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Thursday Briefing

Chinese government workers have a lot to worry about these days. Cash-strapped local governments are struggling to pay their salaries. Political controls are tightening in the name of national security. A yearslong anti-corruption purge shows no sign of ending. Now, the workers also have to make sure not to get slapped with a “Snail Award” … Read more

Delta Air Lines said on Wednesday that it was offering $30,000 to each passenger who was aboard the flight from Minneapolis that crashed and flipped upside down this week while trying to land in Toronto. All 80 people — 76 passengers and four crew members — who were on Delta Flight 4819 survived after the … Read more

Trump and Zelensky traded blows in an escalating feud President Trump yesterday called Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, a “dictator” who took money from the U.S. to go to war with Russia. In a social media post littered with falsehoods, Trump didn’t mention President Vladimir Putin, or that Russia seized some Ukrainian territory in 2014 before … Read more

At the nation’s borders, federal workers keep the country safe in many ways: Some investigate sick passengers. Some examine animals for dangerous pathogens. And some inspect plants for infestations that could spread in this country. Late last week, the Trump administration dispatched hundreds of those federal employees with the same message that colleagues at other … Read more

Nataliia Klymyuk, who has been volunteering for 11 years to look after a memorial to war dead in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, said she had never had any illusions about President Trump. On Wednesday, she stood among a crowd of people at the memorial, on Independence Square in central Kyiv, where tens of thousands of … Read more

Authorities Warn Tourists to Keep Clear of Lava Flows on Mount Etna

The Trump administration has moved more than 150 men from an immigration holding site in Texas to the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay. All have been described as Venezuelans who have been issued final deportation orders. But it is not known why these men in particular were sent there. Waves of migrants, including thousands … Read more

An Israeli military prosecutor charged five reservist soldiers on Wednesday with abuse of a Palestinian detainee, saying it took place last year at a military base where thousands of Gazans have been held. The indictment accused soldiers at the Sde Teiman base in southern Israel of breaking the detainee’s ribs, puncturing his left lung and … Read more

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will skip a meeting of finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20 nations in Cape Town next week, according to people familiar with his plans, deepening the rift between the United States and South Africa over policies the Trump administration believes are anti-American. The decision to forgo such … Read more