Good morning.
With the threat of an Israeli ground offensive in Rafah looming, Joe Biden has said the US will do “everything possible” to bring about a ceasefire.
After a meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, the US president said “the key elements of the deal are on the table” but “there are gaps that remain”.
Senior officials from the US, Egypt, Israel and Qatar were expected to meet in Cairo to work on a three-phase framework that would involve the release of hostages and an extended pause in fighting, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
Abdullah said Biden’s leadership was “key to addressing this conflict” as he raised the tens of thousands of deaths and injuries in the fighting. “We need a lasting ceasefire now,” the king said. “This war must end.”
What else did Biden say? “A major military operation in Rafah should not proceed without a credible plan for ensuring the safety and support of more than 1 million people sheltering there. Many people there have been displaced multiple times fleeing the violence to the north and now they are packed into Rafah, exposed and vulnerable. They need to be protected.”
What’s happening on the ground in Rafah? Panic and despair spread across Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah after a night of intense bombardment where at least half of the territory’s population have fled seeking shelter and now fear an Israeli ground assault.
Trump asks US supreme court to keep election interference case frozen
Lawyers for Donald Trump asked the US supreme court yesterday to keep on hold the criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results while he prepares to challenge a recent appeals court ruling that found he was not immune from prosecution.
The former US president also asked the nation’s highest court to stay the DC appeals court order that prevented him from seeking what is known as an en banc rehearing of the case by the full bench of appeals judges.
In a 110-page petition, Trump’s lawyers argued he met the key tests for the supreme court to grant a stay because there was a strong likelihood it would hear the case and because without a stay Trump would suffer “irreparable injury” if the case proceeded to trial in the interim.
How does Trump hope to deal with his legal woes? Trump has made it no secret that his strategy for all his impending cases is to seek delay, ideally beyond the 2024 election in November, in the hopes that winning a second presidency could enable him to pardon himself or to direct his attorney general to drop the charges.
What else happened yesterday? Trump attended a critical court hearing where his lawyers presented their defense theories in the criminal case over his retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club and alleged obstruction of justice.
US Senate moves forward $95bn Ukraine and Israel aid package
After many setbacks and much suspense, the Senate appeared on track this week to approve a long-awaited package of wartime funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as Republican opponents staged a filibuster to register their disapproval over a measure they could not block.
The Senate voted 66-33 to sweep aside the last procedural hurdle and limit debate on the measure to a final 30 hours.
On Tuesday morning, senators began vote on a final passage of the bill. They had worked through the weekend on the roughly $95bn emergency spending package, which cleared a series of procedural hurdles and overcame a talking filibuster led by the Republican senator Rand Paul and joined by a coterie of Donald Trump’s allies in the chamber.
On Monday, the Senate’s majority leader, Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said the weekend votes demonstrated “beyond doubt that there’s strong support” for advancing the foreign aid package.
What happens next? If the bill passes the Senate as expected, the bill would next go to the Republican-led House, where next steps are uncertain. Though a bipartisan majority still supports sending assistance to Ukraine, there is a growing contingent of Republican skeptics who echo Trump’s disdain for the US-backed war effort.
In other news …
A stone age wall discovered beneath the waves off Germany’s Baltic coast may be the oldest known megastructure built by humans in Europe, researchers say. The wall, which stretches for nearly a kilometre along the seafloor in the Bay of Mecklenburg, was spotted by accident.
An argument between two groups of teenagers left one person killed and five others injured in a shooting at a New York subway station yesterday, police said. A 34-year-old man was killed. The wounded were a 14-year-old girl, a 15-year-old boy and three adults of 28, 29 and 71.
Oil and gas companies and environmental groups on Monday filed dueling legal challenges to the Biden administration’s five-year plan to offer drilling leases in the Gulf of Mexico. The American Petroleum Institute (API), an oil and gas trade group, said it was challenging the policy because it would leave Americans at risk of relying on foreign energy sources.
A blockbuster hearing with details of the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’s relationship with the special prosecutor Nathan Wade will go forward on Thursday after the presiding judge chose not to immediately quash subpoenas for their testimony.
Stat of the day: Super Bowl LVIII was most-watched TV program ever, averaging 123.4m viewers
The longest Super Bowl game will also go down as the most-watched program in television history. According to Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, Kansas City’s 25-22 overtime victory over San Francisco on Sunday night averaged 123.4 million viewers across television and streaming platforms. That shattered last year’s mark of 115.1 million for Kansas City’s last-play victory over Philadelphia and is a 7% increase. The game was televised by CBS and Univision and streamed on Paramount+ as well as the NFL’s digital platforms. Additionally, Nickelodeon aired an alternate kid-friendly simulcast.
Don’t miss this: True romance – how to keep the love alive when sex has gone
It’s rare for intense sexual chemistry to last. “We don’t talk about it enough,” says the relationship therapist Cate Campbell, “but it’s very normal for attraction to wane in a long-term relationship, especially as people get older and bodies change. Even if you love and care for your partner, you may fantasise about other people or wish they were younger or fitter. Mother nature tricks our brains into only seeing the positives when we start dating, but that wears off over time.”
Some people find that loss of sexual connection is a dealbreaker, especially when it’s accompanied by other problems in the relationship. But it is possible to keep love alive and even reignite that sexual spark.
Climate check: Great Lakes average ice cover drops to 6%, one of lowest levels ever recorded
The average ice cover over the five Great Lakes was just 6% last month, placing it among the least icy Januarys since records began 50 years ago, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa). The Great Lakes – Superior, Huron, Michigan, Erie and Ontario – are located at or near the US-Canada border, and are connected by a network of smaller lakes and rivers that have a combined surface area of 95,000 sq miles, making it the largest freshwater system in the world. While some year-to-year variation in ice cover is normal, scientists say global heating is driving ice loss and warmer water temperatures, and it is likely to worsen if no action is taken soon.
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