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Daily Briefing

Israeli fighter jets strike 450 Hamas targets in Gaza, Blinken meets his Turkish counterpart in Ankara as part of a Middle East tour, and sources tell Reuters that Putin has decided to run in Russia's March election.

Plus, thousands of Black women claim hair relaxers gave them cancer.

By Edson Caldas

Today's Top News

Israeli soldiers take part in a military action amid the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas. Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS

ISRAEL AND HAMAS AT WAR

Israeli fighter jets struck 450 Hamas targets in Gaza and troops seized a militant compound in the past 24 hours, the IDF said, while the enclave's health ministry said the air strikes killed dozens of people. A Reuters journalist in Gaza described the overnight bombardment as one of the most intense so far.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken met Turkey's foreign minister in Ankara, hours after hundreds of people at a pro-Palestinian protest tried to storm an air base that houses US troops. Reuters' Simon Lewis tells the Reuters World News podcast how Blinken has pushed back on calls for a ceasefire.

DIPLOMACY

Chinese President Xi Jinping said that a "healthy and stable" relationship with Australia served each country's interests, and that it was important to move forward with strategic ties. Xi told Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, the first Australian leader to visit Beijing since 2016, that China wants mutual benefit.
Mending frayed diplomatic relations between India and Canada will be a long process after each side adopted maximalist positions, despite New Delhi's surprise move to ease some visa curbs on Canadians, officials and experts say. Neither side has much incentive to hasten a return to normalcy.

IN OTHER NEWS

Russia and Ukraine gave clashing accounts over the weekend about what is going on along the frontline in the Zaporizhzhia region, with Moscow saying it has stopped Kyiv's counter-offensive and Ukraine's army saying it keeps pressing on. Late on Sunday, Russia launched a major air attack on Odesa.
Vladimir Putin has decided to run in the March presidential election, as the Kremlin chief feels he must steer Russia through the most perilous period in decades, six sources told Reuters. Putin has already served as president for longer than any other Russian ruler since Josef Stalin.
Donald Trump returns to a New York courtroom where he will take the witness stand in a civil fraud trial that threatens to diminish his real-estate empire. The former US president will likely face pointed questions about the questionable accounting practices that a judge has already ruled to be fraudulent.

Business & Markets

Half of the world's 2,000 biggest listed companies have set a target to get to net-zero emissions by mid-century, but just a fraction meet tough UN guidelines for what constitutes a quality pledge, a report showed. The pace of change among governments and corporates is set to form a central part of the COP28 talks.
The downturn in euro zone business activity accelerated last month as demand in the dominant services industry weakened further, suggesting there is a growing chance of a recession in the 20-country currency union. The economy contracted 0.1% last quarter, official data has shown.
China recorded its first-ever quarterly deficit in foreign direct investment, underscoring Beijing's challenge in wooing overseas companies in the wake of a "de-risking" move by Western governments. Direct investment liabilities were a deficit of $11.8 billion during the July-September period.
Elon Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI will be integrated into his social media platform X and also be available as a standalone app, he said. The billionaire also said xAI released its first AI model, a bot named Grok, after making it available to all X Premium+ subscribers on Friday.
In more news from Musk's companies, Tesla plans to build a 25,000-euro ($26,838) car at its factory near Berlin, a source with knowledge of the matter said, in a long-awaited development for the electric vehicle maker which is aiming for mass uptake of its cars.

Thousands of Black women claim hair relaxers gave them cancer

Sheila Bush is among women who have filed lawsuits against cosmetic companies alleging they sold hair relaxers associated with increased risk of cancer. REUTERS/Lawrence Bryant

More than 7,000 lawsuits in the US allege at least a dozen cosmetic companies, including L'Oréal and Revlon, sold hair relaxers containing chemicals that increased the risk of developing uterine cancer, and failed to warn customers.

Read our Special Report here.

And Finally...

Performers and Fiu, the Pan-Am Games mascot, during the closing ceremony in Santiago. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado

The Pan American Games came to a predictable end yesterday with the United States the runaway leader on the medal table, officials giving themselves a pat on the back and questions about the future of the event hanging in the air.

Read more here.

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