The Sudanese army said on Friday that it has sent representatives to Jeddah to meet with the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group for cease-fire talks mediated by Saudi Arabia.
Why it matters: It will be the first time representatives of the two warring generals will hold direct talks since the recent fighting began.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić promised Friday to pursue an "almost complete disarming of Serbia" after two mass shootings in 48 hours left a combined 17 people dead.
The big picture: Serbia has one of the world's highest rates of gun ownershi, due in part to the Balkan Wars of the 1990s, but mass shootings had been very rare before this week.
COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency, World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared Friday.
The big picture: It's been more than three years since the WHO first declared the coronavirus outbreak a public health emergency of international concern — the global body's highest alert level. Since then, there have been more than 765 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and nearly 7 million people have died of the virus.
A drive-by shooting in Serbia late Thursday left at least eight people dead and 10 others wounded, state media report.
The big picture: The attack near the town of Mladenovac, south of the Serbian capital, Belgrade, was the second mass shooting in two days in a country that the BBC notes has 39.1 firearms per 100 people due to the Balkan wars of the 1990s, but where mass shootings are rare.
Moscow and Kyiv are on high alert as a series of explosions on both sides of the border, including over the Kremlin, herald a new phase of the war.
The big picture: Tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops — equipped with new Western tanks, artillery and training — are preparing for a critical offensive.
U.S. Ambassador to Russia Lynne Tracy visited U.S. citizen Paul Whelan in a remote Russian penal colony on Thursday, according to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.
Why it matters: It marked Tracy's first visit with Whelan, a former Marine who has been jailed in Russia since being arrested by on espionage charges in December 2018. The U.S. has rejected the charges against Whelan and has accused Russia of wrongfully detaining him.
Mexico is debating shortening its workweek from 48 hours to 40, but not everyone is on board.
Driving the news: The Mexican bill made it out of committee last week, and it likely has the votes to pass when the legislative session restarts in September.
Hispanics with disabilities in the U.S. have reached a record employment rate, in part thanks to remote work.
By the numbers: About 35.5% of U.S. Latinos ages 16 to 64 with a disability were employed between April 2022 and March of this year, according to the National Trends in Disability Employment (nTIDE) project from the Kessler Foundation and the University of New Hampshire.
The mental health crisis among Latinos is not letting up, and experts tell Axios it's time for political leaders and others to step up and promote seeking help in a more culturally relevant way.
The big picture: The pandemic exacerbated mental health needs in the U.S., especially among Latinos, whose rates of depression, anxiety and suicide grew.
President Biden on Thursday called the fighting in Sudan between the forces of two rival generals "a betrayal of the Sudanese people’s clear demand for civilian government and a transition to democracy."
The big picture: Biden also signed an executive order authorizing potential sanctions on Sudanese officials involved in "destabilizing the country and undermining the democratic transition."
Russia on Thursday blamed the U.S. for an alleged drone attack on the Kremlin, a claim that National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby dismissed as "ludicrous."
Driving the news: "We don’t even know exactly what happened here," Kirby said Thursday on CNN. "But I can assure you the United States had no role in it whatsoever."
