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For years, Israel has targeted Iranian nuclear scientists, hoping to choke progress on Iran’s nuclear program by striking at the brains behind it, Associated Press reported.

Now, with Iran and Israel in an open-ended direct conflict, scientists in Israel have found themselves in the crosshairs after an Iranian missile struck a premier research institute known for its work in life sciences and physics, among other fields.

While no one was killed in the strike on the Weizmann Institute of Science early Sunday, it caused heavy damage to multiple labs on campus, snuffing out years of scientific research and sending a chilling message to Israeli scientists that they and their expertise are now targets in the escalating conflict with Iran.

“It’s a moral victory” for Iran, said Oren Schuldiner, a professor in the department of molecular cell biology and the department of molecular neuroscience whose lab was obliterated in the strike. “They managed to harm the crown jewel of science in Israel," according to Associated Press.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday extended to September 17 a deadline for China-based ByteDance to divest the U.S. assets of short-video app TikTok despite a law that mandated a sale or shutdown without significant progress, Reuters reported

Trump signed an executive order pushing back Thursday's deadline for 90 days, a step he had previously signaled.

The Republican president had already twice granted a reprieve from federal enforcement of a law that mandated the sale or shutdown of TikTok that was supposed to take effect in January, absent significant progress toward a sale.

Trump has said he wants to keep the app, which helped him woo young voters in the 2024 presidential election, active in the U.S, according to Reuters.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday that the change or fall of Iran's leadership was not a goal of Israel's attacks but could be a result, Reuters reported.

"The matter of changing the regime or the fall of this regime is first and foremost a matter for the Iranian people. There is no substitute for this.

"And that's why I didn't present it as a goal. It could be a result, but it's not a stated or formal goal that we have," Netanyahu said in an interview with Israel's Kan public television.

He said Israel had the power to remove all of Iran’s nuclear facilities, whether U.S. President Donald Trump decides to join in or not.

Netanyahu spoke before the White House said Trump would decide in the next two weeks whether to get involved, according to Reuters.

Israel and Iran's air war entered a second week on Friday and European officials sought to draw Tehran back to the negotiating table after President Donald Trump said any decision on potential U.S. involvement would be made within two weeks, Reuters reported.

Israel began attacking Iran last Friday, saying it aimed to prevent its longtime enemy from developing nuclear weapons. Iran retaliated with missile and drone strikes on Israel. It says its nuclear programme is peaceful.

Israeli air attacks have killed 639 people in Iran, said the Human Rights Activists News Agency. Those killed include the military's top echelon and nuclear scientists. Israel has said at least two dozen Israeli civilians have died in Iranian missile attacks. Reuters could not independently verify the death toll from either side.

Israel has targeted nuclear sites and missile capabilities, but also has sought to shatter the government of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to Western and regional officials, according to Reuters.

The US joining Israeli strikes would cause "hell for the whole region", Iran's deputy foreign minister said, BBC reported.

Saeed Khatibzadeh said this is "not America's war" and if US President Donald Trump does get involved, he will always be remembered as "a president who entered a war he doesn't belong in".

He said US involvement would turn the conflict into a "quagmire", continue aggression and delay an end to the "brutal atrocities". 

His comments came after the Soroka hospital in southern Israel was hit during an Iranian missile attack. Iranian state media reported that the strike targeted a military site next to the hospital, and not the facility itself, according to BBC.

The Earth could be doomed to breach the symbolic 1.5C warming limit in as little as three years at current levels of carbon dioxide emissions, BBC reported.

That's the stark warning from more than 60 of the world's leading climate scientists in the most up-to-date assessment of the state of global warming.

Nearly 200 countries agreed to try to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C above levels of the late 1800s in a landmark agreement in 2015, with the aim of avoiding some of the worst impacts of climate change.

But countries have continued to burn record amounts of coal, oil and gas and chop down carbon-rich forests - leaving that international goal in peril, according to BBC.

The meeting among Nepal’s top political leaders—Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli, Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba, and CPN (Maoist Center) Chairperson Pushpa Kamal Dahal—has been postponed yet again.

Scheduled for 2 pm on Thursday, the tripartite talks were called off at the last minute.

This is the second postponement in as many days. A meeting originally called for Wednesday was canceled because Dahal was out of Kathmandu.

Though he returned on Thursday, the meeting was still not held.

According to sources, the decision to delay was taken after the scheduled time had already lapsed, reportedly at the Prime Minister’s initiative. 

The two judges—Khusi Prasad Tharu and Arjun Maharjan—who acquitted former Nepali Congress lawmaker Mohammad Aftab Alam in a murder case have been summoned by the Judicial Council.

In a meeting held on Thursday, the council decided to relieve them of their current responsibilities and bring them under review.

The Council had formed a one-member investigation committee comprising Supreme Court justice Binod Sharma.

Alam had been accused of orchestrating a deadly bomb-making operation at his residence in Rajpur Farhadawa, Rautahat, on the eve of the first Constituent Assembly elections in 2008.

At the time, he was a candidate and allegedly aimed to use the explosives to capture booths. However, the bomb exploded prematurely, injuring many.

The injured were reportedly burned alive by being thrown into a brick kiln furnace to destroy evidence. The Rautahat district court later convicted Alam and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

However, on May 28, a division bench of the Janakpur high court’s Birgunj bench, led by Judges Tharu and Maharjan, overturned that verdict and acquitted him of all charges.