Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

Israeli Government Press Office The Israeli prime minister said “we have gone back to fighting” Israel has “resumed combat in full force” against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday night. In a defiant video statement, he warned that “negotiations will continue only under fire” and that “this is just…

Nasa astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have splashed down near Tallahassee, Florida after nine months at the International Space Station. They splashed down with Nasa astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov. Williams and Wilmore were in space for 286 days after technical issues on the Boeing spacecraft that was meant to return…

A young South African girl who disappeared last year aged six was allegedly sought by a traditional healer for her eyes and fair complexion, a court has heard. This is among the allegations that have emerged at the ongoing trial of Joshlin Smith’s mother, Kelly Smith, who has been accused of orchestrating her kidnapping. Ms…

Poland and the Baltic states have announced plans to withdraw from a key international treaty banning anti-personnel landmines, citing the rising threat from Russia. In a joint statement, the defence ministers of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland said that since signing the Ottawa Treaty, threats from Moscow and its ally Belarus have “significantly increased”. It…

Crowley Some of the 23-strong crew of the Stena Immaculate oil tanker, which was in collision with the Solong cargo ship in the North Sea The co-owners of a tanker involved in a collision with a cargo ship in the North Sea have released the first picture of some of the crew and praised their…

Israeli fighter jets unleashed a wave of bombardment across the Gaza Strip through the night, ripping into a fragile truce that has mostly held since it came into effect in January. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu overnight laid the blame at Hamas’s door for the renewal of his deadly aerial campaign. The Israeli leader’s statement said…

Reuters Mourners on Tuesday crying over the bodies of those killed in Monday night’s airstrikes at Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir Al-Balah It had started as a normal night in Gaza, with people up already having their pre-dawn meal in the holy month of Ramadan. After 50 nights of ceasefire, life in the territory had…

German lawmakers have voted to allow a huge increase in defence and infrastructure spending – a seismic shift for the country that could reshape European defence. A two-thirds majority of Bundestag parliamentarians, required for the change, approved the vote on Tuesday. The law will exempt spending on defence and security from Germany’s strict debt rules,…

Ian Youngs Culture reporter Getty Images Award-winning Belgian actress Émilie Dequenne has died from cancer at the age of 43. Dequenne shot to fame when she won the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival at the age of 18 for the film Rosetta in 1999. She won another Cannes award for À Perdre…

Lithuanian prosecutors say Russia’s military intelligence service GRU was behind an arson attack on an Ikea furniture store in the Baltic state’s capital Vilnius last year. Two Ukrainian suspects have been arrested – one in Lithuania, the other in Poland – over the attack, which prosecutor Arturas Urbelis called “an act of terrorism”. He said…