Today

Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt remains closed as Trump threatens Hamas over gang clashes.

Here are the key events from day 1,331 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Friday, October 17, 2025:

Fighting

• Russian war correspondent Ivan Zuyev has been killed by a Ukrainian drone strike while on assignment on the front line of the war in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, his publication, state news agency RIA said. Zuyev’s colleague, Yuri Voitkevich, was seriously wounded in the attack.

• Russia launched a large armoured assault with more than 20 armoured vehicles near the eastern Ukrainian town of Dobropillia, Ukraine’s Azov brigade said, adding that its forces repelled the attack.
• Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces carried out a massive overnight strike on Ukrainian gas infrastructure which supports Kyiv’s military, in retaliation for what it said were Ukrainian attacks on civilian infrastructure.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia launched a barrage of more than 300 drones and 37 missiles in that attack. Ukraine’s state grid operator, Ukrenergo, has also introduced emergency power cuts in every region of the country.
• Ukraine struck Russia’s Saratov oil refinery overnight, the Ukrainian military general staff said in a statement on Telegram.
• Some 84,000 people are still without power in the Russian-held part of Ukraine’s Kherson region after Ukrainian strikes this week on energy infrastructure, according to Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-appointed governor of the region.
• Alexei Likhachev, the head of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, said a decision could be taken as early as Friday on a pause in fighting to enable repairs to power lines at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine.
• North Korean troops based in Russia are operating drones across the border into Ukraine on reconnaissance missions, the Ukrainian military said, the first time Kyiv has reported a battlefield role for North Koreans in months.

Ceasefire talks

• In a surprise move, US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have agreed to another summit on the war in Ukraine after the leaders held a more than two-hour phone conversation. Trump and Putin may meet within the next two weeks in Budapest, Hungary, Trump said after the conversation, which he called productive.
• The Kremlin confirmed plans for the meeting, adding that Putin told Trump on the call that supplying US Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine would harm the peace process and damage ties.
• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will speak in the coming days to prepare the summit, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said, adding that the timing would depend on how preparatory work progressed.
• The development came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was headed to the White House on Friday to push for more military support. Zelenskyy said on the eve of those talks that momentum in the Middle East peace process would help end his country’s more than three-year-old war with Russia.

Europe

• The European Commission has proposed four flagship European defence projects, including a counter-drone system and a plan to fortify the eastern border, as part of a drive to get the continent ready to defend itself by 2030.
• The proposals, in a defence policy “roadmap”, reflect fears fuelled by the war in Ukraine that Russia may attack an EU member in the coming years, and calls by President Trump for Europe to do more for its own security.

Sanctions

• Britain has targeted Russia’s two largest oil companies, Lukoil and Rosneft, and 44 shadow fleet tankers in what it described as a new bid to tighten energy sanctions and choke off Kremlin revenues. Lukoil and Rosneft were designated under Britain’s Russia sanctions laws for their role in supporting the Russian government. They are subject to an asset freeze, director disqualification, transport restrictions, and a ban on British trust services.
• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he would call for the European Union to use Russian assets frozen in the West to provide a large loan to Ukraine to finance its war effort at the upcoming EU summit on October 23.
• Canada and Britain have expressed interest in working on the EU idea of a reparations loan for Ukraine based on immobilised Russian assets, European Economic Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis told the Reuters news agency on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington.
• Dombrovskis said he presented the idea of the EU loan, which could be up to 185bn euros ($216.5bn) over two years, to G7 finance ministers.

Former members of the military will be able to start applying for a digital version of their identity cards from Friday.

About 1.8 million veterans are eligible to download the new digital ID to a smartphone – with ministers saying the rollout can serve as a “case study” to show the public how the technology for a planned scheme for all British citizens and residents will work.

Physical veterans’ cards will continue to be issued, but the digital version will allow holders to prove their status more easily to access to public services, the government says.

Digital government minister Ian Murray said the veterans’ digital ID could also help address “legitimate concerns around privacy and security” of the UK-wide scheme.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced the plans for the wider scheme last month as part of efforts to clamp down on illegal working. It will be introduced by 2029 and mandatory in order to work.

The digital veteran card is optional but the government says it will allow former service personnel to show their entitlement to services such as GP and mental health support, supported housing, careers advice as well as reduced entry prices at museums and money off their shopping.

Murray said the veterans ID was “probably a demonstration to the public by default… on the basis that this is the first use case for having a digital credential on your smartphone, and that digital credential is the first sort of verifiable one that government have now launched”.

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said: “We are modernising our public services so they work around people’s lives and keep pace with the digital world we live in.

“The digital veterans’ card will help remove barriers, reduce red-tape and make it easier for people to access the public services they need.”

The digital veteran card will be the first document to be stored in the government’s One Login smartphone app, with digital driving licences set to follow at a later date.

Another senior U.S. Army officer has spoken out about the service’s need for Shahed-136 like long-range, expendable drones. The need for the U.S. to procure exactly these kinds of relatively simple, comparatively very cheap and adaptable drones, built at scale, is something that TWZ has recently made a detailed case for.

When asked by Howard Altman of TWZ about a possible Army requirement for Shahed-like drones, the answer from Maj. Gen. James (Jay) Bartholomees, commanding general of the Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division, was unequivocal.

“Absolutely,” Bartholomees said, speaking this week at the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) annual symposium. “We are behind on long-range sensing and long-range launched-effect strike.”

Bartholomees confirmed that the United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM), the unified combatant command responsible for the Indo-Pacific region, is “learning from what is happening in Ukraine,” where the Pentagon’s tardiness at widely adopting lower-end drones for its own offensive operations has been highlighted.

