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Pentagon Has Ordered a US Aircraft Carrier to Remain in the Mediterranean near Israel

This handout picture courtesy of the US Navy released on October 15, 2203 shows an F/A-18E Super Hornet attached to the "Tomcatters" of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 31 launching from the flight deck of the world's largest aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, October 12, 2023. (AFP)
This handout picture courtesy of the US Navy released on October 15, 2203 shows an F/A-18E Super Hornet attached to the "Tomcatters" of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 31 launching from the flight deck of the world's largest aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, October 12, 2023. (AFP)
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Pentagon Has Ordered a US Aircraft Carrier to Remain in the Mediterranean near Israel

This handout picture courtesy of the US Navy released on October 15, 2203 shows an F/A-18E Super Hornet attached to the "Tomcatters" of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 31 launching from the flight deck of the world's largest aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, October 12, 2023. (AFP)
This handout picture courtesy of the US Navy released on October 15, 2203 shows an F/A-18E Super Hornet attached to the "Tomcatters" of Strike Fighter Squadron (VFA) 31 launching from the flight deck of the world's largest aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, October 12, 2023. (AFP)

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier and one other warship to remain in the Mediterranean Sea for several more weeks to maintain a two-carrier presence near Israel as its war with Hamas grinds on, US officials said.
It would be the third time the Ford’s deployment has been extended, underscoring the continued concerns about volatility in the region during Israel’s war in Gaza. The US has two aircraft carriers in the region, a rarity in recent years, The Associated Press said.
Multiple US officials confirmed the longer deployments approved this week for the Ford and the USS Normandy cruiser on condition of anonymity because they have not yet been made public. Other ships in the Ford's strike group had already had their deployments extended.
The Pentagon ramped up its military presence in the region after Hamas' Oct. 7 attacks to deter Iran from widening the war into a regional conflict. In the months since, Iranian-backed militants in Iraq and Syria have seized on the war to conduct regular attacks with rockets, drones and missiles on US military installations there.
At the same time, US warships in the Red Sea have intercepted incoming missiles fired toward Israel from areas of Yemen controlled by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels. They’ve also shot down one-way attack drones headed toward the ships and responded to calls for assistance from commercial vessels that have come under persistent Houthi attacks near the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait.
As of Friday, there are 19 US warships in the region, including seven in the eastern Mediterranean and 12 more stretched down the Red Sea, across the Arabian Sea and up into the Arabian Gulf.
Austin ordered the Ford and its strike group to sail to the eastern Mediterranean on Oct. 8, a day after the attack by Hamas that set off the war.
The decision to keep the Ford — the Navy’s newest aircraft carrier — in the region comes as Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, said Thursday it will take months to destroy Hamas, predicting a drawn-out war.
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan met with Israeli leaders to discuss a timetable for winding down major combat in Gaza, but they repeated their determination to press the fight until Hamas is crushed.
The Ford’s roughly 5,000 sailors have been waiting for a Pentagon decision on whether they would get to go home for the holidays. The ship left Norfolk, Virginia, in early May to deploy to US European Command, and under its original schedule it would have been home by early November.
The original plan was for the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier strike group to replace the Ford in the region. But Sabrina Singh, in a Pentagon briefing on Oct. 17, said Austin had decided to extend the Ford’s deployment and have both the Eisenhower and Ford covering the waters from southern Europe to the Middle East.
US military commanders have long touted the effectiveness of American aircraft carriers as a deterrent, including against attacks, hijackings and other aggressive behavior by Iran and its ships, including strikes on commercial ships in the Red Sea by the Houthis.
Officials said the plan is to keep the Ford there for several more weeks.
The Eisenhower is in the Gulf of Oman and has been patrolling in the Middle East along with the USS Philippine Sea, a Navy cruiser. And three warships — the USS Carney, the USS Stethem and the USS Mason, all Navy destroyers — have been moving through the Bab el-Mandeb daily to help deter and respond to attacks from the Houthis.
Other ships that are part of the Ford’s strike group include the destroyers USS Thomas Hudner, USS Ramage, USS Carney, and USS Roosevelt.
While the US regularly maintained two aircraft carriers in the Middle East during the height of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, in recent years it has tried to turn its attention and naval presence to the Asia Pacific.

