Afghan and #Pakistani delegations in Doha for crisis talks over cross-border violence.

The two sides agreed to establish mechanisms to consolidate lasting peace and stability, as well as holding follow-up talks in the coming days to ensure the ceasefire’s sustainability, the Qatari statement said.

Delegations from Afghanistan and Pakistan were in Doha for talks to resolve the deadliest crisis between them in several years. The talks were mediated by Qatar and Turkey.

Both governments had sent their defense ministers to lead the talks, which Pakistan said would focus on “immediate measures to end cross-border terrorism emanating from Afghanistan and restore peace and stability along the border.”

Each country has said it was responding to aggression from the other. Afghanistan denies harboring militants who carry out attacks in border areas.

Regional powers, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have called for calm, as the violence threatened to further destabilize a region where groups including the Islamic State group and al-Qaida are trying to resurface.

A 48-hour ceasefire intended to pause hostilities expired Friday evening. Hours later, Pakistan struck across the border.

Pakistani security officials confirmed to The Associated Press Saturday that there were strikes on two districts in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktika province.

The targets were hideouts of the militant Hafiz Gul Bahadur group, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. One said the operation was a direct response to the suicide bombing of a security forces compound in Mir Ali, in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province a day earlier.

The Pakistani Air Force raids killed dozens of armed fighters and there were no civilian deaths, they said.

But Afghan officials said the aerial assaults killed at least 10 civilians, including women, children and local cricketers. The attacks prompted the national cricket board to boycott an upcoming series in Pakistan.

On Saturday, several thousand people attended funeral prayers in Paktika. They sat in the open air as loudspeakers broadcast sermons and condemnation.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban government’s chief spokesman, in a statement, criticized the “repeated crimes of Pakistani forces and the violation of Afghanistan’s sovereignty.”

Such acts were deemed provocative and viewed as “deliberate attempts” to prolong the conflict, he added.

The two countries share a 2,611-kilometer (1,622-mile) border known as the Durand Line, but Afghanistan has never recognized it.

Pakistan is grappling with surging militancy, especially in areas bordering Afghanistan. It also accuses its nuclear-armed neighbor and rival India of backing armed groups, without providing any evidence.

Pakistan’s army chief, Asim Munir, urged Afghans to choose “mutual security over perpetual violence and progress over hardline obscurantism.”

“The Taliban must rein in the proxies who have sanctuaries in Afghanistan,” he told an audience on Saturday at the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Associated Press writers Abdul Qahar Afghan in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, Sajjad Tarakzai in Islamabad, and Riaz Khan, in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

In our roundup of travel stories this week: the seven-foot “monster” that stalked West Virginia, the Roman tunnel where a hated emperor nearly met his end, and the enormous bunker city built by Nazis in central Europe.
Poland’s Nazi labyrinth

The countryside around the little Polish village of Pniewo looks serene, with its yellow crops and patches of forest, but beneath the surface lies a sprawling 20-mile maze of tunnels, shafts, underground railway stations and combat facilities.

This is the Ostwall, a fortified subterranean complex built by the Nazis and abandoned in 1945. In the 1980s and ‘90s, a subculture known as the Bunker People took over the tunnels, hosting unauthorized and often dangerous events here, from raves to weddings. Today, bats are its inhabitants, some 40,000 of them taking refuge in the darkness.

In the 21st century, it’s been given new life as a dark tourism destination, with 19 miles of tunnels open to explore in the Międzyrzecz Fortified Region Museum. Read more here.
Rome’s murder-plot tunnel and London’s Cold War spy maze

In Italy, a 2,000-year-old tunnel once used by Roman emperors to slip unseen into the Colosseum will open to the public this month. The 180-foot Passage of Commodus takes its name from Emperor Commodus, who you may remember as the conniving meanie portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix in “Gladiator.” Experts believe he once survived an assassination attempt here. He would later meet his end being strangled by a champion wrestler.

Fans of secret underground complexes will have much to celebrate when The London Tunnels opens in the UK capital, with a speculative date of 2028. This mile-long series of chambers was built to shelter citizens in World War II, before becoming the home of Britain’s Special Operations Executive, an offshoot of MI6 and the real-life inspiration for James Bond’s Q Branch. It’s undergoing a $149 million transformation in hopes of becoming the city’s grandest new tourist attraction. CNN went down below for a sneak preview earlier this year.
Turkey’s ghost town and Iraq’s lost city

Just over a century ago, Kayaköy in southwest Turkey was a bustling town of more than 10,000 people. Abandoned by its occupants and haunted by the past, it’s now a ghost town, a physical reminder of darker times following the Greco-Turkish war.

