In a move that brings the fate of the Gaza ceasefire even closer under his personal control, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is appointing a close political ally to lead talks over phase two of the current ceasefire in Gaza, replacing Israel’s previous chief negotiator.

Dermer replaces David Barnea, the head of Israel’s Mossad spy agency, who led talks in January that resulted in the current deal. The Israeli government has not confirmed whether Barnea will stay on as part of the Israeli negotiating team.

Talks on phase two of a ceasefire, which would see the withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza and the release of all living hostages, were supposed to have begun more than two weeks ago. Even as Netanyahu says that the talks will now begin, it is unclear how committed the prime minister is to seeing them succeed. His finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has promised to withdraw from the government coalition if Israel does not return to war in Gaza when the current ceasefire expires on March 1.

The reshuffle in Israel’s negotiating approach comes as Hamas said that it would release the bodies of four hostages on Thursday, including the two youngest Israelis held by the group, Kfir and Ariel Bibas. The militant group is expected to release six living hostages on Saturday, and a further four bodies next week – all in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Removing Barnea sidelines Israel’s security establishment, with whom Netanyahu has frequently clashed.

On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said that phase two could be delayed if they believe there is “a constructive dialogue with a possible horizon of getting to an agreement.” He also said that if Israel believes that “negotiations are not leading anywhere,” the military would resume the war in Gaza.

Hamas negotiators in Cairo have appeared to accelerate delivery of their side of the 42-day phase one agreement, laying out a timeline for the return of the last remaining 14 hostages of the 33 agreed to be released in phase one – all to be completed by next week.

It was a shift by the terror group, which only last week threatened to derail talks completely, saying they would no longer hand over hostages and alleging Israel had failed to meet terms of the agreement, including by allowing prefabricated housing and heavy machinery to enter Gaza.

Netanyahu’s office on Tuesday said that it had “approved bringing only a small amount of caravans and heavy equipment into Gaza,” saying that it would “not in any way change the feasibility of implementing the Trump plan for voluntary immigration and creating another Gaza – to which Prime Minister Netanyahu is fully committed.”

US President Donald Trump has proposed that the United States “own” Gaza, and that 2.1 million Palestinians living there move to “beautiful sites” in Middle Eastern countries. The proposal has been welcomed by Netanyahu, but derided by Palestinian and Arab leaders alike, who characterize it as ethnic cleansing.

It is unclear what changed Hamas’s calculus to recommit to the hostages’ release in the coming days. US President Donald Trump had threatened that “all hell is going to break out” for Hamas unless they release all hostages by this past Saturday – a deadline that came and went without incident.

Trump’s envoy Witkoff outlined the challenges facing Netanyahu. “It just is a little bit more intricate and complicated in terms of how we bring the two sides together on this, because phase two contemplates an end of the war, but it also contemplates Hamas not being involved in the government and being gone from Gaza. So we’ve got to we’ve got to square those two things,” he told Fox News on Sunday.

A week of spectacular lava sprays on Sicily’s snow-capped Mount Etna, one of the world’s most active volcanos, has drawn thousands of people wanting to see the eruption.

But the sudden influx of sightseers has become a safety risk, according to Salvo Cocina, head of Sicily’s regional Civil Protection agency.

On Monday eight people who were attempting to hike up the mountain without a guide were lost for several hours before rescuers located them, Cocina said. On Sunday, a 48-year-old man fractured his foot after falling on ice, he said.

He added the constant presence of rescue workers, including 4×4 ambulances and other off-road vehicles, is important for those who work on the volcano and for the guides who are authorized to take people up the mountain.

“Blocking them has created a dangerous situation for everyone,” he said.

The current eruptive phase started February 11, according to the country’s National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology. Videos and photos of the bright orange lava flowing down the mountainside went viral after a group of hikers posted them on social media.

Catania’s airport also diverted flights away from the ash clouds both Sunday and Monday, according to the airport’s X account, but has now resumed all services. The airport closes several times a year due to the active volcano.

As well as being the most active volcano in the world, Mount Etna is also Europe’s highest volcano, at about 3,350 meters (almost 11,000 feet) tall.