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World

Eight Dead in Mass Shooting in Rural West Türkiye

People stroll at Konak Square in the western of Izmir, Türkiye, October 18, 2026. REUTERS/Ali Dinc
People stroll at Konak Square in the western of Izmir, Türkiye, October 18, 2026. REUTERS/Ali Dinc
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Eight Dead in Mass Shooting in Rural West Türkiye

People stroll at Konak Square in the western of Izmir, Türkiye, October 18, 2026. REUTERS/Ali Dinc
People stroll at Konak Square in the western of Izmir, Türkiye, October 18, 2026. REUTERS/Ali Dinc

Eight people were shot dead in three villages in western central Türkiye on Thursday, local officials said, as a major manhunt was underway to find the gunman.

"Unfortunately, eight of our citizens have lost their lives, and one has been seriously injured in armed attacks in our province," the Afyonkarahisar governor's office said.

The incident occurred in the early evening in a rural area near Afyonkarahisar, a town half way between the capital Ankara and the coastal city of Izmir, AFP reported.

Two women with gunshot wounds were found on a road in Yukaritandir village, but despite being rushed to hospital, both died, Anadolu state news agency said.

Three more bodies were found in Kiyir village, which lies a half-hour drive to the northeast, and another three in Ayazini village, a further half-hour drive further east, it said.

Another person found in a critical condition was fighting for their life in hospital, it said, without saying where they had been injured.

NTV private television said police were chasing a suspect driving a red car who was seen fleeing the scene.

World

More Than a Dozen Flights in Europe Receive Bomb Threats that an Official Calls 'Malicious' Hoaxes

This video grab from AFPTV footage shows a Finnair plane taking off from Fiumicino Airport after it was diverted due to a bomb threat, with Italian air force jets having escorted it from Helsinki to Rome on November 5, 2026. (Photo by Andrea BERNARDI / AFP)
This video grab from AFPTV footage shows a Finnair plane taking off from Fiumicino Airport after it was diverted due to a bomb threat, with Italian air force jets having escorted it from Helsinki to Rome on November 5, 2026. (Photo by Andrea BERNARDI / AFP)
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More Than a Dozen Flights in Europe Receive Bomb Threats that an Official Calls 'Malicious' Hoaxes

This video grab from AFPTV footage shows a Finnair plane taking off from Fiumicino Airport after it was diverted due to a bomb threat, with Italian air force jets having escorted it from Helsinki to Rome on November 5, 2026. (Photo by Andrea BERNARDI / AFP)
This video grab from AFPTV footage shows a Finnair plane taking off from Fiumicino Airport after it was diverted due to a bomb threat, with Italian air force jets having escorted it from Helsinki to Rome on November 5, 2026. (Photo by Andrea BERNARDI / AFP)

Bomb threats targeted more than a dozen flights in Europe on Thursday, leading to a slew of emergency landings and military escorts in some cases, authorities said. No hazardous or suspicious materials have been found in what a British official called “malicious" hoaxes.

Several similar threats targeted planes earlier this week, prompting searches and diversions. Europe has experienced a slew of other disruptions recently, such as attacks on supermarket refrigeration systems, drone incursions and mysterious triggers to alert apps.

While fake bomb threats are relatively common, it is unusual to see so many in a single day. They come at a time of increased geopolitical tensions and warnings from authorities that Russia may be ramping up so-called hybrid threats in Europe.

It was not known whether this week's threats were linked, who sent them or what their aims were.

