28 July 2023; MEMO: Qatar will provide Ukraine with $100 million in humanitarian aid to support health, education and demining, Ukrainian Prime Minister, Denys Shmyhal, said on Friday after talks with the Gulf State's Prime Minister, Reuters reports.

Qatar had earlier, on Friday, announced that Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, who also serves as Foreign Minister, was visiting Ukraine.

27 July 2023; MEMO: Four leading Pakistani oil companies will join hands with Saudi Arabia's state-owned Aramco for a $10 billion Greenfield refinery project at Pakistan's strategic Gwadar Port, Anadolu Agency reports.

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Pakistani and the Saudi companies in the capital, Islamabad, on Thursday, said a statement from the Ministry of Petroleum.

28 July 2023; MEMO: Expressing concern over the deteriorating situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, China has called for an end to "the cycle of violence" in Palestine, state media reported, Anadolu Agency reports.

CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y. (AP) — For a single, unthinkable moment last summer, the Chautauqua Institution was a hostile place for the freedom of expression that has been its hallmark for 150 years: As Salman Rushdie was about to speak, an audience member leapt onto the stage and stabbed the celebrated author more than a dozen times.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas is temporarily blocked from enforcing a law that would have allowed criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing “harmful” materials to minors, a federal judge ruled Saturday.

U.S. District Judge Timothy L. Brooks issued a preliminary injunction against the law, which also would have created a new process to challenge library materials and request that they be relocated to areas not accessible by kids. The measure, signed by Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders earlier this year, was set to take effect Aug. 1.

VATICAN CITY, July 30 (Reuters) - Pope Francis on Sunday called on Russia to reverse its decision to abandon the Black Sea grain deal, under which it had allowed Ukraine to export grain from its seaports despite the ongoing war.

Russia walked out of the Black Sea deal on July 17 after saying its demands to ease sanctions on its own grain and fertilizer exports had not been met. Moscow also complained that not enough grain had reached poor countries.

July 30 (Reuters) - Ukraine is to start consultations with the United States this week on providing security guarantees for Kyiv pending the completion of the process of joining NATO, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's chief of staff said on Sunday.

Andriy Yermak, writing on the Telegram messaging app, also said officials from a number of countries were preparing to meet in Saudi Arabia to discuss Zelenskiy's peace plan for Ukraine, based on the departure of all Russian troops.

NEW YORK (AP) — At a moment of growing legal peril, Donald Trump ramped up his calls for his GOP rivals to drop out of the 2024 presidential race as he threatened to go after Republican members of Congress who fail to focus on investigating Democratic President Joe Biden.

Trump also urged a halt to Ukrainian military aid until the White House cooperates with congressional investigations into Biden and his family.

DENVER (AP) — As Denver neared triple-digit temperatures, Ben Gallegos sat shirtless on his porch swatting flies off his legs and spritzing himself with a misting fan to try to get through the heat. Gallegos, like many in the nation’s poorest neighborhoods, doesn’t have air conditioning.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The cosmos is offering up a double feature in August: a pair of supermoons culminating in a rare blue moon.

Catch the first show Tuesday evening as the full moon rises in the southeast, appearing slightly brighter and bigger than normal. That’s because it will be closer than usual, just 222,159 miles (357,530 kilometers) away, thus the supermoon label.

The moon will be even closer the night of Aug. 30 — a scant 222,043 miles (357,344 kilometers) distant. Because it’s the second full moon in the same month, it will be what’s called a blue moon.

July 30 (Reuters) - A giant, glowing X marks the San Francisco spot where Elon Musk says he plans to keep his company, the messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter. But city officials and some residents are unhappy with the display.

On Friday, the company erected an "X" logo on the roof of its Market Street headquarters, to the chagrin of neighbors who complained about intrusive lights, and San Francisco's Department of Building Inspection which said it is investigating the structure.

HELSINKI (AP) — Denmark’s foreign minister said Sunday the government will seek to make it illegal to desecrate the Quran or other religious holy books in front of foreign embassies in the Nordic country.

Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said in an interview with the Danish public broadcaster DR that the burning of holy scriptures “only serves the purpose of creating division in a world that actually needs unity.”