(NEW YORK) — The two U.S. soldiers who were killed in an attack in Syria were members of the Iowa National Guard, state officials said over the weekend.
On Monday, the soldiers were identified as Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, Iowa, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, Iowa.
“Our hearts are heavy today, and our prayers and deepest condolences are with the families and loved ones of our soldiers killed in action,” Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds said in a statement.
“I ask that all Iowans stand united in supporting them and lifting them up in prayer during this incredibly difficult time,” she added. “Please pray also for the fast and full recovery of our wounded soldiers.”
An American civilian was also killed, the office said in a statement, adding that three others were injured in the attack.
The two soldiers who died were attacked while they were “conducting a key leader engagement as part of their assigned mission in the ongoing counter-ISIS and counter-terrorism efforts in the region,” the governor’s office said.
“It is with a heavy heart that I confirm the loss of two of our own,” said Maj. Gen. Stephen Osborn, adjutant general of the Iowa National Guard, in a statement.
About 1,800 Iowa Army National Guard soldiers from the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division, began deploying to the Middle East in late May 2025, the governor’s office said.
“Our priority right now is supporting the families of our fallen and wounded Soldiers,” Osborn added. “The entire Iowa National Guard grieves for this terrible loss, and we stand together to support the Soldiers and their families.”
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks to the media at Parliament House Canberra on December 14, 2025 in Canberra, Australia. (Hilary Wardhaugh/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — The Australian government is “prepared to take whatever action is necessary,” after a shooting that left 15 people dead and more than 40 injured at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said during a press conference on Monday.
Albanese said Sunday would be remembered as a “dark day in Australia’s history,” after authorities said two gunmen — one of whom was killed during the incident — opened fire on an event marking the first night of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.
At least 15 people were killed and more than 40 people were injured in the attack, a NSW Health spokesperson said in a statement to media on Monday afternoon. Twenty-seven patients are being treated at eight hospitals in and around Sydney, the spokesperson said.
The prime minister encouraged everyone in Australia to put a candle in their windows on Monday evening to show “that light will indeed defeat darkness.”
Albanese said he planned to “put on the agenda of the national cabinet tougher gun laws,” with details to include “the number of guns that can be used or licensed by individuals” and whether or not licenses for guns should be reviewed after a period of time, he added.
New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said in a separate press conference that he believes it’s time for a “change to the law in relation to firearms legislation in New South Wales.”
The alleged shooters were father and son, aged 50 and 24, officials said during a news conference. The father was killed and the son is hospitalized with unspecified injuries, according to officials. Their names were not released.
NSW Police Force Deputy Commissioner Mal Lanyon confirmed there is a 24-year-old male who is in the hospital at the moment and will likely face criminal charges.
Six firearms were collected from the scene, officials said, adding that the father had a gun license and six licensed firearms. Officials said investigators are working to determine whether the six firearms collected from the scene were licensed to the father.
Two improvised explosive devices were also discovered at the scene and were removed to be rendered safe by a bomb disposal unit, according to officials at the news conference.
Speaking to reporters on Monday about the two suspects, Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke said the son is an Australian born citizen and the father arrived in 1998 on a student visa.
Albanese said the son was investigated by authorities in 2019 for links to Islamic State, but that “that there was no indication of any ongoing threat or threat of him engaging in violence.”
Albanese on Sunday called the attack “an act of pure evil, an act of antisemitism” and “an act of terrorism.” The prime minister called for “national unity” in response to the shooting.
Police enforce a cordon at Bondi Beach after a mass shooting on December 14, 2025 in Sydney, Australia. (George Chan/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — At least 11 people were killed on Sunday as two gunmen opened fire at Australia’s Bondi Beach in an attack that targeted a Jewish event, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said, adding that police had designated the shooting as a “terrorism event.”
“This attack was designed to target Sydney’s Jewish community on the first day of Hanukkah,” Minns said in the beginning of a press conference on Sunday.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the attack as an “act of evil antisemitism.”
