House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s arrival in Taiwan has incited a pre­dict­ably strong response from China. Chinese war­planes have brushed up against the median line divid­ing the Taiwan Strait. The Chinese for­eign min­istry has warned of “ser­i­ous con­sequences” as a res­ult of Pelosi’s visit to the island. Chinese Pres­id­ent Xi Jin­ping has told Pres­id­ent Biden that “those who play with fire will per­ish by it.” And now, China has announced a major mil­it­ary exer­cise with live-fire drills start­ing Thursday. The specter of mil­it­ary con­front­a­tion looms large.

But Pelosi is hardly respons­ible for today’s heightened ten­sions over the island. Even if she had decided to skip Taipei on her tour of Asia, China’s bel­li­cos­ity toward Taiwan would have con­tin­ued to intensify, pos­sibly trig­ger­ing another Taiwan Strait crisis in the near future.

Con­trary to the pre­vail­ing nar­rat­ive, this is not primar­ily because Xi is com­mit­ted to reuni­fy­ing Taiwan dur­ing his rule. Although reuni­fic­a­tion is indeed one of his long-term object­ives (it would be a crown­ing achieve­ment for both him and the Com­mun­ist Party of China more broadly), any attempt to achieve it by force would be extremely costly. It might even carry exist­en­tial risks for the Com­mun­ist Party regime, the sur­vival of which would be jeop­ard­ized by a failed mil­it­ary cam­paign.

For an inva­sion of Taiwan to have a good chance of suc­ceed­ing, China would need first to insu­late its eco­nomy from West­ern sanc­tions and acquire mil­it­ary cap­ab­il­it­ies that can cred­ibly deter an Amer­ican inter­ven­tion. Each of these pro­cesses would take at least a dec­ade.

The main reas­ons for China’s cur­rent saber-rat­tling over Taiwan are more imme­di­ate. Chinese author­it­ies are sig­nal­ing to Taiwanese lead­ers and their sup­port­ers in the West that their rela­tions with one another and with China are on an unac­cept­able tra­ject­ory. The implic­a­tion is that if they do not change course, China will have no choice but to escal­ate.

ISLAMABAD — The U.S. drone strike that killed al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri 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 Qaeda mem­bers or those seek­ing to attack the U.S.

Yet a mas­ter­mind of the 9/11 ter­ror attacks, who has called for strik­ing the United States in numer­ous video mes­sages in recent years, lived for months appar­ently sheltered by senior Taliban fig­ures.

The safe house where al-Zawahiri was stay­ing in Kabul’s upscale Shir­pur neigh­bor­hood was the home of a top aide to senior Taliban leader Sirajud­din Haqqani, accord­ing to a senior U.S. intel­li­gence offi­cial. Haqqani is deputy head of the Taliban, serves as interior min­is­ter and heads the Haqqani net­work, a power­ful fac­tion within the move­ment.

Still, there have been per­sist­ent reports of unease among Taliban lead­er­ship, par­tic­u­larly ten­sions between the Haqqani net­work and rivals within the move­ment.

The Taliban ini­tially sought to describe the strike as Amer­ica viol­at­ing the Doha deal, in which the U.S. com­mit­ted not to attack the group. The Taliban have yet to say who was killed in the strike.

“The killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri has raised many ques­tions,” said one Pakistani intel­li­gence offi­cial, who spoke on con­di­tion of anonym­ity as he wasn’t author­ized to speak pub­licly to report­ers. Al-Zawahiri took over as al Qaeda’s leader after Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs in Pakistan in 2011.

“The Taliban were aware of his pres­ence in Kabul, and if they were not aware of it, they need to explain their pos­i­tion,” the offi­cial said.

The strike early Sunday shook awake Shir­pur, once a dis­trict of his­toric build­ings that were bull­dozed in 2003 to make way for lux­ury homes for offi­cials in Afgh­anistan’s West­ern­backed gov­ern­ment and inter­na­tional aid organ­iz­a­tions. After the U.S. with­drawal in August 2021, senior Taliban moved into some of the aban­doned homes there.

He knows a thing or two about the stand. Stephen King test­i­fied against an industry-shift­ing book pub­lish­ing mer­ger on Tues­day in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., fed­eral court.

King, 74, test­i­fied for the gov­ern­ment in its effort to stop a pro­posed $2.2 bil­lion deal for Pen­guin Ran­dom House, the largest pub­lisher in the U.S., to acquire Simon & Schuster, the fourth-largest.

