WikiLeaks founder Assange freed in US plea deal

• Assange, who from 2010 published hundreds of thousands of secret US documents as head of the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, was freed Monday from a high-security British prison
• The judge on Wednesday sentenced him to five years and two months in prison - with credit for the same amount of time he spent behind bars in Britain

Israel PM says ‘intense’ phase of Gaza war winding down

• The right-wing premier spoke in a TV interview on Sunday as Defence Minister Yoav Gallant travelled to Washington for what Gallant called "critical" talks with Israel's top ally
• With fears growing of full-scale war in Lebanon, Netanyahu said Israel would return its displaced citizens to their evacuated northern border communities

Dubai to build $8 bn stormwater runoff system after record floods

• The rainwater drainage network announced by Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum is set to be completed by 2033 with construction to start in 2033.
• "It will cover all areas of Dubai and will absorb more than 20 million cubic meters of water per day," Sheikh Mohammed said of the plan for Dubai.

UAE energy giant ADNOC offers $12.8bn for Germany’s Covestro

• It said the "starting point" for talks was a "possible offer price" of 62 euros per share from ADNOC. This would value Covestro at $12.57 billion.
• ADNOC welcomed Covestro's decision to start talks on its "final offer", adding that it looked forward to working with the German group to "swiftly progress" the matter.

Apple holds talks with rival Meta

Lebanon Transport minister denies Hezbollah weapons at Beirut Airport

• Hamieh invited ambassadors and journalists to inspect the airport on Monday morning
• Cross-border exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel have escalated over the past two weeks

Beyond Nvidia: the search for AI’s next breakthrough

• Nvidia, which makes the processors that are the only option to train generative AI's large language models, is now Big Tech's newest member.
• Even tech's second rung on Wall Street has ridden on Nvidia's coattails with Oracle, Broadcom, HP and others seeing their stock valuations surge, despite sometimes shaky earnings.

Israeli forces tie wounded Palestinian to jeep in West Bank raid

• Medics identified the Palestinian as Mujahid Raed Abbadi, 24, who told AFP he lives in the Jenin refugee camp.
• Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories, suggested the troops were using Abbadi to shield themselves from gunfire.

Egypt to prosecute travel agents over hajj ‘fraud’: government

• The order came after countries whose citizens performed this year's hajj reported more than 1,100 deaths, many attributed to the oven-like summer heat in Saudi Arabia
• An AFP tally on Friday, compiling official statements and reports from diplomats involved in the response, put the toll at 1,126, more than half of them from Egypt

Gaza health officials say 24 killed in Israeli strikes

• The Gaza City strikes added to at least 120 deaths over the previous 48 hours which the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza reported earlier Saturday
• Exchanges of fire across the Lebanese border between Israel and the powerful Iran-backed group Hezbollah have also escalated, raising fears of wider war