Pakistan said it carried out airstrikes early Thursday on 10 sites in Afghanistan that it said were used to launch drone attacks against Pakistan a day earlier, a sharp escalation in recent fighting between the two countries that threatens international mediation efforts.

The airstrikes struck southern and eastern Afghan provinces of Kandahar, Paktia and Khost, killing four civilians, Afghan government spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement.

Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping have no shortage of difficult issues to cover when they sit down for talks on Thursday at the White House.

China has resisted the Trump administration's urgings — and economic threats — to use its considerable leverage to prod Iran to agree to U.S. terms to end the nearly seven-month war. Xi wants to see Trump permanently halt arms sales to Taiwan and loosen export restrictions on cutting-edge advanced chips. And the two sides on Wednesday agreed to extend a one-year trade truce set to expire Nov. 10 for two months, kicking the can on finding a more durable agreement.

The son of Israel's ambassador to the United States was gravely injured in a ramming attack in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday.

Neria Leiter, a reservist in Israel's military, "needs a miracle," Ambassador Yechiel Leiter said in a social media post. The ambassador's older son, Moshe Yedidya Leiter, who also served in Israel's military, was killed in Gaza about a month after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023 attack, which triggered the war in Gaza.

Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa insisted at the U.N. Wednesday that the Golan Heights region will remain Syrian after Colombia last month recognized Israeli sovereignty over the strategically important territory.

"Any attempts that violate our sovereignty, violate international law, will be stopped. Golan will remain Syrian territories. Any other attempts will be thwarted according to Security Council Resolution 497," al-Sharaa said at the U.N. meeting of world leaders in New York.

A four-day visit by Pope Leo XIV beginning Friday that will feature large public gatherings, popemobile parades and an open-air Mass in Paris presents France with a balancing act under its strict approach to secularism, known as laïcité.

"France is an indivisible, secular, democratic and social Republic," the country's Constitution states.

Yemeni factions fighting the Iran-backed Houthis are united mainly in one thing — their opposition to the rebels who control the country's north and have recently advanced along its Red Sea coastline.

But beyond that, the groups fighting under the banner of Yemen's internationally recognized government are divided by geography, foreign patronage and competing visions for what their country should look like if the Houthis are pushed back.

All signs are pointing toward a record-breaking El Nino this year, which experts say may cause severe drought in Asia and other extreme weather across the world, threatening food security for millions of people.

El Nino is part of a natural climate cycle of warming ocean temperatures, but this year's is expected to reach new extremes of drought, heat waves, flooding and other climate-related disruptions in South America, Africa and Asia.

CLAIM: "We have more munitions than we could ever possibly even think of using, and we're building them at levels that we have never done before."

THE FACTS: Published reports and experts contradict this claim. Weapons stockpiles are diminishing, according to officials from the U.S. military, NATO and the Middle East, and it will take years for U.S. military contractors to replenish Tomahawk cruise missiles as well as Patriot and THAAD missile interceptors, according to defense experts.

Netanyahu’s office called Macron’s remarks at the United Nations a "grotesque absurdity," objecting to his claim about the Palestinian militant group Hamas' activity in the West Bank.

Macron decried the situation in Gaza. He also criticized the escalating Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, saying Israel could not invoke Hamas to justify its actions in the territory. He used terminology in his French-language remarks that could mean Hamas has either never governed or operated in the West Bank.

An Israeli strike on a vehicle in Khan Younis killed two people Wednesday morning, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said one of those killed was Mohammad Abu Alwan, whom he identified as the head of Hamas’ finance department. He also said Israel would keep going after militants on its target list.