In 2023, a cloud of volcanic ash spewing from the volcano prompted the closure of one of Sicily’s largest airports, leading to flights being delayed, canceled and diverted.

More than 150 whales are stranded off the coast of Tasmania, Australia, according to local authorities.

The state’s Marine Conservation Program said Tuesday a total of 157 animals had become stranded near the town of Arthur River on the west coast of the island and that initial observations showed at least 90 of them were still alive.

“We are currently assessing the situation to plan an appropriate response,” the agency said.

The animals appear to be false killer whales, according to Tasmania’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment.

The Marine Conservation Program said it was working with Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service in response to the “mass whale stranding” and urged the public not to approach the animals.

“Stranding response in this remote area is complex. If it is determined there is a need for help from the general public, a request will be made through various avenues,” it said.

The government agency said all whales are protected species even when deceased and reminded the public that interfering with a carcass is an offense.

Animal behaviorists and marine scientists say that survival rates for beached whales is low, and the animals “can only survive for around six hours on land before they start to deteriorate.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro has been charged in connection with an alleged coup plot to overturn the results of the 2022 election and keep his opponent from taking power, according to documents filed by prosecutors Tuesday evening.

Bolsonaro was among 34 people facing charges including those of armed criminal organization, attempted violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, coup d’état, and damage qualified by violence.

Prosecutors allege that the plot began in 2021, with an effort to undermine public trust in electronic voting machines.

In 2022, Bolsonaro allegedly met with ambassadors and diplomatic representatives to discuss the accusations of voting fraud “in an attempt to prepare the international community for disrespecting the popular will in the presidential elections,” a statement from the Attorney General’s Office read.

Despite finding no evidence of election fraud, the defendants allegedly continued their campaign to discredit the electoral system, prosecutors said.

They also allege that Bolsonaro approved a plan to carry out the coup, which they say included the death of the elected President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his vice president.

Prosecutors said the last attempt to overturn the election happened on January 8, 2023, when defendants allegedly encouraged groups of Bolsonaro supporters to mobilize in Brasília, where they stormed and vandalized the three seats of government.

In November, Bolsonaro and 36 others were indicted as part of an investigation into the alleged coup plot.

The charges, brought before the Supreme Court in Brasília, could set the stage for a high-profile trial. If the charges are formally accepted by the Supreme Court, those charged will formally become defendants.

To prevent the case from influencing Brazil’s 2026 presidential elections, Supreme Court justices are pushing to conclude the trial before the end of 2025, but it is unlikely the court will announce its decision on whether to take on the case or schedule preliminary hearings before early March.

In the 844-page November indictment, federal police accused Bolsonaro of having “full knowledge” of the alleged coup plan to prevent Lula from taking office, adding that the former president “planned, acted in, and led directly and effectively” the plan.

Bolsonaro denies involvement, telling the Brazilian magazine Veja he “never agreed to any plan.”

In 2023, Bolsonaro was banned from public office for eight years after a separate investigation into alleged abuse of power found him guilty of spreading misinformation about the integrity of the Brazilian election apparatus to foreign governments.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

In the 10th row of Delta Flight 4819, Pete Carlson rested in the window seat just before landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport on Monday afternoon, thinking about friends he would see at a paramedics conference where he was scheduled to speak.

John Nelson, another passenger in the 10th row of the CRJ900 twin-jet aircraft, remembered the flight and descent over Canada’s largest city as typical except for “super gusty” winds blowing snow over the runways.

The Delta flight, on a trip from Minneapolis, was cleared for Runway 23 under a westerly wind, with gusts up to 38 miles per hour. “Might be a slight bump in the glide path,” an air traffic controller said. “There will be an aircraft in front of you.”

“Clear to land, Endeavor 4819,” the pilot responded, referring to Delta’s Endeavor Air, the subsidiary which operated the regional jet arriving about 2:15 p.m local time Monday on the snow-covered runway. The wind sent snow swirling into the air, limiting visibility to five miles.

Then everything changed.

The jet came down hard and fast. Flames erupted around the rear landing gear, followed by a growing fire ball shrouded by a rising trail of black smoke, according to video from the scene. The right wing was sheared off as the plane rolled on its back along a tundra-like landscape.

