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After 10 years of trying, a Palestinian woman had twins. An Israeli strike killed them both

It took 10 years and three rounds of in vitro fertilization for Rania Abu Anza to become pregnant, and only seconds for her to lose her five-month-old twins, a boy and a girl.

An Israeli strike hit the home of her extended family in the southern Gaza city of Rafah late Saturday, killing her children, her husband and 11 other relatives and leaving another nine missing under the rubble, according to survivors and local health officials.

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Hard-liners dominate Iran parliamentary vote

Iranian hard-line politicians dominated the country's vote for parliament, results released Monday showed, maintaining their hold on the legislature in a vote that saw calls for a boycott and an apparently low turnout.

Authorities still have not released turnout figures for Friday's vote, nor given any reason for the delay. Turnout is suspected to be low after polling stations in the capital, Tehran, saw few voters.

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Several OPEC+ countries extend oil cuts to boost prices

Some members of oil cartel OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, and allied producers like Russia are again deepening their voluntary crude supply cuts.

Announcements from several OPEC+ countries extend reductions of some 2.2 million barrels a day, the secretariat for the multinational organization noted Sunday. Saudi Arabia led the pack by extending its previously-implemented cut of 1 million barrels a day through the end of 2024's second quarter.

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Gantz' visit to US signals wider cracks in Israel’s wartime leadership

Harris is to meet with Israeli Cabinet official who is in Washington despite Netanyahu's rebuke

Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday is hosting a member of Israel's wartime Cabinet who is visiting Washington in defiance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

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US says Israel has agreed to the framework for a Gaza cease-fire. Hamas must now decide

Israel has essentially endorsed a framework of a proposed Gaza cease-fire and hostage release deal, and it is now up to Hamas to agree to it, a senior U.S. administration official said Saturday, a day before talks to reach an agreement were to resume in Egypt.

International mediators have been working for weeks to broker a deal to pause the fighting before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan begins around March 10. A deal would likely allow aid to reach hundreds of thousands of desperate Palestinians in northern Gaza who aid officials worry are under threat of famine.

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'They wanted to humiliate us.' Palestinian women detained by Israel decry abuse in Israeli custody

Nabela thought the United Nations school in Gaza City was a safe haven. Then, the Israeli army arrived.

Soldiers stormed the place, ordering men to undress and hauling women to a mosque for strip searches, she said. So began six weeks in Israeli custody that she says included repeated beatings and interrogations.

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Biden hopes for Gaza truce before Ramadan, says US to airdrop aid

U.S. President Joe Biden said earlier this week that a cease-fire deal could be reached by Monday. But on Friday evening, he said he still held hope a deal can be struck, but possibly before Muslims around the globe begin observing the holy month of Ramadan that is expected to begin March 10.

“I’m still hoping so,” Biden said. “We’re still working real hard at it. We’re not there yet.”

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2023 crazy Atlantic ocean heat, low Antarctic sea ice give glimpse of much hotter world

Off the charts "crazy" heat in the North Atlantic ocean and record-smashing Antarctic sea ice lows last year are far more severe than what Earth's supposed to get with current warming levels. They are more like what happens at twice this amount of warming, a new study said.

The study's main author worries that it's a "harbinger of what's coming in the next decades" and it's got him not just concerned, but wondering why those two climate indicators were so beyond what was expected.

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Pope asks aide to read speech for him, raising further concerns over his health

Pope Francis, who has been suffering from the flu, asked an aide to read out his prepared speech at a conference in the Vatican Friday, saying he has not yet fully recovered from his latest ailment that has raised concerns about his capacity to continue leading the Roman Catholic Church.

The 87-year-old Pontiff, who was taken to a Roman hospital on Wednesday for diagnostic testing after having to cancel some public audiences, handed his speech to his aide, Mons. Filippo Ciampanelli.

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Drying the upper atmosphere: Scientists create new idea to hack warming planet

Government scientists have cooked up a new concept for how to potentially cool an overheating Earth: Fiddle with the upper atmosphere to make it a bit drier.

Water vapor — water in its gas form — is a natural greenhouse gas that traps heat, just like carbon dioxide from burning coal, oil and gas. So researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA figure if they can just inject ice high up in the air, water vapor in the upper atmosphere would get a bit drier and that could counteract a small amount of the human-caused warmth.

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