The Iranian-designed Shahed-136 long-range one-way attack drone, which is being mass-produced in Russia as the Geran, has become Moscow’s primary standoff weapon with which it bombards Ukraine on a daily basis.

While the U.S. military is lagging behind, Bartholomees said there’s good news on this front, too.

“I think we can catch up very rapidly,” Bartholomees said. “The formations that we built are ready for those capabilities to land.” Those formations include a launched effects company that the 25th Infantry Division is currently standing up. This will join the launched effects platoon that already exists within its multifunctional reconnaissance company.

As an initial experiment, the launched effects company will be created within the 25th Infantry Division’s artillery unit.

“We absolutely need to build this capability quickly,” Bartholomees continued. “We need to test it in our region; we also need to work with our allies and partners to do the same.”

Referring again to the Shahed, Bartholomees noted that, because this kind of drone “is very cheap, easy to produce, and easy to put together,” it makes it “exactly the type of capability that we would love to have for our allies and partners in the region.” Not only would long-range, expendable drones of this kind help regional allies and partners protect their sovereign territory, but they would also be relevant to defend their maritime spaces, something Bartholomees described as “a unique problem set.”

When asked where the U.S. Army was in relation to Russian efforts in the field of long-range one-way attack drones, Bartholomees admitted that “We are behind in that sense, we need to push faster, all the services, frankly, are on this chase to move faster.”

He did, however, note that there are some “defeat mechanism concerns” that have put something of a brake on the development of at least certain types drones.

Bartholomees identified the importance of the work being done within divisional innovation labs, specifically the work on a nascent long-range one-way attack capability.

“We’re building our own drones,” Bartholomees said. “We’re already starting to produce one-way attack, fixed-wing [but] the longer range obviously gets harder and harder to do, that’s where you need more airworthiness expertise.”

It should be noted that, with its focus on long range and cost effectiveness, a drone in the mold of the Shahed is of particular relevance to a future contingency in the Indo-Pacific theater in which the 25th Infantry Division would likely be engaged.

The Shahed-136 has a range of around 1,000 miles, depending on variant and payload. The extreme challenges of the Pacific call for strike weapons with long range. In fact, TWZ has advocated in the past for an extended-range one-way attack drone, which would be especially useful for reaching from the Second Island Chain to the Chinese mainland — a one-way trip of roughly 2,000 miles.

Bartholomees said he agreed with Lt. Gen. Charles Costanza, commander of the Army’s V Corps, which has a presence on NATO’s eastern flank, who also discussed drones and counter-drone capabilities at AUSA before talking further with Howard Altman of TWZ.

“We aren’t moving fast enough,” Costanza continued. “And it really took Russia’s invasion of Ukraine [in 2022], and the way they’re innovating, and Ukrainians are innovating, to realize, hey, we need to move fast.”

When asked specifically if the U.S. military needed a capability broadly in line with the Shahed drone, Constanza responded: “I think we do.”

Returning to Bartholomees, he argued that the rapid pace of drone development in the Ukrainian war is, in no small part, due to the result of an existential threat, which means the Ukrainian industrial base is “pushing incredibly hard for the sovereignty of their entire nation.”

“I have no doubt that we can push further, faster to get there,” Bartholomees, pointing to the partnership the Army is forging with the Marine Corps and Air Force, in this regard.

Of course, as we have argued repeatedly in the past, the United States could also find itself facing an existential threat, including an adversary that has a much larger arsenal of long-range, expendable drones. Namely, China.

At the same time, the need for huge numbers of long-range guided weapons that can pierce China’s anti-access bubble is coming to the forefront at a time when existing stockpiles are clearly below the required threshold. This is a reality that is meanwhile driving the development of a wide array of lower-cost, long-range weapons. These include low-cost jet-powered cruise missiles, but these are still significantly more expensive and complex than a Shahed-136 clone and/or they lack range in comparison.

Currently, there are a handful of smaller companies in the United States that are pitching a Shahed copy, or something very similar. While this is a useful starting point, it should be recalled that Russia is already mass-producing these kinds of weapons and is now understood to be building 5,000 a month.

Thankfully, we are finally seeing some much-needed change when it comes to the U.S. military’s plans for fielding its own lower-end drones.

With senior officers like Bartholomees and Costanza making the case for long-range one-way attack drones, we might also start to see some more urgency here, too.

Contact the author: [email protected]

Who: Fulham vs Arsenal
What: English Premier League
Where: Craven Cottage in London, United Kingdom
When: Saturday, October 18, at 5:30pm (16:30 GMT)
How to follow: We’ll have all the build-up on Al Jazeera Sport from 2:30pm (13:30 GMT) in advance of our live text commentary stream.

Premier League leaders Arsenal will be the heavy favourites when they travel to Fulham on Saturday, but London derbies usually give the underdogs more than a fighting chance, as former Gunners manager Arsene Wenger always used to bemoan.

The Gunners, who have finished second in the table for the last three seasons, have not won the league since Wenger’s era. Fulham, meanwhile, have hit a blip and languish in 14th position.

Al Jazeera Sport takes a look at a game where the west Londoners will hope to upset the formbook against their north London visitors.

How have Arsenal fared this season?

Arsenal opened their season with an unconvincing 1-0 win at a surprisingly dominant Manchester United, and have rarely looked back. The Gunners have won eight of their 10 matches in all competitions this season; the only times they have failed to win in the league were the narrowest of 1-0 defeats at defending champions Liverpool and a 1-1 home draw with Manchester City, although that did require a 90th-minute leveller from Gabriel Martinelli.

The Gunners are yet to concede more than one goal in a game this season, and have only conceded twice in their last seven games. At the other end, 20 goals have been scored in their 10 games.

