What happened
Benjamin Netanyahu has publicly dismissed a US-sponsored proposal aimed at ending the Gaza war, putting him at odds with Donald Trump. The 15-point framework would require Hamas to surrender its weapons in return for an Israeli military withdrawal and, eventually, Palestinian self-government. Netanyahu said Israeli forces would remain in Gaza until Hamas had been completely disarmed.

Who said what
Nickolay Mladenov, who leads Trump’s Board of Peace initiative on Gaza, defended the proposal as the “only way forward” that will prevent the conflict from recurring.

This is a “rare public break” between Netanyahu and the US president, noted Andrew Roth in The Guardian. The disagreement creates a significant obstacle for Trump’s attempts to broker an agreement.

What next?
Netanyahu is facing domestic political pressure ahead of October elections. As the poll approaches, the Israeli prime minister is “seeking to take a hardline stance against Hamas”, said Gabrielle Weiniger in The Times. The group’s disarmament is “viewed as essential to prevent any repeat of the attacks on 7 October 2023”.

What happened
Andy Burnham is planning new consumer protections aimed at cutting household expenses, with a focus on subscriptions that are difficult to terminate and misleading retail promotions. From January, companies will have to warn customers before contracts automatically continue while also providing a simpler cancellation process.

Who said what
Burnham said consumers were fed up with “rip-off discounts and subscription traps”, and he promised to make leaving a service as straightforward as signing up. Which? has welcomed the proposals.

The announcement comes as part of Burnham’s “efforts to help voters with the cost of living”, said Daniel Martin in The Telegraph. The government estimates that the changes could save people an average of £14 a month on unwanted services. The Conservatives have accused Burnham of reviving measures first proposed under their government.

What next?
A 14-day cancellation window will be introduced after some renewals, while the government will consult on whether deceptive discounting should automatically count as an unfair commercial practice.

Archaeologists have uncovered hundreds of vast earthworks in the Amazon rainforest that they say are evidence of a “lost civilisation” that flourished nearly 2,000 years ago, said New Scientist.

Researchers believe the geometrically patterned structures, known as geoglyphs, were built by an advanced pre-colonial society, known as the Aquiry, between 600BC and AD850 – without metal tools or animals. But they are almost impossible to detect under the dense tree canopy of the deep rainforest.

The archaeologists – employing cutting-edge airborne laser scanning technology – found hundreds of previously unknown earthworks. They combined the light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data with previous findings to estimate that there might be up to 30,000 structures across the Aquiry territory. The results “strongly suggest” that, at its peak, the civilisation may have numbered 1.25 to 3 million people, the experts wrote in a study published in Nature.

Archaeo-anthropologist Martti Pärssinen, from the University of Helsinki, theorised that the earthworks had been built by a complex, pre-Columbian civilisation. In 2021 he “officially introduced the name Aquiry”, said LiveScience, after the Indigenous name for the Acre River, which flows from Peru and Bolivia into Brazil.

While Romans were “laying roads and building temples”, the Aquiry were “carving vast circles, squares and monumental enclosures” on the other side of the world, said The Times.

The Aquiry cleared forests for the huge earthworks and extensive roads “without destroying the Amazon”, said Pärssinen. “They lived in harmony in that way with the forest,” he added. “They made clearings, but not too big to change the ecological systems. Despite their huge numbers, they never converted the rainforest into savannah.”