WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House on Monday said it was reviewing a response by the Islamist Hamas militant group to a ceasefire and hostage release proposal, as it continued to press Israel to halt plans for a ground invasion of Rafah.

Hamas earlier said in a brief statement that its chief, Ismail Haniyeh, had informed Qatari and Egyptian mediators that the group accepted their proposal for a ceasefire.

CIA Director Williams Burns was in the region having discussions on the proposal, White House spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. He declined to provide any details, saying he did not want to jeopardize any progress toward a deal.

“We want to get these hostages out, we want to get a ceasefire in place for six weeks, we want to increase humanitarian assistance,” Kirby said, adding that reaching an agreement would be the “absolute best outcome.”

(Reporting by Steve Holland; writing by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Chris Reese and Cynthia Osterman)

By Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -A U.S. soldier has been detained in Russia on charges of criminal misconduct, the U.S. Army said on Monday, that country’s latest high-profile detention of an American.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the soldier had been based in South Korea. Another U.S. official said the soldier was accused of stealing from a woman.

The Army did not offer details on the charges, citing the sensitivity of the matter. It said Moscow notified the U.S. State Department of the soldier’s criminal detention in accordance with the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations.

“On May, 2, 2024, Russian authorities in Vladivostok, Russia, detained an American soldier on charges of criminal misconduct,” the Army said.

The soldier’s arrest was first reported by NBC News.

Russia’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The Russian daily Izvestia, quoting an unnamed source, said the South Korea-based Army sergeant met a woman from Russia’s far eastern port of Vladivostok on the Internet.

Izvestia said the couple lived together for a time. But he beat her and stole 200,000 roubles ($2,200) from her.

President Joe Biden’s administration has been lobbying Moscow to release multiple Americans, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

Gershkovich, 32, became the first U.S. journalist arrested on spying charges in Russia since the Cold War when he was detained by the Federal Security Service (FSB) on March 29 last year. He, his newspaper and the U.S. government all deny he is a spy.

Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, an American convicted of spying against Russia and sentenced to 16 years in 2020, have both been designated by the U.S. State Department as “wrongfully detained”, meaning Washington considers the charges against them bogus and is committed to working for their release.

Asked about the soldier’s detention, a U.S. State Department spokesperson confirmed only that “a U.S. citizen has been detained in Russia.”

“We reiterate our strong warnings about the danger posed to U.S. citizens inside the Russian Federation. U.S. citizens residing or traveling in Russia should depart immediately, as stated in our Travel Advisory for Russia,” the State Department spokesperson said.

“Due to privacy and other considerations we have no further details to provide at this time.”

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; additional reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Doina Chiacu and Ron Popeski; Editing by Chris Reese, Franklin Paul and David Gregorio)

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Polish prosecutors opened an investigation Monday after a Polish judge fled to the autocratic state of Belarus and asked for protection there.

The National Prosecutor’s Office said it is looking into suspicions the judge had acted on behalf of a foreign intelligence service. The Internal Security Agency began a separate probe into the scope of classified information the judge had access to.

Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski described the judge as a traitor and said the case was shocking.

According to Belarus state media, Judge Tomasz Szmydt told journalists in Minsk, the Belarusian capital, that he was forced to leave Poland, a country belonging to NATO and the European Union, due to disagreements with the current authorities.

The pro-European Union government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk took power in December vowing to restore democratic norms after eight years of rule by the right-wing Law and Justice party.

Law and Justice, in power from 2015 to 2023, carried out a series of changes to the judicial system that gave the party more power over the courts and judicial bodies, eroding the democratic separation of powers. That led to a dispute with the EU — one that the bloc only closed on Monday.

Szmydt, a judge at the provincial administrative court in Warsaw, gained notoriety in 2019 when he and his then wife engaged in an online smear campaign against judges critical of the judicial changes made by Law and Justice.

He had worked in the department of classified information and ruled on various cases related to the granting of security clearances, Justice Minster Adam Bodnar said in an evening interview on private broadcaster TVN24.

“We don’t know what information he had,” Bodnar said.

In a letter he had sent to the president of the Supreme Administrative Court in Warsaw, Szmydt announced that he was resigning his post in protest “against the unfair and harmful policy pursued by the authorities of the Republic of Poland towards the Republic of Belarus and the Russian Federation.”

The letter was posted on the X social media platform in an account under the name “Szmydt Tomasz.” The profile only began publishing messages Monday, and it was not clear if the judge controlled the profile.

In a separate post, the account accused Polish authorities, who are strongly pro-Ukraine and pro-U.S., of “leading the country to war” — a message that was then highlighted by Belarus’ state news agency, Belta.

Szmydt reportedly appealed in Minsk to Belarus’ longtime leader, Alexander Lukashenko, for protection, saying he considers Belarus a “country with great potential” led by a “very wise leader” and a place where “you can live peacefully.”