How have Fulham fared this season?

After a bright start, the west Londoners have suffered back-to-back defeats in the Premier League. One defeat and four wins in their seven games so far, continued the feel-good factor that manager Marco Silva has brought to the Cottagers. Two of the four wins this season have come in the League Cup, but back-to-back league wins, either side of the latest cup win, had appeared to kickstart Fulham’s season.

Both recent defeats, by Aston Villa and Bournemouth, did come on the road, and Fulham remain unbeaten in five matches on home soil this season, where they have only dropped points once – and that after a fine second-half display against Manchester United in their first home game of the campaign.

When did Arsenal last win the Premier League?

The Gunners last lifted the Premier League trophy in 2004 when Wenger’s side were dubbed the “Invincibles” as they went unbeaten through the English top-flight season.

How many times have Arsenal won the Premier League?

The Gunners have lifted the league title in England on 13 occasions, with their first top-flight trophy coming in 1931. They would go on to win the title three times in the four seasons that followed. Wenger’s era was the most successful thereafter, with the Premier League trophy lifted in 1998, 2002 and 2004.

Premier League action returns this week 🤩@Arsenal are currently on top of the table, for the first time since April 2024 📈 pic.twitter.com/02Tkxse4Aq

— Premier League (@premierleague) October 13, 2025

Have Fulham ever won the Premier League?

Fulham have never lifted the English top-flight title and are one of a limited number of teams in the two top divisions in England to have never lifted a major trophy. The highest domestic title the Cottagers have claimed is the second-tier title, which has been won on three occasions – the last being in 2022. Fulham have also been runners-up in the FA Cup and UEFA Europa League in 1975 and 2010, respectively.

What happened the last time Fulham played Arsenal?

Title-chasing Arsenal beat Fulham 2-1 at Emirates Stadium in the Premier League in April in the last meeting between the clubs. Mikel Merino and Bukayo Saka gave the Gunners a two-goal lead before Rodrigo Muniz’s 90th-minute strike set up a nervy finish.

What happened in the corresponding fixture between Fulham and Arsenal last season?

The Premier League game at Craven Cottage last season ended in a 1-1 draw in December. Raul Jimenez gave the home side the lead in the 11th minute, but William Saliba cancelled that out seven minutes into the second half of a game short on chances but heavily dominated by the Gunners’ possession of the ball.

Head-to-head

This is the 66th meeting between the Londoners, with Arsenal winning on 43 occasions and Fulham emerging victorious nine times.

Fulham’s last win against Arsenal came at Craven Cottage in December 2023, with Raul Jimenez and Bobby De Cordova-Reid turning the game in the home side’s favour after an early strike from Bukayo Saka.

It was the second Premier League meeting between the teams that season, with the reverse fixture ending 2-2 in north London.

It also marked Fulham’s first win in 12 matches against the Gunners.

Fulham team news

Midfielder Sasa Lukic has been an ever-present for Fulham in the Premier League this season, but picked up an adductor injury in the Cottagers’ final match before the international break.

The Serbian international is likely to be out for at least two more weeks and joins Kenny Tete and Rodrigo Muniz on the sidelines, the latter pair having knee and hamstring problems, respectively.

Raul Jimenez missed the defeat at Bournemouth before the break after sustaining an injury in the defeat at Villa, and the striker is a doubt for the visit of Arsenal. Samuel Chukwueze also picked up a knock in Nigeria’s win against Benin on Tuesday, but the extent of the injury is not yet fully known.

Arsenal team news

Martin Odegaard remains sidelined with a knee injury, but it is hoped the playmaker may return to face Tottenham Hotspur next weekend.

Kai Havertz and Noni Madueke are both also expected to return from knee injuries for that game, but the Fulham match comes too soon.

Gabriel Jesus could be back before the turn of the year – he, too, has a knee problem; Ben White is a minor doubt after missing training on Thursday. Piero Hincapie is expected to return from a knock.

Fulham predicted starting lineup

Leno; Diop, Bassey, Andersen; Castagne, Berge, Cairney, Sessegnon; Wilson, Iwobi; King

Arsenal possible starting lineup

Raya; Timber, Saliba, Gabriel, Calafiori; Eze, Zubimendi, Rice; Saka, Gyokeres, Trossard

Fulham and Arsenal Premier League form guides

Fulham’s last five EPL matches (most recent game last):

 L-W-W-L-L

Arsenal’s last five EPL matches –

D-W-W-W-W

A prominent lawmaker in the United States has announced he will return donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), highlighting the powerful pro-Israel lobby group’s waning appeal among Democrats.

Congressman Seth Moulton distanced himself from AIPAC on Thursday, citing the group’s support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Moulton is slated to challenge progressive Senator Ed Markey in next year’s Democratic primaries, ahead of the midterm elections.

The move by Moulton, a centrist and strong supporter of Israel, shows that backing from AIPAC is increasingly becoming a political liability for Democrats after the horrors Israel has unleashed on Gaza.

“In recent years, AIPAC has aligned itself too closely with Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s government,” Moulton said in a statement.

“I’m a friend of Israel, but not of its current government, and AIPAC’s mission today is to back that government. I don’t support that direction. That’s why I’ve decided to return the donations I’ve received, and I will not be accepting their support.”

For decades, Israel has leveraged its political connections and network of wealthy donors to push for unconditional support for its policies.

In 2022, AIPAC organised a political action committee (PAC) to exert sway in US elections, mostly using its financial might to help defeat progressive candidates critical of Israel in Democratic primaries.

Last year, the group helped oust two vocal critics of Israel in Congress – Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush – by backing their primary challengers with tens of millions of dollars.

