India’s former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has died at the age of 92, according to statement from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS).

The hospital said he lost consciousness at home on Thursday and was brought to the AIIMS in New Delhi.

“He was being treated for age-related medical conditions and had a sudden loss of consciousness at home on 26 December 2024,” AIIMS wrote. “Resuscitative measures were started immediately at home. He was brought to the Medical Emergency at AIIMS.”

But despite the hospital’s efforts, Singh was declared dead at 9:51 p.m. local. (11:21 a.m. ET), it added.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the country mourned Singh’s passing and called him one of country’s “most distinguished leaders.”

“As our Prime Minister, he made extensive efforts to improve people’s lives,” Modi wrote on X on Thursday.

Singh served as prime minister for two terms. In 2004, after unexpectedly winning national elections, Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi decided she didn’t want the country’s top job after all.

She instead turned to Singh, who was then known for his role in unleashing a bold wave of economic reforms in the early 90s when he was finance minister.

His government introduced welfare schemes such as a jobs program for the rural poor, according to Reuters. In 2008, Singh struck a landmark deal that allowed peaceful trade in nuclear energy with the United States for the first time in three decades, according to Reuters. The following year, he was guest of honor at then-US President Barack Obama’s first White House state dinner.

By the time his second term was up, Singh’s achievements were being overshadowed by high-profile corruption cases in his administration. Singh was never accused of being corrupt but his image took a hit.

Months before his death, Singh said at a press conference that he did the best he could as prime minister, Reuters reported. “I honestly believe that history will be kinder to me than the contemporary media or, for that matter, the opposition parties in parliament,” he said, according to Reuters.

Singh is survived by his wife and three daughters, Reuters reported.

Israeli forces unleashed a series of strikes on the Yemeni capital Sanaa and the western city of Hodeidah on Thursday, according to Houthi-run media, killing at least four people and injuring more than a dozen others.

The strike on Sanaa International Airport killed at least three people and injured 16 others, al-Masirah television reported. Further west, at least one person was killed in the attack on Hodeidah, added al-Masirah.

Three people have also been reported missing in Hodeidah, and rescue and search operations are ongoing, according to al-Masirah.

The Israeli military said on Thursday it hit “military targets” belonging to Iran-backed Houthis.

“The targets that were struck by the IDF include military infrastructure used by the Houthi terrorist regime for its military activities in both the Sanaa International Airport and the Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations,” the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement.

In recent months, the Houthis have fired missiles at Israeli cities in what they say is in response to the Israeli offensive in Gaza, which has killed more than 45,300 Palestinians.

The Israeli military has repeatedly struck Yemen since launching its war in Gaza following the Hamas-led October 7 attack.

Earlier on Thursday, Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam said on X that Israel had struck the airport in Sanaa and other “civilian infrastructure,” condemning a “crime against the Yemeni people.”

Power plants were struck in Sanaa and Hodeidah, according to a Telegram channel associated with the Houthis.

The United States and the United Kingdom have previously struck the Houthis after the group disrupted shipping in the Red Sea, one of the world’s busiest waterways.

Last week, a projectile fired from Yemen hit Tel Aviv, injuring at least 16 people. Days before, Israel intercepted another missile launched by the Houthis, with shrapnel causing extensive damage to a school near Tel Aviv.

Finnish police said on Thursday they are investigating whether a foreign ship was involved in the damage of an undersea power cable connecting Finland and Estonia following a sudden outage on Wednesday.

Baltic Sea nations are on high alert for potential acts of sabotage following a string of outages of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines since 2022, although subsea equipment is also subject to technical malfunction and accidents.

The 658 megawatt (MW) Estlink 2 power interconnector remains offline following the outage that began at midday local time on Wednesday, leaving only the 358 MW Estlink 1 in operation between the two countries, operator Fingrid said.

“The police, in cooperation with the Border Guard and other authorities, are investigating the chain of events of the incident,” Finnish police said in a statement.

Investigators were probing the potential role of a foreign ship, police said without naming the vessel.

Police in Sweden are meanwhile leading an investigation into the breach last month of two Baltic Sea telecom cables, in an incident German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius has said he assumed was caused by sabotage.

Separately, Finnish police continue to investigate damage
caused last year to the Balticconnector gas pipeline linking
Finland and Estonia, as well as several telecoms cables, and have said this was likely caused by a ship dragging its anchor.

In 2022 the Russia-to-Germany Nord Stream gas pipelines
running along the seabed in the same waters were blown up, in a case still under investigation by Germany.

South Korea’s parliament voted to impeach prime minister and acting President Han Duck-soo on Friday, less than two weeks after parliament stripped President Yoon Suk Yeol of his powers over his short-lived martial law order that plunged the country into political chaos.

