Biden: Killing of al-Qaida leader is long-sought ‘justice’

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden announced Monday that al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Kabul, an operation he said delivered justice and hopefully “one more measure of closure” to families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

The president said in an evening address from the White House that U.S. intelligence officials tracked al-Zawahri to a home in downtown Kabul where he was hiding out with his family. The president approved the operation last week and it was carried out Sunday.

Al-Zawahri and the better-known Osama bin Laden plotted the 9/11 attacks that brought many ordinary Americans their first knowledge of al-Qaida. Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, in operation carried out by U.S. Navy SEALs after a nearly decade-long hunt.

As for Al-Zawahri, Biden said, “He will never again, never again, allow Afghanistan to become a terrorist safe haven because he is gone and we’re going to make sure that nothing else happens.”

“This terrorist leader is no more,” he added.

Watching al-Qaida chief’s ‘pattern of life’ key to his death

WASHINGTON (AP) — As the sun was rising in Kabul on Sunday, two Hellfire missiles fired by a U.S. drone ended Ayman al-Zawahri’s decade-long reign as the leader of al-Qaida. The seeds of the audacious counterterrorism operation had been planted over many months.

U.S. officials had built a scale model of the safe house where al-Zawahri had been located, and brought it into the White House Situation Room to show President Joe Biden. They knew al-Zawahri was partial to sitting on the home’s balcony.

They had painstakingly constructed “a pattern of life,” as one official put it. They were confident he was on the balcony when the missiles flew, officials said.

Years of efforts by U.S. intelligence operatives under four presidents to track al-Zawahri and his associates paid dividends earlier this year, Biden said, when they located Osama bin Laden’s longtime No. 2 — a co-planner of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S. — and ultimate successor at the house in Kabul.

Bin Laden’s death came in May 2011, face to face with a U.S. assault team led by Navy SEALs. Al-Zawahri’s death came from afar, at 6:18 a.m. in Kabul.

Pelosi arrives in Malaysia, tensions rise over Taiwan visit

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi arrived in Malaysia on Tuesday for the second leg of an Asian tour that has been overshadowed by an expected stop in Taiwan, which would escalate tensions with Beijing that claims the self-ruled island as its own territory.

The plane carrying Pelosi and her delegation touched down at an air force base amid tight security. She called on lower house Speaker Azhar Azizan Harun in Parliament and adjourned for a luncheon meet with Prime Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob.

While there have been no official announcements, local media in Taiwan reported that Pelosi will arrive in Taipei on Tuesday night, becoming the highest-ranking elected U.S. official to visit in more than 25 years. The United Daily News, Liberty Times and China Times — Taiwan’s three largest national newspapers — cited unidentified sources as saying she would fly to Taipei and spend the night after visiting Malaysia.

China, which regards Taiwan as a renegade province to be annexed by force if necessary, has warned of repercussions, saying its military will “never sit idly by” if Pelosi pushes ahead with the visit. China’s threats of retaliation have driven concerns of a new crisis in the Taiwan Strait, which separates the two sides, that could roil global markets and supply chains.

The White House on Monday decried Beijing’s rhetoric, saying the U.S. has no interest in deepening tensions with China and “will not take the bait or engage in saber rattling.”

Arizona GOP primary tests power of Trump’s election lies

PHOENIX (AP) — The Republican Party’s embrace of Donald Trump’s election lies will be tested on Tuesday as voters in Arizona choose between candidates who say they wouldn’t have certified the results of the 2020 campaign and those who argue it’s time to move on.

The former president has endorsed and campaigned for a slate of contenders who support his falsehoods, most prominently former television news anchor Kari Lake in the race for governor. Lake, who says she would have refused to certify President Joe Biden’s narrow Arizona victory, faces Karrin Taylor Robson, a lawyer and businesswoman who says the GOP should focus on the future despite an election she has called “unfair.” And in the race to oversee elections as secretary of state, Trump is also backing a state lawmaker who was at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 and claims the former president was cheated out of victory.

As the midterm primary season enters its final stretch this month, the Arizona races are poised to provide important clues about the GOP’s direction. Victories by Trump-backed candidates could provide the former president with allies who hold sway over the administration of elections as he considers another bid for the White House in 2024. Defeats, however, might suggest openness in the party to a different path forward.

“I think the majority of the people, and a lot of people that are supporters of Trump, they want to move on,” said former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who is backing Robson. “I mean, that was two years ago. Let’s go. Let’s move.”

Taliban under scrutiny as US kills al-Qaida leader in Kabul

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The U.S. drone strike that killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri on the balcony of a Kabul safe house intensified global scrutiny Tuesday of Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers and further undermined their efforts to secure international recognition and desperately needed aid.

The Taliban had promised in the 2020 Doha Agreement on the terms of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan that they would not harbor al-Qaida members. Nearly a year after the U.S. military’s chaotic pullout from Afghanistan, al-Zawahri’s killing raises questions about the involvement of Taliban leaders in sheltering a mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks and one of America’s most-wanted fugitives.

The safe house is in Kabul’s upscale Shirpur neighborhood, home to several Taliban leaders who had moved into mansions of former top Afghan officials of the toppled Western-backed government.

