Explosions reported in Damascus amid Macron’s visit to Syria, state media says
A burnt-out van is covered in crime-scene tape where a series of explosions occurred on July 7, 2026 in Damascus, Syria.. (Photo by Ali Haj Suleiman/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — At least two explosions were reported in the Syrian capital of Damascus on Tuesday, Syrian state media said, as French President Emmanuel Macron was visiting the city to meet with the country’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
The Syrian Arab News Agency said that the explosions occurred near the Ministry of Tourism building and that at least 18 people — including four security personnel — were injured.
Syrian authorities did not immediately comment on the report. The cause of the explosions was not immediately clear.
Writing on X after the explosions but without explicitly mentioning the blasts, Macron said, “Nothing can smother the aspiration of Syrian women and men to live in a fully sovereign, safe, pluralistic and united Syria. This morning I met Syria in all its diversity. I saw dignity, courage and determination. My visit continues.”
Macron is the first major Western leader to visit Syria since the fall of former President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024. Assad was forced to flee the country after government forces collapsed in the face of a surprise offensive launched by a coalition of rebel groups, led by Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
Macron arrived in Damascus on Monday. “I have come to express France’s commitment to the Syrian people. For a sovereign Syria, united in its diversity and at peace with its neighbors. Together, let us open a new chapter of stability and peace,” he wrote in a post to X.
Last week, a device exploded in a cafe near the Justice Palace in Damascus, killing at least 10 people and wounding 20.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti contributed to this report.
Sergey Sobyanin, Mayor of Moscow, August 29, 2017 in Moscow, Russia. (Photo by Sandra Montanez/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Dozens of Ukrainian long-range drones attacked Moscow overnight into Tuesday morning, according to the city’s Mayor Sergey Sobyanin, with damage confirmed at a major oil refinery and flight restrictions disrupting flights at all four of the city’s international airports.
“Over the past 24 hours, an attack by enemy drones on Moscow has continued. One of the drones damaged a facility on the territory of the Moscow Refinery. There were no casualties. Emergency services are working at the scene of the incident,” Sobyanin wrote in a post to Telegram. At least 60 Ukrainian drones were shot down, the mayor said.
Purported videos of the Gazprom-owned refinery in Moscow showed fire and a large plume of black smoke rising over the facility, which is located in the Kapotnya District to the southeast of the city.
Regional Governor Andrei Vorobyov said in a post to Telegram that 86 Ukrainian drones were intercepted over the wider Moscow region, with six people injured.
Ukrainian forces have been expanding their drone attacks toward Moscow in recent months, as just one element of its growing long-range strike campaign into Russia — which officials in Kyiv refer to as “long-range sanctions.”
Tuesday marked the ninth consecutive day of Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow, according to statements issued by Sobyanin on Telegram. The number of drones that Sobyanin reported shot down on Tuesday was also the largest of any day since May 17.
Already this year, Sobyanin has reported the downing of more Ukrainian drones — 1,134 craft — than in all of 2025, when the mayor said Russian forces intercepted 734 Ukrainian drones en route to the capital.
The latest Ukrainian strikes came a day after a major Russian attack on Kyiv, which killed at least five people, damaged a historic cathedral and prompted Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha to brand Russian President Vladimir Putin a “barbarian.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shared a purported video of the burning Moscow refinery on Telegram on Tuesday morning, attributing the damage to “Ukrainian long-range strikes.”
“Russia must be compelled to end the war against our people. And Ukrainian long-range weapons are one of the important components of such coercion,” Zelenskyy wrote.
“This is a just response to Russian attacks and a response to the prolongation of the war, which needs to be ended,” Zelenskyy added.
Andriy Kovalenko, the head of the Counter-Disinformation Center operating as part of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said that the Moscow refinery is one of the country’s largest, with a refining capacity of around 11 million tons of oil per year. The plant, he said, accounts for some 40% of Moscow’s gasoline needs.
“Even though Putin has deployed almost all of the key air defense and missile defense systems to Moscow, this doesn’t save the Russians. Putin is not a guarantee of safety for Muscovites,” Kovalenko wrote.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the attack on Moscow was one element of a larger wave of overnight strikes. The ministry claimed that Russian forces downed at least 172 Ukrainian drones overnight into Tuesday morning.
Russia’s federal air transport agency, Rosaviatsiya, announced flight restrictions at more than a dozen airports across southern and western Russia, including at all four of Moscow’s international airports — Domodedovo, Vnukovo, Zhukovsky and Sheremetyevo.
Elsewhere, flight restrictions affected airports stretching from Sochi on the Black Sea coast to Nizhnekamsk in the Tatarstan Republic, some 750 miles from Ukraine.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia continued its own long-range attacks overnight. The air force said in a post to Telegram that Russia launched 132 drones and two missiles into the country in its latest barrage, of which 114 drones were intercepted or suppressed
Both missiles and 16 drones impacted across nine locations, the air force said.
