World
Israel’s Netanyahu set for talks with Trump in Washington, DC

US media reports citing unnamed US and Israeli officials say the meeting would take place at the White House on Monday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Washington, DC for talks with US President Donald Trump on a range of issues, including tariffs and Iran, Netanyahu’s office announced.
The agenda for the trip will include Turkiye-Israel relations, “the Iranian threat”, Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza, tariffs and the “fight against the International Criminal Court,” the Israeli prime minister’s office said on Saturday.
US media reports citing unnamed US and Israeli officials said the meeting would take place at the White House on Monday.
Trump’s invitation came after a phone call on Thursday between the two leaders. Netanyahu raised the issue of tariffs during the conversation. Israel faces a 17-percent tariff under Trump’s so-called “reciprocal tariffs”.
Israel recently moved to cancel remaining tariffs on US imports. The two countries’ free trade agreement, signed four decades ago, ensures that about 98 percent of US goods enter Israel tax-free.
Netanyahu is currently visiting Hungary on his first trip to Europe since 2023 in defiance of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrant against him for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
Hungary’s government announced its withdrawal from the ICC just before Prime Minister Viktor Orban welcomed his Israeli counterpart. The United States is not a member of the court.
Also on the agenda will be stalled efforts to reach a new agreement on a Gaza ceasefire deal and the return of Israeli captives held by Palestinian groups there. Israel renewed its attacks on Gaza last month, shattering a short-lived truce with the Palestinian group Hamas.
Trump also has pressed Iran to enter talks on a new deal regarding its nuclear programme. Iran has said it would be willing to hold indirect talks.
Western countries, led by the US, have, for decades, accused Tehran of seeking nuclear weapons. Iran rejects these allegations and maintains that its nuclear activities exist solely for civilian purposes.

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Crews restore power to nearly all customers after island-wide blackout hit Puerto Rico

Power was restored to more than 98% of customers Friday after an island-wide blackout hit Puerto Rico earlier this week, authorities said.
More than 1.45 million customers had electricity less than 48 hours after the outage hit, according to Luma Energy, which oversees the transmission and distribution of power on the island.
PUERTO RICO NO LONGER SAFE BET FOR ILLEGAL MIGRANTS AS TRUMP CRACKDOWN EXPANDS TO US TERRITORY
Luma warned that “some customers may continue to experience temporary outages due to limited generation.”
Gov. Jenniffer González said that all those affected by the blackout had power restored, and that the more than 21,400 customers without electricity on Friday was a result of other unidentified issues.
Nurys Perez moves a generator into place to power her beauty salon during a blackout in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Thursday, April 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Alejandro Granadillo)
“Obviously, Luma still has work to do,” she said. “It is a shame for our people … that we have such an insufficient, mediocre system.”
Normally, a couple thousand customers are temporarily without power every week in Puerto Rico for various reasons.
González noted that more than 98% of customers also had water.
“We have overcome, thank God, a great crisis this week,” she said.
The blackout that hit Wednesday afternoon occurred after a transmission line failed and then caused generators across the island to protectively shut down, officials have said. It also left more than 400,000 customers without water at the time.
It wasn’t immediately clear what caused the failure, although authorities are investigating whether a series of breakers failed or if overgrown vegetation is to blame.
González said she expected to receive a preliminary report in upcoming days.
It’s the second massive blackout to hit Puerto Rico in less than four months. The previous one happened on New Year’s Eve.
World
Iran seeks Russian support ahead of nuclear deal talks with US

Iran is seeking support from Russia over a possible deal with the United States over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear programme, ahead of a second round of talks this weekend in Rome.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said he briefed his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, about the first round of talks in Oman last week.
He praised Russia’s role in the landmark 2015 nuclear deal with world powers that led to lifting of sanctions in return for Tehran’s cap on its nuclear activities.
“We are hopeful and we expect Russia to continue its supportive role in any new agreement,” Araghchi said in a joint news conference with Lavrov in Moscow.
The 2015 nuclear deal collapsed with Trump’s unilateral withdrawal in 2018, while Iran abandoned all limits on its nuclear activities and enriches uranium to up to 60% purity, near the weapons-grade levels of 90%.
Lavrov said Russia was ready to mediate and assist in the nuclear talks.
“We are ready to help, mediate and play any role that, from Iran’s point of view, will be useful and that will be acceptable to the United States,” Lavrov said.
“We proceed from the fact that the only option for an agreement, as the (Iranian) minister just said, is an agreement exclusively on nuclear issues.”
Lavrov said Araghchi met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday in talks that “emphasised the unprecedented dynamics of (the) political dialogue” between Moscow and Tehran.
He did not give details, beyond saying Putin was “very pleased” with the talks.
Araghchi said he gave Putin a message from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has a final say on all state matters in Iran but gave no further details.
In Paris, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed the hope that talks with Iran would be “fruitful and that they can lead to something. We would all prefer a peaceful resolution and a lasting one.”
Rubio met with British, French and German officials and pressed them to maintain sanctions on Iran instead of allowing them to expire.
“We should all anticipate, based on the public comments yesterday, that they’re about to get a report from the IAEA that says not just is Iran out of compliance, but Iran is dangerously close to a weapon, closer than they’ve ever been,” Rubio said.
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