I am returning AIPAC donations and refusing to accept any donations or support from them.

The FEC filing I made yesterday reflects that we are returning donations. pic.twitter.com/shBgHmYB1s

— Seth Moulton (@sethmoulton) October 16, 2025

Increased scrutiny

But Israel’s war on Gaza has led to an outpouring of criticisms, with leading rights groups and United Nations investigators calling it a genocide.

In light of that outcry, AIPAC’s role in US politics has come under greater scrutiny, particularly in Democratic circles where support for Israel has slipped to historic lows.

Moreover, AIPAC has endorsed far-right candidates like Congressman Randy Fine – who celebrated the killing of a US citizen by Israel and openly called for starving Palestinians in Gaza – which further alienated some Democrats.

AIPAC’s critics often liken it to the National Rifle Association (NRA), the once-bipartisan gun rights lobby that Democrats now reject nearly universally.

Usamah Andrabi, a spokesperson for the progressive group Justice Democrats, said AIPAC and its affiliates “are transforming from a lobby that establishment Democrats could rely on to buy a seat in Washington into a kiss of death for candidates who have their support”.

“Our movement’s work to demand the Democratic Party reject AIPAC as a toxic pariah is not only working but ensuring that the pro-genocide Israel lobby’s influence in Washington is waning,” Andrabi told Al Jazeera.

Even on the right of the ideological spectrum, some figures in President Donald Trump’s “America First” movement have been critical of AIPAC’s outsized influence.

In August, the lobby group accused right-wing Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of betraying “American values” over her criticism of Israel.

Greene shot back, saying that AIPAC serves the interests of a foreign government. “I’m as AMERICAN as they come! I can’t be bought and I’m not backing down,” she wrote in a social media post.

AIPAC is expected to target some key races in next year’s midterm elections, including the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, where progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed is facing off against staunch Israel supporter Haley Stevens.

In 2022, the lobby group helped Stevens defeat then-Congressman Andy Levin, who hails from a prominent Michigan Jewish family, in a House primary.

While it is one of the better-known lobby groups in the US, AIPAC is among dozens of pro-Israel advocacy organisations across the country, including some that also raise funds for candidates, such as NORPAC.

Throughout the assault on Gaza, AIPAC echoed the falsehood that there is no Israeli-imposed famine in the territory and defended the Israeli military’s genocidal conduct while calling for more US aid to the country.

AIPAC argues that it is a thoroughly American organisation with 100 percent of its funding coming from inside the US. It denies taking direction from Israel.

But the lobby group is almost always in full alignment with the Israeli government.

AIPAC members also often meet with Israeli leaders. The group also organises free trips for US lawmakers to travel to Israel and meet with Israeli officials.

‘It’s interesting’

The pro-Israel group’s unflinching support for Netanyahu’s government puts it at odds with the overwhelming majority of Democrats.

A poll this month from the Pew Research Center showed only 18 percent of Democratic respondents have favourable views of the Israeli government.

Still, Democratic Party leaders have continued to associate with AIPAC and accept its endorsement. In August, House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar joined lawmakers on an AIPAC-sponsored trip to Israel.

That same month, AIPAC-endorsed House Minority Whip Katherine Clark earned the group’s praise after walking back comments where she decried the “starvation and genocide and destruction of Gaza”.

California Governor Gavin Newsom – who is widely seen as a potential presidential candidate in 2028 – also skirted a question about AIPAC in an interview this week.

Asked about the organisation on the Higher Learning podcast, Newsom said AIPAC is not relevant to his day-to-day life.

“I haven’t thought about AIPAC, and it’s interesting. You’re like the first to bring up AIPAC in years, which is interesting,” he said.

In response to Moulton’s comments on Thursday, AIPAC issued a defiant statement, accusing the Democrat of “abandoning his friends to grab a headline”.

“His statement comes after years of him repeatedly asking for our endorsement and is a clear message to AIPAC members in Massachusetts, and millions of pro-Israel Democrats nationwide, that he rejects their support and will not stand with them,” the group said in a social media post.

The field of comparatively low-cost standoff munitions offerings continues to expand, with Kratos throwing its hat into the ring in the form of the Ragnarok Low-Cost Cruise Missile (LCCM).

The slender munition, which is named after the cataclysmic end of the world in Norse mythology, is capable of fitting into the bays of the XQ-58 Valkyrie drone, another Kratos product. The missile has a 500 nautical mile range and can carry an 80-pound payload, according to a release from the company. Ragnarok can also cruise at up to 35,000 feet at Mach 0.7.

While these performance figures, as least as claimed, are quite impressive, the price is perhaps more so. Kratos says the missile will cost $150,000 per unit in quantities of 100. One would imagine that number would drop further, possibly substantially so, if purchase volumes were expanded.

The performance and cost figures fit precisely with the USAF’s previously stated goals for such a weapon, which you can read about here.

Other listed features of Ragnarok’s design include a heavy use of carbon composites in its construction, an innovative wing-folding mechanism for compact storage and transport, and its ability to be deployed from weapons bays, wings, and from pallets. The fact that it is clearly built with the XQ-58 as a host in mind could prove to be a major advantage for Kratos, as the stealthy drone has extreme interest from various customers, and especially the USMC. Beyond fighters, advanced drones, bombers, and transports, its small size could see it migrate to non-traditional aircraft, including attack helicopters, if its weight allows it. U.S. Special Operations Command is also highly interested in a small cruise missile with this kind of performance, and is actively testing similar ones now.

No mention of a ground/surface launch variant is made in the release, nor are guidance packages and payload options, beyond a warhead, but we have reached out for more info on that and other aspects of the program.