Another 29 other people were injured in the shooting, the New South Wales Police Force said, adding that two of the injured were police officers.
A suspect was also killed and a “second alleged shooter is in a critical condition,” police said in a statement issued at about 9 p.m. local time.
As gunfire erupted along the popular waterfront on Sunday evening, hundreds of beachgoers could be seen fleeing from the north side of the beach, according to a video taken at the scene at 6:42 p.m. and verified by ABC News. Police said the first call for a report of shots fired came in at about 6:45 p.m.
“The scenes in Bondi are shocking and distressing,” Albanese said in a statement. “Police and emergency responders are on the ground working to save lives. My thoughts are with every person affected.”
Police in their first social media message urged the public to avoid the area. Anyone who was there was told to seek shelter.
“Two people are in police custody at Bondi Beach; however, the police operation is ongoing and we continue to urge people to avoid the area,” police said in a subsequent message about 40 minutes later. “Please obey ALL police directions. Do not cross police lines.”
Photos from the scene showed a heavy police presence and emergency response, including several people being transported by stretchers.
The Australian Jewish Association described the shooting as happening at an event being held at the beach to mark the beginning of Hanukkah celebrations.
“Please pray for the Australian Jewish community,” the organization said in a statement.
Sussan Ley, a minister who leads Australia’s opposition party, said in a statement that the shooting amounted to “hateful violence striking at the heart of an iconic Australian community.”
“This attack occurred as our Jewish community came together at the Chanukah by the Sea celebration,” Ley said. “This was a celebration of peace and hope for the future, severed by hate.”
Israeli President Isaac Herzog issued a statement condemning the shooting in Sydney, calling it a “terrorist attack” on the Jewish community.
“At these very moments, our sisters and brothers in Sydney, Australia, have been attacked by vile terrorists in a very cruel attack on Jews who went to light the first candle of Chanukah on Bondi Beach,” he said.
Albanese in his statement said he was in contact with New South Wales officials, including the local premier.
“We are working with the NSW Police and will provide further updates as more information is confirmed,” he said. “I urge people in the vicinity to follow information from the NSW Police.”
“This is a massive, complex investigation that has only just begun,” Minns said.
Protesters hold posters in support of Nobel laureate Ales Bialiatski during a solidarity demonstration in Vilnius. Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Belarusian human rights defender Ales Bialiatski turned 62 on September 25, 2024. (Yauhen Yerchak/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — The Belarusian government announced Saturday that it has released 123 people, including foreigners, a Nobel Prize winner and several political opposition leaders, who were being held in prison on “espionage, terrorism, and extremism” charges.
Belarusian government officials said in a statement that the release is part of “agreements reached with U.S. President Donald Trump” and involves the United States lifting sanctions on the Belarusian potash industry.
U.S. Special Envoy for Belarus John Coale told reporters in Minsk Saturday that the U.S. was lifting sanctions against Belarusian potash producer Belaruskali, one of the European country’s largest state-owned companies.
Coale said the goal is to normalize relations between the U.S. and Belarus and that “more sanctions will be lifted” in the future.
Among the prisoners released were two prominent Belarusian activists, Nobel Prize winner Ales Bialiatski and opposition figure Maria Kalesnikava.
Of the detainees, 114 were transferred to Ukraine while the remaining nine, including Bialiatski, were transferred to Lithuania, according to the Ukrainian government.
Shortly after her release, Kalesnikava was seen arriving at the Ukrainian border and reuniting with Viktar Babaryka and Maxim Znak, both of whom were former Belarusian prisoners.
Babaryka was imprisoned during the 2020 election while trying to run against Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. Kalesnikava was his campaign manager and took his place after he was arrested.
Bialiatski spoke with the press from Lithuania telling them, “being released means meeting with family, meeting with friends and continuing my work as a human rights defender.”
(NEW YORK) — Two U.S. soldiers and one civilian U.S. interpreter were killed in Syria Saturday after they were ambushed by a likely ISIS gunman, U.S. officials said.
