Pakistan’s prime minister on Tuesday ordered an investigation into how the country’s national airline approved an advertisement with an illustration that many on social media said was uncomfortably similar to imagery from Sept. 11, 2001.
The advertisement, by the state-run Pakistan International Airlines, or PIA, was meant to be a celebratory announcement that it was resuming flights to Paris.
But the ad — featuring an image of an aircraft pointed toward the Eiffel Tower with the caption “Paris, we’re coming today” — drew swift condemnation after its release late last week. A post by the airline on X that showed the image has been viewed more than 21 million times.
“Pakistan air needs a new graphic designer,” Ian Bremmer, a political scientist and author, wrote on Threads, a social network.
Omar R. Quraishi, a newspaper columnist, said the advertisement had left him speechless. “Do they not know about the 9/11 tragedy — which used planes to attack buildings,” Mr. Quraishi wrote on X.
Pakistan has some connections to the Sept. 11 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is accused of being the mastermind of the attacks, was arrested in Pakistan in 2003. Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, was killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan in 2011.
The country’s foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, said during a session of Parliament that the prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, had asked for an inquiry into how the advertisement had cleared internal airline approvals.
The outcry over the ad is the latest setback for PIA, which has been battling financial losses and hurdles in the government’s desperate efforts to privatize the airline.
In November, the push for privatization stalled when the sole bidder offered less than 12 percent of the government’s minimum sale price of about $300 million.
Controversy is familiar territory for PIA. In 2017, the airline made international headlines when ground crew members sacrificed a goat on the tarmac for good luck.
It has also faced questions over its safety standards, with the United States and Britain barring its planes from flying there. It resumed flights to Paris after the European Union’s aviation safety agency lifted a four-year ban on the airline.
A Texas father suffered a medical episode and died while trying to save his teen son, who was killed in an accidental shooting involving his own brother, according to authorities and a local report.
Police responded to a shooting that happened at a home in Texas City just before 1:30 a.m. and found 17-year-old Joshua Gonzales dead on arrival, the Texas City Police Department said.
An investigation determined that Joshua Gonzales’ 15-year-old brother “accidentally discharged the firearm,” resulting in the 17-year-old’s death, police said.
“During the attempt to administer lifesaving measures, the victim’s father, Julian Gonzales, tragically suffered a fatal medical episode,” police said.
Jay Gonzales died after suffering a medical episode while trying to save the life of his 17-year-old son, who also died after he was accidentally shot by his younger brother, police said.(Jay Gonzales/Facebook)
Julian Gonzales, also known as Jay, suffered a heart attack while trying to save his son’s life and died, FOX26 Houston reported. Gonzales was a prominent tattoo artist in the area.
“He did so much for so many people. Now he’s gone. I know this world is going to feel it. He touched a lot of hearts. He did a lot for the community,” Gonzales’ friend and business partner, Melo Salazar told the station.
Jay Gonzales owned Artistic Image Tattoo Studio in Texas City, and was remembered as a devoted dad, FOX26 Houston reported.(Jay Gonzales/Facebook)
Police said detectives questioned the 15-year-old brother and later released him pending additional investigation.
Family and friends told FOX26 that they remain concerned about the well-being of Gonzales’ 15-year-old son following the tragic incident.
“All that trauma and pain, and questions, and ‘what if’, and guilt, and blaming himself, and all that even though it was just a mere accident,” Salazar said.
Jay Gonzales owned Artistic Image Tattoo Studio in Texas City, located about 42 miles southeast of Houston, and was remembered as a devoted dad and a kind-hearted businessman who would help those in need, according to the station.
Israel and Hamas appeared close to an agreement to declare a cease-fire in Gaza and release hostages held there, the Qatari government, a key broker in the talks, said on Tuesday, raising hopes after more than 15 months of war for some respite in the fighting.
The latest round of negotiations comes after repeated failed attempts to achieve a breakthrough. In recent weeks, though, officials familiar with the talks have voiced mounting hopes that one was possible, spurred by a looming deadline: the end of President Joe Biden’s term and President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20.
Mediators had “managed to minimize a lot of the disagreements between both parties,” Majed al-Ansari, the Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman, told reporters. The talks on Tuesday were focused on “the final details of reaching an agreement,” he said.
Officials and mediators, which also include Egypt and the United States, have warned that even substantial progress could be dashed at the last minute. Each of the previous rounds of negotiations over the past several months ultimately broke down in mutual recrimination.
“We believe that we are at the final stages, but until we have an announcement — there will be no announcement,” said Mr. al-Ansari, adding that there was no immediate timeline for signing a deal.