Kratos has found a unique niche in the current defense acquisition environment, as its roots are primarily in target drones. The expertise built up by producing these often expendable uncrewed aircraft has ported over to the current rush toward lower-cost long-range munitions, as well as Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) and other affordable highly autonomous uncrewed systems.

The push for low-cost cruise missiles has exploded with companies large and small coming to the table with various offerings. Few have the pedigree of reliably building relatively advanced, but low-cost airframes like Kratos. Competition is growing rapidly in this space to meet emerging U.S. and foreign demands, which are in some cases intertwined. Ukraine is now in line to receive thousands of low-cost cruise missile-like munitions developed through a USAF program called the Extended Range Attack Munition (ERAM). However, other U.S. allies and partners, and the U.S. military itself, could be on track to benefit from the ERAM effort. Whether they come via ERAM or other programs, U.S. military purchases of weapons in this general vein are clearly on the horizon as advanced munitions stockpile concerns are now making headlines.

Steve Fendley, President of Kratos Unmanned Systems, is quoted as stating the following in the official release from Kratos:

“The Ragnarök LCCM represents our commitment to developing high-performance strike systems, for Valkyrie, that meet the evolving needs of today’s warfighter in conjunction with the budget realities that dictate what systems ultimately make it to the field… Its modular design delivers maximum combat capability for carriage and launch options. With complementary capability to the Northrop Grumman’s Lumberjack that’s recently been in the news, weapons in this new class which support unmanned and manned applications are coming to the forefront demonstrating their performance value per cost.”

As noted earlier, we reached out to Kratos with a number of questions about Ragnarok and the vision for it as it evolves, as well as its exact developmental state, although the company does say in their release that it is “ready for production.”

Contact the author: [email protected].

A federal grand jury in Maryland has indicted John Bolton, United States President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, over his handling of classified documents, charging him with retaining and transmitting national defence information.

The indictment, filed in federal court in Maryland on Thursday, charges Bolton with eight counts of transmission of national defence information and 10 counts of retention of national defence information, all in violation of the Espionage Act.

Each count is punishable by up to 10 years in prison if Bolton is convicted, but any sentence would be determined by a judge based on a range of factors.

Bolton’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said in a statement that his client “did not unlawfully share or store any information.”

Bolton served as US ambassador to the United Nations as well as White House national security adviser during Trump’s first term before emerging as one of the president’s most vocal critics. He described Trump as unfit to be president in a memoir he released last year.

The charges come two months after FBI agents searched Bolton’s home and office, seeking evidence of possible violations of the Espionage Act, which makes it a crime to remove, retain or transmit national defence records, according to partially unsealed search warrants filed in federal court.

In his Maryland home, agents seized two cellphones, documents in folders labelled “Trump I-IV” and a binder labelled “statements and reflections to Allied Strikes”, according to court documents.

In Bolton’s office, agents found records labelled “confidential”, including documents that referenced weapons of mass destruction, the US mission to the United Nations, and other materials related to the government’s strategic communications, according to court records.

The indictment levied Thursday alleges Bolton transmitted confidential information via personal email, used private messaging accounts to send sensitive documents that were classified as top secret and illegally retained intelligence documents in his home, according to the Department of Justice.

Bolton is accused of sharing more than 1,000 pages of information about government activities with relatives, according to the indictment.

The indictment says the notes Bolton shared with the two people included information he gleaned from meetings with senior government officials, discussions with foreign leaders, and intelligence briefings.

Prosecutors said a “cyber actor” tied to the Iranian government hacked Bolton’s personal email after he left government service and accessed classified information. A representative for Bolton told the government about the hack but did not report that he stored classified information in the email account, according to the indictment.

“These charges stem from portions of Amb. Bolton’s personal diaries over his 45-year career – records that are unclassified, shared only with his immediate family, and known to the FBI as far back as 2021,” Bolton’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said in an emailed statement. “Like many public officials throughout history, Amb. Bolton kept diaries – that is not a crime.”

Trump, who campaigned for the presidency on a vow of retribution after facing a slew of legal woes once his first term in the White House ended in 2021, has dispensed with decades-long norms designed to insulate federal law enforcement from political pressures.

In recent months, he has actively pushed Attorney General Pam Bondi’s Justice Department to bring charges against his perceived adversaries, even driving out a prosecutor he deemed to be moving too slowly in doing so.

Asked by reporters at the White House about the Bolton indictment on Thursday, Trump said: “He’s a bad guy.”

Bolton served as national security adviser during Trump’s first term from 2018 to 2019. In that time, he clashed with the president over Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea before getting fired in 2019.

He has subsequently criticised Trump’s approach to foreign policy and government, including in a 2020 book titled The Room Where it Happened, which portrayed the president as ill-informed on foreign policy.

The search warrant affidavit said a National Security Council official had reviewed the book manuscript and told Bolton in 2020 that it appeared to contain “significant amounts” of classified information, some at a top-secret level.

Earlier this month, New York Attorney General Letitia James, who led a legal case against Trump over alleged fraud in his businesses, was charged with lying on a mortgage application, drawing accusations of political vindictiveness by the White House.

Former FBI Director James Comey was indicted on September 25 on charges of making false statements and obstructing a congressional investigation, which he denies. Trump has feuded with Comey since the Russia investigation, which examined possible ties between Trump’s 2016 election campaign and Moscow.

The Justice Department has also launched investigations into US Senator Adam Schiff and Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Schiff and Cook have not been charged, and both reject any suggestion of wrongdoing.

Arab Barghouti tells Al Jazeera Israel wants to ‘silence’ his father amid reports Israeli guards beat him last month.

The son of prominent Palestinian political leader Marwan Barghouti says he fears for his father’s life in Israeli prison amid witness reports that he was beaten by guards last month.