In seconds, the lives of the 80 people on board would be upended – literally – with passengers hanging upside down, their seatbelts preventing them from crashing down. Jet fuel cascaded like rain over the windows. Somehow, all those on board survived, though 21 people were taken to hospitals with injuries.

‘We were upside down, hanging like bats’

Pete Koukov, another passenger, said he “didn’t know anything was the matter” until the hard landing.

He took video showing some passengers, still strapped to their seats, on the overturned jet.

Nelson called it “mass chaos.”

“I was upside down. The lady next to me was upside down,” he said. “We kind of let ourselves go and fell to hit the ceiling – which was a surreal feeling. And then everybody was just like, ‘Get out! Get out! Get out!’ We could smell like jet fuel.”

The two flight attendants had never landed a plane upside down, according to Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA. But they had trained for many scenarios, including evacuating passengers within 90 seconds – which they did during Monday’s emergency.

“They were heroic,” Nelson said.

A mix of black smoke and powdery snow rose over the tarmac.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no!” said a person who took a video of the crash, watching from another plane near the runway.

“Airplane just crashed (runway) 2-3,” a pilot on another flight can be heard saying on recordings of air traffic control transmissions, which also picked up audio of a medevac helicopter that was already in the area.

“We got it in sight,” the helicopter pilot said of the downed jet.

“LifeFlight 1, medevac, just so you are aware there are people outside walking around the aircraft there,” an air traffic controller said.

“Yeah, we’ve got it. The aircraft is upside down and burning,” the medevac pilot responded.

Outside the plane, passengers shot video and photos with cellphone cameras as firefighters tried to douse the flames.

Carlson remembered the powerful sound created by the crash of tens of thousands of pounds of metal against snow-covered concrete.

“The absolute initial feeling is, ‘Just need to get out of this,’” he told CBC.

He unfastened his seatbelt and crashed down onto the plane’s ceiling, now the floor. He didn’t sense panic or fear around him. Instead, Carlson said, everyone on the plane “suddenly became very close” – helping and consoling each other.

“What now?” he remembered thinking. “Who’s leading?”

Row by row, passengers and crew members checked on one another. They made sure people would not fall on others once their seatbelts were unfastened. As a father and a paramedic, Carlson said, he instinctively focused on getting a young boy and his mother who were sitting on the ceiling safely off the plane. The smell of fuel grew stronger.

“You can listen to the preflight all you want but when you’re suddenly upside down, rolled over, everything kind of goes out the door,” he told CBC. Hours after the flight, he still reeked of plane fuel. He wasn’t sure how he got a gash on his head.

‘It’s amazing that we’re still here’

Carlson stepped outside the plane. He recalled marveling at the “amazing” response of police officers, firefighters and paramedics on the scene.

It felt like he was “stepping out onto the tundra,” Carlson told CBC, as he and others helped passengers onto the snow-swept tarmac. The injured were taken away by bus. A triage area was set up at a safe distance from the plane.

“There was a wing there before and when we went out that exit, there was no wing to be found,” he recalled.

In fact, the wing breaking free likely kept the fire out of the passenger cabin, said Joe Jacobsen, an aerospace engineer who has worked for Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration.

When a wing rips off entirely on impact, it ditches potentially explosive fuel, said Michael McCormick, an associate professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, noting that fuel used to be stored in the belly of the aircraft.

Other design factors came into play as well. Most modern commercial aircraft are required to have 16G seats – meaning they can withstand 16 times the force of gravity, McCormick said. The seats, designed for durability rather than comfort, are less likely to come apart in an accident.

Carlson was thankful to walk away from the crash.

“I didn’t care how cold it was,” Carlson told CBC. “I didn’t care how far I had to walk, how long I had to stand. All of us wanted to just be out of the aircraft.”

At one point, Carlson removed his coat and put it over the shoulders of the mother with the young son. He snapped a photo of the overturned plane with his phone, and sent a copy to a paramedic friend, who was at the airport to pick him up.

“I simply sent it, saying this is my reality right now,” he said. “Down on the tarmac but alive, which, again, is really amazing.”

