Axios

Senior U.S., Qatari, Egyptian and Israeli officials will meet on Thursday under intense pressure to reach a breakthrough on the Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.

Why it matters: The summit in Doha, which Israeli officials have said is "the last chance" to get a deal, comes amid intense regional tensions and threats by Iran and Hezbollah to attack Israel in retaliation for the recent assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in Tehran and Beirut.

Iran has targeted roughly a dozen people tied to President Biden and former President Trump, including those in the government and associated with their campaigns, as part of a long-running phishing attack, Google said in a report today.

Why it matters: Until now, no third-party organizations had verified the Trump campaign's claim that it was the target of an Iranian hack.

French prosecutors opened an investigation into a cyber harassment complaint gold medalist boxer Imane Khelif made after she was targeted by online lies and baseless scrutiny of her sex during the Olympic Summer Games.

Why it matters: The Algerian athlete was ensnared in a storm of online hate bolstered by mis- and disinformation over her sex after an early match in which her opponent stopped fighting after just 46 seconds.

Climate change increased the likelihood and severity of record wildfires that devastated Canada, parts of the Amazon and Greece last year, according to a groundbreaking and comprehensive review of global wildfire activity.

Why it matters: Scientists are taking stock of increasingly extreme wildfire seasons and are also examining how reliably they can be predicted.

A surprise Ukrainian offensive is reportedly forcing Russia to pull some troops out of Ukraine to defend a new front line on its own territory.

The big picture: The daring incursion has provided a much-needed morale boost for Ukrainian forces and is yet another instance of Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion spinning out of his control.

The Biden administration on Tuesday approved more than $20 billion major arms sales to Israel, including new F-15 fighter jets and tens of thousands of tank and mortar shells.

Why it matters: Most of the weapons sales are long-term deals and will only be delivered several years from now, but Israeli officials said the announcement send a message to Iran and Hezbollah as they threaten to attack Israel.

President Biden told reporters he expects Iran to hold off on possibly attacking Israel if a Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal is reached in the next few days.

Why it matters: The U.S., Egypt and Qatar called on Israel and Hamas to participate in a final and decisive round of negotiations on Thursday in Doha for a deal to release hostages held by Hamas and establish a ceasefire in Gaza.

1. Venezuela's opposition is calling for mass protests to take place on Saturday from citizens at home and abroad.

• The opposition wants marchers to carry printed-out ballot tallies that its volunteers gathered from 80% of poll sites showing its candidate Edmundo González Urrutia won.
• The regime of Nicolás Maduro, who claims without evidence that he won a third term during the July 28 elections, has carried out mass arrests of protesters and people who helped gather the vote tallies.

2. A chamber of Peru's high court is letting former President Alberto Fujimori off the hook, for the moment, on criminal accusations that his government ordered and carried out forced sterilizations of Indigenous women in the 1990s.

Gymnast Ángel Barajas atop a firefighting truck during a parade in Cúcuta, Colombia, to celebrate his Olympic silver medal. Source: via Noticias Telemundo

Ángel Barajas, the Colombian gymnast who last week became the youngest South American athlete to medal in an Olympic Games, got a super warm welcome when he returned to his hometown of Cúcuta.

State of play: Barajas, 17, won the silver medal in the men's horizontal bar. His victory was Colombia's first Olympic win in gymnastics.

• "I was cycling through so many emotions, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry," he tells Noticias Telemundo about when he realized he had the second best score in the final.