An email containing the threat to Rome-bound planes was sent on behalf of a group that describes itself as anti-feminist, according to a copy provided by an airport official and reviewed by The Associated Press.

An official from another European airport said the threat they received also came from a group calling itself anti-feminist, and used some of the same language. It wasn't clear if the two threats were sent by the same group. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to share the information.

Passengers of Aer Lingus aircraft from Dublin to Rome, leave in a bus the Evreux-Fauville Air Base after their plane had been rerouted and escorted by military aircraft after a suspected bomb threat, on November 5, 2026. (Photo by Guillaume Saligot / AFP)

Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, senior fellow at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels, said the threats were “stress-testing” how European governments and airport officials respond, and whether their responses were coordinated.

The idea behind the threats “appears to be to sow chaos, uncertainty, about the reliability of air traffic across Europe” and could have “cascading effects” — like economic damage and costs related to inspection, investigation and cleaning aircraft.

Joji Waites, who heads flight safety at the British Airline Pilots’ Association, said the industry has put in place “proved mechanisms” for dealing with such threats, including a team of assessors to grade the level of threat in a red-amber-green color-coding system, quick notification of flight crews, and the evacuation of planes on the ground.

Each flight disruption could cost airlines as much as $250,000, on a par with the possible costs of dealing with an unruly passenger, said Philip Baum, a visiting professor of aviation security at Coventry University in England.

“And that’s because you might end up with the crew going out of hours. You might need replacement crew. You have got passengers that miss their flight connections," Baum said. "It knocks everything out of sync for the rest of the day for the airline in question.”

Military escorts incur expenses, too, which would be borne by governments rather than airlines, he added.

Officials decry the hoaxes Britain's transport secretary, Heidi Alexander, told British broadcasters that flights across Europe have been hit by “malicious hoax threats.”

European Union Transport Commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas told reporters in Dublin that it was “too early to draw conclusions on whether the reported incidents are linked.”

“National investigations remain ongoing,” he said, adding that an EU information-sharing mechanism on aviation security had been activated.

An Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to Rome was diverted to a military air base in France after receiving a threat, French Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu’s office said. The flight landed safely at the base in Evreux, which was under high alert, and military bomb disposal teams were examining the plane, the office said.

Lecornu ordered warplanes to intercept the plane because the pilot “didn’t cooperate as expected with the authorities,” his office said. It declined to comment further.

Hours after the flight landed, the plane was sitting on the tarmac with a Red Cross vehicle nearby while explosive experts with dogs examined it.

An investigation was opened by French aviation security authorities. The regional prosecutor, Remi Coutin, said in a statement that the pilot and co-pilot were being questioned about what happened.

Italian air force jets escort a Finnair flight Italian air force fighter jets escorted a Finnair flight that departed Helsinki bound for Rome after an email threat was received, the air force said in a statement.

Finnair said that two of its flights, including the one that received the military escort and landed safely in Rome, “faced unfounded hoax bomb scares.” The other flight, operated by Jettime from Helsinki to Vienna, landed safely at its destination, and was expected to return to service after an inspection, Finnair said.

Three Ryanair flights bound for Sofia, Bulgaria, meanwhile, also received military escorts and made emergency landings after bomb threats, officials said. Two of the flights — one from Copenhagen, Denmark, and the other from Madrid — landed safely in Sofia, airport officials told reporters. The third, from London, was diverted and landed safely in Plovdiv, Bulgaria’s second-largest city, Plovdiv Airport CEO Krassimir Peshev said.

Several flights across Europe received bomb threats earlier this week, officials said.

The flights included ones operated by Polish airline LOT, Scandinavian Airlines, Wizz Air and Ryanair. The hoax threats came after a plane headed for Bulgaria was diverted to Hungary upon receiving a similar bomb threat while in the air. No one was injured.