Its crumbling buildings swallowed by greenery are starkly beautiful and deeply eerie, even more so as the cooler seasons creep in and sea mists descend. Today’s visitors pay a three-euro fee to wander its uneven lanes and alleyways. Here’s what CNN discovered on its visit.

Babylon, in modern Iraq, meanwhile, was the jewel of Mesopotamia and one of the most important cities in antiquity. Today, its ancient ruins are a site in distress, its paths overgrown and facilities scarce. But when the late afternoon sun hangs heavy over Hillah, its steps and statues bathed in heat and light, visitors still feel that they are standing in the footprints of kings.
America’s most haunted

The Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in West Virginia looks like the asylum of nightmares and for many, it was. But it started out as a place of compassion whose massive overcrowding led to desperate measures by doctors and staff. Daily and nightly tours now offer visitors its complex history, along with an occasional paranormal scare.

Many former asylums are now macabre tourist attractions, whose treatment of their subject matter can range from the sensitive to the sensationalist. CNN delved deeper into the surprisingly hopeful history of asylum tourism in America.

Maureen O’Hare, CNN

#Yemen’s #Houthi rebels raid a #UN facility but all staff are reported safe.

Jean Alam, a spokesman for the U.N. resident coordinator for Yemen, said Houthi security forces entered the U.N. compound in Sanaa. He told The Associated Press there were 15 U.N. international staff members in the facility at the time of the raid, and that “according to latest information all staff in the compound are safe and accounted for and have contacted their families.”

The rebels also raided U.N. offices in Sanaa on Aug. 31 and detained 19 employees, according to the U.N. They later released the deputy director of the UNICEF office in the country but still hold more than 50 people, including many associated with aid groups, civil society and the now-closed U.S. Embassy in Sanaa.

“The United Nations is taking all necessary measures and is in contact with the relevant authorities and counterparts to ensure the safety and security of all personnel and property,” Alam said, referring to Saturday’s raid.

Another U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the raid, said the building is operated by the U.N. The employees belong to multiple U.N. agencies including the World Food Program, UNICEF and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the official said.

A spokesman for the Houthis didn’t answer phone calls seeking a comment.

The Houthis have alleged without evidence that the U.N. staffers detained in August were spies -- something fiercely denied by the world body and others.

In a televised speech Thursday, the Houthis’ secretive leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, claimed that they detained one of “the most dangerous espionage cells” which he said was “affiliated with organizations working in the humanitarian field, notably the World Food Program and UNICEF.” He didn’t offer evidence.

“Accusations such as these are dangerous and unacceptable,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said of the Houthi remarks. “They seriously jeopardize the safety of U.N. personnel and humanitarian workers and undermine life-saving operations.”

Saturday’s raid was the latest in a long-running Houthi crackdown against the U.N. and other international organizations working in rebel-held areas in Yemen. The crackdown forced the U.N. to suspend its operations in the Houthi stronghold of Saada province in northern Yemen following the detention of eight staffers in January. The U.N. also relocated its top humanitarian coordinator in Yemen from Sanaa to the coastal city of Aden, which serves as seat for the internationally recognized government.

Yemen has plunged into civil war in 2014, when the Houthis seized Sanaa and much of northern Yemen, forcing the internationally recognized government into exile.

A coalition led by Saudi Arabia and including the United Arab Emirates intervened the following year in an attempt to restore the government. The war has been stalemated in recent years, and the rebels reached a deal with Saudi Arabia that stopped their attacks on the kingdom in return for ceasing the Saudi-led strikes on their territories.

Samy Magdy, The Associated Press

U.S. will send survivors of strike on suspected drug vessel back to Ecuador and Colombia, #Trump says.


The military rescued the pair after striking a submersible vessel Thursday, in what was at least the sixth such attack since early September.

“It was my great honor to destroy a very large DRUG-CARRYING SUBMARINE that was navigating towards the United States on a well known narcotrafficking transit route,” Trump said in a social media post. “U.S. Intelligence confirmed this vessel was loaded up with mostly Fentanyl, and other illegal narcotics.”

After Trump’s announcement, the Pentagon posted on X a brief black-and-white video of the strike. In the clip, a vessel can be seen moving through the waves, its front portion submerged inches below the water’s surface. Then, several explosions are seen, with at least one over the back of the vessel.

The Republican president said two people onboard were killed -- one more than was previously reported -- and the two who survived are being sent to their home countries “for detention and prosecution.”

Colombian President Gustavo Petro confirmed Saturday on X that the Colombian man who was detained aboard what he called a “narco submarine” was home.

“We are glad he is alive, and he will be prosecuted according to the law,” Petro wrote in a brief post.

The press office for Ecuador’s government said Saturday it was not immediately aware of plans for repatriation.

