📌 Netanyahu-Trump Meet, China Responds To Tariffs, More

President Donald Trump is set to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for talks today at the White House.

The talks come at a key phase in the ceasefire. Israel and Hamas have less than four weeks to agree on the terms of the second phase, which would include the release of all remaining hostages held in Gaza, a permanent halt in fighting and Israel’s withdrawal from the territory.

Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that the meeting was “positive and friendly,” and that he would meet with his Security Cabinet upon returning from the US to “discuss Israel’s overall positions regarding the second stage of the deal.”

Netanyahu said he and Trump would discuss countering Iranian aggression and expanding diplomatic relations with Arab countries.

Trump is seeking a wider agreement in which Israel would forge ties with Saudi Arabia, which has said it would only agree to such a deal if the war in Gaza ends and there is a credible pathway to a Palestinian state in Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

The US supports Palestinian statehood, but Netanyahu's government is opposed.

China today imposed tariffs on some US imports in a swift response to new duties on Chinese goods.

While Mexico and Canada were given reprieves, an additional 10% tariff on all Chinese imports into the US came into effect at 12:01 a.m. ET today after Trump repeatedly warned Beijing it was not doing enough to halt the flow of illicit drugs into the US.

Within minutes, China's finance ministry said it would impose levies of 15% for US coal and LNG and 10% for crude oil, farm equipment and the trucks and big-engine sedans shipped to China from the US.

China also said it was starting an anti-monopoly investigation into Alphabet Inc's Google while including both PVH Corp, the holding company for brands including Calvin Klein, and US biotechnology company Illumina on a list for potential sanctions.

China's Commerce Ministry and its Customs Administration said it is imposing export controls on some metals that are critical for electronics, military equipment and solar panels. A 10% duty China announced on electric trucks imported from the US could apply to future sales of Elon Musk's Cybertruck.

China's tariffs on the targeted US exports will start on Feb. 10, giving Washington and Beijing some time to try to reach a deal that Chinese policymakers have indicated they hope to strike with Trump, who plans to speak to Chinese President Xi Jinping later in the week, a White House spokesperson said.

Appointees and advisors from five presidential administrations released its first comprehensive "State of the Nation" report.

The objective was to shed light on how the US is doing in key areas—the economy, education, health, the environment, civic engagement, trust in major institutions—compared to historical trends and peer countries.

The 14-member panel agreed on 15 topics and 37 measures that capture crucial elements of the nation’s state. A representative sample of 1,000 US adults was given the same list of topics and measures for assessment.

“Ultimately, the goal of the work is to foster progress,” said State of the Nation project director Douglas Harris, professor and chair of economics at Tulane University. “Without a clear and accurate diagnosis of the most pressing issues facing the nation, there can be little hope for sensible solutions.”

US trends since 1990 show domestic improvement in the economy, education, environment, health and violence reduction, but the nation is declining in citizenship, democracy, life satisfaction, mental health and trust.

Internationally, America's position is weakening in environmental protection, physical health and civil liberties, with gains only in economy and education. As material wealth and income levels rise, measures of perceived well-being are declining.

While the report shows a growing dislike for opposing political parties, the various sides agree on more than they think, Harris said. This provides hope for the potential to make tangible progress, he said.

An investigation will be held into Ellen Greenberg’s death after the medical examiner said he was wrong to have ruled it a suicide.

It’s a big win for Dr. Joshua Greenberg and his wife, Sandra “Sandee” Greenberg, who have been fighting a legal battle for the past 14 years, convinced that the investigation into their daughter’s brutal death was botched.

On January 26, 2011, the 27-year-old teacher was found dead by her fiancé in the kitchen of their Philadelphia apartment. She was slumped against the cabinets, her legs splayed out in front of her, with 20 stab wounds in her back, neck, and the back of her head. A 10-inch knife was lodged in her chest.

Philadelphia pathologist Marlon Osbourne initially ruled her death a homicide. But police considered her death a suicide and publicly challenged the findings. Her death was reclassified as suicide. For years, the Greenbergs have sought to have the ruling changed back to homicide.

But the city has objected, arguing that state law "makes clear that a medical examiner can be wrong as to the manner of death yet cannot be compelled to change it.” Dr. Osbourne said he made the change after reviewing additional information.

He said he didn't know whether the door was forced open as reported, whether her body was moved at or near the time of death, and considered the findings from her neuropathological evaluation of a cervical segment sample.

Self-healing asphalt, made from biomass waste and designed with AI, could fix road cracks without human intervention.

Scientists from Swansea University and King's College London, in collaboration with scientists in Chile, have found a way to reverse cracking and develop methods to “stitch" asphalt back together, creating more durable and sustainable roads.

Cracks form when bitumen — the sticky black material in the asphalt mixture — hardens through oxidization. To make the asphalt “self-healing,” the team incorporated tiny, porous materials known as spores, which are smaller than a strand of hair and produced by plants.

The spores are filled with recycled oils, which are released when the asphalt begins to crack, helping to reverse the process. In the lab, the material was shown to heal a microcrack in less than an hour. The material, still in development, is seen to have huge potential for infrastructure and advancing sustainability.

Iain Burgess, UKI Public Sector Leader at Google Cloud, said: “It is inspiring to see how teams … are unlocking the power of cloud-based and AI tools, including Gemini and Vertex AI, to drive more efficient processes and discover chemical properties.”

Flooding in Australia has inflicted "incredible" devastation across northern Queensland, the state's premier said.

Thousands of evacuated residents began returning to their homes today, but it is feared hundreds of properties and businesses have been inundated. Two people have died.

Parts of the region have been battered by nearly 6.5 feet of rain since Saturday, prompting ongoing flood warnings and blackouts, but the premier said weather conditions had been “really kind” in recent hours.

Further north in the state, power outages and damaged roads have made it difficult to assess the full extent of the destruction. Footage published in local media showed long lines at the town's supermarket as people waited for critical supplies.

Queensland Premier David Crisafulli said the recovery effort would "take some time" and that the priority in the coming hours would be to work with the army to get power generators to isolated communities and “bring them back online.”

Prof. Heron at James Cook University urged politicians to consider more extreme weather events as they planned recovery and rebuilding efforts. It would be “wasting public money” if infrastructure planning did not "incorporate changing threats due to climate change," he said.

German hunters tried to persuade the jury at a national stag-calling championship their deer bellow was the most realistic.

The tradition goes back hundreds of years and was initially aimed at feigning a stag’s rival during the rutting season so the deer comes out. The trick gave hunters a chance to better assess the stag before deciding whether to shoot it.

The competition took place in Dortmund. There were no animals, only bellowing men wearing traditional hunters’ garb. They used specially made ox horns, triton snail shells, glass cylinders, the hollow stems of the giant hogweed, and artificially produced instruments to amplify the sound and resonance.

The hunters were asked to compete in three disciplines: the call of the old, searching stag, the call of the dominant male in a pack of does, and the calling duel between two equally strong stags at the height of the rut. The jury listened with closed eyes to make sure nothing would distract them from the sound.

“The stag calling for me, it’s the fascinating thing to play with the stags,” said Fabian Wenzel, who won the championship. “And maybe shoot an old stag after calling him — that’s the biggest thing for every hunter.”

Wenzel, a hunter from the small village of Nüdlingen in Bavaria, won the title for the fifth time in a row and will participate in the European Stag Calling Championships, which will take place in Lithuania in October.