A Ryanair aircraft at Sofia Airport after airplanes flying from Copenhagen and Madrid landed in Sofia, according to the Bulgarian interior minister, as bomb threats forced airliners to make unplanned landings across Europe, in Sofia, Bulgaria, November 5, 2026. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

A slew of other flights were disrupted Thursday. Among those incidents:

— Czech police said searches of four planes that landed in Prague after being targeted by bomb threats turned up nothing. They have not given details on where the flights originated, and said they took precautions despite not finding the threats credible.

— A LOT Polish Airlines flight from Warsaw to Brussels landed at its destination, where inspections found no hazardous or suspicious items, the airline said.

— A Wizz Air flight from Milan to Bucharest landed safely in Bucharest following a bomb threat, airport spokesman Teo Postelnicu said. Checks turned up no bomb.

— A flight to Warsaw landed in Vienna after an email to Polish authorities containing an abstract threat, said Stefan Loidl, a police spokesperson in Lower Austria province. Nothing was found and the plane continued to Warsaw. He said there was also an abstract threat to Vienna Airport concerning four other flights, which he declined to identify, but operations were not disrupted.

- Air Serbia said a flight from Belgrade to Romania’s capital, Bucharest, received a bomb threat that turned out to be a hoax. The plane landed in Bucharest, underwent checks and resumed regular operations.

World

Paraguay President Resigns Following Bank Collapse

FILE PHOTO: Paraguay's President Santiago Peña speaks during an interview with Reuters, in Asuncion, Paraguay August 21, 2024. REUTERS/Cesar Olmedo/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Paraguay's President Santiago Peña speaks during an interview with Reuters, in Asuncion, Paraguay August 21, 2024. REUTERS/Cesar Olmedo/File Photo
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Paraguay President Resigns Following Bank Collapse

FILE PHOTO: Paraguay's President Santiago Peña speaks during an interview with Reuters, in Asuncion, Paraguay August 21, 2024. REUTERS/Cesar Olmedo/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: Paraguay's President Santiago Peña speaks during an interview with Reuters, in Asuncion, Paraguay August 21, 2024. REUTERS/Cesar Olmedo/File Photo

Paraguayan President Santiago Peña resigned on Thursday as calls for his removal swelled following the collapse of digital lender ueno that left millions of customers unable to access their accounts.

"I do so with the stability of our country, social peace, and the need to preserve our democratic institutions in mind," he said in a video recorded address on Thursday.

Peña, an ally of US President Donald Trump, is stepping ⁠down after the opposition ⁠called an extraordinary session to begin the process of filing an impeachment motion in Congress, and as protesters demanded his resignation.

Earlier on Thursday Peña lost backing from members of his own conservative party. Vice President Pedro Alliana is ⁠set to take office as his replacement.

Lawmakers had accused Peña of conflicts of interest, misuse of pension funds and institutional cover-ups linked to the collapse of ueno, which had grown quickly from a niche fintech player into a mid-tier bank administering close to $850 million in public funds.

"My greatest wish is that the return of those funds be guaranteed, that the deposit guarantee fund fulfill its ⁠purpose, and ⁠that public funds - as well as the resources that belong to all Paraguayans - be protected," Peña added in his address.

Paraguay's central bank intervened in ueno after determining that it had breached minimum solvency requirements, setting off a crisis that has left the company's roughly 3 million customers, in a country of 6.5 million people, unable to access accounts.

Ueno has made no public statement on the issue.

Hundreds of employees of Ueno Bank and other companies belonging to Grupo Vázquez, the bank’s parent conglomerate, protested outside the Labor Ministry on Thursday, demanding severance and unpaid wages with their jobs in limbo and their salaries trapped at the failed bank.

A day earlier, hundreds of retirees, depositors, university students and workers flooded the streets of Asunción, the capital.

“We want your head, Peña!” they shouted. Their signs demanded Peña’s impeachment, called him “the enemy of savers” and pleaded “Give us back our money.” Riot police fired pepper spray and rubber pellets to push back the crowds.