July 31 2026 News

The Board of Peace reached an agreement for the complete disarmament of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza, US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday night in a post to Truth Social. “Today, the Board of Peace reached a HISTORIC agreement for the COMPLETE DISARMAMENT of Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza. This is a monumental step toward lasting PEACE and SECURITY,” Trump wrote. Ben Gvir says Hamas disarmament deal ‘unacceptable’ National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir slams as “unacceptable” a deal agreed by Hamas that includes the group handing over its weapons and the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. “After the October 7 massacre, the blood of every Hamas member is on his head, and therefore a commitment to stop the assassinations of the terrorist organization’s murderers is tantamount to agreeing to Hamas organizing for the next massacre,” Ben Gvir writes on Telegram, adding: “The assassinations in Gaza must continue, the encouragement of (Palestinian) emigration (from the Strip) must happen. Israel must win.”

It might sound like the evil plan of a nefarious villain, but scientists now say that we need to halve Earth’s population to save the planet. Over the last 100 years, the world’s population has ballooned from less than two billion to 8.3 billion people. However, researchers say our planet cannot sustain this explosive growth for much longer. Now, in a proposal that will remind movie fans of Thanos' plot in Avengers: Infinity War, scientists argue that the population needs to be 'eased' down to four billion by 2200. If the global population could be reduced in the next 200 years, this could help ease humanity's burden on the environment and ensure there are enough resources to go round.

Iran’s terrorist Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claimed to have killed “several” Americans during a bombing of Jordan Thursday and destroyed three fighter jets — a report the Jordanian government appeared to deny, as it reported only that it had intercepted missiles that ultimately caused no harm.

Saudi Arabia is reportedly preparing for a ground military operation in Yemen, The Guardian reported on Friday, citing sources in the kingdom. The sources said Riyadh is planning a land incursion into central Yemen alongside a naval operation targeting the Houthis. If launched, the operation would seek to break the Houthi blockade affecting Saudi ports.

Spain and Morocco reinforced the border fence of a Spanish enclave on Friday and appeared to have largely halted mass crossings after tens of thousands of people arrived by sea and land in a day. At least 34 people have died, officials say, after some 60,000 crossed into Ceuta in the past few days, the leader of the Spanish enclave in North Africa, Juan Jesus Vivas, told reporters on Friday.

Anthropic disclosed on Thursday that its AI models gained unauthorized access to the systems of three different unnamed organizations during cybersecurity testing. The company says Claude reached the internet “from within or while interacting" with a third-party evaluation environment. The announcement comes more than a week after OpenAI revealed that one of its AI agents hacked into Hugging Face during a separate cybersecurity test.

Israeli cyber startup Onyx Security announced on Thursday that it has nabbed $113 million in funding to build a platform that lets humans stay in control, as advanced autonomous systems and smart artificial intelligence agents ramp up in the workplace. The funding round comes four months after Onyx emerged from stealth with $40 million in financing from investors. The latest round, which values the startup at about $640 million, was led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Other investors, including Cyberstarts, TCV, Conviction, FirstMark, Vintage Investment Partners, QuantumLight and G Squared also joined. To date, the startup has raised $153 million.

The Canadian Armed Forces has issued new guidance directing military chaplains to forbid religious-specific language, including that of Christians and including references to God, during public ceremonies and official events. This directive comes in spite of the Canadian national anthem’s mention of the line asking God to keep Canada “glorious and free.”

The London biotech start-up is selling what it describes as the “world’s first painless permanent tattoo”, using a single-use patch covered in microscopic structures that carry pigment into the upper layers of the skin. It’s essentially a permanent, high-tech version of those temporary water tattoos you’d slap on at kid’s birthday parties or at the occasional festival. Instead of sitting through the buzz of a tattoo machine, trained staff press the patch onto your skin with a handheld applicator, leave it in place for around 15 minutes, peel it away, and hey presto, you have a tattoo. At first, it appears faintly on the skin before darkening over the following 24 to 48 hours.