The friend and colleague, Renfrew County, Ontario, Paramedic Chief Mike Nolan, saw a huge plume of black smoke rise from the center of the runway and immediately texted Carlson, the keynote speaker at the conference in Toronto this week.

In the end, Carlson said, it was “just people – no countries, nothing … together helping each other.”

Koukov said he felt lucky and happy. He gave a big hug to the person who had been sitting next to him on the flight – as he did when greeted by friends who picked him up at the airport.

Said Nelson, “It’s amazing that we’re still here.”

A Chinese military helicopter flew within 10 feet (3 meters) of a Philippine patrol plane over the South China Sea on Tuesday, in what observers said was the second incident of potentially catastrophic behavior by the People’s Liberation Army against foreign aircraft in a week.

Tuesday’s incident was witnessed by an Associated Press reporter aboard the single-engine Cessna Caravan plane operated by the Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources as it patrolled near Scarborough Shoal, an uninhabited rock about 140 miles (222 kilometers) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon.

Scarborough Shoal, which sits amid rich fishing grounds, has been effectively controlled by China since 2012 despite its location inside the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.

The AP report said during the approximately 30-minute encounter, the pilot of the Philippine plane warned the Chinese helicopter, “You are flying too close, you are very dangerous and endangering the lives of our crew and passengers.”

The ambassador of the United States, a defense treaty ally of Manila, condemned the “dangerous” maneuvers of the Chinese helicopter.

In a post on X, Ambassador MaryKay Carlson also called on China “to refrain from coercive actions and settle its differences peacefully in accordance with international law.”

A statement from the PLA’s Southern Theater Command said the Chinese helicopter “expelled” the Philippine plane from “China’s territorial airspace,” while saying Manila “has seriously violated China’s sovereignty.”

Tuesday’s incident followed another last week over the South China Sea between an Australian military P-8 reconnaissance jet and PLA fighter planes, during which Australia said the Chinese jets fired flares within 100 feet (30 meters) of its aircraft.

If ingested into the P-8’s jet engines, the flares could have caused catastrophic damage, analysts said.

“They could have hit our P-8 and had that occurred it would have done significant damage to our aircraft and that obviously puts in danger the lives of our personnel,” Australian Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles said on Friday.

Like the latter incident with the Philippines, the Chinese military said it expelled a foreign aircraft that was intruding into Chinese airspace, in this case over the Xisha Islands, also called the Paracel Islands.

Beijing claims “indisputable sovereignty” over almost all of the 1.3-million-square-mile South China Sea, and most of the islands and sandbars within it, including many features that are hundreds of miles from mainland China. As well as the Philippines, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and Taiwan also hold competing claims.

Potentially dangerous incidents between Chinese and foreign aircraft over the South China Sea are nothing new, with several reported over the past several years between not only Australian and Philippine craft but also those of the US and Canada, who all say they operate in international airspace.

But the two latest incidents in less than a week are raising fears Beijing may be becoming more assertive in enforcing its disputed claims while the attention of the US – a defense treaty ally of the Philippines, Australia and Canada – is focused on the war in Ukraine and tensions in the Middle East.

“China sees that the Trump administration is focused on other theaters and calculates that this is the time to turn the ratchet up in East Asia while America is distracted elsewhere,” said Ray Powell, director of SeaLight, a maritime transparency project at Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation.

“Beijing is following a familiar pattern of gradual escalation,” Powell said.

“Its goal is to normalize its aggressions at ever-greater levels, so that over time they become accepted and discounted as the normal cost of doing business in contested areas.”

Adm. Samuel Paparo, the head of the US Indo-Pacific Command, told a forum in Hawaii last week that China is using similar “gray zone” tactics around the democratic island of Taiwan, which is claimed by Beijing, and which Chinese leader Xi Jinping has vowed to bring under the Communist Party’s control.

Numerous Chinese military aircraft and maritime vessels operate around Taiwan daily.

“Their aggressive maneuver around Taiwan right now are not exercises, as they call them. They are rehearsals. They are rehearsals for the forced unification of Taiwan to the mainland,” Paparo told the Honolulu Defense Forum last week.