The main opposition Democratic party filed the impeachment motion on Thursday after Han refused to fill three vacant seats in the Constitutional Court, which is set to adjudicate Yoon’s impeachment trial.

Han’s impeachment comes as the country has been embroiled in weeks of political turmoil and uncertainty following Yoon’s declaration of martial law on December 3, which lasted only six hours and sparked mass protests.

This is a developing story.

Organizers said Friday that two Sydney to Hobart sailors have died at sea amid wild weather conditions that forced line honors favorite Master Lock Comanche to withdraw among mass retirements.

The Cruising Yacht Club of Australia in Sydney, which administers the yacht race, has said that one sailor each on entrants Flying Fish Arctos and Bowline were killed after being struck by the boom, a large horizontal pole at the bottom of the sail.

The race will continue as the fleet continues its passage to Constitution Dock in Hobart, with the first boats expected to arrive later on Friday or early Saturday morning. The race is 628 nautical miles (722 miles, 1,160 kilometers) long.

David Jacobs, vice-commodore of the CYCA, said the race would “absolutely” continue.

“The conditions are challenging, but they’re not excessive,” he said. “So we’ve got sort of winds at about 25 knots coming from the north seas around about two meters or thereabouts, so the conditions that most of the sailors would normally easily handle.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese paid tribute to the sailors who died.

“We have sadly awoken to tragedy in the Sydney to Hobart with the awful news two sailors have lost their lives,” he said. “Our thoughts are with the crews, their families and loved ones at this deeply sad time.”

The incident aboard Flying Fish Arctos occurred around 30 nautical miles east-southeast of Ulladulla on the New South Wales south coast. Crew members attempted CPR but could not revive their teammate.

The crew member aboard Bowline was struck approximately 30 nautical miles east/north-east of Batemans Bay and fell unconscious, with CPR also unsuccessful.

A police vessel was escorting Bowline to Batemans Bay, where she is expected to arrive later Friday morning.

“As these incidents are being dealt with by the Water Police and all family members are yet to be contacted, we cannot provide further details at this stage,” the CYCA said in a statement. “Our thoughts are with the crews, family and friends of the deceased.”

Flying Fish Arctos, a New South Wales-based 50-footer, has contested 17 previous Hobarts since being built in 2001. The boat was designed for round-the-world sailing and is currently used by Flying Fish, a sailing school that operates in Mosman, a suburb on Sydney’s north shore.

The deaths come 26 years after six sailors were killed in storms during the 1998 running of the race, which triggered a state coronial inquest and mass reforms to the safety protocols that govern the race.

The first all-Filipino crew of 15 sailors was entered in the 2024 race, but was among about 15 retirements because of the weather. With veteran sailor Ernesto Echauz at the helm, Centennial 7 was one of six international entrants and includes sailors from the Philippines’ national team and the Philippines navy.

Last year, LawConnect won line honors after holding off defending champion Comanche by less than a minute in an exciting finish between the super maxis. LawConnect, which was runner-up in the last three editions of the race, finished in 1 day, 19 hours, 3 minutes, 58 seconds. Comanche’s time was 1 day, 19 hours, 4 minutes, 49 seconds – a margin of just 51 seconds.

It was the second-closest finish in Sydney to Hobart history after Condor of Bermuda beat Apollo by seven seconds in 1982.

Comanche holds the race record of 1 day, 9 hours, 15 minutes, 24 seconds, set when it won in 2017.

LawConnect, which led out of Sydney Harbor, was leading the 2024 race but still had 400 nautical miles before reaching Hobart, indicating a finish overnight Friday night. Celestial V70 is in second place, about 10 nautical miles behind LawConnect.

Israel’s Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara has ordered an investigation into Sara Netanyahu, the wife of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, after a report alleged that she had harassed opponents.

“An investigation should be opened into suspicions of witness harassment and obstruction of justice regarding the findings of the Uvda show,” which aired on Israel-based Channel 12 television last week, Israel’s attorney general said in a statement on Thursday.

On Thursday, Channel 12 released an investigation alleging that Sara Netanyahu was intimidating a witness in her husband’s criminal trial.

The report also alleges that she had indirectly harassed the attorney general and the deputy state attorney.

Israel’s Justice Minister Yariv Levin criticized the attorney general’s order, describing it as “extreme selective enforcement has reared its ugly head once again.”

“While Israeli citizens expect that anyone who threatened the police commissioner or called for defiance will be summoned for questioning, the advisor [AG] and the state attorney are busy opening investigations following gossip on television,” Levin said in a post on X on Thursday.