“I came because I think that con­sol­id­a­tion is bad for com­pet­i­tion,” King said. “It becomes tougher and tougher for writers to find money to live on.”

With over 60 best-sellers includ­ing “The Stand,” “The Shin­ing” and “It,” King will never have that prob­lem him­self. But as is typ­ical of the eccent­ric hor­ror author, he put the gen­eral good ahead of his per­sonal interests.

King’s works are actu­ally pub­lished by Simon & Schuster, but he test­i­fied against the mer­ger any­way. He dis­cussed how throughout his career, which began in the mid-1970s with “Car­rie,” he’s seen big pub­lish­ers snatch up their small com­pet­it­ors.

King’s first nov­els were pub­lished by Doubleday, which later merged with another com­pany and even­tu­ally landed under the extens­ive Pen­guin Ran­dom House umbrella. In 1986, “It” was pub­lished by Pen­guin, which later merged with Ran­dom House.

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

The U.S. pub­lish­ing industry is dom­in­ated by the “Big Five” com­pan­ies: Pen­guin Ran­dom House, Har­per­Collins, Mac­mil­lan, Simon & Schuster and Hachette. Together, they take up 90% of the Amer­ican book pub­lish­ing mar­ket, and King described them Tues­day as “pretty entrenched.”

The pro­posed mer­ger between Pen­guin Ran­dom House and Simon & Schuster would give the new com­pany nearly half of that mar­ket. The Justice Depart­ment sued to block the mer­ger, as Pres­id­ent Biden had prom­ised to fight against mono­poly cap­it­al­ism when he took office.

The pro­posed mer­ger between Pen­guin Ran­dom House and Simon & Schuster would give the new com­pany nearly half of that mar­ket. The Justice Depart­ment sued to block the mer­ger, as Pres­id­ent Biden had prom­ised to fight against mono­poly cap­it­al­ism when he took office.

“A fair, open, and com­pet­it­ive mar­ket­place has long been a corner­stone of the Amer­ican eco­nomy, while excess­ive mar­ket con­cen­tra­tion threatens basic eco­nomic liber­ties, demo­cratic account­ab­il­ity, and the wel­fare of work­ers, farm­ers, small busi­nesses, star­tups, and con­sumers,” he wrote in a July 2021 exec­ut­ive order.

Pen­guin Ran­dom House and Simon & Schuster claimed that they would con­tinue bid­ding against each other for pub­lish­ing rights after the mer­ger. King mocked the idea Tues­day on the stand.

“You might as well say you’re going to have a hus­band and wife bid­ding against each other for the same house,” he quipped. “It would be sort of very gen­tle­manly and sort of after you, and after you,” he added, toss­ing in a polite sweep of the arm.

Sur­pris­ingly, the com­pan­ies’ attor­neys passed on cross-exam­in­a­tion, allow­ing King to step down without answer­ing a single unfriendly ques­tion.

The trial is expec­ted to last two to three weeks. On Monday, Hachette pub­lish­ing CEO Michael Pietsch test­i­fied for the gov­ern­ment.

King has also gone out of his way to work with smal­ler pub­lish­ers. Almost two dec­ades ago, the smal­ler com­pany Hard Case Crime asked King for a blurb about a book. He respon­ded by send­ing the com­pany a whole novel, “The Col­or­ado Kid,” pub­lished in 2005.

KYIV, Ukraine — Rus­sia’s Supreme Court declared Ukraine’s Azov Regi­ment a ter­ror­ist organ­iz­a­tion Tues­day, a move that could lead to ter­ror charges against some of the cap­tured fight­ers who made their last stand inside Mariu­pol’s shattered steel plant.

Rus­sia and its sep­ar­at­ist allies are hold­ing an estim­ated 1,000 Azov sol­diers pris­oner, many of them since their sur­render at the steel­works in mid-May. Rus­sian author­it­ies have opened crim­inal cases against them, accus­ing them of killing civil­ians. The addi­tion of ter­ror­ism charges could mean fewer rights and longer prison sen­tences.

A ter­ror­ist organ­iz­a­tion leader could receive 15 to 20 years, and group mem­bers could get 5 to 10, accord­ing to Rus­sian state media.

In testi­mony journ­al­ists were allowed to view, wit­nesses appear­ing before the Supreme Court sup­por­ted the pro­posed ter­ror­ism des­ig­na­tion, but most of the pro­ceed­ings were held behind closed doors, so it was not known if any oppon­ents test­i­fied.