In an interview with Al Jazeera on Thursday, Arab Barghouti accused Israel of targeting his father because he is a unifying figure among Palestinians.

“We do fear for my father’s life,” Arab said from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank.

Earlier this week, the family told media outlets that they had received testimonies from Palestinian detainees released as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal that Barghouti was beaten by guards in mid-September as he was being transferred between two Israeli prisons.

Arab told Al Jazeera that the attack is the fourth time since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023 that his father has been assaulted in Israeli detention.

“They are targeting him,” said Arab, explaining that Israel sees his father as “a danger” because of his ability to bring Palestinians together.

A prominent member of Fatah, the Palestinian political faction that dominates the Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs limited parts of the occupied West Bank, Barghouti has been in Israeli prison since the early 2000s.

He is serving five life sentences plus 40 years on murder and attempted murder charges, which he has consistently denied.

A Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research poll from May found that Barghouti was the most popular Palestinian leader, garnering more support than Hamas official Khaled Meshaal and PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

Palestinians had called for Barghouti to be released as part of the recent Gaza ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, but Israel refused to free him.

As part of the deal, Israel released 250 Palestinians serving life sentences, several of whom were sent into exile abroad. About 1,700 Palestinians who were detained in Gaza and transferred to Israeli detention facilities during the Gaza war were also freed.

One of the released prisoners, Mohammad al-Ardah, told Al Jazeera Arabic that Israeli forces would carry out “barbaric” raids in the prisons each week, severely beating Palestinian detainees.

“The latest reports we heard about the great leader Marwan Barghouti is that they broke three of his ribs,” al-Ardah said.

The Israeli authorities have denied that Barghouti was beaten in September, with the Israel Prison Service telling BBC News that it “operates in accordance with the law, while ensuring the safety and health of all inmates”.

But Arab, Barghouti’s son, said the Israeli authorities have no credibility.

He also pointed to an August video that showed far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir threatening Barghouti in prison, as evidence that the Israeli government is trying to “silence” his father’s voice.

“We know that [Ben-Gvir] showed him an electric chair on his phone and he told him, ‘This is your fate’ … If that’s not a threat to his life, I don’t know what is,” Arab told Al Jazeera on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Barghouti’s son said the family has repeatedly asked Israel to allow international lawyers and the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit his father in prison, but their requests have been denied.

“They see him as a danger … because he wants to bring stability, he wants to end the cycle of violence. He wants a unifying Palestinian vision that is accepted by everyone, and the international community, as well,” Arab said.

“They [Israel] know what my father represents, and they don’t want that. They don’t want a partner for peace.”

Aerospace and defense company RTX (RTX -0.10%) didn’t really have a banner day on the market Thursday, but in a trading session when the S&P 500 index fell by 0.6%, the stock’s flat performance made it a winner. Investors were reacting to good news from one of RTX’s three core business divisions.

Up in the air

That division is aircraft engine specialist Pratt & Whitney, which this morning reported it had earned an important certification abroad.

Image source: Getty Images.

Specifically, Pratt Whitney’s GTF Advantage engine got the nod from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). This follows similar certification from EASA’s American equivalent, the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA), and the company said it clears a path for the product to enter service next year.

The GTF Advantage is a next-generation engine for airliners that, according to its maker, delivers more thrust and boasts higher fuel efficiency than competing products currently on the market.

Big promises

In its press release divulging the happy news, Pratt & Whitney quoted its president of commercial engines, Rick Deurloo, as saying that the company’s new engine “will be a game-changer for operators.”

Despite the confidence, however, Pratt & Whitney did not provide any estimates as to how sales of the GTF Advantage will impact its fundamentals, or those of its parent RTX.

Jose Raul Mulino says the visa-removal policy is ‘not coherent’ with the ‘good relationship’ he hopes to have with the US.

Panama President Jose Raul Mulino said that someone at the United States Embassy has been threatening to cancel the visas of Panamanian officials.

His statements come as the administration of US President Donald Trump pressures Panama to limit its ties to China.

Responding to a reporter’s question at his weekly news conference, Mulino said — without offering evidence — that an official at the US Embassy is “threatening to take visas”, adding that such actions are “not coherent with the good relationship I aspire to maintain with the United States”. He did not name the official.

The US Embassy in Panama did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Trump administration has previously declined to comment on individual visa decisions.

But in September, the US Department of State said in a statement that the country was committed to countering China’s influence in Central America. It added that it would restrict visas for people who maintained relationships with China’s Communist Party or undermined democracy in the region on behalf of China.

Earlier this week, the Trump administration revoked the visas of six foreigners deemed by US officials to have made derisive comments or made light of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk last month.

Similar cases have surfaced recently in the region. In April, former Costa Rica President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias said the US had cancelled his visa. In July, Vanessa Castro, vice president of Costa Rica’s Congress, said that the US Embassy told her her visa had been revoked, citing alleged contacts with the Chinese Communist Party.

Panama has become especially sensitive to the US-China tensions because of the strategically important Panama Canal.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Panama in February on his first foreign trip as the top US diplomat and called for Panama to immediately reduce China’s influence over the canal.

Panama has strongly denied Chinese influence over canal operations but has gone along with US pressure to push the Hong Kong-based company that operated ports on both ends of the canal to sell its concession to a consortium.

Mulino has said that Panama will maintain the canal’s neutrality.

“They’re free to give and take a visa to anyone they want, but not threatening that, ‘If you don’t do something, I’ll take the visa,’” Mulino said Thursday.

He noted that the underlying issue — the conflict between the US and China — “doesn’t involve Panama”.