The gunman was killed by “partner forces” during a skirmish, according to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Three other service members were injured during the incident in Palmyra, Syria, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement. Two U.S. officials told ABC News the wounded were American.
“The attack occurred as the soldiers were conducting a key leader engagement. Their mission was in support of on-going counter-ISIS / counter-terrorism operations in the region,” Parnell said in a statement.
This marked the first combat deaths since President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office.
Two U.S. officials told ABC News that Saturday’s attack “took place in an area where the Syrian President does not have control.”
The identities of the soldiers were not immediately revealed due to ongoing next of kin notifications, officials said.
The three American fatalities in today’s attack in Syria are the first combat deaths in that country since 2019 when four Americans were killed in a suicide bomb attack in Manbij, Syria.
Prior to today there had been 10 U.S. military deaths in Syria, including a mix of hostile and non-hostile deaths. The most recent U.S. military death in Syria was a non-hostile death in February 2022.
A burned and unusable car is seen as firefighters continue to extinguish the fire that broke out in a house following the Russian drone attacks on Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine on December 13, 2025. (State Emergency Service of Ukraine / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Russia targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with missile and drone strikes in another “massive attack” Friday night into Saturday morning, Ukrainian authorities said.
“All necessary services are currently working to restore electricity and water supply in our communities affected by Russia’s overnight attack,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X. “Once again, the main strike targeted our energy sector, the south of the country, and the Odesa region.”
Russia used almost 500 drones and missiles in a combined strike on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure facilities overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said Saturday morning.
In total, Russia launched 465 drones as well as 30 air-, sea- and ground-based missiles. The main direction of the strike was the Odesa region, the Ukrainian Air Force confirmed.
The air force said it shot down or suppressed 417 drones and 13 missiles. However, 33 drones and eight missiles struck areas at 18 locations, while downed ones fell at three locations. An additional six missiles did not reach their targets and the places of their fall are under investigation, according to the air force.
Two people were injured in the Odesa region and thousands of families remain without electricity in the Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Chernihiv regions, according to Zelenskyy.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Energy confirmed that the Russian drone and missile strikes targeted electricity generation, distribution and transmission facilities in the Dnipropetrovsk, Chernihiv, Odesa and Mykolaiv regions.
Customers in the Odesa, Chernihiv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad and Mykolaiv regions were without power as of Saturday morning, according to the ministry.
At least five people were injured in the Mykolaiv region, where all critical infrastructure facilities had to be switched to operating from generators as a result of the “massive attack,” according to Vitaliy Kim, head of the Mykolaiv Regional Military Administration.
The attack also left all traction substations without power supply in Odesa, forcing the city to temporarily suspend tram and trolleybus services, according to Serhiy Lysak, head of the Odesa City Military Administration.
A burned and unusable car is seen as firefighters continue to extinguish the fire that broke out in a house following the Russian drone attacks on Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine on December 13, 2025. (State Emergency Service of Ukraine / Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Russia targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure with missile and drone strikes in another “massive attack” Friday night into Saturday morning, Ukrainian authorities said.
“All necessary services are currently working to restore electricity and water supply in our communities affected by Russia’s overnight attack,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X. “Once again, the main strike targeted our energy sector, the south of the country, and the Odesa region.”
Russia used almost 500 drones and missiles in a combined strike on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure facilities overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said Saturday morning.
In total, Russia launched 465 drones as well as 30 air-, sea- and ground-based missiles. The main direction of the strike was the Odesa region, the Ukrainian Air Force confirmed.
The air force said it shot down or suppressed 417 drones and 13 missiles. However, 33 drones and eight missiles struck areas at 18 locations, while downed ones fell at three locations. An additional six missiles did not reach their targets and the places of their fall are under investigation, according to the air force.
