The U.S. reached an initial deal with the Taliban on Friday that could begin a drawdown of American troops from Afghanistan, AP reports, citing a senior U.S. official.
The big picture: Top administration officials, including President Trump, had signaled that an agreement could be reached soon, allowing America's 18-year war in Afghanistan to end after thousands of lives lost and billions of dollars spent. But previous attempts to leave Afghanistan have not panned out.
Sudan's transitional government has reached an agreement to compensate the families of victims of the 2000 U.S.S. Cole attack, which killed 17 sailors and injured 39, it said Thursday.
Why it matters: This is part of an effort to get off the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. Sudan previously harbored al-Qaeda, which carried out the attack. The designation carries restrictions on foreign assistance and financial transactions that have strangled Sudan's economy.
President Trump says he's "very close" to a deal that will begin the end of America's war in Afghanistan.
Why it matters: There’s a reason the U.S. has been stuck in Afghanistan for nearly two decades. Pulling out would leave the precarious structure it's attempted to build in danger of collapse.
The Justice Department on Thursday announced a 16-count superseding indictment against Chinese telecom giant Huawei and its CFO Meng Wanzhou that includes charges of racketeering and conspiracy to steal trade secrets.
Why it matters: The superseding indictment could ratchet up the potential penalties against Huawei, which was already facing charges for violating U.S. sanctions against Iran and North Korea. Meng is currently in Canada fighting extradition to the U.S., with the first stage of her hearing beginning last month.
Masons in the Indian city of Ahmedabad are working "round-the-clock" to build a 400-meter-long wall that will ensure President Trump doesn't catch a glimpse of a large slum while visiting the city later this month with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Reuters reports.
What they're saying: A government official told Reuters the wall was being built for security reasons. But the contractor hired to build it says the government “did not want the slum to be seen." Some local residents criticized the government for spending money to hide the poor, not help them.
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer’s resignation as chair of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) was abrupt, but her fall as Angela Merkel’s heir apparent was inevitable.
Why it matters: The CDU has been longing for a different chancellor candidate throughout the short and bumpy tenure of Kramp-Karrenbauer, known as AKK, because of her blunders and the rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD). Now it can cut its losses and prepare for the 2021 election.
A 31-year-old Portuguese hacker named Rui Pinto from 2015 to 2019 leaked a series of anonymous documents that exposed corruption in European soccer, pulling back the curtain on the murky world of soccer finance and resulting in criminal prosecutions of several top players.
Driving the news: Turns out the enormous trove of data that Pinto obtained held a much bigger secret, revealing how Isabel dos Santos, Africa's richest woman and the daughter of Angola's former president, exploited her country's wealth to amass a $2 billion fortune.
