World

Following the killings of two dozen tourists picnicking in a meadow in the Kashmir region two weeks ago, India and Pakistan are on high military alert and trading accusations and sanctions. The Indians believe the Pakistanis sponsored the killings through longtime support of the terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. (An offshoot, the Resistance Front, claimed responsibility.) On Wednesday morning, India began a “focused, measured and non-escalatory” operation against nine sites of “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan, according to its ministry of defense.

Airlines including United Airlines and Korean Air re-routed or cancelled flights and about a dozen Indian airports were shut on Wednesday after India struck nine sites in Pakistan, raising fears of an escalation.

India attacked Pakistani Kashmir and Pakistan said it had shot down five Indian fighter jets in the flare-up, which followed an attack by Islamist militants that killed 26 people in Indian Kashmir last month. India said it hit "terrorist infrastructure" related to the tourist killings. Pakistan rejects that it has such camps on its territory.

In the closing stages of last year’s American presidential campaign, both candidates made gestures to the Polish–American community, particularly in the critical state of Pennsylvania. The idea was fanciful, as argued in this Hungarian Conservative piece from the time, but the enormous campaign machines were not inclined to leave any stone unturned.

India launched military strikes on Pakistan on Wednesday and Pakistan claimed it shot down five Indian Air Force jets, in an escalation that has pushed the two nations to the brink of a wider conflict.

The escalation puts India and Pakistan, two neighbors with a long history of conflict, in dangerous territory, with Islamabad vowing to retaliate against India’s strikes and the international community calling for restraint.

India attacked Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir on Wednesday and Pakistan said it had shot down five Indian fighter jets in the worst fighting in more than two decades between the nuclear-armed enemies.

India said it struck nine Pakistani "terrorist infrastructure" sites, some of them linked to an attack by Islamist militants on Hindu tourists that killed 26 people in Indian Kashmir last month. Islamabad said six Pakistani locations were targeted, and that none of them were militant camps. Eight people killed, it said.

India said it attacked "terrorist infrastructure" in neighboring Pakistan on Wednesday in two of its occupied territories, killing at least one child and wounding two other people in what Pakistan has called a "blatant act of war."

The Indian armed forces launched "Operation Sindoor," which targeted terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed, the Press Information Bureau of India said in a statement. 

German conservative leader Friedrich Merz won the vote to become chancellor in the second round of voting.

The victory comes hours after Merz lost the initial vote, The Associated Press reported. He received 325 votes on the second ballot.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned a decision Friday by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency to classify the political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) as a right-wing extremist organization, calling the move “tyranny in disguise.”

“What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD—which took second in the recent election—but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes,” Rubio wrote in a post on X in the hours following the decision.

Alliance for Germany (AfD) has been declared a "proven right-wing extremist endeavor" and "not compatible" with a free democracy by Germany's domestic intelligence agency, unlocking new surveillance powers to keep tabs on the party.

AfD, which wants to see large-scale deportations, has repeatedly denied that it is an extremist group and says it is representing the views of most Germans on issues like mass immigration, Islam, and traditional Christian values.

Germany faced a political crisis after Friedrich Merz failed to secure enough support in parliament to be confirmed as the country’s next chancellor in a first round of voting, triggering fresh uncertainty in Europe.

The outcome of the vote has no precedent in postwar Germany and came despite Merz’s proposed coalition holding a relatively comfortable 12-seat majority in the house. Since the vote is secret and no dissenter has come forward, it isn’t clear why a dozen members of Merz’s proposed coalition didn’t back him in the vote.