American swimmer Jessica Long has won her 25th Paralympic gold medal —triumphing in the 200-meter individual medley SM8 at the Tokyo Games on Saturday.
The big picture: The win marks the bi-lateral amputee's fourth-straight Paralympic Games gold medal in her signature event. Long was 12 years old when she won her first three Paralympic golds, at the 2004 Athens Games.
The big picture: The blast led to the first U.S. military casualties in Afghanistan in over a year, and marks the deadliest incident there in a decade, per Reuters.
President Nayib Bukele’s government has been secretly negotiating with El Salvador’s three main gangs in order to fulfill his 2019 campaign promise to lower the number of murders to zero, according to official documents dug up by news site El Faro.
Why it matters: Bukele had repeatedly criticized previous officials who secretly bargained with gang members for “negotiating with the people’s blood on the line.”
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett told President Biden in their meeting on Friday at the White House that although he is against a U.S. return to the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, he isn’t going to publicly campaign against it like his predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu, two U.S. sources briefed on the meeting told Axios.
Why it matters: Biden and his senior advisers are veterans of the intense confrontations between Netanyahu and former President Obama on Iran.
Giving up the security of Bagram Air Field — and funneling everyone to Kabul's civilian airport — fueled the chaotic and deadly departure underway in Afghanistan, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) told Axios.
Why it matters: Moulton was lambasted for his secret trip to Kabul, but he brought along a former Marine infantry officer's perspective. What would he have done differently? "There's one very simple order, which would have been to start this evacuation months ago."
Tens of thousands of Afghan refugees will soon need to find new homes, and many countries are preemptively closing their doors.
Why it matters: The U.S. is leading what the White House calls one of the biggest airlifts in history as Afghans flee from Taliban rule. That exodus will quickly become a humanitarian crisis involving the U.S., Europe and parts of Asia and the Middle East.
The United States launched a drone strike targeting members of the Islamic State in Afghanistan on Saturday local time in response to Thursday's Kabul airport attack, the Pentagon said.
Driving the news: “U.S. military forces conducted an over-the-horizon counterterrorism operation today against an ISIS-K planner,” Capt. Bill Urban, spokesman for the U.S. Central Command, said in a statement.
Why it matters: In her role as first lady, Biden has prioritized military-focused initiatives. She said the attack in Kabul, which killed at least 13 U.S. troops, "left us with the stinging reality of the ultimate sacrifice you are willing to make."
U.S. Customs and Border Protection started detaining solar panel imports from Chinese companies that allegedly source products from Xinjiang forced labor, Washington Post reports.
Why it matters: China is the supply chain leader for solar energy equipment, but concerns over human rights violations led the Biden administration to order a ban in June.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett presented President Biden in their meeting today with what Israeli officials described as “a death by a thousand cuts” strategy against Iran.
Why it matters: Besides striking up a personal relationship, Bennett's primary goal in his first meeting with Biden was to express his sense of urgency about the significant progress Iran was making in its nuclear program, and Israel's new government conducted an Iran policy review prior to the visit.
The Marines and other service members who died at Abbey Gate on Thursday "were heroes in the truest sense of the word," Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) told Axios, based on what he saw them doing just two days earlier.
What they're saying: "I expected to see a gate with Marines on one side and Afghans on the other," Moulton said Friday. "That wasn't the case. The Marines had to go out, amidst the Afghans, with the Taliban yards away with their horse whips. ... I've never been more proud to be an American."
COVID's origin is still inconclusive, according to an unclassified intelligence report publicly released Friday.
Driving the news: Chinese officials had no knowledge of the virus prior to its initial outbreak, according to the report, though it doesn't rule out the lab leak or animal transmission theories. The intelligence community "remains divided."
At least 13 U.S. troops and scores of Afghan citizens were killed in a suicide bombing outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Thursday, U.S. and Afghan officials said.
What we know: The "complex attack" that struck in the sunset of the U.S.' longest war involved an explosion at the Abbey Gate entrance to the airport, the Pentagon said Friday. President Biden blamed ISIS-K for the "vicious attack," and vowed to retaliate.
The green card that Atifa and her brother used to get back into the U.S. yesterday also put their lives at risk back in Kabul, when the Taliban searched door to door for Americans.
Driving the news: Axios interviewed the 21-year-old and her 18-year-old sibling, who went by his last name, Ahmadi, at the Dulles Expo Center in Chantilly, Va. They gave a first-hand account of the journey from Afghanistan to the U.S. — a terrifying, stressful, exhausting trip lasting nine days.
