World
Here’s the latest.
The military conflict between India and Pakistan expanded in the days after the first airstrikes that followed a deadly terrorist attack last month on the Indian-controlled side of the disputed Kashmir region.
The confrontation was the latest escalation of a decades-long conflict over Kashmir, a scenic valley in the Himalayas that is wedged between the two nations. Kashmiris have rarely had a say in their own fate.
Here is a history of the dispute.
1947
Fraught Beginnings
Contention over Kashmir began nearly as soon as India and Pakistan were formed.
In 1947, Britain divided India, its former colony, into two countries. One was Pakistan, with a Muslim majority. The other, made up mostly of Hindus, kept the name India. But Kashmir’s fate was left undecided.
Within months, both India and Pakistan had laid claim to the territory. A military confrontation ensued. The Hindu ruler of Kashmir, who had at first refused to abdicate his sovereignty, agreed to make the region part of India in exchange for a security guarantee, after militias from Pakistan moved into parts of his territory.
What followed was the first war that India and Pakistan would fight over Kashmir.
Years later, in 1961, the former ruler of Kashmir passed away in Bombay. In an obituary, The New York Times summarized his decision to cede the territory to India in words that would prove true for decades to come. His actions, the article said, had contributed to “a continuing bitter dispute between India and Pakistan.”
1949
A Tenuous Cease-Fire
Militants killed 26 tourists on April 22
Militant attack
on April 22
Militant attack
on April 22
Militants killed 26 tourists on April 22
In January 1949, the first war between India and Pakistan over Kashmir concluded after the United Nations intervened to broker a cease-fire.
Under the terms of the cease-fire, a line was drawn dividing the territory. India would occupy about two-thirds of the area, and Pakistan the other third.
The dividing line was supposed to be temporary, pending a more permanent political settlement.
1965
War Breaks Out Again
Tensions were already high between India and Pakistan in the summer of 1965. There had been a skirmish between their forces along the border earlier in the year, in an area south of Kashmir.
When Pakistan conducted a covert offensive across Kashmir’s cease-fire line in August, the fighting quickly escalated into a full-scale war. The clash was short-lived — only about three weeks long — but bloody.
In January 1966, India and Pakistan signed an agreement to settle future disputes through peaceful means.
But the peace would not last.
1972
An Official Division
After a regional war in 1971 that led to the creation of Bangladesh, Pakistan and India decided to revisit the unsolved issue of Kashmir.
In December 1972, the countries announced that they had resolved the deadlock over Kashmir’s cease-fire line. But little changed besides the designation. The temporary cease-fire line from 1949 became an official “line of control.” Each country retained the section of Kashmir that it had already held for more than 20 years.
While the agreement did little to change the status quo in Kashmir, it came with an aspiration to improve the volatile relationship between India and Pakistan.
Reporting on the deal from New Delhi, a Times correspondent wrote of the two countries: “Official sources here indicated that they were satisfied with the settlement, which they said had been reached ‘in an atmosphere of goodwill and mutual understanding.’”
1987
The Rise of Insurgency
During a period of particular political turmoil — aggravated in 1987 by disputes over local elections that many thought were rigged — some Kashmiris turned to militancy, which Pakistan would eventually stoke and support.
Over the next decade or so, state police in Kashmir recorded tens of thousands of bombings, shootouts, abductions and rocket attacks.
That violence began to moderate around the 2000s, but the years of intense insurgency had further eroded the fragile relationship between Pakistan and India.
1999
Peace Talks Come Up Short
As a new millennium neared, India and Pakistan seemed poised to establish a more permanent peace.
In a gesture of goodwill, Pakistan’s prime minister hosted his Indian counterpart for a weekend of jocular diplomacy in February 1999. No Indian prime minister had visited Pakistan in a decade.
The summit — between the leaders of adversaries that each now had nuclear arms — produced signed documents affirming their mutual commitment to normalizing relations.
“We must bring peace to our people,” Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, said at a news conference, as Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India smiled at his side. “We must bring prosperity to our people. We owe this to ourselves and to future generations.”
Three months later, their countries were at war. Again, Kashmir was the point of discord.
