In choosing Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, Kamala Harris gains a folksy former soldier, teacher, and football coach who could help her presidential campaign in key Rust Belt states.

• New leader for Hamas: The Palestinian militant group says it has chosen Yahya Sinwar, its top official in Gaza who masterminded the Oct. 7 attack in Israel, as its new leader. He replaces Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in Iran last week in a presumed Israeli strike.
• Bangladesh dissolves Parliament: President Mohammed Shahabuddin clears the way for new elections to replace Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wazed, who resigned and fled the country following weeks of demonstrations against her rule that descended into unrest.
• Google loses antitrust lawsuit: A U.S. federal judge rules that Google’s ubiquitous search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation.
• Iraq condemns base attacks: Iraq’s military called actions against bases on its soil “reckless” and said it had captured a truck with a rocket launcher. This comes a day after at least five U.S. personnel were wounded in an attack. 
• Kansas police chief to be charged over newspaper raid: Special prosecutors say they plan to charge former Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody with obstruction of justice over his conduct following a raid of the Marion County Record and the home of its publisher last year.

Read these news briefs.

Major powers may accept that escalation in the Middle East is inevitable. But they can assert influence to determine how large it becomes, and how quickly it ends.

Most Russian athletes are stuck outside looking in at the Paris Olympics. That has dissuaded most of the Russian public from paying the Games any heed, despite opportunities to watch.

Shrinking church congregations are finding ways to preserve their physical place in the community by thinking innovatively about uses of their real estate. First of two parts. 

A good idea can take years to come to fruition. A midcentury modern designer found that persistence and continual refinement were needed to move his creation from concept to reality.

One clear hint that the war in Gaza may be ending soon is a remarkable shift by a key Arab state. In recent days, the United Arab Emirates, an oil-rich country in the Gulf, has backed the idea of sending a multinational force to stabilize a postwar Gaza. The UAE would even consider sending its own troops.

The hurdles to achieving this peacekeeping action – notably approval by both Israel and Hamas – remain high. Yet the UAE’s about-face reflects a mood in much of the Middle East to return to the prewar tasks of growing economically and fulfilling the high expectations of restless Arab youth – many of whom are trying to leave their countries for better jobs.

The UAE’s society represents this desire for a peaceful region where progress is the norm. Among Arab states, its people – mainly youth – are the biggest users of TikTok. Last September, its researchers released an artificial intelligence model, dubbed Falcon, that was considered among the best in the world. A social tolerance by the country’s absolute monarchy allowed the release of the movie “Barbie” last year – in a country that has already advanced women’s rights. The annual Arab Youth Survey has consistently found that most young Arabs in the region want to live in the UAE, even more than in the United States.

The UAE is well ahead of other oil states in planning for a post-oil economy. In 2020, it initiated diplomatic ties with Israel. Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, it has provided about $700 million in aid to Palestinians in Gaza. Keen to show that an Arab state can thrive without a radical Islamic government – like Hamas – the UAE may want to see Gaza become, well, like the UAE.

“The UAE can have a huge impact on changing narratives, as it did successfully by itself, and it can be a blueprint for a more tolerant culture in Gaza,” a former top Israeli officer, Brig. Gen. Yossi Kuperwasser, told The Media Line. But first, it must get peaceful boots on the ground in Gaza.