China challenge | Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar will lead a delegation to Taiwan "in the coming days" to discuss the global response to Covid-19, the highest-level visit by a U.S. cabinet official since 1979. It's the latest show of U.S. support for Taipei against the leadership in Beijing, which views the democratically-governed island as a renegade province. Deadly blast | Rescue workers are sifting through mountains of rubble from a huge explosion that flattened Lebanon's main port in Beirut yesterday, killing dozens, wounding thousands and overwhelming already-stretched hospitals. Officials blamed highly explosive materials equal to 1,800 tons of TNT that had been stored at the port for years but haven't said if the blast was an accident or an attack. - Read how the tragedy piles another layer of hardship on a country reeling from the worst financial crisis in its history and struggling to contain a Covid-19 outbreak.
- Tripoli will serve as Lebanon's main shipping center with Beirut's port largely unusable.
Firefighters carry an injured person from the scene at the Port of Beirut. Photographer: Hasan Shaaban/Bloomberg Win for Trump | Kansas Republicans backed Representative Roger Marshall in a pivotal Senate primary over former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a polarizing figure Washington Republicans worried could cost them the seat. It was a win for President Donald Trump, who had rallied around Marshall amid concern Kobach could prove too toxic for a general election. -
Climate-change activists are pressuring Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden to distance himself from former Obama administration advisers they view as either too moderate or too cozy with the fossil fuel industry, a sign of disunity on the eve of the party's convention. -
Biden's presidential campaign will buy $280 million in advertising time in the fall, almost twice as much as Trump has slated so far for that period. Plodding along | White House and Democratic negotiators driving toward a deal on a final massive virus relief package by the end of the week still must overcome a raw mix of election-year pressures, internal Republican splits and a profound lack of trust between the parties. Democrats have been playing hardball, dismissing out of hand smaller-scale proposals floated by Trump's chief of staff. What next? | Argentina's $65 billion debt deal with private creditors is just the beginning. President Alberto Fernandez's next task is to negotiate a new program with the International Monetary Fund against a backdrop of a deepening recession and inflation at 45%. Given the country's notoriously treacherous politics, it could be another nail biter, Patrick Gillespie reports. As Economy Minister Martin Guzman said yesterday: Grand plans "never worked in Argentina." What to Watch - The global death toll from Covid-19 surpassed 700,000, data from Johns Hopkins University showed, with confirmed cases at 18.4 million.
- Secretary of State Michael Pompeo is set today to unveil steps aimed at limiting the reach of TikTok and other Chinese-owned tech companies in the U.S.
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Former president Alvaro Uribe, the most powerful leader in Colombia's recent history, was placed under house arrest while he's investigated over an alleged plot to bribe jailed mobsters. -
Sri Lankans are voting today to choose a new parliament as President Gotabaya Rajapaksa seeks to consolidate power after installing his brother and former strongman Mahinda as prime minister in November. And finally ... Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi today laid the foundation stone for a Hindu temple on a contentious site where a 16th-century mosque once stood, a historic move that meets a decades-long promise to voters. The mosque's destruction by a Hindu mob in 1992 sparked riots that killed some 2,000 people, mostly Muslims. Today also marks a year since Modi revoked the autonomy of the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir, part of what critics see as an attempt to transform India from a secular to Hindu nation. Modi, left, at the groundbreaking ceremony for the temple. Photographer: Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP Photo |
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