The far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir also criticized Baharav-Miara. “Someone who persecutes government ministers and their families politically cannot continue to serve as the Attorney General – it is a shame that there are still those who bury their heads in the sand and refuse to understand this,” he said in a statement.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Staff at a hospital in northern Gaza say the building has been surrounded by Israeli forces and they are being ordered to evacuate along with all patients, after reports of a nearby airstrike that the local health ministry said killed about 50 people.

Israeli forces “are besieging Kamal Adwan Hospital and issuing orders for its evacuation,” hospital director Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya said in a post on social media early on Friday.

Earlier on Friday, a video shared by nurse Walid Al Budi, who is also inside the hospital, showed a fire burning in the archive department of the hospital. Heavy gunfire can be heard in the background.

The hospital and its surroundings have come under an onslaught of Israeli attacks in recent months, Dr. Abu Safiya has said. Late on Thursday, about 50 people, including five medical workers, were killed after Israeli strikes nearby, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza and Dr. Abu Safiya.

“There are approximately 50 martyrs, including three of our medical staff, under the rubble of a building opposite Kamal Adwan Hospital after an airstrike by the occupying forces,” said Dr. Abu Safiya said.

Among the three hospital workers killed was paediatrician Dr. Ahmed Samour, who was on duty on Thursday but went to the building opposite the hospital – where he and his family live – when the strike hit, said Dr. Abu Safiya. A lab technician and a maintenance worker were also killed.

Two paramedics were killed in a strike near the hospital while on their way there, the director said. “Their bodies remain in the street where no one can reach them,” he added.

“The number of casualties reported in the media does not align with the information held” by the Israeli military, it said.

Israeli forces launched a renewed aerial and ground incursion in several parts of northern Gaza in early October this year, saying they were targeting a resurgent Hamas presence there. The two-month onslaught has razed streets to carpets of debris, killed entire families, and severely depleted food, water and medical stocks.

Earlier on Thursday a Palestinian nurse was left fighting for his life with a fractured skull after Israeli forces detonated a robot in front of the hospital, the Ministry of Health in the enclave said.

Israel says that Hamas operates inside and underneath hospitals, and is using them for military operations, including as command centers, weapons stores and to hide hostages. The Israelis have released footage they say is evidence of those Hamas operations. The videos do not offer definitive proof, and Hamas has denied the claims.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has previously said that Israeli authorities have repeatedly denied humanitarian access to Kamal Adwan Hospital and just this week said that a request to deploy and international emergency medical teams was denied by Israeli authorities, “despite the need for immediate surgical interventions for injured patients.”

Israeli organization Physicians for Human Rights has filed an urgent petition with Israel’s Hight Court “demanding an immediate cessation of ongoing attacks on Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza,” a statement from the organization said on Wednesday.

The “petition presents grave evidence of the catastrophic impact on the hospital and its staff over the past year,” the statement says.

“Evacuating Kamal Adwan Hospital would abandon thousands of residents in northern Gaza without access to medical treatment for the sick and injured. Many of the patients currently receiving care cannot be safely evacuated due to constant gunfire in the vicinity and the military’s restrictions on ambulance operations,” the Israeli human rights organization added.

Ibrahim Dahman contributed to this report

China has launched its first next-generation amphibious assault ship, adding a powerful cutting-edge warship to the country’s fast-expanding navy as it races to rival the military power of the United States.

The Type 076 amphibious assault ship entered the water on Friday at a launch ceremony at a shipyard in Shanghai, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) said in a statement.

Named Sichuan after a southwestern Chinese province, the independently developed ship is hailed as a “key asset” for advancing the Navy’s transformation and enhancing its long-range operational capabilities, according to the statement.

China, which already boasts the largest naval force in the world, is building carriers and large warships at a staggering pace as it seeks to project power far beyond its shores and catch up to the military supremacy of the US.

With a full-load displacement of over 40,000 tons, the Type 076 ranks among the world’s largest amphibious assault ships, featuring a twin-island superstructure and a full-length flight deck, according to the PLAN.

Most notably, it adopts an electromagnetic catapult system, which allows it to carry fixed-wing aircraft along with helicopters and amphibious equipment usually found on this type of warship, the PLAN added.

The electromagnetic catapult system will enable the Type 076 to launch larger and heavier aircraft than it could without the technology. That means the aircraft can carry more fuel – expanding their range and that of the ship as a fighting platform – and more bombs or missiles, making the aircraft themselves more lethal.

Only one other warship in service worldwide, the US Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, employs the electromagnetic catapult system.

China’s newest aircraft carrier, the Fujian, which is in sea trials and has yet to be commissioned, also has an electromagnetic system.

The US Navy’s amphibious assault ships feature the F-35B, a short-takeoff and vertical landing variant of the stealth fighter jet used by the US Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force.

As far as is known the PLA Navy doesn’t have a manned equivalent to the F-35B, so it may deploy the same fixed-wing aircraft as the Fujian.