Mr. Trump has warned that there would be “ALL HELL TO PAY” unless the hostages were freed by the time he became president. Officials in the Biden administration had been pressing for a deal that would become part of the departing president’s legacy.
If Hamas and Israel conclude an agreement, it would bring some relief to Palestinians in Gaza, who have endured miserable conditions in displacement camps and relentless bombardments by Israel, and for the families of hostages abducted from Israel, who have worried for more than a year about the fate of their loved ones.
A framework agreement had been sent to both sides, said Mr. al-Ansari, who said the talks now centered on “outstanding details” about how the deal would be implemented.
In a statement, Hamas also said that the negotiations “had reached their final stages.” The Palestinian armed group’s leadership “hoped that this round of talks would end with a complete and clear agreement,” Hamas said.
The emerging deal was heavily inspired by previous proposals discussed in May and July, said a diplomat familiar with the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the volatile negotiations. Those proposals detailed a three-stage cease-fire in which Israeli troops would gradually withdraw from Gaza, as Hamas released hostages in exchange for Palestinians jailed by Israel.
For over a year, international efforts have failed to end the war, which was ignited by the October 2023 Hamas-led attack that killed around 1,200 people. Another 250 were taken hostage to Gaza, according to the Israeli authorities. In response, Israel launched a military campaign against Hamas that destroyed large areas of the enclave and killed at least 45,000 people, according to Gaza health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
Around 105 hostages were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November 2023, the bodies of others were recovered by Israeli troops, and a handful were rescued alive. Roughly 98 hostages are now believed to remain in Gaza, around 36 of whom are presumed dead by the Israeli authorities.
During the first phase of the cease-fire — which would last roughly six weeks — Hamas will release 33 named hostages, most of whom Israel believes are alive, said an Israeli official, who requested anonymity to discuss the sensitive talks. Israel is willing to release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in exchange, the official said, but the number depends on how many of the hostages are still alive.
Nonetheless, the Israeli official said that Israel and Hamas were very close to reaching an agreement. That optimism was echoed by Mr. Biden in a speech on Monday in which he declared that a cease-fire and hostage deal was on “the brink” of “finally coming to fruition.”
William J. Burns, the C.I.A. director, and Brett McGurk, a senior White House official, have crisscrossed the Middle East, pressing for a breakthrough in the talks. Steve Witkoff, Mr. Trump’s pick for Middle East envoy, has also made trips to Qatar and Israel, meeting with top officials there, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel on Saturday.
But while there is significant public pressure in Israel to reach a deal to free the hostages, many Israelis also fear that a cease-fire would effectively leave Hamas in power in Gaza, allowing its fighters to ultimately regroup and plan more attacks months or years down the road.
Two of Mr. Netanyahu’s hard-line coalition allies — Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, have already denounced the proposed agreement as effective surrender to Hamas. The two far-right parties could threaten Mr. Netanyahu’s government if they withdrew from his ruling coalition in protest.
The agreement would likely still go through, as Israel’s parliamentary opposition has mostly committed to giving Mr. Netanyahu a safety net to secure a cease-fire and hostage deal. But it is unclear how long that would last, as it would leave Mr. Netanyahu’s political future dependent on rivals who have vowed to oust him.
In Gaza, Montaser Bahja, a displaced English teacher sheltering in Gaza City, said Palestinians were starting to feel hopeful that a deal could be imminent after more than a year of hunger and deprivation.
But even if both sides declared a cease-fire, many Gazans were frightened by a postwar future that was also far from certain, Mr. Bahja said. And even if Hamas’s deal secured the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, few would see it as an achievement given the scale of the death and devastation in Gaza, he added.
“Everything is up in the air,” he said. “At this point, people just want to it end.”
A judge in Aurora, Colorado, ordered the emergency closure of an apartment complex that has been overrun by crime and migrant gangs last week.
City Judge Shawn Day ruled on Friday that the Edge at Lowry apartment complex must temporarily close due to “an immediate threat to public safety.” City officials had filed a petition against the apartment complex’s owner, Five Dallas Partners, LLC., last week.
Despite the order, city officials say the closure isn’t expected to move forward for several months.
The city’s petition to close the apartment complex included an affidavit from Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain, who noted a long string of violent crimes taking place at the apartments.
An Aurora Police vehicle sits inside the crime scene outside of apartment buildings at 12th and Dallas in Aurora, Colorado on Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024. The dwellings were the scene of a reported home invasion overnight. (Fox News Digital)
“The Edge of Lowry Apartments is an epicenter for unmitigated violent crimes and property crimes perpetuated by a criminal element that has exerted control and fear over others residing at this apartment complex,” Chamberlain wrote.
