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The United States will hold joint military drills with India less than 100 kilometers from the disputed border with China. The military drills will take place at an altitude of 10,000 feet in Auli in the Indian state of Uttarakhand and will focus on high-altitude warfare training, according to a senior Indian Army officer with knowledge of the matter. Since a bloody clash between their soldiers in the Himalayas in June 2020 left at least 20 Indian troops and four Chinese soldiers dead, relations between India and China have been strained. Tensions have been raised further recently by China building a bridge across the Pangong Tso lake that sits along the border—a move condemned by the Indian government as an "illegal occupation." During a visit to India this year, the US Army's Pacific ...

US President Joe Biden said Monday that the United States had killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike. "I authorized a precision strike that would remove him from the battlefield, once and for all," Biden said. Zawahiri, who just turned 71 years old, had remained a visible international symbol of the group, 11 years after the US killed Osama bin Laden. At one point, he acted as bin Laden's personal physician. Osama bin Laden's successor Ayman al-Zawahiri had been sheltering in downtown Kabul to reunite with his family, US vice president Joe Biden said on Monday. He was killed in what a senior administration official described as "a precise tailored airstrike" using two Hellfire missiles. The drone strike was conducted at 9:48 p.m. ET on Saturday and was authorized by ...

Every week is a difficult week for this White House right now. But as the President Joe Biden of the United States recovers from his recent infection Covid-19, he faces a new moment of truth this week about an economy that is stuck in an identity crisis and buffeted by unpredictable outside forces. At any other time, a President presiding over a 3.6% unemployment rate—a shining number that normally would suggest a healthy economy—would expect his approval rating to be around 50% and be cruising to a second term. But since US inflation rate has raced to 40-year highs on the back of raging demand and Covid-compromised supply chains, exacerbated by a spike in oil prices, Biden's job performance rating has slumped into the 30s (and is even lower among independent voters) and Democrats are brac...

The European Commission has outlined a plan to cut gas use in Europe by 15 percent. Announcing the Save Gas for a Safe Winter  package, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated 12 member states had either been affected by a partial or total cutoff of Russian gas supply. The European Union is seeking to diversify its energy sources as it attempts to minimize its dependence on Russian natural gas. Speaking at an emergency summit in Brussels today, German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned that Europe might have to "rely on more expensive gas" if Russia does not honor its contract and resume gas deliveries through the Nord Stream pipeline by Tuesday. The EU's executive body announced plans for member states to reduce gas demand by 15% between August 2022 and March 2023. The Commiss...

Former spokesperson for the Oath Keepers, an extremist group, is "exceedingly lucky" that more extreme bloodshed did not occur. Jason Van Tatenhove said that the potential for violence was "there from the start," adding that he and others are worried about the next election. He said that although tragic, some deaths during the insurrection were inevitable. "All we have to look at is the iconic images of that day with the gallows set up for Mike Pence. For the Vice President of the United States," Van Tatenhove said. As former President Trump stews about 2024 election, he is uncertain about whom he might face, but he expects that if he leaves a major office for a second time, his followers will use deception and violence to further agitate the group. “What else is he going to do if...

Two-year-old Aiden McCarthy survived Monday's carnage at a July Fourth parade in suburban Chicago, but he is left to grow up without either of his parents. Kevin McCarthy, 37, and his wife, Irina, 35, were among seven people who died following an explosion of bullets from a rooftop into a holiday crowd in Highland Park, Illinois. Nearly 40 others were injured.   Aiden was shielded from the gunfire by his father, Kevin, who lay wounded on the floor, according to US Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat. "Then, they went to work on his dad because his dad's leg was still bleeding," Duckworth told CNN's John Berman on Wednesday. The McCarthys were looking forward to attending the annual Labor Day parade in Chicago with their young son, Levberg told the Sun-Times. "They were...

The Texas Supreme Court issued an order late Friday partially granting state Attorney General Ken Paxton's request to stay a lower court order that had temporarily blocked enforcement of most of a nearly century-old abortion ban in the state. The state high court's order now allows civil enforcement of the 1925 pre-Roe v. Wade ban, according to court documents. The Center for Reproductive Rights says that, according to its interpretation of the stay, the law cannot be enforced criminally. CNN reached out to Paxton's office on Saturday to ask whether it agrees that criminal prosecutions remain stayed but has not received a response as of Saturday afternoon. Paxton, a Republican, lauded the state high court's ruling on Twitter on Saturday. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton praised the ...

The Russian military has stepped up shelling Ukraine's Kharkiv, but ground forces who were supposed to storm the city's fortifications opted not to do so. According to Oleg Sinegubov, the head of the Kharkiv regional military administration and the Ukrainian president's office, shelling has intensified in the past 24 hours, particularly in northern regions. No deaths have been reported but some people have been injured, Sinegubov added. "On the line of contact in the Kharkiv region, the enemy is mainly focused on defense," said Sinegubov. "Our defenders hold their positions firmly." A CNN team in Kharkiv city heard several explosions Sunday night and Monday morning but noted that there was only a slight increase in the level of activity compared with previous nights.   Some bac...

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced Thursday the last day of the age of "unipolarity," in a speech delivered at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which lambasted Western countries. "When they won the Cold War, the US declared themselves God's own representatives on earth," Putin told the audience. The much-hyped speech was delayed by more than 90 minutes because of distributed denial of service attacks on its systems. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists in an impromptu conference call that the speech was postponed due to DDoS attacks on its systems. It's not clear who perpetrated the attack. Ukrainian IT Army, a hacker collective, called the St. Petersburg Forum as a target earlier this week on Twitter. Putin's address at an annual conference ...