The latest exchanges came as Zelenskyy sat down with Western leaders — among them President Donald Trump — at the G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, on Tuesday.
On Monday, the Ukrainian leader said he would use his visit to the G7 gathering to again appeal for Kyiv’s Western partners to put more pressure on Putin to end the Russian invasion.
A magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck Venezuela and other regions in the Caribbean on June 24, 2026, in Caracas, Venezuela. (Photo by Edilzon Gamez/Getty Images)
(CARACAS, Venezuela) — When the first of two massive earthquakes hit Venezuela, American tourist Jason Wang said he was on a mountaintop outside Caracas, about to get on a cable car to head down.
It was just after 6 p.m. local time on Wednesday when a 7.2 magnitude jolted the South American country’s coastal region, followed 39 seconds later by an even stronger 7.5 magnitude tremor, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
High up on El Ávila mountain, about 7 miles outside the capital city, the 39-year-old Wang of Las Vegas said he was caught in a scene of confusion and panic, unsure what had just occurred.
“I was about to board the cable car. I started recording myself going in, and the whole building just started shaking. The floor under me was shaking, and then all of a sudden everyone started panicking,” Wang told ABC News on Thursday morning.
He said he and other tourists charged toward the exit of the cable car building.
“We were just rushing for the door to exit the building, and none of us knew what was going on until a few minutes afterwards,” Wang said. “We realized we got hit with a massive earthquake.”
Videos that Wang posted on social media showed him and others walking down the mountain back toward Caracas on a road blocked by numerous toppled trees. Wang said that as the sun was setting, he managed to get a ride back to his hotel in Caracas.
“I saw some people like cutting down trees that fell on the road to create a tunnel for us to get past,” Wang said.
He said that when he finally reached his hotel and was able to get a WiFi signal, he learned that the twin tremors were the biggest earthquakes to hit Venezuela in a century, causing massive destruction and widespread death across Caracas, a city of more than 2 million people.
“Once I got back on WiFi, I was able to contact my family and friends and tell them I was OK,” said Wang, adding that he was traveling out of the city to the jungle on Thursday morning to escape the danger being caused by numerous aftershocks.
Jorge Rodriguez, president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, said that at least 188 people were killed in the earthquakes, and nearly 1,520 more were injured.
But the death toll is expected to grow. The USGS said there is a risk of more than 10,000 deaths, though official casualty tolls have been slow to be reported.
President Donald Trump said there could be a “devastating number of deaths,” as Secretary of State Marco Rubio added that the U.S. is deploying rescue teams to Venezuela to help search for victims.
In Caracas, the scenes of devastation and desperation were evident in all directions. Online videos showed apartment and commercial buildings lying in heaps of rubble, houses knocked off foundations and thousands of people in the streets, shellshocked and watching as emergency crews searched for survivors.
At one point, more than 25,000 people were unaccounted for, officials said.
During the earthquakes, people ran from swaying buildings in Caracas, many visibly shocked when they turned back to see destroyed walls that left furniture visible from the street.
“It’s like a horror movie,” one frantic woman who escaped her damaged building said.
One Caracas resident, Armando Nori, posted a video on social media from inside an apartment building that began to shake violently during the earthquakes. The footage showed Nori and others in the building fleeing as walls and shelves collapsed, and items, including what appeared to be a water container, crashing to the floor.
Another Caracas resident, Gabriel Higuera, told ABC News that he lives on the top floor of an apartment building with his girlfriend, and described their harrowing race to escape. He said his girlfriend almost fell from one of the floors due to the violent tremors.
“The shaking made it impossible to move,” Higuera said.
Another video verified by ABC News showed people in an apartment building in Junquito, west of Caracas, falling to the floor and holding onto each other as the building started to collapse around them. The man filming the video was heard in the footage screaming for his mother as he started to run for cover.
Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said numerous buildings had been brought down in Caracas, and that the cities of Trujillo, Yaracuy, Carabobo, Aragua, and Miranda had also been affected.
There were reports of widespread power outages and cell phone disruptions throughout the country. Gas to many buildings was turned off to prevent fires, officials said.
Rodriguez declared a state of emergency, saying the earthquakes had turned the coastal state of La Guaira into a “disaster zone.”
“Dozens of buildings have collapsed there, about 30 kilometers north of Caracas, and we are currently carrying out intensive rescue operations to save lives,” Rodriguez said in a televised address to the nation, according to The Associated Press.
She said Metro and rail services are suspended in the city and that the heavily damaged Maiquetía “Simón Bolívar” International Airport is closed.