Two people were injured in the Odesa region and thousands of families remain without electricity in the Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Chernihiv regions, according to Zelenskyy.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Energy confirmed that the Russian drone and missile strikes targeted electricity generation, distribution and transmission facilities in the Dnipropetrovsk, Chernihiv, Odesa and Mykolaiv regions.
Customers in the Odesa, Chernihiv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad and Mykolaiv regions were without power as of Saturday morning, according to the ministry.
At least five people were injured in the Mykolaiv region, where all critical infrastructure facilities had to be switched to operating from generators as a result of the “massive attack,” according to Vitaliy Kim, head of the Mykolaiv Regional Military Administration.
The attack also left all traction substations without power supply in Odesa, forcing the city to temporarily suspend tram and trolleybus services, according to Serhiy Lysak, head of the Odesa City Military Administration.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine president, during a meeting at Downing Street in London, UK, on Monday, Dec. 8, 2025. (Tolga Akmen/EPA/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down at least 287 Ukrainian drones overnight into Thursday morning, soon after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy previewed more meetings with foreign partners regarding a possible peace deal.
Forty of the drones were shot down over the Moscow region, 32 of which the Defense Ministry said were “flying toward Moscow.”
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in posts to Telegram that emergency services had been dispatched to several sites where falling drone debris was reported.
A spokesperson for Rosaviatsiya, Russia’s federal air transport agency, said in posts to Telegram that temporary flight restrictions were introduced at all four of Moscow’s airports.
The latest exchanges came soon after Zelenskyy said his negotiating team was “finalizing work on the 20 points of a fundamental document that could define the parameters for ending the war.”
Zelenskyy was referring to the 20-point peace settlement proposal that Ukrainian, U.S. and European leaders have been working on for several weeks.
A Ukrainian official close to the peace talks told ABC News on Thursday morning that Ukraine had handed the U.S. a revised 20-point peace plan.
The official noted that the revised plan contains “some new ideas” regarding territories and control over the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.
“This is not a new version, it is the same 20 points, only some of them have been slightly rethought,” the official said.
Ukrainian and American negotiating teams are expected to hold online consultations on Thursday regarding the peace plan, but the main topic will be security guarantees, not the revised points of the plan.
“Right now, there are three documents: the basic 20 points, the security guarantees and the document on the economy and reconstruction,” the Ukrainian official told ABC News. “Yesterday, we discussed the economy, today the guarantees.”
Russia continued its long-range strike campaign on Ukraine overnight.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 151 drones and three missiles into the country on Wednesday night into Thursday morning, of which 83 drones and two missiles were shot down. Impacts of one missile and 63 drones were reported across 34 locations, the air force said.
Zelenskyy said in a Wednesday social media post that a meeting with the “Coalition of the Willing” — a group of mostly European leaders backing Ukraine — was planned for Thursday.
“Ukraine is working swiftly; every visit and every negotiation we conduct always yields practical results for our defense and for our resilience,” Zelenskyy wrote.
View of the Cour Napoleon, a historic courtyard in the Louvre Museum and the Louvre Pyramid in Paris, France on November 12th, 2025. (Photo by Beata Zawrzel/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
(PARIS and LONDON) — Nobody was monitoring the live feed.
As masked men hacked a hole in a window at the Louvre Museum in Paris in October, a security camera inside the gallery was picking up the spot where they were working, Noel Corbin, the head of France’s inspectorate general of culture told the country’s Senate at a hearing on Wednesday.
As men clambered into the world-famous museum, nobody was actively monitoring that specific feed, legislators were told. And, even as the robbers collected their loot — allegedly stealing French crown jewels worth some $102 million — the security staff at a bank of screens weren’t yet focused on the camera catching the robbery, Corbin said.
The camera’s zoom wasn’t “activated” until 9:38 a.m., about four minutes after the robbery began, the Senate was told. By then, the blink-and-you-miss-it robbery was all but over.
The Senate was told on Wednesday that there had been “insufficient screens” in the security guard’s control room to simultaneously view images from all the cameras in the museum.
