CIA Director John Ratcliffe in Moscow for meetings, sources say
CIA Director John L. Ratcliffe testifies during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats in the Hart Senate Office Building on March 18, 2026, in Washington, D.C. A closed session immediately followed the hearing. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — CIA Director John Ratcliffe is in Moscow, Russia, for meetings, according to multiple officials familiar with the meetings.
A Boeing C-17A Globemaster III was seen at the Moscow airport.
The CIA, Department of Defense and the Air Force declined to comment.
Tracking data published by the Flightradar24 website showed that a U.S. military Boeing C-17 Globemaster III, flight number RCH4555, departed from the Latvian capital Riga on Tuesday morning.
The flight landed at Vnukovo International Airport, which is one of the Russian capital’s four international airports, located to the southwest of the city.
Flightradar24 data showed that the flight originated from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, a major East Coast Air Force base known for hosting Air Force One.
The C-17 Globemaster III is a large military transport aircraft, which the U.S. Air Force website says can be used for strategic and tactical airlift and airdrop missions, as well as aeromedical evacuations.
ABC News’ Patrick Reevell contributed to this report.
U.S. President Donald Trump makes an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Eric Lee/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump announced Thursday an agreement for Hamas to disarm and Israel to withdraw its troops from the Gaza Strip as part of a U.S.-brokered ceasefire signed last year.
“This agreement is a critical step towards Gaza finally being governed by a new Palestinian government that will work closely with the Board of Peace to help the Palestinian people,” Trump said in a social media post, referencing the newly formed multinational organization established by the U.S. president to oversee the 20-point peace plan in Gaza.
“At the same time, Israel will have the security it deserves, with Gaza no longer used as a base for terror attacks,” Trump added.
Few details about the agreement were initially released and there was no immediate official comment from Israel or Hamas on the president’s announcement.
In a statement following Trump’s announcement, the Board of Peace said Hamas has “agreed to a detailed Roadmap for implementing the next phases of the Gaza ceasefire,” calling it the result of a months of negotiations.
“The Roadmap represents a historic breakthrough,” the board said. “For the first time, Hamas officially has committed to an actionable plan for relinquishing all its weapons, which will be followed by Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.”
In his post, Trump said the agreement marks a “major milestone” in the 20-point plan and noted that it “will be carried out in carefully structured phases.”
“As disarmament is completed, Israeli forces will withdraw, and the International Stabilization Force will work with a new Palestinian police force to take responsibility for Gaza being safe for its residents and its neighbors,” Trump said. “Under this agreement, Gaza will finally be in the hands of a new Palestinian government that serves its PEOPLE.”
Trump also thanked mediators — including Egypt, Qatar and Turkey — for their work on the plan.
Trump’s 20-point plan, unveiled last fall, led to a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, as well as the exchange of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. The plan also calls for Hamas — Gaza’s militant rulers — to surrender its weapons and dismantle its military infrastructure — including a vast tunnel network — and relinquish power to a new technocratic Palestinian government in return for an Israeli troop withdrawal, desperately needed humanitarian aid for Gaza’s population and an international effort to rebuild the war-ravaged Palestinian territory.
Earlier this month, Hamas announced it had dissolved its government in the strip to make way for the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza as part of phase two of the plan.
The war between Israel and Hamas began after the Hamas-led terror attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed more than 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. The Israeli military subsequently launched a massive retaliatory campaign in Gaza, which has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, including over 1,200 killed since the ceasefire, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health. The conflict also led to a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, with the United Nations saying last week the overall situation remains “brutal.”
The Colosseum in Rome, Italy photographed on September 10, 2026. (Photo by Alberto Lingria/Xinhua via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — A technician working on a rope inside Rome’s Colosseum fell to their death on Tuesday night, officials said.
Italy’s Ministry of Culture named the technician as Andrea Moretti, describing them as “a skilled high-altitude rope access worker.”
Moretti died inside the ancient amphitheater following “a workplace accident,” officials said on social media on Wednesday morning.
ANSA, the semi-official newswire, said the 22-year-old had been installing a new lighting system when they fell about 10 meters, or about 32 feet.
The Colosseum was closed to the public on Wednesday, officials said.
“A tragic event that leaves us shocked and devastated,” Alessandro Giuli, the minister of culture, said in a statement. “The few words we can find are for Andrea, his family, and his loved ones: we offer our deepest, heartfelt condolences to all for the senseless death of a young man dedicated to his work.”
: President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, during the NATO Summit at the ATO Congresium on July 7, 2026 in Ankara, Turkey. (Photo by Serdar Ozsoy/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Ukraine launched more than 400 drones into Russia overnight in its latest wave of long-range strikes, according to authorities in Moscow, and as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to expand such attacks as a means to pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to end Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces downed at least 452 Ukrainian drones overnight. The craft, the ministry said on Telegram, were intercepted over 16 Russian regions — including Moscow — plus over Russian-occupied Crimea, as well as over both the Azov and Black seas.
At least 43 drones were downed while flying toward Moscow, the city’s Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said in a series of posts to Telegram.
Russia’s federal air transport agency, Rosaviatsiya, said in posts to Telegram that temporary flight restrictions were introduced at airports in Sochi, Krasnodar, Kaluga, Saratov, Penza, Nizhny Novgorod, Yaroslavl and Cheboksary.
All four of Moscow’s international airports — Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky — were also put under flight restrictions during the overnight attacks.
Zelenskyy said in posts to social media that Kyiv’s long-range strike campaign into Russia — the scale and intensity of which has been steadily increasing during the course of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor — would evolve further.
“When our deep strikes were not reaching Moscow and St. Petersburg, Putin did not think much about it. He understood that the war was far from the Kremlin. Of course, once he feels what is happening in Moscow, he will begin to understand what is happening in the Kursk, Belgorod, and Bryansk regions. He’ll begin to grasp the reality of the situation,” Zelenskyy said, referring to Russian border regions which regularly come under Ukrainian attack.
“When not one hundred drones but a thousand start reaching Moscow, and when he feels it and sees it, he will be advised to move somewhere beyond the Urals. That will be a moment that opens a new chapter on the path toward ending the war. The farther Putin is from Moscow, the closer the end of the war and peace will be,” Zelenskyy added.
The Ukrainian leader also suggested that Kyiv’s expanding drone attacks would unsettle Russian elites, further undermining Putin’s Kremlin.
“He fears for his life,” Zelenskyy said of the Russian leader. “And then there are the elites. Where do the Russian elites live? Moscow and St. Petersburg — the two major cities. Those places will be reached, because that is where they make the decisions to kill us.”
“That is why deep strikes have had, and continue to have, a major impact. We must keep working on this,” Zelenskyy wrote.
Russia continued its own long-range strike campaign into Ukraine on Monday night into Tuesday. Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 123 drones into the country in its latest wave, of which 108 drones were shot down or suppressed. Twelve drones impacted across 10 locations, the air force said.
Those attacks followed a series of missile and drone strikes on Ukraine on Sunday night and early on Monday morning, in which at least 22 people were killed in the capital Kyiv and in the surrounding region, according to Ukrainian officials.