With Trump’s statement on his Truth Social platform of the death toll, that means U.S. military action against vessels in the region have killed at least 29 people.

The president has justified the strikes by asserting that the United States is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels. He is relying on the same legal authority used by the George W. Bush administration when it declared a war on terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks, and that includes the ability to capture and detain combatants and to use lethal force to take out their leadership. Trump is also treating the suspected traffickers as if they were enemy soldiers in a traditional war.

The repatriation avoids questions for the Trump administration about what the legal status of the two would have been in the U.S. justice system. It may also sidestep some of the legal issues that arose out of the detention of enemy combatants in the global war on terrorism as well as challenges to the constitutionality of the current operation.

To some legal scholars, Trump’s use of such military force against suspect drug cartels, along with his authorization of covert action inside Venezuela, possibly to oust President Nicolas Maduro, stretches the bounds of international law.

On Friday, Trump seemed to confirm reports that Maduro has offered a stake in Venezuela’s oil and other mineral wealth in recent months to try to stave off mounting pressure from the United States. Venezuelan government officials have also floated a plan in which Maduro would eventually leave office, according to a former Trump administration official. That plan was also rejected by the White House, The Associated Press reported.

The strikes in the Caribbean have caused unease among members of Congress from both parties and complaints about receiving insufficient information on how the attacks are being conducted. But most Republican senators backed the administration last week on a measure that would have required Trump’s team to get approval from Congress before more strikes.

Meanwhile, another resolution to be considered would prevent Trump from outright attacking Venezuela without congressional authorization.

Konstantin Toropin And Chris Megerian, The Associated Press

Megerian reported from West Palm Beach, Fla.

Staff member at Massachusetts school dies after 14-year-old student allegedly kicked her in the chest.

Amy Morrell, 53, of Riverside, Rhode Island, was kicked in the chest by the teen while trying to restrain her just before 7 p.m. at Meadowridge Academy, officials said.

Morrell collapsed to the floor, and staff immediately began CPR and called 911. Emergency medical services transported Morrell to an area hospital, where she was pronounced dead Thursday afternoon.

The teen was allegedly trying to leave a dorm building without permission, officials said.

“This will be very fact-intensive. First of all, what were the circumstances around this? And, secondly, it will also depend on what the coroner says. What is the medical examiner going to say is the cause of death? Because the charge — as alleged — indicates, you know, no specific intent, obviously, and although we know that people can die from one punch or one kick, it doesn’t happen that often. And so, until we know more of the facts, we can’t really say if there will be upgraded charges,” legal analyst Martha Coakley said.

The teen was charged with assault and battery causing serious bodily injury, according to Bristol County District Attorney Thomas Quinn III’s office. She was arraigned in Fall River Juvenile Court on Thursday morning.

“It’s a horrible accident. You get in a horrible fight, you don’t think you’re going to hit someone and they’re going to die right there — especially if you’re a kid. So, that child’s life is probably ruined. Her life is gone. It’s just a tragic situation,” family friend Andrew Ferruche said.

A spokesperson from Meadowridge Academy offered the following statement about the tragedy:

“The Meadowridge Academy community is deeply saddened by the passing of direct care staff member, Amy Morrell. We extend our heartfelt condolences to Amy’s family during this difficult time. Support services and resources are available to assist students and staff as we grieve this tragic loss.”

The investigation remains ongoing, and no further information was immediately available.

Ahead of #Zelenskyy meeting, #Trump shows signs he might not be ready to send Kyiv #Tomahawk #missiles.

Zelenskyy gets his one-on-one with Trump a day after the U.S. president and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a lengthy phone call to discuss the conflict.

In recent days, Trump had shown openness to selling Ukraine long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, even as Putin warned that such a move would further strain the U.S.-Russian relationship.

But following Thursday’s call with Putin, Trump appeared to downplay the prospects of Ukraine getting the missiles, which have a range of about 995 miles (1,600 kilometres.)

“We need Tomahawks for the United States of America too,” Trump said. “We have a lot of them, but we need them. I mean we can’t deplete our country.”

Zelenskyy had been seeking the weapons that would allow Ukrainian forces to strike deep into Russian territory and target key military sites, energy facilities and critical infrastructure. Zelenskyy has argued such strikes would help compel Putin to take Trump’s calls for direct negotiations to end the war more seriously.

But Putin warned Trump during the call that supplying Kyiv with the Tomahawks “won’t change the situation on the battlefield, but would cause substantial damage to the relationship between our countries,” according to Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that talk of providing Tomahawks had already served a purpose by pushing Putin into talks. “The conclusion is that we need to continue with strong steps. Strength can truly create momentum for peace,” Sybiha said on the social platform X late Thursday.

