchairs.

The emergence of trillions of cicadas is under way in parts of the US a what should you do when theyare around, and what on earth are azombiea cicadas?

The cicadas are arriving. The periodic emergence of trillions of cicadas, on a scale not seen in several hundred years, is under way in parts of the US, with several states reporting the orange-eyed insects are bursting from their underground dormancy.

Cicadas have started arriving earlier than expected in Illinois, a cicada hotspot this year, while there are reports of swarms emerging in Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee, along with some other states.

For two years, a viral joke mocking the singeras dancing threatened to overshadow her record-breaking success a but the laser-focused star had the last laugh. And now she has her sights set on building a media empire

The London hotel room is huge, with a grand piano in one corner. In the middle is a stash of crisps, nuts and drinks, laid out as if we were in a high-end store. And on a sofa I can just about make out Dua Lipa, lost in the vastness. She could be a top footballer a red hair tied back, fresh-faced, wearing black tracksuit bottoms and a striped top. Iam trying to think what club it is. Barcelona?

She laughs. aNo, I designed it. Itas merch.a I look closely. On the front, it says Training Season a the title of the second single from her forthcoming album, Radical Optimism. Ah, that makes sense; she is playing for FC Dua Lipa. Over the next hour, Lipa makes it clear that sheas a devoted fan of FC Dua Lipa, gives her all to it, and can only see it growing exponentially. Something I wouldnat dare to disagree with.

Russian forces are advancing in the countryas eastern regions, but the recent arrival of US arms could help turn the tide

It was a perfect May evening. Daria Karpinska and her friends sat in the corner of a five-a-side pitch and played cards. Nearby was their school. Swifts had returned to their village of Hrodivka and screeched in a sunny blue sky.

Suddenly, a loud whoosh-whoosh noise interrupted the teenagersa game of afoola: the sound of a Grad missile. Seconds later came the boom of artillery. aItas louder today than yesterday,a said 14-year-old Karpinska matter-of-factly.

The US academic on why the Mr Burns caricature of rich people is wrong, the double-edged sword of godlike technologies, and why young people shouldnat follow their passion

Scott Galloway is an American professor of marketing at New York University Stern school of Business. He has founded and sold several tech firms, and served on the board of directors of companies such as the New York Times and Urban Outfitters. With tech journalist Kara Swisher he co-hosts the hugely popular tech and business podcast Pivot. He is a fierce critic of tech companies and their business models and he has written five books, the latest of which is The Algebra of Wealth: A Simple Formula for Economic Security.

You spend a lot of time with wealthy and successful people. Do they have any common habits?
Well, the most common attribute Iave registered is they were born at the right place at the right time. What Iave found is that the majority of peopleas success is not their fault. And I think something that plagues people, especially tech bros, is they conflate luck with talent. But across those who excel, the thing I have found is that if you want to be successful, you need to collect allies along the way. Thereas this cartoon of Monty Burns in The Simpsons, the guy who owns the power plant, who has no friends, who lights cigars with a hundred dollar bill. But what I have found is that really wealthy people are constantly put in rooms of opportunities, because from a young age theyave acquired allies.

Beset by hurricanes and rising insurance prices, the city saw people leaving in droves a but a program is encouraging jazz artists to move to the amost exciting musical city in the worlda

Hammered by hurricanes, rutted streets and rising insurance rates, the metro New Orleans area saw 45,000 people leave between 2020 and 2023 a a 4.3% outmigration worse than any other US urban area.

Those departures seemed a surreal idea as vast crowds streamed into the annual two-week Jazz and Heritage festival sponsored by Shell, set to conclude Sunday. Thursday marked the main event at the sprawling array of stages and food booths at the Fair Grounds race track a the Rolling Stones concert, sold out at $225 a ticket.

Palestinian restauranteur speaks from Bethlehem, where food stalls are sparse as farmlands are under attack

Fadi Kattan looked forlornly at the stalls inside the Bethlehem vegetable market bearing small quantities of oranges, watermelons and cauliflowers. aThis stall should be heaped with products, he said. aAnd over there should be piles of aubergines and courgettes.a

The watermelons from Jenin looked too small for the season, while he wasnat sure where the boxes of oranges were from. They would normally be from Gaza. At Um Nabilas stall in the West Bank market where Kattan is a regular customer, she told him she could no longer afford to bring in the best small local cucumbers or piles of green cherries from her village of Artas.

