Daily Briefing: Four-hour daily pauses

Estimates of Palestinian deaths in Gaza have reached at least 10,800 as Israel agreed to new pauses in its bombardment to support aid efforts. Also in the news: Health care workers at Kaiser Permanente have achieved a new labor contract and a look at University of Michigan's claim that other Big Ten schools have stolen signals.

🙋🏼‍♀️ I'm Nicole Fallert, Daily Briefing author. Cuffing season has arrived. Don't jump into a relationship just because it's here.

Here is the news to know this Friday.

What does four hours in wartime really mean?

President Joe Biden says he asked Israel for a humanitarian pause of at least three days during negotiations over the release of hostages held by Hamas. But for now, Israel has agreed to put in place four-hour daily gaps in its assault on Hamas in northern Gaza.

While Biden said a full cease-fire is not possible at the moment, the pause is a crucial breakthrough for the global effort to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza, where aid envoys are struggling to reach the embattled north.

• Israel has committed to announcing each four-hour window at least three hours in advance, U.S. officials said. Israel is also opening a second corridor for civilians to flee the areas being pounded by its military campaign aimed at wiping out Hamas.

• Pauses in the fighting have been taking place intermittently for days while tens of thousands of civilians flee northern Gaza for the south.

• The pauses could also help the effort to win freedom for at least some of the approximately 240 hostages, including several Americans, held by Hamas and other militants since the war began.

Pivotal West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin will not seek reelection

Sen. Joe Manchin, the centrist Democrat from West Virginia, announced Thursday he will not run for reelection to the U.S. Senate in 2024. But the retirement announcement sounded more like the launch of a new campaign: the lawmaker said he's not done with public service and outlined his frustrations with the two major political parties. Manchin has previously said he would consider running for president with No Labels, a potential third-party effort to put forward centrist candidates to challenge President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. Read more

• Former Sen. Martha McSally shared that she was sexually assaulted while running.

More news to know now

• Trump strategist Steve Bannon has urged an appeals court to overturn his Jan. 6 contempt conviction.

• More interest-rate hikes are still a possibility to bring inflation under control, the Fed says.

• In fighting against a government shutdown, new House Speaker Mike Johnson is facing the exact same problems that plagued his predecessor.

• What does book banning cost the American taxpayer?

• For subscribers: 52 years after he sent it home from Vietnam, this veteran was reunited with his box of medals and mementos.

• On today's The Excerpt podcast, how a man received a major face and eye transplant. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your smart speaker.

What's the weather today? Check your local forecast here.

More than 85,000 Kaiser Permanente workers approve new contract

More than 85,000 Kaiser Permanente employees have ratified a four-year contract that will deliver pay raises and higher minimum wages to healthcare workers across hundreds of facilities in seven states and Washington, D.C. Last month, workers walked off the job in a three-day strike to protest staffing levels, wages and other grievances. The Coalition of Kaiser Permanente Unions and Kaiser Permanente said the pact will increase wages 21% over four years for existing workers and establish a minimum hourly wage of $25 for California workers and $23 for employees elsewhere in the nation. Read more

• The SAG strike is over, here's what's next for our TV shows and movies.

A freshly funded IRS: Scary times for uber-wealthy Americans

The IRS is going after rich tax cheats, but what does that mean for the rest of us? The Internal Revenue Service recently announced a campaign to dramatically increase audits of high-income Americans and large businesses, leveraging billions of dollars in new funding from Congress to recover lost tax revenue. The taxing agency stresses that its new push will focus on the truly affluent. The IRS assures the public that audit rates will not increase for taxpayers earning less than $400,000 a year, a threshold that roughly corresponds to the top 2% of earners. Read more

• What's keeping low-income workers from saving for retirement?

• Here's why Alid is a saver's paradise.

Keep scrolling

• The Tuohy family paid Michael Oher $138,000 from the proceeds of ''The Blind Side'' movie.

• Why shouldn't I have rhinestones on my steering wheel?

• Spotify Premium users can now access over 200,000 audiobooks.

• Billions of people have them. What causes stretch marks?

• Jezebel's parent company shuts down the feminist news website after 16 years.

• A new Barbie doll honors Wilma Mankiller, the first female Cherokee principal chief.

• Who did Gerry send home on ''Golden Bachelor''?

What is sign sharing and why does it matter?

A scandal has embroiled the college football world involving the practice of attending competitor teams' games to observe the signals used to indicate key plays. And now the Michigan football sign-stealing saga, which already had no shortage of unusual twists and daily developments, has a new layer. The Big Ten received documents from Michigan that the university claimed is evidence that Ohio State, Rutgers and Purdue communicated about the Wolverines’ signals in 2022. Documents allegedly show Purdue got Michigan's offensive signals from Ohio State and defensive signals from Rutgers as they prepared to play coach Jim Harbaugh’s team in the 2022 Big Ten championship game. Read more

• The Chicago Bears held on for a win against the Carolina Panthers in Thursday Night Football.

Photo of the day: Taylor Swift returns to Eras Tour in 'flamingo pink'

Taylor Swift strutted into the Estadio Más Monumental on Thursday donning a new bedazzled pink body suit for the "Lover" set of her famed Eras Tour and a glistening pink blazer for her song "The Man." Swifties know "flamingo pink" from the first line of Swift's new "1989" vault track "Slut!" Read more about her Argentina performance.

Nicole Fallert is a newsletter writer at USA TODAY, sign up for the email here. Want to send Nicole a note? Shoot her an email at NFallert@usatoday.com or follow along with her musings on Twitter. Support journalism like this – subscribe to USA TODAY here.

Associated Press contributed reporting.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Israel-Hamas war, Joe Manchin, Kaiser, IRS, Michigan football, Taylor Swift: Daily Briefing