The US has not seen a withdrawal of Wagner forces from Africa “in any substantial or meaningful numbers,” a senior US defense official said, as the Kremlin continues to weigh what to do with the Russian mercenary group following its leader’s death last month.

US military aid and training for Ukrainian forces could be disrupted in the event of a US government shutdown, a Pentagon spokesperson warned on Tuesday.

China appears to have suspended its surveillance balloon program following a major diplomatic incident earlier this year, when one of the country’s high-altitude spy balloons transited the United States, multiple sources familiar with US intelligence assessments told CNN.

The Biden administration has notified Congress that it will withhold $85 million in aid to Egypt that had been conditioned on Cairo’s progress in its treatment of political prisoners, instead diverting that money to Taiwan and Lebanon, sources with knowledge of the matter told CNN.

It would take the Senate approximately 700 hours of floor time to individually process and vote on hundreds of military officers whose promotions are being blocked by Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the Congressional Research Service concluded in a memo released on Tuesday.

President Joe Biden is expected to make a final decision soon on sending long-range missiles to Ukraine for the first time, a major step recommended by the State and Defense departments after months of Ukrainian requests, people familiar with the discussions told CNN.

The US could begin withdrawing troops from Niger in the coming weeks, according to two US officials, which would mark a significant change to the American military presence in the country following a coup that toppled the democratically elected government in Niamey in late July.

New US intelligence assessments suggest that is “unlikely” al Qaeda will revive in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that counterterrorism operations by the Taliban in Afghanistan have degraded the Islamic State’s presence there, two senior US officials said on Friday.

An excerpt from Walter Isaacson’s new biography titled “Elon Musk” offers fresh details about the billionaire’s unique role in Russia’s war on Ukraine. CNN’s Natasha Bertrand reports.

The United States has decided to send controversial depleted uranium munitions to Ukraine for the first time, as part of a new aid package worth more than $1 billion announced Wednesday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Kyiv on Wednesday for his third trip to the Ukrainian capital since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, where he doubled down on US support for Kyiv’s counteroffensive, announcing more than a billion dollars of additional US aid and underscoring for an audience back home why the US needs to commit billions of dollars more to help defeat Vladmir Putin.

The FBI is investigating more than a dozen migrants from Uzbekistan and other countries allowed into the US after they sought asylum at the southern border with Mexico earlier this year, a scramble set off when US intelligence officials found that the migrants traveled with the help of a smuggler with ties to ISIS, according to multiple US officials.

The US has committed to approving the transfer of F-16 fighter jets for Ukraine as soon as training is complete, according to a US official.

Ukraine has ramped up missile strikes on Russian-occupied Crimea in recent weeks in an effort to disrupt Russian logistics and resupply efforts as fighting rages in southern Ukraine – but it’s a strategy that some US officials in Washington are viewing with skepticism.

The US military conducted an airstrike killing five al-Shabaab terrorists on Tuesday, US Africa Command said in a statement.

The Biden administration is searching for ways to keep US forces and assets in Niger to continue anti-terror operations, even as it becomes increasingly unlikely that the military junta that overthrew the country’s government last month will cede power back to the democratically elected president.