Fighting broke out after infiltrators from Pakistan seized positions within the Indian-administered part of Kashmir. India claimed that the infiltrators were Pakistani soldiers, which Western analysts would also come to believe. Pakistan denied that its forces were involved, insisting that independent freedom fighters were behind the operation.
The war ended when Mr. Sharif called for the infiltrators to withdraw (he maintained all along that they were not Pakistani forces and that Pakistan did not control them). A few months later, Mr. Sharif was deposed in a military coup led by a Pakistani general who, it was later determined, had directed the military incursion that started the war.
2019
India Cracks Down
After the war in 1999, Kashmir remained one of the world’s most militarized zones. Near-constant unrest in the territory brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war several times in the years that followed.
The last major flare-up was in 2019, when a bombing in Kashmir killed at least 40 Indian soldiers. Indian warplanes conducted airstrikes in Pakistan in retaliation, but the conflict de-escalated before becoming an all-out war.
A more lasting move came later that year, when the Indian government stripped Kashmir of a cherished status.
For all of Kashmir’s modern history — since its Hindu ruler acceded to India — the territory had enjoyed a degree of autonomy. Its relative independence was enshrined in India’s Constitution. But in August 2019, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, rolled back Kashmir’s privileged status.
The crackdown came with a quick succession of draconian measures: Thousands of Indian troops surged into the territory. Internet connections were severed. Phone lines were cut. Mr. Modi’s government began directly administering the territory from New Delhi, and it imprisoned thousands of Kashmiris, including political leaders who had long sided with India in the face of separatist militancy.
The government’s heavy-handed approach stunned observers around the world. But the results, as far as India was concerned, justified the means. A new era of peace seemed to ensue. Acts of terrorism declined. Tourism flourished.
It was an illusion.
2025
A Terrorist Attack
On April 22, militants shot and killed 26 people, mostly tourists from different parts of India, near Pahalgam, Kashmir. Seventeen others were wounded. It was one of the worst terror attacks on Indian civilians in decades.
Almost immediately afterward, Indian officials suggested that Pakistan had been involved. Mr. Modi, the prime minister, vowed severe punishment for the attackers and those giving them safe haven, though he did not explicitly mention Pakistan. Pakistan swiftly denied involvement and said it was “ready to cooperate” with any international inquiry into the terrorist attack.
But India was not placated.
Its retaliatory move came on Wednesday. India said it struck sites in Pakistan and on Pakistan’s side of Kashmir, after it accused Pakistan of being involved in the April attack. Pakistan denied those claims and vowed to retaliate, and witnesses and Indian officials said that at least two Indian jets had crashed.
The clashes on Friday escalated into the two archrivals’ most expansive military conflict in decades. India said that Pakistan had launched attacks using drones and other weapons along its entire western border, while Pakistan rejected those claims. Shelling and gunfire was exchanged on both sides of the disputed border, blacking out towns and killing civilians.
Mujib Mashal, Salman Masood and John Yoon contributed reporting.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mark Schiefelbein has been based in Washington, D.C., with AP for about three years, and before that spent a decade in Beijing at AP’s China bureau.
Here’s what he had to say about this extraordinary photo.
Why this photo?
This was an event that had never happened before in the 250-year history of the United States and may never happen again: a night of mixed martial-arts cage match brawls on the South Lawn of the White House, with bloodied competitors battling it out in front of the president, vice president, and other leaders of the country. AP had other photographers ringside at the event focusing more on the fights themselves. So I felt my role was to capture the context of the evening — the location, the people in attendance, the environment.
How I made this photo
A small group of other photographers and I, the White House press pool, had been allowed to photograph part of the evening from a position in the stands directly opposite the White House. I was carrying four cameras with a variety of lenses from 12 mm to 300 mm. This let me capture everything from ultra-wide views of the “claw” structure built for the fights, to close-ups of leaders and celebrities in attendance. I had been following Diego Lopes with my longest lens as he moved around the ring celebrating his win over Steve Garcia. When I saw him start to climb onto the cage, I immediately realized there might be a possibility of a picture like this and zoomed out to capture more of the scene.