While the live video feed from one the Apollo Gallery appeared to have been transmitted during the robbery, it wasn’t immediately clear why it wasn’t among those being monitored remotely by a live person. Another camera near the scene wasn’t working that day, Corbin said.
The latest details on apparent faults in security at the world’s most-visited museum came as the French government and law enforcement sought through a sprawling investigation to understand how those alleged lapses in procedure and equipment may have worked in favor of the robbers.
The robbery suspects fled on motorbikes, police said at the time of the heist. At least seven people have since been arrested, five of whom have been formally charged in connection to the heist, French officials said. But the irreplaceable jewels taken during the Sunday morning heist have not yet been recovered.
The Senate on Wednesday heard new details on what appeared to have happened during the heist, including that there had been “insufficient screens.” That lack of screens had been highlighted in a security audit carried out earlier in the year, one of five such audits that had been carried out in the last decade, the watchdog said.
One of those audits, the one carried out in 2019 by a private auditor, had specifically focused on the Apollo Gallery, the watchdog said, adding that another in 2015 had focused on the museum’s computer systems.
The Senate was told that the findings of those audits included details about security cameras, some of which were described as “obsolete.” It was not immediately clear if the camera faced at the window in the Apollo Gallery was characterized as such.
As the robbery unfolded, the Senate heard on Wednesday, members of a private Securitas security team arrived outside the museum quickly enough that they may have stopped the robbers from lighting their vehicle — a moving ladder — on fire, thus apparently saving crucial evidence that’s led to arrests.
But if they had arrived at least 30 seconds earlier they could have stopped the robbers from escaping, the Senate was told, with the watchdog adding that a quicker viewing of the live feed from the internal security camera might have made the difference.
People walk through the streets of Sumy during emergency power cuts on December 9, 2025 in Sumy, Ukraine. (Maksym Kishka/Frontliner/Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Millions of Ukrainians have been plunged into frequent darkness and cold as Russian drones and missiles wage a systematic long-range campaign against the country’s energy grid for the fourth consecutive winter.
Even at the offices of Ukraine’s mammoth state-owned Naftogaz oil and gas conglomerate in Kyiv, emergency generators have been keeping the lights on.
“What I can see from my window — there is an absolutely dark city with only some lights,” CEO Sergii Koretskyi told ABC News during a video interview. “I’m sure people recognize this winter as the most difficult since the full-scale invasion started. We can see power cuts from four up to 10 hours a day.”
Russia’s nightly bombardments have increasingly targeted energy infrastructure in recent months, Ukrainian officials say, often involving hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles.
Ukrainian President Voloydmyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly appealed for more Western military aid to help blunt such strikes. “The Russians’ goal is to hurt millions of Ukrainians,” the president said in a social media post on Saturday.
Between October and December so far, Naftogaz recorded 11 “massive attacks on gas infrastructure across Ukraine,” Koretskyi said. “Our gas production infrastructure has suffered significant damage and destruction,” he added.
Naftogaz estimates the combined cost of covering its gas shortfall and repairing its production and storage infrastructure at more than $3 billion, Koretskyi said.
“We can see that the scale and intensity of strikes have changed dramatically,” Koretskyi added. This year’s bombardments have been even more punishing than those in the back end of last winter, he added, when Ukraine had 42% of its domestic gas production knocked out.
Throughout its full-scale invasion — which began in February 2022 following eight years of lower-intensity cross-border Russian aggression — Moscow has denied intentionally targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure.
The Russian Defense Ministry says it attacks Ukrainian fuel and energy targets that support the Ukrainian armed forces and Ukraine’s military-industrial enterprises.
Ukraine is also waging its own long-range strike campaign against Russian energy targets, particularly oil storage and refining facilities. Kyiv says the lucrative proceeds from Russian oil exports help fund Moscow’s ongoing invasion.
