Two cases of plague reported in China

Two cases of plague, the illness known for causing the Black Death, have been reported in China, CNN reports.

What we know: The two patients are from the Chinese province of inner Mongolia and were diagnosed by doctors in Beijing. Both individuals are receiving treatment in Beijing's Chaoyang District, where authorities say they've implemented control measures to prevent the infection's spread.

The next president of Sri Lanka will be elected on Saturday, and he will take charge of a country still recovering from April terror attacks that left 277 dead.

Driving the news: The front-runner appears to be Gotabaya Rajapaksa, known for crushing the Tamil Tigers a decade ago as defense minister — allegedly committing war crimes in the process. His brother, Mahinda, was president then and would return as prime minister.

There were between 3.9 million to 4.8 million unauthorized immigrants living in Europe as of 2017, according to new analysis from Pew.

The flipside: The study shows virtually no illegal immigration to countries like Hungary and Poland, where political leaders have seized upon widespread antipathy to immigration.

Libya’s crippling “proxy war” will doom the country to become “a haven for terrorists and extremists” absent support from the U.S., the interior minister for the country’s UN-backed government tells Axios.

Between the lines: The U.S officially supports the government in Tripoli, but has played no part in the current civil war beyond calls for a political solution. Meanwhile, Russian mercenaries are bolstering renegade Gen. Khalifa Haftar's offensive and dramatically changing the nature of the war, Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha told Axios Thursday evening in Washington.

A bipartisan commission recommended people stop referring to China's Xi Jinping as "president" and instead to call him by his party title, "general secretary," the group wrote in its annual report, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Why it matters: The U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission reported on Thursday that characterizing Xi as "president" implies he was democratically elected. But the leader's position is the result of "an internal power contest in the Chinese Communist Party," the Journal writes.

A judge ruled Thursday that Hoda Muthana, a 24-year-old Alabama woman who traveled to Syria in November 2014 to join ISIS, is not a U.S. citizen because her Tunisian father had diplomatic status in the U.S. when she was born, BuzzFeed News reports.

Why it matters: The U.S. government has no obligation to help Mothana return to the U.S. Muthana expressed interest in returning to the U.S. earlier this year while being detained in a Kurdish refugee camp with her 2-year-old son, the Guardian reports.

In Germany, parents must vaccinate their children for measles or face fines of several thousands of euros, per a new law that will take effect in March 2020.

Why it matters: The disease has returned and spread throughout the European Union over the past three years after decades of decline, according to the European Center for Disease Control.

The International Criminal Court has approved an investigation into crimes against Rohingya Muslims in Bangladesh and Myanmar, AP reports.

Why it matters: Thousands of Rohingya Muslims have died and more than 700,000 have fled Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh to flee the ethnic cleansing and apparent genocide that started in 2017.

The unrest in Chile could not have come at a worse time for the country's investors, who had already been facing a wave of economic uncertainty.

What's happening: The economy slowed from 4% growth last year to less than 2% in each of the first two quarters of 2019.

The Chinese government is set to eliminate restrictions on foreign ownership of fund management firms in 2020, opening up major opportunities for U.S. and other global firms to capture potentially trillions of dollars in new assets, according to new research from Deloitte.

Why it matters: The Chinese government has been taking steps in recent years to liberalize its capital markets and attract investment.

An Oval Office meeting yesterday with Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took a dark turn when Erdoğan pulled out his iPad and made the group watch a propaganda video that depicted the leader of the primarily-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces as a terrorist, according to three sources familiar with the meeting.

Why it matters: The meeting hosted by President Trump included five Republican U.S. senators who've been among the most vocal critics of Turkey's recent invasion of Syria and attacks on the U.S.'s Kurdish allies in the fight against ISIS.

Hong Kong protesters caused chaos on the roads and on public transport for a fourth consecutive day, as activists fortified university campuses "in anticipation of clashes" with police on Thursday, the New York Times reports. Some were armed with "firebombs and bows and arrows, it said.

Why it matters: Five months of unrest escalated this week. Police opened fire on protesters during rush hour Monday, injuring a 21-year-old man. Meanwhile, activists have vandalized police stations, train stations and shopping malls, notes Reuters, which reports schools closed for a second day on Thursday amid concerns for students' safety.

Israeli and Palestinian officials reached a ceasefire on Thursday following days of deadly cross-border fighting that began after Israel killed a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) commander in an airstrike.

The latest: An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman confirmed the ceasefire in Gaza had come into effect. Israeli officials said earlier that forces had "achieved all the goals of its military operation."

Australia's catastrophic wildfires have killed a fourth person, as firefighters battled more than 120 fires in the eastern states of New South Wales and Queensland on Thursday, the BBC reports.

Why it matters: Thousands of people have fled the fires, which are raging amid dry, windy conditions in eastern Australia The states of New South Wales and Queensland have declared states of emergency. Now, authorities in Western Australia are warning of "extremely dangerous conditions," per the BBC.

Supporters of former President Evo Morales clashed with police in the capital and in his stronghold towns as they demonstrated against conservative Sen. Jeanine Áñez declaring herself interim president, AP reports.

The latest: Per AP, some of Morales' supporters ignited dynamite sticks, while others used "corrugated sheets of metal and wooden planks from construction sites" as weapons, as many chanted, "Now, civil war!" per AP. U.S. officials have welcomed Áñez's declaration.

The House committees investigating President Trump and Ukraine have scheduled closed-door depositions for David Holmes, an official working at the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, and Mark Sandy, an official working in the Office of Management and Budget, later this week, according to a schedule distributed to committee staff and reviewed by Axios.

Why it matters: The depositions signal that the fact-finding phase of House Democrats' impeachment inquiry is still not over, despite the first public impeachment hearings kicking off on Wednesday.

Americans continue to rely on their credit cards, while the rest of the world rapidly moves toward mobile payments.

The big picture: China is the clear leader, with nearly half of the population paying for goods with their phones. But the fastest growth in the adoption of e-payments is happening in India.

President Trump lauded Turkey as a “great NATO ally” during a press conference with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Wednesday in which tensions between the countries simmered beneath the surface.

The big picture: Erdoğan's invasion of northern Syria last month sparked bipartisan outrage in Washington and came with the countries already locked in a dispute over Turkey’s purchase of a Russian s-400 missile system. Erdoğan was defiant on those points, and he lashed out over votes in the House of Representatives to back sanctions on Turkey and recognize the Armenian genocide.

A senior State Department official has rejected Israeli criticism regarding U.S. assistance to the Lebanese armed forces, as well as the Israeli demand to condition the aid on the Lebanese government acting against Hezbollah’s precision missile factories.

Why it matters: The U.S. gives the Lebanese army around $105 million a year and supports it with training and equipment. Israel is concerned that the Lebanese army is infiltrated by Hezbollah and that any U.S. assistance to the Lebanese army will end up in the terror organization’s hands.

George Kent, the State Department's deputy assistant secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs, ended his opening statement in the House's public impeachment hearing on Wednesday by defending some of his colleagues against anti-immigrant attacks.

The big picture: Former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman and former Trump administration Russia expert Fiona Hill all were born abroad and immigrated to the U.S. — either as children or adults. Each will publicly testify in the impeachment inquiry in the coming days.