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An Israeli tank that killed a Reuters journalist and wounded six others in Lebanon last year fired two 120mm rounds at a group of “clearly identifiable journalists” in violation of international law, a UN investigation has found.
A report by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), seen by Reuters, said its personnel did not record any exchange of fire across the border between Israel and Lebanon for more than 40 minutes before the tank opened fire, killing Issam Abdallah, a 37-year-old video journalist.
The UN report said the “reason for the strikes on the journalists is not known.” Reuters’ editor-in-chief, Alessandra Galloni, has called on Israel to explain how the attack could have happened and to hold to account those responsible.
Meanwhile, an aid ship from Cyprus arriving on Gaza’s shores on Thursday is “a drop in the ocean” of what is needed to address the acute crisis in the territory, an International Rescue Committee official said.
How many people documenting the conflict have been killed since 7 October? At least 95 journalists and media workers have been killed, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which called the deaths a “severe toll” and urged that journalists “must not be targeted by warring parties”.
What is the humanitarian toll of the conflict so far? After the Hamas attack on Israel in which about 1,200 people were killed and 200 taken hostage, the Israeli assault on Gaza has killed 31,341 people and wounded 73,134, Gaza health officials say.
House votes to force TikTok owner ByteDance to divest or face US ban
The House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday requiring the TikTok owner ByteDance to sell the social media platform or face a total ban in the US.
The bill gives China-based ByteDance 165 days to divest from TikTok. If it does not, app stores, including the Apple App store and Google Play, will be legally barred from hosting TikTok or providing web hosting services to ByteDance-controlled applications.
The vote is the most concrete threat to TikTok in a political battle over allegations that the China-based company could collect sensitive user data and politically censor content. TikTok has repeatedly said it has not and would not share US user data with the Chinese government.
How did lawmakers vote on Wednesday? In a relatively rare moment of bipartisan agreement, the vote was a landslide, with 352 Congress members voting for and 65 against.
What happens next? The bill’s future is less certain in the Senate. Some Senate Democrats have publicly opposed it, citing freedom of speech concerns and proposing other measures to address concerns of foreign influence.
Biden pledges billions to rebuild cities ‘torn apart’ by highways decades ago
Joe Biden hailed the beginning of $3.3bn in infrastructure spending on US projects on Wednesday “to right historic wrongs”, with efforts to reconnect city neighborhoods divided by interstate highways, which ploughed with impunity through many communities, especially those of color, decades ago.
The president, speaking in Milwaukee, is striving to make an impact on the campaign trail in a number of swing states this week after his fiery State of the Union speech last week. He travels to Michigan on Thursday, part of the “blue wall”, along with Pennsylvania, where he was born and has made more campaign trips than to any other state.
What are the details? The White House says $3.3bn in federal funding is being allocated in more than 40 states to help areas “divided by transportation infrastructure decades ago” that have “long been overlooked”.
In other news …
Zimbabwe police have said they arrested a man claiming to be a prophet of an apostolic sect at a compound where more than 250 children were allegedly being used as cheap labor, and where authorities found 16 unregistered graves.
Lithuania has blamed Moscow for a bloody hammer attack on Leonid Volkov, a longtime aide to the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, outside his home in Vilnius.
Poland has recalled 50 ambassadors appointed by the former rightwing government, as the pro-EU administration changes tack.
Russian forces attacked Ukraine with 34 Shahed drones overnight, with Ukraine saying it shot down 22 of them.
Stat of the day: top 35 companies paid negative $1.72bn taxes while executives awarded $9.49bn in pay over last five years
Top bosses at 35 of America’s largest companies have received more in pay than their companies paid in federal taxes. Between 2018 and 2022, senior executives at 35 different firms – from Tesla to T-Mobile US – received $9.49bn in executive compensation. But their collective tax bill was -$1.72bn, meaning they collectively received more money back from the government in refunds than they paid, according to research by Americans for Tax Fairness and the Institute for Policy Studies.
Don’t miss this: Russia steps up attempts to silence Ukrainian voices in Crimea
A decade on from Russia’s annexation of Crimea, with all-out war in Ukraine challenging Moscow’s dominance, authorities are increasing a crackdown on pro-Ukrainian voices in the region, write the Guardian correspondents Shaun Walker and Pjotr Sauer. Russia’s police and its FSB security service have rounded up local people who post Ukrainian-language songs on their social media profiles or express pro-Ukraine views in public.
Climate check: US energy industry gas leaks are triple the official figures, study finds
US oil and natural gas wells, pipelines and compressors are spewing out three times more methane than the government has determined, causing $9.3bn in yearly climate damage, a comprehensive study calculates. Over 20 years, methane traps about 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide, but it lasts in the atmosphere for only about a decade compared with the hundreds of years carbon dioxide does.
Last Thing: Let them eat snake – why python meat could soon be on the menu
Dr Daniel Natusch, a conservationist, has eaten python in almost every way imaginable. “I’ve had it barbecued. I’ve had it in satay skewers. I’ve had it in curries. I’ve had it with Indigenous people in the wilds of the Malaysian jungle,” he said. Research by Natusch, the chair of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s snake specialist group, has found that pythons could be a more efficient protein source than livestock, poultry or salmon. To be more sustainable, “we need to start thinking outside the box”, he said.
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