The episode comes as Western leaders express fears of hacking and other forms of hybrid warfare from Russia.

Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic said they have been targeted in hacking attacks. Germany said Monday it recalled its ambassador to Russia for a week of consultations in Berlin, and the Czech Foreign Ministry summoned Russia’s ambassador over the attacks.

After the news of Szmydt’s flight broke, Sikorski, the foreign minister, said: “We’ve had a traitor before, it seems to be a similar case.”

In 2021, a Polish soldier, Emil Czeczko, fled to Belarus seeking asylum. The following year, Belarusian authorities announced that he had been found dead after he apparently hanged himself in his home in Minsk.

PARIS (AP) — How do you smooth over trade tensions with the all-powerful leader of economic powerhouse China? Charm him with a bottle of Cognac, or two.

That seemed to be French President Emmanuel Macron’s strategy with his carefully selected gift list for visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping on Monday.

China recently opened an anti-dumping investigation into European brandy — which mainly means French Cognac. It’s seen as retaliation for EU investigations into Chinese subsidies for electric cars and medical devices.

Those disputes were central to talks between Xi and Macron on Monday. Macron said afterward that he thanked Xi for his “openness about the provisional measures toward French Cognac.”

According to the protocol of formal state visits, the two leaders then exchanged gifts.

Xi presented the French president with a striking stuffed bird, French-language books published in China, and a painting. Macron offered rare volumes by Victor Hugo, the first French-Chinese dictionary, a sculpted glass vase from Amboise — and two bottles of Cognac, a Hennessy X.O. and a prized Louis XIII by Remy Martin.

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan formally opened a former Byzantine church in Istanbul as a mosque on Monday, four years after his government had designated it a Muslim house of prayer, despite criticism from neighboring Greece.

Turkey formally converted The Church of St. Saviour in Chora, known as Kariye in Turkish, into a mosque in 2020, soon after it similarly turned Istanbul’s landmark Haghia Sophia into a Muslim house of prayer.

Both conversions drew praise from Muslim faithful but criticism from Greece and other countries who had urged Turkey to protect the important Byzantine-era monuments. Both are listed as U.N. World Heritage Sites.

Like Haghia Sophia, which was a church for centuries and then a mosque for centuries more, the Chora had operated as a museum for decades before it was ordered turned into a mosque. The Chora’s formal launch as a mosque, however, was delayed as the structure then underwent restoration.

Erdogan on Monday remotely presided over a ceremony marking the opening of the Chora — as well as other recently-restored structures — from a conference hall at his palace complex in Ankara.

“May it bring good fortune,” Erdogan said during the televised event.

Musa Tombul was among the first worshippers to pray inside.

“I have been waiting for its opening for four years,” he told the state-run Anadolu Agency. “I was honored to pray in such a place.”

“We thank God for showing us these days,” Anadolu quoted another worshiper, Haydar Senbahar, as saying. “Hopefully, we will come here from time to time and perform our prayers.”

The church, situated near Istanbul’s ancient city walls, is famed for its elaborate mosaics and frescoes. It dates to the fourth century, although the edifice took on its current form in the 11th-12th centuries.

The structure served as a mosque during Ottoman rule before being transformed into a museum in 1945.

Greece had criticized the Turkish government’s decision to turn it back into a mosque, accusing Ankara of “insulting the character” of another World Heritage Site.

The decisions to transform Haghia Sophia and the Chora back into mosques were seen as moves geared to consolidate the conservative and religious support base of Erdogan’s ruling party amid an economic downturn.

In 2020, Erdogan joined hundreds of worshipers for the first Muslim prayers in Hagia Sophia in 86 years, brushing aside international criticism and calls for the monument to be kept as a museum. As many as 350,000 took part in the prayers outside the structure.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Two Australians and an American were doing what they loved on the stunning, largely isolated stretch of Baja California’s Pacific coast. Their last images on social media showed them sitting and gazing at the waves, contemplating the breaks.

What happened to end their lives may have been as random as a passing pickup truck full of people with ill intent. The surfers were shot in the head, their bodies dumped in a covered well miles away. How it unfolded was the stuff of nightmares.

Brothers Jake and Callum Robinson from Australia and American Jack Carter Rhoad had apparently stopped to surf the breaks at Punta San José, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Ensenada. They were attacked there on April 28 or 29.

As soon as police arrived at their last known camp site, it was clear that something had gone violently wrong.

There were bloodstains and marks “as if heavy objects had been dragged,” leading to suspicions of an attack, the Baja California state prosecutor’s office said in an attempt to reconstruct the scene.

Chief state prosecutor María Elena Andrade Ramírez told a press conference on Sunday that the killers apparently drove by, saw the foreigners’ pickup truck and wanted to steal its tires and other parts.

Such was the banality of evil, she said, that “they were not attacked because they were tourists. … The evidence suggests they (the killers) did not know where they were from.”

