Smoke billows from the hotel during the siege. Photo: WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images
At least 18 people, including at least one foreigner, died during a 12-hour siege after a team of gunmen attacked the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, per Afghanistan's TOLO News.
There was an hours-long gunfight between the attackers and members of the Afghan special forces. The same luxury hotel was attacked by the Taliban in 2011, leaving 12 dead.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo briefs reporters on May 20. Photo: Nicholas Kamm/pool/AFP via Getty Images
Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) wrote in a CNN op-ed on Wednesday that he learned that the State Department is currently working to sell thousands of additional precision-guided bombs to Saudi Arabia.
Why it matters: Democrats say that Steve Linick, the State Department inspector general who was ousted on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's recommendation, was investigating the administration's previous effort to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia without congressional approval.
More than 100,000 Americans have died of the coronavirus, according to data from Johns Hopkins — a terrible milestone that puts the death toll far beyond some of the most tragic events in U.S. history.
By the numbers: The death toll from COVID-19 now stands at more than 34 times the number of people who died on 9/11.