The Taliban initially sought to describe the strike as America violating the Doha deal, which also includes a Taliban pledge not to shelter those seeking to attack the U.S. — something al-Zawahri had done for years in internet videos and online screeds. The Taliban have yet to say who was killed in the strike.

Meanwhile, rumors persist of unease in the Taliban ranks — particularly between the powerful group known as the Haqqani network, which apparently sheltered al-Zawahri, and other Taliban figures.

Bad weather in Black Sea slows 1st Ukrainian grain shipment

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The first cargo ship to leave Ukraine since Russia invaded its neighbor more than five months ago has run into bad weather in the Black Sea and is set to arrive later than scheduled in Istanbul, a Turkish official said Tuesday. The Sierra Leone-flagged Razoni, which set sail from the Ukrainian port of Odesa on Monday, is now expected to reach Istanbul early Wednesday, according to Rear Admiral Ozcan Altunbulak, a coordinator at the joint center established to oversee the grain shipments.

Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish and U.N. officials are to inspect the ship after it anchors in Istanbul. The inspections are part of a U.N.- and Turkish-brokered deal to shift Ukrainian grain stockpiles to foreign markets and alleviate a mounting global food crisis.

Altunbulak said “preparations and planning” are continuing for other ships expected to leave Ukraine’s ports, but he did not provide details.

As part of the July 22 agreement on shipments, which include Russian grain and fertilizer, safe corridors through the mined waters outside Ukraine’s ports were established.

Despite dangers, deep roots make Appalachia hard to leave

GARRETT, Ky. (AP) — This tiny sliver of a town off a state highway in eastern Kentucky has been home to Brenda Francis and her husband, Paul, for decades.

Paul Francis was born 73 years ago in this house, a yellow and brown one-story, which like many dwellings in Garrett is nestled in a valley between tall, forested hills. The retired school teacher loves it here, and the couple was gifted the house by his parents about 40 years ago.

But after another flood — this one maybe the worst they’ve seen — Brenda Francis said she is done. She joins many others in this corner of Appalachia who see this latest disaster as a devastating blow to their lifestyle. Some say they’re considering moving away, despite their deep roots.

Francis, 66, said her husband wants to stay: “But not me. I don’t want to live here no more, and he knows it. So we’re going to be getting out of here.”

Kentucky’s Appalachian region has known hardship. The coal economy withered away and took the good-paying jobs with it. The opioid crisis flooded towns with millions of pain pills. Prospects were so bleak that many people left, cutting the population in many counties by double digit percentages in the past two decades. In the Francis’ home county of Floyd, the population has declined by 15% since 2000. And household annual income in many of the counties hit hardest by last week’s flooding is a little more than half the national average of about $65,000.

Uvalde rekindles school police officer’s looming fears

AURORA, Colo. (AP) — Tony Ramaeker averages around 14,000 steps a day as he walks around the Nebraska high school where he is assigned to work as a sheriff’s deputy, greeting students arriving in the morning, wandering the hallways to talk to them and watching out for those who might be eating alone in the cafeteria. The former Marine and longtime youth pastor keeps his office in suburban Omaha stocked with treats such as Little Debbie snacks and Pop-Tarts because eating helps kids in crisis calm down and talk.

But in the back of his mind, a thought always looms: What would he do if a gunman attacked the school?

The latest reminder of that danger came in May when 19 children and two teachers were killed in a fourth-grade classroom in Uvalde, Texas. The fear that the next shooting could happen in their hallways hangs over school resource officers across the United States, exacerbating an already difficult job: They’re called on to be battle-ready officers whom parents and students can trust to protect them.

Yet school police officers have been criticized for their treatment of students of color. Black students, especially, are often disproportionately arrested or disciplined when a school has armed police, critics say. And students of color report feeling less safe around police than white students.

Stephen King set to testify for govt in books merger trial

WASHINGTON (AP) — As the Justice Department bids to convince a federal judge that the proposed merger of Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster would damage the careers of some of the most popular authors, it is leaning in part on the testimony of a writer who has thrived like few others: Stephen King.

The author of “Carrie,” “The Shining” and many other favorites, King has willingly — even eagerly — placed himself in opposition to Simon & Schuster, his longtime publisher. He was not chosen by the government just for his fame, but for his public criticism of the $2.2 billion deal announced in late 2021, joining two of the world’s biggest publishers into what rival CEO Michael Pietsch of Hachette Book Group has called a “gigantically prominent” entity.

“The more the publishers consolidate, the harder it is for indie publishers to survive,” King tweeted last year.

One of the few widely recognizable authors, known for his modest-sized glasses and gaunt features, King is expected to take the witness stand Tuesday, the second day of a federal antitrust trial anticipated last two to three weeks.

He may not have the business knowledge of Pietsch, the DOJ’s first witness, but he has been a published novelist for nearly 50 years and knows well how much the industry has changed: Some of his own former publishers were acquired by larger companies. “Carrie,” for instance, was published by Doubleday, which in 2009 merged with Knopf Publishing Group, and now is part of Penguin Random House. Another former King publisher, Viking Press, was a Penguin imprint that joined Penguin Random House when Penguin and Random House merged in 2013.