While You Were Sleeping: 5 stories you might have missed, Feb 22, 2025
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White House national security adviser Mike Waltz speaking at a press conference on Feb 20.
PHOTO: NYTIMES
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White House expects Ukraine to sign critical minerals deal soon
White House national security adviser Mike Waltz said on Feb 21 he expects Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to sign a minerals agreement with the United States as part of efforts to end the Ukraine war, while President Donald Trump said Kyiv has no cards to play.
Mr Zelensky’s office said the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Mr Andriy Yermak, discussed “aligning positions” in bilateral relations in a call with Mr Waltz on Feb 21 after sharp exchanges between Mr Trump and the Ukrainian leader.
Mr Trump denounced Mr Zelensky as a “dictator” on Feb 20 and warned he had to move quickly to secure peace with Russia or risk losing his country, deepening a feud between the two leaders.
The sharp change in tone from the United States, Ukraine’s most important backer, has alarmed European officials and stoked fears that Kyiv could be forced into a peace deal that favours Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Berlin police arrest suspect in Holocaust memorial stabbing
AFP
German police arrested a suspect in the stabbing on Feb 21 evening at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial that seriously injured a man two days before a watershed national election.
Berlin’s police department gave no details on the identity of the suspect or his possible motive.
“Our forces have detained a suspect in the vicinity of the crime scene,” city police posted on X. “Investigations continue.”
Man who stabbed Rushdie guilty of attempted murder
PHOTO: REUTERS, AFP
Hadi Matar was found guilty on Feb 21 of attempting to murder the novelist Salman Rushdie in an onstage stabbing attack at a New York arts institute in 2022.
Matar, 27, can be seen in videos rushing the Chautauqua Institution’s stage as Mr Rushdie was being introduced to the audience for a talk about keeping writers safe from harm, some of which were shown to the jury during the three-week trial.
Mr Rushdie, 77, was stabbed with a knife multiple times in the head, neck, torso and left hand, blinding his right eye and damaging his liver and intestines, requiring emergency surgery and months of recovery.
Pope Francis not yet cured, but not in danger of death
REUTERS
Pope Francis, who is being treated in hospital for double pneumonia, is not in danger of death, but has not been fully cured and his condition could yet change, one of his doctors said on Feb 21.
“Is he out of danger? No. But if the question is ‘is he in danger of death’, the answer is ‘no’,” Dr Sergio Alfieri told a press conference.
Francis is being treated at Rome’s Gemelli hospital, where he was admitted on Feb 14 after struggling with breathing difficulties for several days.
Family accuses Israeli PM of ‘abandoning’ Shiri, boys
NYT
Israel’s Bibas family accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Feb 21 of failing to protect their loved ones during Hamas’ 2023 attack and of failing to bring them home.
The family’s comments were their first since Israel announced that a body received from Hamas on Feb 20 was not that of Shiri Bibas as claimed by the Palestinian militant group.
It confirmed that three other bodies handed over were those of veteran peace activist Oded Lifshitz and Shiri’s two young sons Kfir and Ariel.
