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The top U.S. diplomat met Saudi Arabia's de-facto ruler on Monday during a Middle East visit Palestinians hope will clinch a truce before a threatened Israeli assault on Rafah, a border city where about half the Gaza Strip population is sheltering.

Justice Amanda Yip lifted the reporting restrictions on naming the killers of 16-year-old Brianna Ghey. They were identified at Manchester Crown Court as Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe.

The horrific murder shocked the nation. Ghey was stabbed with a hunting knife 28 times in her head, neck, chest and back in broad daylight after being lured to a park in the town of Warrington on Feb. 11, 2023.

Yip handed Ratcliffe and Jenkinson a mandatory life sentence, and ordered them to serve a minimum term of 20 and 22 years, respectively, before they could be eligible for parole. If they had been adults — over the age of 18 — they would have faced much longer minimum terms. They will be transferred to adult prisons when they turn 18. Neither showed no visible reaction on being sentenced.

But let’s focus on the choice of a 2% target. After the high inflation of the late 1970s and early 1980s, when it reached over 20% in the UK, central banks were left scrambling to find some new theoretical model to deal with rising prices. The first central bank to propose an inflation target of 2% was in New Zealand. But where did they get it from? Apparently, from thin air.

Recently, I came across this one story that suggested the choice of 2% was the result of an off the cuff remark by then New Zealand finance minister, during a TV interview, who told reporters he would be happy with an inflation between 0% and 1%. This led the governor of the central bank at the time, Don Brash, to factor in an inflation bias of roughly 1% to arrive at the magical number of 2%. Michael Reddell, a colleague of Brash’s at the time at the Reserve Bank, admitted: “It wasn’t ruthlessly scientific.” Brash himself admitted as much: “It was almost a chance remark. The figure was plucked out of the air to influence the public’s expectations.”

Earlier this month, Mr Bopda and his acquaintances were accused by a popular activist of committing a number of crimes against roughly 200 victims.

Dozens of social media users have subsequently posted fresh allegations of sexual and physical abuse, many using the hashtag #stopbopda.

Mr Bopda, known for his jet-setting lifestyle, has denied all wrongdoing.

On Wednesday, after Mr Bopda was arrested, his lawyer said the accusations were "scandalous".

In the chaos caused by the ongoing fighting and with entire families almost wiped out, medics and rescuers often struggle to find carers for bereaved children.

"We have lost contact with her family," the nurse tells us. "None of her relatives have shown up and we don't know what happened to her father."

Children, who make up nearly half of Gaza's population of 2.3 million, have had their lives shattered by the brutal war.

Although Israel says it strives to avoid civilian casualties, including issuing evacuation orders, more than 11,500 under-18s have been killed according to Palestinian health officials. Even more have injuries, many of them life-changing.

It is hard to get accurate figures but according to a recent report from Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, a non-profit group, more than 24,000 children have also lost one or both parents.

The allegations against staffers with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees prompted Western countries to freeze funds vital for the body, which is a lifeline for desperate Palestinians in Gaza. The U.N. fired nine of the 12 accused workers and condemned “the abhorrent alleged acts” of staff members.

The accusations come after years of tensions between Israel and the agency known as UNRWA over its work in Gaza, where it employs roughly 13,000 people.

Despite the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in the besieged territory — where Israel’s war against Hamas has displaced the vast majority of the population and officials say a quarter of Palestinians are starving — major donors, including the U.S. and Britain, have cut funding. On Monday, Japan and Austria joined them in pausing assistance.

It's here that Australia's most successful hip-hop act is finalising their new single.

The question I've asked J Emz - does OneFour have gang links? - has long stalked the group.

To fans, the rappers are pioneers: five Sāmoan-Australians from one of Sydney's poorest postcodes who have used their explosive sound to give voice to millions of marginalised young people.

But to police, OneFour is a threat to community safety, to be managed and contained.

For years, they have blocked the group from performing at home by arguing their music incites violence - triggering a complex debate about art and censorship.

The European Central Bank (ECB) will need to see proof of slowing wage growth in the euro zone before interest rates can be lowered, ECB governing council member Klaas Knot said on Sunday.

"We now have a credible prospect that inflation will return to 2% in 2025. The only piece that's missing is the conviction that wage growth will adapt to that lower inflation", the Dutch central bank governor said in an interview with Dutch TV program Buitenhof.

"As soon as that piece of the puzzle falls in place, we will be able to lower interest rates a bit."

Taiwan has been able to effectively respond to Chinese disinformation in part because of how seriously the threat is perceived there, according to Kenton Thibaut, a senior resident fellow and expert on Chinese disinformation at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab. Instead of a piecemeal approach — focusing solely on media literacy, for instance, or relying only on the government to fact-check false rumors — Taiwan adopted a multifaceted approach, what Thibaut called a “whole of society response” that relied on government, independent fact-check groups and even private citizens to call out disinformation and propaganda.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Alexander Tah-Ray Yui, Taipei’s economic and cultural representative to the U.S., said the government has learned it must identify and debunk false information as quickly as possible in order to counter false narratives. Yui is Taiwan’s de facto ambassador to the U.S.

“Find it early, like a tumor or cancer. Cut it before it spreads,” Yui said of foreign disinformation.

Boris Nadezhdin has become a dilemma for the Kremlin as he seeks to run in the March 17 presidential election. The question now is whether Russian authorities will allow him on the ballot.

The stocky, bespectacled 60-year-old local legislator and academic has struck a chord with the public, openly calling for a halt to the conflict in Ukraine, the end of mobilizing Russian men for the military, and starting a dialogue with the West. He also has criticized the country’s repression of LGBTQ+ activism.

“The collection of signatures has gone unexpectedly well for us,” Nadezhdin told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday in Moscow. “We didn’t expect this, to be honest.”

An independent Palestinian photojournalist whose social media coverage of the war in Gaza gave millions of people around the world a view of life and death in the besieged territory, has evacuated after surviving 108 days of reporting amid relentless bombings and battles.

Motaz Azaiza covered Israel's destructive bombardments of the Palestinian territory since Israel declared war against Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 militant attacks on Israeli communities.

In a video posted on his social media accounts Tuesday, Azaiza told his nearly 20 million followers he was laying down his blue "Press" flak jacket — for now. His caption read that he had to leave Gaza "for a lot of reasons," but he did not explain further.

"I'm sorry but, inshallah (God willing), hopefully soon I will come back … and help build Gaza again," he said in the video before sharing farewells with friends and colleagues surrounding him.

Shell said Tuesday it agreed to sell its onshore business in Nigeria’s Niger Delta to a consortium of companies in a deal worth $2.4 billion, the latest move by the energy company to limit its exposure in the West African nation amid long-running complaints of environmental pollution caused by the oil industry.

Shell called it a way to streamline its business in a country it has operated in for decades, facing pushback about oil spills that have fouled rivers and farms and exacerbated tensions in a region that has faced years of militant violence.

“This agreement marks an important milestone for Shell in Nigeria, aligning with our previously announced intent to exit onshore oil production in the Niger Delta,” Zoe Yujnovich, Shell’s integrated gas and upstream director, said in a statement. This will help in “simplifying our portfolio and focusing future disciplined investment in Nigeria on our deepwater and integrated gas position.”

The buying consortium is Renaissance, which consists of ND Western, Aradel Energy, First E&P, Waltersmith and Petrolin, Shell said. After an initial payment of $1.3 billion, the London-based energy giant said it would receive an additional $1.1 billion.