West Midlands Police said the upcoming game has been classified as “high risk” following a “thorough assessment”.

A spokesperson said: “This decision is based on current intelligence and previous incidents, including violent clashes and hate crime offences that occurred during the 2024 Europa League match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam.

“Based on our professional judgement, we believe this measure will help mitigate risks to public safety.

“While the safety certificate is issued by Birmingham City Council, West Midlands Police supports the decision to prohibit away supporters from attending.”

Football’s European governing body Uefa said it wanted fans to be able to travel and support their team in a “safe, secure and welcoming environment”.

Uefa told Reuters: “In all cases, the competent local authorities remain responsible for decisions related to the safety and security of matches taking place on their territory.”

Arrests were made after violence broke out before the match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv in November last year.

Amsterdam officials described the violence as a “toxic combination of antisemitism, hooliganism, and anger” over the war in Gaza, Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East.

A ceasefire in Gaza came into effect on 10 October.

While both Ukraine and Russia have sustained large amounts of helicopter losses due to dense traditional frontline air defenses, in some cases, drones, and attacks on bases, the U.S. Army is taking a measured approach in applying lessons learned to the future of its own rotary-wing fleet, a top commander told us. Maj. Gen. Claire Gill, commanding general of the U.S. Army Aviation Center of Excellence is adamant that not everything that happens in Ukraine applies to the U.S. Army and it’s absolutely critical that only the right lessons should be heeded.

“When we talk about Ukraine, there are a lot of lessons to be learned,” Gill told us on the sidelines of the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) annual conference in Washington, D.C.. “We focus on the right lessons to be learned.”

“There are some differences between positional warfare with drones – they’re doing World War One with drones right now in Ukraine – and the way that the United States Army fights, particularly as a member of the combined arms team and as a member of the joint force,” he added. “So, there are a lot of things that we should pay attention to there, but they’re not flying at night. They don’t plan like we plan. They don’t bring all the collective elements that we could bring to bear when we execute our operations.”

Ukraine and Russia are likely using deception as part of their operations, “but…using the night, using the terrain, using the degraded visual environment, we’ve got some pretty exquisite capabilities, and some well-trained folks, as do the Ukrainians,” Gill noted.

Gill is less convinced about Russian training.

“On the Russian side, I’ve seen some shoot downs that make me wonder, flying around the daytime, at altitude, flying the same routes. That just makes me think you can’t equate the way that they’re flying with the way that we might fly. So I think there’s a lot of opportunity there for us to learn some things, but not throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

“This is something when I talk to young aviators about what we should take away from some of the decisions that are being made in terms of divesting aircraft out of the army and investing in [unmanned aerial systems] UAS,” Gill added. “We have to make changes, right? We have to see the world the way it is. I know we’re not done with rotorcraft like I told you. Everything that we’re flying right now is going to be on the ramp for a long time.”

Army aviation assets include UH-60 Black Hawks, CH-47 Chinooks, AH-64E Apaches and heavily modified MH-60M Black Hawk, MH-47G Chinook, and AH/MH-6R Little Bird helicopters. You can read more about the future of the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment’s (SOAR) aircraft in our recent story here. In the coming decade, the Bell MV-75 Valor tilt-rotor aircraft is slated to come online as well. More on that later in this story.

The fate of helicopters in Ukraine has hammered home the need for missions to be mapped out with excrutiating detail before launching, Brig. Gen. Philip C Baker, the Army’s aviation future capabilities director, told us.

“We’ve got to have that ability to have really good planning tools going into mission sets,” Baker explained. “And planning tools is really driven by our data integration across all of our combat systems, intel, maneuver, fires. So when you look at NGC2 [Next Generation Command and Control] that provides us an integrated data path to bring in as much of information early on to planning, so our crews, both manned and unmanned, can plan them out right mission sets so they understand enemy, they understand the electronic spectrum, they understand weather, they understand all that before they go in.”

In addition, “when you look at the battlefield data and the speed of data that passes around the battlefield, we’ve got to be able to have that inside of our operation cells, and we’ve got to have that inside of our aircraft. And so we’re doing a lot this year onboarding new communication capability onto platforms that will bring into our experiment in March, that brings in satellite-based communication, that brings in mesh networks onto platforms to be able to drive that data flow onto platforms inside of our operation cells.”

Having standoff munitions capabilities is also key, Baker posited, pointing to the Army’s developing launched effects effort, a broad term that the U.S. military currently uses to refer to uncrewed aerial systems configured for different missions, like reconnaissance or acting as loitering munitions, which can be fired from other aerial platforms, as well as ones on the ground or at sea. For the Army, one example of a longer-range weapon being fielded for Army helicopters is the Israeli-designed Spike-NLOS. It gives Apaches the ability to hit moving targets far away with exacting precision. Far longer-ranged launched effects will also become available, including those that can decoy, jam, and attack targets many dozens, or even hundreds of miles away.

“The role of launched effects is to provide that standoff capability, not like a Hellfire at eight kilometers, but multiple, multiple kilometers out, so we can make contact with the enemy early, understand what the enemy is doing, and then have an effect on the enemy,” Baker suggested. “So that’s really the role of launched effects.”

New and improved sensors will also help rotary-wing aircraft survive by making them better able to operate in a degraded visual environment, Baker added.

“As we bring new sensors onto the aircraft, we want to be able to truly operate in those environments that give us the highest capability and survivability,” Baker pointed out. “So during darkness hours, during dust, during, you know, the environment where we need we can operate not in daytime. So we’re bringing on sensor capability to our platforms that allow us to even enhance our ability to operate at night.”