Much of the criminal activity is connected to the violent Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua (TdA), authorities say.
Nine suspected members of the gang were charged on Monday following a violent December home invasion, kidnapping and robbery at the Edge at Lowry complex.
General view of apartment buildings at 12th and Dallas in Aurora, Colorado, on Tuesday, Dec. 17, 2024. The dwellings were the scene of a reported home invasion overnight.(Fox News Digital)
The Aurora, Colorado Police Department announced the nine arrests on Monday in the armed home invasion and kidnapping that left two victims seriously injured.
The nine suspects were identified as:
Andres Alexander Liendo-Padilla, 26
Javier Alexander Alvarado Parada, 24
Jesus Alberto Alejos Escalona, 22
Junior Reyes-Barrios, 28
Barbara Sivle Medina-Arcaya, 29
Donarkys Teresa Suarez-Quesada, 31
Luigi Javier Soto-Sucre, 26
Niefred Jose Serpa-Acosta, 20
Jengrinso Elias Loreto-Petit, 26
Nine suspected members of the violent Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) were charged following the violent home invasion, kidnapping and robbery in Aurora, Colorado.(Aurora Police Department )
The gang members allegedly forced their way into a couple’s apartment at the Edge at Lowry Apartments in the Denver suburbs and bound, beat, stabbed and kidnapped the victims, leaving them hospitalized. The perpetrators also allegedly stole jewelry from the victims.
A total of 19 suspects were initially apprehended in connection to the kidnapping, which authorities previously described as “tortuous.”
Three people were subsequently released after being interviewed by investigators, and it was determined they were not involved in the crime, police said.
The additional seven suspects not yet charged were in ICE custody and remained under investigation, police said.
Fox News’ Sarah Rumpf-Whitten contributed to this report
Anders Hagstrom is a reporter with Fox News Digital covering national politics and major breaking news events. Send tips to [email protected], or on Twitter: @Hagstrom_Anders.
Short, heavy rainfall is typical of the Mediterranean, but like many of the climate extremes in recent years, including the current fires in Los Angeles, nothing is typical about what has been happening there recently.
In the autumn, deadly floods wreaked havoc along an arc from Spain to the Balkans, and from Morocco to Libya. More than 200 people were killed in Valencia in October, not long after a deluge dumped five times the month’s ordinary rainfall across Europe in a single week.
Scientists say climate change is increasing not just the strength of the Mediterranean’s devastating storms but also the frequency — and they predict that it will get only worse.
The coastal areas of the Mediterranean basin have always been prone to extreme precipitation, especially in places where there are mountains near the sea.
But it’s gotten worse. More rain falls now during extreme precipitation events than just decades before.
In some areas, disaster is beginning to feel like the new normal.
Sources: Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change and the International Disaster Database
Note: The map shows daily accumulated precipitation for the 99th percentile (top 1 percent) of recorded wet days for the time period.
The intensity of these extreme precipitation events is likely to increase in the coming decades, said Leone Cavicchia, a scientist at the Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change.
That is partly because the Mediterranean region is already warming 20 percent faster than the global average. And as the temperature of the air rises, so does its capacity to hold water.
Source: CMIP6 data via C3S/ECMWF
Projections shown come from an intermediate emissions scenario and reflect changes compared to 1850-1900.
Climate models suggest that even as heavy rainfall events in the Mediterranean region intensify, average rainfall will decrease. In other words, dry areas will be drier, but when extreme rains come, they will be more intense.
A geography tailor-made for flash floods
The mountains, closed sea and dry riverbeds around the Mediterranean Sea make the area particularly at risk of flash flooding.
Most waterways in the region are fairly dry for long periods of the year. When heavy rains come, the water quickly concentrates in steep river beds, and can rise several meters in just a few hours, said Francesco Dottori, an associate professor of hydrology at the University School for Advanced Studies in Pavia, Italy.
The Mediterranean Sea is warming faster than other bodies of water in part because it is a practically closed sea. That makes it a potent source of moisture that the winds can carry inland, feeding rainfall systems, often over the coastal areas in which much of the Mediterranean population is concentrated.
The strong atmospheric currents of the polar jet stream also play a role in the region’s weather. As the currents oscillate, they make north-south waves whose crests send warm air to the north and whose troughs send cold air to the south.
Sometimes, when part of the jet stream breaks away, it forms a low-pressure system known as a cut-off low. That can linger for days, causing instability when it meets the warmer Mediterranean air.
That is what happened in September, when Storm Boris originated as one such low pressure system and went on to cause devastation in Central and Southern Europe, where it killed at least 24 people. It was another cut-off low that caused the flooding soon after in Valencia, where hundreds died. And last year, a cut-off low over Greece unleashed Storm Daniel, which strengthened as it crossed the Mediterranean into Libya, killing 13,200 after two dams burst.