“I can testify myself that Ukrain­ian snipers — Azov snipers — really shot civil­ians try­ing to escape the city” of Mariu­pol, Mar­ina Akhmedova of the Pres­id­en­tial Coun­cil for the Devel­op­ment of Civil Soci­ety and Human Rights test­i­fied. “I saw bod­ies lying on roads with my own eyes. There were many of them, and they were lying prob­ably 10 meters apart from one another. There were no shell craters beside them.”

In a state­ment, the Azov Regi­ment dis­missed the rul­ing, accus­ing the Krem­lin of “look­ing for new excuses and explan­a­tions for its war crimes.” It urged the U.S. and other coun­tries to declare Rus­sia a ter­ror­ist state.

The Azov sol­diers played a key part in the defense of Mariu­pol, hold­ing out for weeks at the south­ern port city’s steel mill des­pite pun­ish­ing attacks from Rus­sian forces. Ukrain­ian Pres­id­ent Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed them and the other defend­ers as her­oes.

KYIV, Ukraine — Rus­sia’s Supreme Court declared Ukraine’s Azov Regi­ment a ter­ror­ist organ­iz­a­tion Tues­day, a move that could lead to ter­ror charges against some of the cap­tured fight­ers who made their last stand inside Mariu­pol’s shattered steel plant.

Rus­sia and its sep­ar­at­ist allies are hold­ing an estim­ated 1,000 Azov sol­diers pris­oner, many of them since their sur­render at the steel­works in mid-May. Rus­sian author­it­ies have opened crim­inal cases against them, accus­ing them of killing civil­ians. The addi­tion of ter­ror­ism charges could mean fewer rights and longer prison sen­tences.

A ter­ror­ist organ­iz­a­tion leader could receive 15 to 20 years, and group mem­bers could get five to 10, accord­ing to Rus­sian state media.

In testi­mony journ­al­ists were allowed to view, wit­nesses appear­ing before the Supreme Court sup­por­ted the pro­posed ter­ror­ism des­ig­na­tion, but most of the pro­ceed­ings were held behind closed doors, so it was not known if any oppon­ents test­i­fied.

“I can testify myself that Ukrain­ian snipers — Azov snipers — really shot civil­ians try­ing to escape the city” of Mariu­pol, Mar­ina Akhmedova of the Pres­id­en­tial Coun­cil for the Devel­op­ment of Civil Soci­ety and Human Rights test­i­fied. “I saw bod­ies lying on roads with my own eyes.”

In a state­ment, the Azov Regi­ment dis­missed the rul­ing, accus­ing the Krem­lin of “look­ing for new excuses and explan­a­tions for its war crimes.” It urged the U.S. and other coun­tries to declare Rus­sia a ter­ror­ist state.

The Azov sol­diers played a key part in the defense of Mariu­pol, hold­ing out for weeks at the south­ern port city’s steel mill des­pite pun­ish­ing attacks from Rus­sian forces.

Moscow has repeatedly por­trayed the Azov Regi­ment as a Nazi group and accused it of atro­cit­ies, but has pub­licly pro­duced little evid­ence.

PRESTONBURG, Ky. — At least 25 people have died — includ­ing four chil­dren — since tor­ren­tial rains swamped towns across Appalachia, Ken­tucky’s gov­ernor said Sat­urday.

“We con­tinue to pray for the fam­il­ies that have suffered an unfathom­able loss,” Gov. Andy Bes­hear said. “Some hav­ing lost almost every­one in their house­hold.”

Bes­hear said the num­ber would prob­ably rise sig­ni­fic­antly and it could take weeks to find all the vic­tims of the record flash flood­ing. Res­cue crews con­tin­ued the struggle to get into hard-hit areas, some of them among the poorest places in Amer­ica.

“I’m wor­ried that we’re going to be find­ing bod­ies for weeks to come,” Bes­hear said.

He said it’s still an act­ive search and res­cue oper­a­tion with a goal of get­ting as many people to safety as pos­sible. Crews have made more than 1,200 res­cues from heli­copters and boats, the gov­ernor said.

Bes­hear, who flew over parts of the flood-stricken region on Fri­day, described it as “just total dev­ast­a­tion, the likes of which we have never seen.”

The rain let up early Fri­day after parts of east­ern Ken­tucky received 8 to 10½ inches over 48 hours.

In the tiny com­munity of Gar­rett on Sat­urday, couches, tables and pil­lows soaked by flood­ing were stacked in yards along the foot­hills of the moun­tain­ous region as people worked to clear out debris and shovel mud from drive­ways and roads.