But a report earlier this year from the Center for Strategic and International Studies says the Type 076 could be used as a massive drone platform.

“If it is limited to unmanned systems, the Type 076’s air wing will be highly capable. China boasts an advanced and growing arsenal of UAVs, including the GJ-11 stealth combat drone, the WZ-7 reconnaissance drone, and the CASC Rainbow strike UCAV, among others,” says the August report from the CSIS, which was based on satellite imagery of the ship under construction.

As for the Type 076’s other capabilities, the CSIS report says it’s expected to have complements of helicopters and amphibious landing craft, the latter capable of deploying more than 1,000 marines.

The CSIS report says that with the ship’s large size, it should be able to carry more of everything than China’s smaller Type 075 amphibious assault ships, the US Navy’s America-class amphibious assault ships and Japan’s Izumo-class helicopter carriers, which are being converted to carry the F-35B.

Carl Schuster, a military analyst and former US Navy captain, said size makes a big statement when it comes to the Type 076.

“That shows a PLA Navy commitment to expeditionary and amphibious warfare and an expanding capability to do so,” he said, adding that it says something about the competition between the world’s two biggest naval powers, China and the United States.

“It demonstrates China’s growing maritime power projection capability at a time when the US Navy’s commitment and capability for expeditionary, amphibious and humanitarian assistance missions has diminished significantly,” said Schuster, a former a director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center.

Taiwan’s presidential office held a “tabletop” exercise on Thursday simulating military escalations by China, a first-of-its-kind drill involving government agencies beyond the armed forces that highlights Taipei’s urgency in ensuring preparedness against an increasingly assertive Beijing.

The simulation involved central and local government units and civil groups, and was aimed at testing governmental responses to various scenarios if cross-strait tensions were to escalate further, Taiwan President Lai Ching-te said on Thursday evening.

“We conducted a tabletop exercise to verify the level of preparedness of each government agency in responding to extreme scenarios,” Lai said. “We believe that as long as the government and society are prepared, we can adequately respond to different threats – including natural disasters and authoritarian expansionism.”

China’s ruling Communist Party claims the self-governing democracy as its own territory, despite having never controlled it, and has not ruled out taking the island by force.

Taiwan has seen a surge of Chinese military activities in the Taiwan Strait and the Western Pacific in recent months with more Chinese naval and coast guard vessels moving in regional waters, and increases in Chinese aircraft operating around the island.

Earlier this month, China fielded its largest regional maritime deployment in decades – including multiple formations of Chinese naval and coast guard vessels – in regional waters and around the Taiwan Strait, according to Taiwan’s Defense Ministry.

China has also conducted two large-scale military exercises surrounding Taiwan this year, one in response to Lai’s inauguration in May and a second to his National Day address in October.

Lai – who is openly loathed by Beijing for his views championing Taiwan’s sovereignty – and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party have repeatedly rejected Beijing’s territorial claims, emphasizing the island democracy is “not subordinate” to China and that Taiwan’s future can only be decided by its 23.5 million people.

Unlike traditional war games by the military, the tabletop exercise was aimed at testing how different government agencies could “ensure the normal functioning of society” in times of crisis, according to Taiwan’s presidential office.

It simulated two scenarios: one where China imposes “high-intensity” grey-zone warfare tactics, and a second where Taiwan is “on the brink of conflict,” the office said. Grey-zone tactics refer to actions that fall just below what might be considered acts of war.

Government agencies were not allowed to prepare notes in advance and had to react immediately to different contingencies, the presidential office said, without elaborating on the exact circumstances featured in the simulation.

While Taiwan’s military regularly holds tabletop war games to test its defense readiness, Thursday’s exercise was the first time that the presidential office has held a simulation that focuses specifically on civil responses to the threat of a Chinese invasion.

The simulation was chaired by Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim, presidential office secretary-general Pan Men-an, and National Security Council secretary-general Joseph Wu.

Taiwan’s Interior Minister Liu Shyh-fang, who was among a few officials leading the exercise, said one major takeaway from the simulation was a need to enhance Taiwan’s ability to combat disinformation during extraordinary times.

Liu said that while Taiwan’s defense ministry was well positioned to respond to different situations, many government agencies struggled to clarify falsehoods during electricity or internet outages, highlighting the need for Taiwan to have a backup mechanism to ensure the flow of information.

She added that authorities have plans to recruit and train 50,000 volunteers across Taiwan to assist in disaster relief by the end of next year, which will include workers from the public sector.

Lin Fei-fan, a deputy secretary-general of Taiwan’s National Security Council, added that the simulation was crucial in showcasing the island democracy’s determination to boost its resilience across society.

“Conducting tabletop exercises at this time is crucial for us to strengthen preparations for the future and identify areas for improvement,” he added.