Koretskyi declined to say what proportion of the country’s gas production and storage capacities had been taken offline during this winter’s attacks, citing operational security and Moscow’s use of public statements and statistics to guide its strike campaign.
But virtually all of Ukraine’s regions now routinely face rolling blackouts, imposed to help protect the country’s grid while repairs are carried out, leaving millions with only hours of power.
Naftogaz says it supplies gas to 12.5 million households across Ukraine. Around 80% of the population using gas to heat their homes. Each night of Russian attacks threatens new blackouts for tens of thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of people.
“Their goal is clear — this is pure terrorism,” he said, “to put us into the darkness without heat during this winter season.”
Analysts have suggested that Western support could prove vital in helping Ukraine through this winter.
“Without substantial Western support — particularly air defense systems, transformers, and financial assistance for emergency repairs — blackouts are likely to be more regular, people will suffer in the cold, and economic activity may slow,” political consultant Kateryna Odarchenk wrote for the Center for European Policy Analysis this month.
Zelenskyy and his top officials have consistently pressed Western allies to provide more air defense systems and ammunition, to help Ukrainian defenders protect civilian centers, military sites and critical infrastructure.
Yuriy Boyechko, the CEO of the Hope For Ukraine charity, told ABC News that the current energy crisis is a result of inadequate air defenses in the face of “the relentless deluge of Russian missiles and drones.” He added, “The only viable solution is immediate, comprehensive air defense support from Western allies.”
The bombing has wrought holes in Ukraine’s energy network. As of December, Naftogaz estimated that Ukraine needed to import 4.4 billion cubic meters of gas through to the end of this heating season — which Ukraine’s government estimates will end by around March 31.
This is expected to cost some €1.9 billion — around $2.2 billion — Koretskyi said. Zelenskyy and his government have mobilized to secure the funding from foreign partners and financial institutions, but Naftogaz’s chief said a hole of around €600 million remains.
Kyiv is turning to private companies in gas-rich nations like the U.S. to help fill the gap. Companies require two permits to export natural gas — one from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and one from the Department of Energy.
This year already, more than 500 million cubic meters of American liquid natural gas (LNG) have been imported, with another 300 million cubic meters agreed for import earlier next year.
Through 2026, Koretskyi said, Ukraine would like to bring in another 1 billion cubic meters of American LNG. “We would like to build long-term relationships with U.S. LNG suppliers,” he said.
A recent agreement to import U.S. LNG through the Soviet-era Trans-Balkan pipeline running from Greece is also part of this drive, Ukrainian officials have said.
But as Russia’s attacks grow larger and more sophisticated, the cost and complexity of recovery grows. Naftogaz’s list of equipment needed for repairs is now 190 items strong, Koretskyi said. The estimated cost of this badly needed equipment is more than $900 million, he added.
“There are two lists of equipment — the first one for repairing or replacing those damaged or even destroyed, and the second is for a strategic reserve for upcoming potential attacks,” he explained. U.S. and European suppliers, Koretskyi said, could prove pivotal in filling the gaps.
“The lead time — of production time, delivery and installation — will take between eight and 18 months,” Koretskyi said. “So, we should be ready not just for this winter season, but for the next heating season.”
Meanwhile, the strikes and blackouts continue.
On Dec. 4, for example, the Kherson central heating plant in the southern frontline city was knocked offline after days of attacks by various Russian weapons systems. Kherson military administration head Oleksandr Prokudin said that disruption left more than 40,000 without heat.
“It’s like a nightmare,” Koretskyi said of life under rolling blackouts for many Ukrainians. “I do believe Ukrainians recognize the risk, the challenge, that Russia will continue bombing us.”
“Nobody can imagine what will happen in the coming months or weeks,” he added, suggesting that Ukrainians may have to summon reserves of resilience already tapped by almost four years of full-scale war.
“This is not a sprint, it’s a marathon,” Koretskyi said. “The war changes, upgrades and becomes different every day. The measures for survival, for protection, should be changed as well … That’s how we live.”