In nearby Way­land, Phil­lip Michael Cau­dill was work­ing to clean up debris and sal­vage what he could from the home he shares with his wife and three chil­dren. The waters had receded from the house but left a mess behind along with ques­tions about what he and his fam­ily will do next.

“We’re just hop­ing we can get some help,” said Cau­dill, who is stay­ing with his fam­ily at a state park in a free room, for now.

Olympic ath­lete Eilidh Doyle inspired her sis­ter to write a novel about dop­ing in sport.

Eilidh, who won bronze with Team GB in the women’s 4x400m relay in Rio in 2016, was out with sis­ter Catri­ona Child for a last wild night before the author’s wed­ding.

And the other guests were amazed when the track star revealed what was involved in an elite ath­lete’s drug test.

Catri­ona, 42, said: “Eilidh was talk­ing about the whole pro­cess she had to go through while she was com­pet­ing. My friends were really fas­cin­ated but also shocked by what an invas­ive pro­cess it was.

“She had to give her loc­a­tion wherever she was, nom­in­ate cer­tain times of the day for drugs test­ing and then pee into a pot in front of a stranger.

“It was only when she was talk­ing to other people and I could see their reac­tions that I real­ised it is quite a weird thing to do. I never really appre­ci­ated it before.”

Cat r iona, who had already writ­ten two nov­els, real­ised this was a great sub­ject. She star­ted think­ing about who car­ries out these urine tests and what hap­pens when they are pos­it­ive. She said: “What’s the fal­lout for someone who gets on the wrong side of that? Not just for them but also for their fam­ily and their team­mates.”

It led to her latest book, Us Vs The World, which looks at what hap­pens to a fam­ily when the ath­lete father is a drugs cheat.

And, to make it extra dra­matic, the wife is a DCO – dop­ing con­trol officer. They go from liv­ing in a fancy house with a trophy cab­inet in the hall to a smal­ler bun­ga­low where their teen­age son’s friends all know about his father’s dis­grace.

Then the author added a zom­bie twist mean­ing that it is, lit­er­ally, the end of the world for the former cham­pion.

Then the author added a zom­bie twist mean­ing that it is, lit­er­ally, the end of the world for the former cham­pion.

Catri­ona said: “I wanted to write an end-of-the-world novel but it’s been done so well by so many bet­ter writers than me – Stephen King, Emily St John Man­del, and Cor­mac McCarthy’s The Road. So I flipped it on its head and wrote an end-of-the-world story but just for that fam­ily.”

Eilidh, 34, who has now retired from ath­let­ics, helped research the prac­tic­al­it­ies of drug test­ing. Catri­ona said: “She sent me the videos ath­letes get to show them the pro­cess.”

But when it came to the prac­tic­al­it­ies of using per­form­ance- enhan­cing drugs, Eilidh was no use.

I’m amazed by the way some ath­letes try to get around rules

Catri­ona said: “When I was try­ing to get into that mind­set of someone tak­ing illegal sub­stances and abus­ing the sys­tem, Eilidh didn’t have a lot of know­ledge because she’s never enter­tained the notion.” Eilidh has com­peted against drugs cheats in the past.

Last year her bronze medal from the 4x400m relay in the 2013 World Cham­pi­on­ships was upgraded to sil­ver after one of the Rus­sian team, who came second, was found to have used drugs.

Catri­ona added: “I was amazed by the way some of the ath­letes will try to get around the rules.”

WASHINGTON — As the sun was rising in Kabul on Sunday, two Hell­fire mis­siles fired by a U.S. drone ended Ayman alZa­wahri’s dec­ade­long reign as the leader of al-Qaeda. 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 Zawahri had been loc­ated, and brought it into the White House Situ­ation Room to show Pres­id­ent Joe Biden. They knew 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 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 United States — 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. Zawahri’s death came from afar, at 6:18 a.m. in Kabul.

Zawahri’s fam­ily, sup­por­ted by the Haqqani Taliban net­work, had taken up res­id­ence in the home after the Taliban regained con­trol of the coun­try last year, after the with­drawal of U.S. forces after nearly 20 years of com­bat that had been inten­ded, in part, to keep al-Qaeda from regain­ing a base of oper­a­tions in Afgh­anistan.

Clear and con­vin­cing evid­ence

But the lead on his where­abouts was only the first step. Con­firm­ing Zawahri’s iden­tity, devis­ing a strike in a crowded city that wouldn’t reck­lessly endanger civil­ians, and ensur­ing the oper­a­tion wouldn’t set back other U.S. pri­or­it­ies took months to fall into place.