An octagon on the White House lawn for Trump’s 80th birthday and the nation’s 250th, in photos
Why this photo works
The White House is surely one of the most recognizable buildings in the world. The columns of the South Portico, the fighter standing with arms and legs spread wide in celebration, and the octagon padding of the UFC ring tell an entire story as your eyes move from top to bottom of the frame. With Lopes standing with his back to the camera, facing the White House, it becomes less a photo of him and more about the evening, the event, and the spectacle. It was fortunate that it was after nightfall, so things that might have been distracting, like the Marine Band and spectators seated behind the ring, are mostly in the dark. Only the key elements – the White House, Lopes, and the ring are lit up.
—
For more extraordinary AP photography, click here.
World
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer faces potential leadership challenge from newly-elected Andy Burnham
NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!
Andy Burnham has officially won his special election and regained a seat in Parliament, setting him up to challenge the deeply unpopular Keir Starmer as the leader of the Labour party and as prime minister.
Burnham, currently the mayor of Greater Manchester in northwest England, won a seat in Makerfield and came away with 55% of the vote in a field of more than a dozen candidates, according to The Associated Press. The runner-up was Rob Kenyon of Reform UK, a right-wing populist party, who received more than 9,000 fewer votes than Burnham.
Burnham last served as a member of Parliament in 2017 but strongly implied in his victory speech that he is returning with the intention to lead the United Kingdom.
“Everyone knows that politics isn’t working. Everyone can feel that the country isn’t where it should be. Tonight could, just could, be the turning point,” he said, according to the AP. “This result will bring about a country that works fairly for everywhere and for everybody.”
TRUMP ALLY NIGEL FARAGE DEALS MAJOR BLOW TO STARMER IN LOCAL UK ELECTIONS AS RESIGNATION CALLS MOUNT
Britain’s Labour party candidate Andy Burnham speaks to supporters after the Makerfield by-election in Ashton in Makerfield, England, on Friday, June 19, 2026. (Jon Super/AP)
This special election, called by-elections in Britain, was unusually significant because the area’s Labour MP, Josh Simons, intentionally resigned to allow Burnham to win the seat and pursue leadership.
The potentially outsized impact of this election was juxtaposed with the strange scene that unfolded when all the candidates gathered on Friday morning to hear the results. Burnham stood in between an independent candidate dressed in a fox costume and another candidate known as “Count Binface”.
As his name suggests, “Count Binface,” whose real name is Jonathan David Harvey, was wearing a trash can on his head and regularly runs in U.K. elections to advocate for increased voter turnout.
Starmer congratulated Burnham in a social media post on X, saying voters “chose Labour’s campaign of hope and optimism over division and hate.”
When asked about Burnham’s intentions to oust him as leader, Starmer said he will fight to remain prime minister, a position he has held for nearly two years.
“I’ve said repeatedly I’m not going to walk away from that,” Starmer told reporters.
Labour party candidate Andy Burnham, center, stands with other candidates on the podium at the Edge Wigan, awaiting the Makerfield by-election result announcement in Wigan, England, on Friday, June 19, 2026. (Jon Super/AP)
AS EPSTEIN-LINKED APPOINTMENT SPARKS BACKLASH, UK PM STARMER FACES PARTY REVOLT AMID RESIGNATION CALLS
Starmer led the Labour party to a landslide victory in July 2024 and ever since, his popularity has been eroding thanks to a persistently high cost of living, an anemic economy and a scandal over his willingness to accept gifts from wealthy donors.
Last September, Starmer was slammed for appointing Peter Mandelson as the British ambassador to the United States, when it was known as early as 2019 that Mandelson had a friendship with convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Following an enormous public backlash, Mandelson was quickly dismissed from his post.
With Starmer as leader, Labour is increasingly losing liberal-minded voters to the Green Party, while also facing stronger challenges by Reform UK, a Nigel Farage-led party that advocates against mass migration and in favor of tighter border controls. Farage, an ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, said he was disappointed by Burnham’s victory.
Burnham is expected to head to London to be sworn in as soon as Monday. Under the British parliamentary system, the governing party can hold leadership elections in the middle of the term. The winner of such a contest can become prime minister without there having to be a national election.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer awaits Switzerland’s Federal President Guy Parmelin on the sidelines of the G7 summit, in Evian-les-Bains, France, on Tuesday, June 16, 2026 (Isabel Infantes/Pool Reuters via AP)
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE FOX NEWS APP
Under Labour rules, a lawmaker can challenge the leader if they win the backing of a fifth of their party’s members in the House of Commons. Burnham has enough lawmakers on board to trigger a leadership contest, according to a report from The New Statesman.