It will be the fourth face-to-face meeting for Trump and Zelenskyy since the Republican returned to office in January, and their second in less than a month.

Trump announced following Thursday’s call with Putin that he would soon meet with the Russian leader in Budapest, Hungary, to discuss ways to end the war. The two also agreed that their senior aides, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, would meet next week at an unspecified location.

Fresh off brokering a ceasefire and hostage agreement between Israel and Hamas, Trump has said finding an endgame to the war in Ukraine is now his top foreign policy priority and has expressed new confidence about the prospects of getting it done.

Ahead of his call with Putin, Trump had shown signs of increased frustration with the Russian leader.

Last month, he announced that he believed Ukraine could win back all territory lost to Russia, a dramatic shift from the U.S. leader’s repeated calls for Kyiv to make concessions to end the war.

Trump, going back to his 2024 campaign, insisted he would quickly end the war, but his peace efforts appeared to stall following a diplomatic blitz in August, when he held a summit with Putin in Alaska and a White House meeting with Zelenskyy and European allies.

Trump emerged from those meetings certain he was on track to arranging direct talks between Zelenskyy and Putin. But the Russian leader hasn’t shown any interest in meeting with Zelenskyy and Moscow has only intensified its bombardment of Ukraine.

Trump, for his part, offered a notably more neutral tone about Ukraine following what he described a “very productive” call with Putin.

He also hinted that negotiations between Putin and Zelenskyy might be have to be conducted indirectly.

“They don’t get along too well those two,” Trump said. “So we may do something where we’re separate. Separate but equal.”

Aamer Madhani, The Associated Press

The U.S. military flew three B-52 bombers on missions near the coast of Venezuela on Wednesday, according to a Global Strike Command spokesperson and a U.S. official, as the Trump administration continues to exert pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's government.

Tracking data on the site Flightradar24 shows the planes circled in the Caribbean Sea on Wednesday, flying about 150 miles north of Venezuela. The data was first reported by ABC News.

The B-52 is a long-range bomber capable of carrying conventional or nuclear weapons, according to the Air Force. It was used extensively in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The mission follows a monthslong uptick in military activity in the waters off Venezuela. President Trump has deployed eight warships, a nuclear-powered submarine and fighter jets to the area. In sum, about 10,000 U.S. forces are built up in the Caribbean region, either on ships or in Puerto Rico, CBS News learned Wednesday.

The military has also carried out airstrikes on at least five alleged drug-carrying boats near Venezuela since last month. And on Wednesday, Mr. Trump acknowledged that he has authorized covert CIA operations in the South American country, and said his administration is considering strikes on drug traffickers by land.

A look at the Tomahawk, a U.S. cruise missile that could come into play in the #Ukraine #war.

The missile also boasts an impressive range of around 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometres) and precision guidance systems that make it the go-to weapon for striking targets that are deep inland or in hostile territory. U.S. President Donald Trump has hinted that he might give Tomahawks to Ukraine, which could make a key difference for Kyiv in its war with Moscow.

Last year, The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank based in Washington, estimated that the U.S. navy had roughly 4,000 Tomahawk missiles in its inventory in 2023. However, they noted that this estimate would have predated the significant military action against Houthi rebels in Yemen.

In defending from Houthi attacks and launching counterattacks, the U.S. navy said ships from the Eisenhower Carrier Strike group launched 135 Tomahawk missiles. That figure has likely only grown after the strike group returned home in the summer of 2024 since Trump ordered a month-long campaign of strikes against the group in the spring of 2025.

Meanwhile, the U.S. navy has not been ordering many new Tomahawk missiles. Pentagon budget documents show that in 2023 the U.S. navy and marine corps only bought 68 new missiles. The most recent budget documents show the U.S. navy hadn’t purchased any new missiles in the following years and the U.S. marine corps only bought 22 missiles last year. Neither the U.S. marines nor the U.S. navy requested to buy any new Tomahawk missiles in the latest budget.

Aside from dwindling stocks, several defence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity to more candidly discuss military policy also expressed skepticism about offering the missile to Ukraine because of questions about how it would be employed.

While the United States launched Tomahawk missiles almost exclusively from ships or submarines, Ukraine doesn’t possess a navy with ships capable of carrying the 20-foot-long missile. The U.S. army has been developing a platform to launch the missile from the ground, but one official said that the capability was still far from ready, even for U.S. forces.

Konstantin Toropin, The Associated Press

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he was considering strikes targeting #Venezuelan cartels on land, after a series of deadly strikes at sea against alleged drug-carrying boats.

#Trump hosts glitzy dinner for wealthy donors to new White House ballroom