Briefly

UNITED STATES

Five citizens freed by Iran arrive home

Five US citizens freed by Iran in a prisoner swap landed in the United States on Tuesday. The five arrived aboard a jet at a military airfield in Fort Belvoir southwest of Washington. The former prisoners, including one held for eight years, were part of a rare prisoner exchange between Washington and Teheran, a deal that included the unfreezing of $6 billion in funds by South Korea. The prisoners arrived on a flight from the Gulf state of Qatar, which helped facilitate the exchange, negotiated over several months. Iran and the US conducted a prisoner swap on Monday, releasing five detainees from each side, according to media reports and Iranian officials.

Musk mulls charging X users monthly fee

Elon Musk has suggested charging all users of his social media platform X, which would be the biggest shake-up since he took over the site then known as Twitter last October, but experts say he might struggle to get users on board. During talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, Musk said introducing a "small monthly payment" for X was the only way to combat the legions of automated accounts, known as bots, that plague the site. Musk said in July the platform had lost roughly half its advertising revenue, though a month earlier he had claimed that almost all advertisers had returned.

YEMEN

'Progress' seen in Saudi-hosted talks

Houthi negotiators, accompanied by an Omani mediation delegation, returned on Tuesday to Yemen's Houthi-held capital Sanaa after truce talks in Saudi Arabia, according to Houthi-run al-Masirah TV. The team was set to brief the outcomes of the negotiation round with Houthi leaders, the television reported, without revealing details of the negotiation. Xinhua quoted a source from the Yemeni government as saying the Riyadh talks addressed several critical issues, including establishing a lasting cease-fire and using oil revenues to pay salaries for public servants in Houthi-controlled regions. The source noted that "some progress" has been made during the talks.

Agencies - Xinhua