Video posted online and verified by ABC News showed people at the airport running for their lives as part of its roof collapsed, creating a cloud of dust. In the footage, people could be heard screaming as the sound of crashing glass and chunks of falling concrete echoed in the background.
Amid the devastation came reports of heroic efforts to rescue people trapped in the rubble. Eighteen people were rescued from one of the two buildings that collapsed in the Chacao municipality, about 7 miles east of Caracas, authorities said.
Dozens of aftershocks have been reported following the initial tremors, forcing many people to sleep on the street on Wednesday night out of fear of more buildings collapsing.
Following the quake, a tsunami advisory was issued, with the potential for hazardous tsunami waves possible for coasts within 300 kilometers, or about 186 miles, of the earthquake epicenter. However, the tsunami advisory later expired.
ABC News’ Will Gretsky, Shannon Kingston, Victoria Beaule and Aicha El Hammar Castano contributed to this report.
A protestor throws a rock at Police vehicles on Sandy Row on June 9, 2026 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. (Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)
(BELFAST, Northern Ireland) — Extra officers from the U.K. are being deployed to Northern Ireland on Thursday following another night of violent unrest over an alleged knife attack by an immigrant suspect.
Scotland will send 90 officers to Northern Ireland to support an additional 200 officers from across the U.K. that were deployed to the region after protesters allegedly set fire to cars, properties and other outdoor objects, pelted cops with projectiles and harassed immigrant healthcare workers on Wednesday, according to investigators and local leaders.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said Thursday that 16 people have been arrested this week in connection with the back-to-back nightly protests in Belfast and other towns. They are looking for more suspects connected to the violent demonstrations.
Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson told reporters that 12 officers were injured during Wednesday night’s incidents, including some who were allegedly struck by Molotov cocktails and other projectiles.
Officers had to use a water cannon to disperse some of the crowds.
“Our communities in Northern Ireland deserve to get their lives back to normal. Yesterday, businesses shut their doors, trains were not running and we saw schools closing early due to fear. This is the impact these thugs are having,” he said.
As the destruction and chaos continued on the streets, the family of the victim of Monday’s stabbing attack at the center of the riots pleaded for calmness and tolerance.
The family of Stephen Ogilvie, who is in stable condition following the attack, released a statement Wednesday saying they were “feeling disgusted” by the images of the violent protests.
“We want to make it absolutely clear that to do this in response is not supported by our family, and peaceful protest is only ever the way forward,” the family said.
A Sudanese immigrant allegedly attacked Ogilvie with a knife around 10:30 p.m. Monday near Kinnaird Avenue before he was subdued by nearby pedestrians and arrested by the police.
The victim “suffered serious injuries to his eyes and slash-wound injuries to his back and face,” police said.
The 30-year-old suspect was charged with attempted murder, possession of an article with blade or point in a public place and threats to kill. The investigation is ongoing.
The protests that have broken out since the attack have been pushing anti-immigrant rhetoric and have caused disturbances across Northern Ireland, according to the police.
In one incident on Wednesday, 20 masked protesters allegedly blocked the road and threw projectiles at officers and in another incident in Portadown, demonstrators attacked a property for hours, according to PSNI.
During the demonstrations, some protesters allegedly harassed immigrant healthcare workers who were on their way to and from their work, according to police.
UNISON Northern Ireland, the union representing healthcare workers, said in a statement it had received reports this week of workers being followed, stopped by people to check their identities and intimidated in their homes.
“They are care workers, nurses, classroom assistants and a host of other occupations delivering key public services. They are here because our government and public services invited them to fill the critical shortages in these vital services. The hypocrisy of those behind the hate campaign is stunning,” UNISON said in a statement Wednesday.
Henderson said he was meeting with UNISON members on Thursday and also shared his support for the healthcare workers.
“They are the backbone of our public service. They are caring for our family, friends and loved ones in our communities. We are here to support them. In the same way they support us,” he said.
Ogilvie’s family also expressed support for Northern Ireland’s immigrants and healthcare workers.
“We have many migrants who make a deeply valuable contribution to our country, including from within our healthcare system and hospitality sector, and we depend on them to make our country work. We do not want this terrible tragedy to be used to divide people or fuel hostility — do not do this in the name of our loved one as we do not share the same values,” they said.
Outside of the unrest on the streets, police have also been working to combat a flood of misinformation about the knife attack and protests circulating on social media sites that are being promoted by anti-immigrant groups and figures.
Ogilvie’s family also condemned those who spread misinformation about the attack and protests.
“If you know anything at all about the attack, or saw anything strange near Kinnaird Avenue, please go to the police and stop sharing false information on social media, as it is deeply distressing,” they said.
Henderson urged the public to heed the family’s request.
“They could not be more clear that violence is not in Stephen’s name,” he said.