The foreigners surely resisted, she said. “And these people, the assailants, took out a gun, and first they killed the one who was putting up resistance against the vehicle theft, and then the other two came along and joined the fight to defend their property and their companion who had been attacked, and they killed them too.”

Andrade Ramírez said the reconstruction of events was based on the forensic examiner’s reports, noting all three had bullet wounds to the head.

There was a hurried attempt to destroy evidence. The foreigners’ tents were apparently burned. The pickup truck was driven miles away and burned. The assailants’ truck was later found with a gun inside.

Then, at “a site that is extremely hard to get to,” the bodies were dumped into a well about 4 miles (6 kilometers) away. Investigators were surprised when, underneath the bodies of the three foreigners, a fourth body was found that had been there much longer.

“They had to have previous knowledge of it,” Andrade Ramírez said of the attackers, acknowledging the possibility they were behind the previous killing.

The well had been covered with boards. “It was literally almost impossible to find it,” Andrade Ramírez said. It took two hours to winch the bodies out.

Prosecutors have said they were questioning three people in the killings. Two were caught with methamphetamines. One of them, a woman, had one of the victims’ cellphones when she was caught. Prosecutors said the two were being held pending drug charges but continue to be suspects in the killings.

A third man was arrested on charges of a crime equivalent to kidnapping, but that was before the bodies were found. It was unclear if he might face more charges.

The third man was believed to have directly participated in the killings. In keeping with Mexican law, prosecutors identified him by his first name, Jesús Gerardo, alias “el Kekas,” a slang word that means quesadillas, or cheese tortillas.

Andrade Ramírez said he had a criminal record that included drug dealing, vehicle theft and domestic violence, adding, “We are certain that more people were involved.”

She emphasized that she could not discuss anything related to the suspects, or their possible statements, because that was not allowed under Mexican law and might prejudice the case against them.

Andrade Ramírez noted that the victims’ families said the brothers and Rhoad had come many times to the seaside spot and never had any problem. This time, however, “there was no way to ask for help when the attackers showed up.”

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that his war cabinet approved continuing an operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah in order to pressure Hamas to release Israeli hostages and achieve the country’s other war goals.

“The war cabinet unanimously decided that Israel continue the operation in Rafah to exert military pressure on Hamas in order to advance the release of our hostages and the other goals of the war,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement.

“In parallel, even though the Hamas proposal is far from Israel’s necessary demands, Israel will send a working delegation to the mediators in order to exhaust the possibility of reaching an agreement under conditions acceptable to Israel,” it said.

(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Leslie Adler and Cynthia Osterman)

(Reuters) -Palestinian Islamist group Hamas said on Monday it had agreed to a three-phased deal for a ceasefire and hostages-for-prisoners swap, although an Israeli official said the deal was not acceptable to Israel because terms had been “softened”.

The United States, which alongside Qatar and Egypt has played a mediation role in the talks, said it was studying the Hamas response and would discuss it with Middle East allies.

Based on details announced so far by Hamas officials and an official briefed on the talks, the deal that the Palestinian group said it had agreed to included the following:

PHASE ONE

– 42-day ceasefire period

– Hamas releases 33 Israeli hostages in return for Israel releasing Palestinians from Israeli jails.

– Israel partially withdraws troops from Gaza and allows free movement of Palestinians from south to north Gaza.

PHASE TWO

– Another 42-day period that features an agreement to restore a “sustainable calm” to Gaza, language that an official briefed on the talks said Hamas and Israel had agreed in order to take discussion of a “permanent ceasefire” off the table.

– The complete withdrawal of most Israeli troops from Gaza.

– Hamas releases Israeli reservists and some soldiers in return for Israel releasing Palestinians from jail.

PHASE THREE

– The completion of exchanging bodies and starting the implementation of reconstruction according to the plan overseen by Qatar, Egypt and the United Nations.

– Ending the complete blockade on the Gaza Strip.

(Reporting by Andrew Mills in Doha and Nafisa Eltahir and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo; Editing by Edmund Blair and Josie Kao)

BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil’s former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro is traveling to Sao Paulo on Monday for treatment of an intestinal obstruction and a bout of erysipelas, a bacterial skin infection, his lawyer Fabio Wajngarten said on social media.

The former president, who was admitted to a hospital in the Amazonian northwestern city of Manaus during the weekend, will undergo treatment with antibiotics in the hospital in Brazil’s largest city.

Bolsonaro, who was stabbed in the abdomen during a presidential campaign event in 2018, has already been hospitalized several times for intestinal problems caused by the attack.

He also had the same skin infection in November 2022, after losing to current leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in that year’s presidential election.

An electoral court last year declared Bolsonaro ineligible for public office until 2030 for abusing his presidential powers to undermine trust in Brazil’s electoral system. He is still the target of investigations, such as one into an alleged coup d’etat conspiracy.

(Reporting by Maria Carolina Marcello; Writing by Steven Grattan; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)