According to the AP, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said Burnham and Starmer will “have a conversation about what comes next” in the next few days.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
French President Emmanuel Macron and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez have issued a blistering rebuke against deportation camps outside the European Union, setting their countries on a collision course with a growing political majority.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
During a summit on Friday, 19 leaders across the bloc signed a joint declaration calling to make “full use” of a new European law that enables the construction of so-called return hubs to host migrants whose asylum applications have been denied.
The coalition, led by Denmark and Italy, two fierce advocates of outsourcing, wants to “move forward with solutions based in third countries as soon as possible”.
But for Macron and Sánchez, this path runs counter to European values and risks squandering financial resources and undercutting relations with neighbouring Africa.
“I am not sure that this is our Europe. I don’t know if these are the fundamental principles on which our Europe was built,” Macron said at the end of the summit on Friday.
“And I don’t think it’s effective, either. The proof is that I have not seen anyone make it work so far,” he went on, underscoring his strong dissatisfaction. (Italy has set up migration centres on Albanian soil but has fallen short of expected targets.)
“I have a lot of respect for anyone who wants to do it. I disagree, both pragmatically and in principle. I think it has nothing to do with European politics.”
Macron said his country was in favour of tougher laws to curb irregular arrivals but drew a red line on the physical transfer of migrants to faraway countries where they have never set foot. That possibility, long considered taboo, is allowed under a revamped Return Regulation described as the “strictest-ever” migration law.
“There is a question, in fact, around these famous return hubs in third countries. France does not support this policy. We are in favour of a more effective return policy. But first of all, I have never seen a return hub in a third country operate,” Macron went on.
“I invite you to consider what it is (in practice): this means that people who do not want to return to their country of origin or who cannot get back to their country of origin will be pushed into a third country, which will accept them in return for money.”
Macron mocked the jargonistic term “innovative solutions” that proponents of migration offshoring often use in their public communication and challenged the notion that host countries would respect human rights in exchange for financial incentives.
“I am a big supporter of innovation in my country,” he said, saying he would later attend the Vivatech festival in Paris. “But I am always very careful when talking about innovation in values and human rights. Allow me to have that reservation.”
Meanwhile, Sánchez, a vocal critic of the measures, said the deportation camps would be an “absolutely inefficient” and “worthless” response to irregular migration.
“It’s a mirage, if you will, that it will simply waste economic resources, and Europe doesn’t have many,” the Spaniard said after the summit in Brussels.
“Secondly, it sends a wrong message to those countries of origin and transit with which we should be collaborating, cooperating and showing empathy towards.”
Macron echoed Sánchez’s reputational concerns and insisted he would not allow EU funds to be used in any capacity to build the deportation camps, which are “neither effective nor do they correspond with our principles”.
“Sometimes, we hear one or the other (country) advocate policies with the African continent, so good luck defending our credibility on these continents by explaining that we will use the money for investments to build return hubs on their continents,” he said.
“What world do we live in?”
-
Nevada4 minutes agoCaltech readies to build world’s most sensitive radio telescope in Nevada
-
New Hampshire7 minutes agoTransgender former New Hampshire state representative sentenced to 33 years for child sex abuse: report
-
New Jersey12 minutes agoYellowcard Brings Ocean Avenue to New Jersey’s Own Ocean Avenue
-
New Mexico19 minutes agoEdgewood and Santa Fe County finalize agreement to keep emergency services going
-
North Carolina22 minutes ago‘Infuriating, heartbreaking’: Raccoon recovering after getting caught in leg trap at Mecklenburg County park
-
North Dakota27 minutes agoOne year later, tornado survivors rebuild and remember
-
Ohio34 minutes ago
Lorain woman killed, three children injured in Ohio Turnpike crash in Elyria (UPDATED)
-
Oklahoma37 minutes agoOklahoma lawmakers ask Supreme Court to let customers join ONG rate hike case