Asked about what the right lessons from Ukraine are, especially for a potential fight against a peer adversary like China, Baker said they are “really tied to that standoff range. We know standoff is going to be critical to be able to stay outside of weapon engagement zones so we can operate kind of a sanctuary.”

The Army also wants “to rely on that data network to be able to pass information quickly so we can strike quickly and affect the enemy,” Baker added. 

Lessons learned from Ukraine are informing how the Army is developing the Valor, Brig. Gen. David Phillips, program executive officer of aviation, told TWZ.

“I would offer, from equipment perspective and a sustainment perspective, you can look at the equipment decisions that we’re making on MV-75 and tie them directly to these lessons learned, how we integrate launch effects, how we integrate networks, how we integrate the survivability on the platform, the survivability off board the platform, and just the aircraft survivability itself. I think we’re absolutely integrating those into our design efforts today, as we’re headed toward the critical design review that’s coming up in the spring.”

With many Russian helicopters being lost from attacks on their bases, Maj. Gen. Lori Robinson, Commanding General of Army Aviation and Missile Command, said it will be important to keep an eye on the skies.

“I think the right lesson is that everyone does have to look up,” Robinson told us. “And that includes your sustainment footprint on the ground. So we’re looking into how to make that mobile. We don’t have a mound of stuff on the ground. And then every soldier out there, whether you’re in the aircraft or you’re sustaining the aircraft on the ground, is going to have to be aware of what is above them.”

When it comes to thinking about lessons learned from Ukraine, Gill said one thing stands out. While crewed rotary wing aviation will be in the mix for years to come, uncrewed systems will ultimately be at the pointy tip of the spear.

“The Army made a decision to move toward unmanned capability,” he noted. “And so I think the lesson that I take from Ukraine and this nature of warfare is you lead with unmanned systems, right? So whether you want to create an effect, whether you want to create a diversion, whether you want to find something, and then you introduce people. When you need humans to do the things that humans are really good at doing,”

Contact the author: [email protected]

From the air, it looks like a city erased. Entire neighbourhoods have vanished from the map two years since Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza began. What were once homes, schools, hospitals, factories and power plants have been reduced to debris and dust. Thousands of Palestinians are now returning to ruins or rubble in a place that has lost the very fabric of daily life.

Economists estimate the cost of rebuilding at tens of billions of dollars – far beyond the capacity of Gaza’s shattered economy.

What is behind the $20bn lifeline to Argentina?

Plus, the European Union invests $13bn in South Africa.

Shares of Standard Lithium (SLI 12.79%) jumped sharply today, surging 25% in early-morning trading and still holding up about 15% through 11:30 a.m. ET Thursday. And, it isn’t about tariffs or trade wars or even lithium prices today.

Standard Lithium is yet to start commercial production, but it has just hit a major milestone that moves it closer to the goal.

Image source: Getty Images.

Standard Lithium inches closer to first production

Standard Lithium is still in the pre-production stage. Its flagship projects are located in the lithium-brine-rich resource, the Smackover Formation, which extends from central Texas to the Florida panhandle. Standard Lithium is focused on projects in South-West Arkansas (SWA) and East Texas within the Smackover Formation.

While the company is still exploring East Texas and has only filed an initial resource estimate for the deposit, the SWA project is in the advanced stages now.

Standard Lithium is jointly developing SWA with Equinor (EQNR -0.61%), with Standard Lithium owning a 55% stake. On Oct. 14, it filed a definitive feasibility study (DFS) for the project, outlining an annual production capacity of 22,500 tonnes of battery-grade lithium carbonate over a 20-year lifespan.

A DFS is the cornerstone for a mine, as it confirms its commercial viability.

In other words, it is now proven that Standard Lithium can economically mine lithium from SWA and, therefore, move on to the nest stage of raising funds to start the production process. So it’s a major milestone for the company and explains why the lithium stock is flying higher.

Time to buy Standard Lithium stock hand over fist?

Though the DFS sets the stage for commercial extraction of lithium from SWA, it’s still a time-consuming process.

Standard Lithium is estimating a 34-month timeline, from construction to the start of commercial operations. So if construction begins in early 2026, the earliest expected date for first commercial production is around the end of 2028, provided Standard Lithium can secure capital, finalize the technical plans, and start and complete construction at the project on time.

Keep in mind that Standard Lithium stock has already doubled within just one month and has surged over 300% so far in 2025, as of this writing. However, that rally was largely fueled by speculation of a possible U.S. government stake.

Israel says Hamas is failing to meet commitments under Trump’s Gaza ceasefire plan, while Hamas says Israel’s destruction makes recovering captives’ bodies nearly impossible. With 11,000 Palestinians also still under rubble, Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh says tensions threaten the fragile truce.

We got an up-close look at General Atomics’ Mojave, which is working as a lead-in for Gray Eagle STOL at the Association of the U.S. Army’s major symposium outside of Washington, D.C. this week. Gray Eagle STOL will bring a vast array of capabilities and future adaptability into a package that can takeoff from short, rough fields and even amphibious assault ships. You can read all about Gray Eagle STOL in our recent feature here.

From the show floor, Chris MacFarland, vice president of Army Strategic Development from General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. (GA-ASI), gives us the full walk-around tour of the aircraft and what it will bring to the table.

Check it out in the video below:

Contact the editor: [email protected]

Muslims are protesting across India against arrests, raids and home demolitions over the phrase ‘I love Muhammad’. Al Jazeera’s Yashraj Sharma explains what happened and why religious expression is increasingly under threat under Prime Minister Modi’s government.

Hackers took over the PA system at Harrisburg International Airport in Pennsylvania, broadcasting a pro-Palestine message and insults against the leaders of the US and Israel. Similar incidents were reported at three Canadian airports on the same day.