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Russia and the U.S. agreed Tuesday to start working toward ending the war in Ukraine and improving their diplomatic and economic ties, the two countries’ top diplomats said after talks that reflected an extraordinary about-face in U.S. foreign policy under President Donald Trump.

In an interview with The Associated Press after the meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the two sides agreed broadly to pursue three goals: to restore staffing at their respective embassies in Washington and Moscow, to create a high-level team to support Ukraine peace talks and to explore closer relations and economic cooperation.

He stressed, however, that the talks — which were attended by his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, and other senior Russian and U.S. officials — marked the beginning of a conversation, and more work needs to be done.

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Hamas says it has agreed to Israel's request to speed up the release of Israeli hostages, including two men Hamas has held for around a decade.

Hamas said it would give Israel the bodies of four Israeli hostages this Thursday, including the bodies of members of a young family whose case is known prominently throughout Israel. The group also said this Saturday it will release all six living hostages it had committed to freeing by the end of February, including the longest-held hostages.

Hamas is committing to releasing four more bodies of hostages next week.

Pope Francis has "bilateral pneumonia" and continues to receive medical care at a hospital in Rome, the Vatican announced on Tuesday.

"Laboratory tests, chest X-ray, and the Holy Father's clinical condition continue to present a complex picture," the Vatican said on Tuesday. The pope has a "polymicrobial infection" that arose during a recent bout with bronchitis and complicates the pope's treatment, the Vatican added. The detection of pneumonia after chest x-rays requires "further drug therapy."

The 88-year-old Pope is reported to be in "fair" condition, and is said to be eating breakfast, reading the newspapers and even doing some work from the hospital.

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Egypt is developing a plan to rebuild Gaza without forcing Palestinians out of the strip in a counter to President Donald Trump’s proposal to depopulate the territory so the U.S. can take it over.

Egypt’s state-run Al-Ahram newspaper said the proposal calls for establishing “secure areas” within Gaza where Palestinians can live initially while Egyptian and international construction firms remove and rehabilitate the strip’s infrastructure.

Egyptian officials have been discussing the plan with European diplomats as well as with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, according to two Egyptian officials and Arab and Western diplomats. They are also discussing ways to fund the reconstruction, including an international conference on Gaza reconstruction, said one of the Egyptian officials and an Arab diplomat.

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US officials are preparing to hold preliminary negotiations in Riyadh with Russia over Ukraine, as European powers meet in Paris to demand the inclusion of Kyiv and themselves in the talks.

A meeting is expected as soon as Tuesday between the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio. European leaders fear Russia will use the talks to demand Ukrainian neutrality and to split the country into spheres of influence.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on Sunday repeated his prediction that Russia will attack Nato if the US withdraws its support for Ukraine, claiming to have seen intelligence suggesting Moscow is readying its army to do so.

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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that with President Donald Trump's help, he would "finish the job" on Iran after a meeting with Secretary of State Marco Rubio over the weekend.

Speaking to reporters in Jerusalem after the meeting Sunday, Netanyahu and Rubio said Israel was in lockstep with the Trump administration to block Iran's path toward developing nuclear weapons.

Since Israel and Hamas went to war 16 months earlier, "Israel has dealt a mighty blow to Iran's terror axis," Netanyahu said. "Under the strong leadership of President Trump, and with your unflinching support, I have no doubt that we can and will finish the job."

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