Protests are part of nationwide movement pushing universities to divest from businesses that support the war in Gaza

As the sun rose on a campus littered with wreckage, pro-Palestine protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles, were still facing off with lines of riot cops and chanting aWeare not leaving!a

Police had cleared UCLAas student encampment in a late-night operation, and arrested at least 200 pro-Palestine demonstrators early on Thursday morning . The schoolas student newspaper said ahundredsa had been arrested, including students and faculty.

Tourists delighted as pinnipeds congregate at cityas Pier 39, apparently attracted by feast of anchovies

More than 1,000 sea lions have gathered at San Franciscoas Pier 39 this spring, the largest herd in at least 15 years.

Mounds of floppy, delightfully ungraceful marine mammals have plopped themselves on to rafts along the cityas pier, displaying themselves to the thousands of tourists who pass by the area each day.

Researchers visited the Chicago Cafe to find out if itas really 121 years old a and entered a chop suey parlor filled with memories

On a warm morning in March, a group of researchers entered an unassuming chop suey parlor in the Sacramento suburbs for a rare field trip.

The six history enthusiasts affiliated with the University of California, Davis, had gathered at the Chicago Cafe in Woodland, California, with one goal in mind: to determine the exact age of what may be the oldest Chinese restaurant in the country.

Workers removed remnants of the Gaza encampment while pieces of plywood painted with aWe love you Gazaa lay about

At the University of California in Los Angeles on Thursday morning, staff were picking up the pieces after two nights of violence that shocked the urban campus.

A loader heaved the remnants of the Gaza protest encampment that law enforcement had forcefully cleared early in the morning into a large grey dumpster. Pieces of plywood spray-painted with aWe love you Gazaa and aACABa (aall cops are bastardsa) still lay about.

Please, listen to us a not political figures, radical fringes and misguided media

On Tuesday night, we watched in horror as hundreds of riot police flooded our beloved campus and brutalized our classmates. The next day, students awoke with swollen faces, bruised wrists, and lacerations a all results of inhumane police treatment. The past two weeks have been tumultuous, marked with mass arrests of student demonstrators, an encampment on our lawns, national media attention, and vile acts of hatred. Countless have spoken on our behalf. But by speaking over us, media outlets and politicians have created a distorted narrative a one which unfairly characterizes our community.

Now, it is time to elevate student perspectives, the ausa, rather than the athema. The traumatic environment and militarization of our campus are not the sole product of ill-intended protestors or reckless non-affiliates as claimed by administrative emails; rather, they are the fault of the senior administration themselves. For months, this crisis has brewed as administrators neglected student and faculty voices. We must be clear: the administration has put our studentsa safety at risk and has failed to ensure a conducive learning environment. As student leaders, it is time for our voice to be heard.

Reticence over the seizure of Russian state assets in Europe betrays a fatal underestimation of the threat Moscow poses

Europe has plotted an elegant decline that suits the needs of its ageing population, and the Ukraine war cannot be allowed to interfere with that plan.

That is how it seems when EU countries consider circumventing the financial rulebook to offer Ukraine what it needs to overcome waves of drones and break the deadlock on its eastern front.

All praise to a classical singer for last weekas rebellion against a sea of illuminated screens

It was after the third song in Brittenas Les Illuminations that Ian Bostridge decided head had enough. Wheeling round to face the constellation of screen lights that dotted Birminghamas vast Symphony Hall, the tenor called the show to a halt. Could everyone please turn off their phones? It was extremely distracting.

After the performance, which was two weeks ago, Bostridge was surprised to find his phone-happy audience had been perfectly within their rights. More than that: theyad actually been encouraged to video him. The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) had last year decided to drop aany perceived arulesa of a traditional concerta in a bid to achallenge conventionsa and get ayoung peoplea interested. Signs in its venues now ask ticketholders to abring drinks into the auditorium. Clap whenever they like. Wear whatever makes them feel comfortable. Take photos or short snippets of film (and share them with us).a

The online world was meant to be an open system but has become dominated by huge corporations. If we are to revive it, that must end

Browsing through a history of online public messaging last week, I came across a magical photograph from 1989 or 1990. It shows the worldas first web server. It was Tim Berners-Leeas NeXT workstation in Cern, the international physics research lab, where he worked at the time. On the case is a tattered sticky label, on which is scribbled, in red ink, aThis machine is a server DO NOT POWER IT DOWN!!a

Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist, had come up with the idea for a aworld wide weba as a way of locating and accessing documents that were scattered all over the internet. With a small group of colleagues he envisaged, designed and implemented it in the late 1980s and eventually put the whole thing a protocols, server and browser software, HTML specification, etc. a on one of Cernas internet servers, and in doing so changed the world.