Growing populations mean even more people are at risk
Sources: European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC)
Over recent decades, most coastal and floodplain areas in the Mediterranean region have also become densely urbanized, leaving little space for waterways. Those changes don’t just amplify the risk of flooding — they also put more people in harm’s way.
Floods have become generally less deadly thanks to the improvements in flood protection structures and early warning systems. But more homes and properties are being hit because of urban development and population growth, said Mr. Dottori, who helped develop the European Flood Awareness System.
The population of Mediterranean countries has more than doubled since the 1960s. Today, about 250 million people in Mediterranean countries reside in river basins, where flooding is more likely.
Eli Manning was named one of the semifinalists for the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s modern era ballot two weeks ago as he tries to get to Canton, Ohio, in his first year.
The former New York Giants star has a Hall of Fame worthy resume with two Super Bowl championships – both over Tom Brady and an undefeated New England Patriots team – as well as 57,023 passing yards and 366 touchdown passes. Those statistics were among the highest in the NFL ever when he retired from the sport after the 2019 season.
New York Giants quarterback Eli Manning, #10, throws a pass before the game against the Dallas Cowboys at Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on Dec. 11, 2011.(Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports)
However, getting into the Hall of Fame in his first year on the ballot is an uphill climb as he will have to last as long as Antonio Gates, Torry Holt, Reggie Wayne, Darren Woodson, Fred Taylor and a handful of others who have been on the ballot longer.
Former Patriots head coach Bill Belichick appeared on ESPN’s “ManningCast” on Monday during the Los Angeles Rams’ playoff win over the Minnesota Vikings and threw his support behind the four-time Pro Bowl quarterback.
“Eli, you don’t look that good in that hoodie, but you’re going to look great in a gold jacket,” Belichick told Manning. “I’m sure that’s going to happen, and you deserve it so much to join Peyton in a gold jacket too.”
New York Giants former quarterback Eli Manning on the field before a game against the Cincinnati Bengals at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, on Oct. 13, 2024.(Brad Penner-Imagn Images)
Manning told the New York Post last week he was not exactly so sure.
“I guess it’s different just because it’s all out of your hands, you’re not campaigning for it, you’re not trying to talk to people about it or prove your point,” he said. “If I get in, it will be an awesome, unbelievable few days down in New Orleans, and if I don’t, it’s not going to ruin it for me. I’m not going to be in a bad mood, I’m not going to be sulking around.
“Just to be included in the top 15 this year is a great honor, and so I look at all of this as positive and a fun experience.”
New York Giants former quarterback Eli Manning sits courtside during the fourth quarter between the New York Knicks and the Oklahoma City Thunder at Madison Square Garden on Jan. 10, 2025 in New York City.(Brad Penner-Imagn Images)
Hundreds of millions of Hindus are convening this week in what is expected to be the world’s largest human gathering, where a staggering number of devotees, tourists, politicians and celebrities take sacred dips at the convergence of two holy rivers in India.
The religious festival, called the Maha Kumbh Mela, happens every 12 years on the banks of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers in the northern Indian city of Prayagraj. Officials this year expect up to 400 million people — more than the population of the United States — to visit the site in Uttar Pradesh State over the next six weeks.
A major display of Hinduism, the event has recently become an important political event with the rise of Hindu nationalism, backed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing political party. It is also a massive logistical undertaking for government officials working to prevent incidents like stampedes and the spread of diseases.
What is the Maha Kumbh Mela?
The Maha Kumbh Mela, or “great festival of the sacred pitcher,” is the world’s largest religious ceremony. Based on a Hindu legend in which demons and gods fight over a pitcher carrying the nectar of immortality, the centuries-old ceremony centers on a series of holy baths, which Hindus say purify their sins.
The holy baths are preceded by processions involving people singing and dancing in vibrant attire, in ornately decorated chariots and wielding ceremonial spears, tridents and swords. To participate, people travel from all over India and the world to the junction of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, a sacred site that is also said to be the end point of a mythical third river, the Saraswati.
The timing of the festival, which this year ends on Feb. 26, is based on the astrological alignment of the sun, the moon and the planet Jupiter, which takes around 12 years to orbit the sun. Smaller versions of the festival happen in one of three other Indian cities — Haridwar, Nashik and Ujjain — roughly every three years.
How big is the festival?
The scale of the Maha Kumbh Mela is astonishing. The last one, in 2013, drew 120 million people in Prayagraj, according to a government estimate. An intermediate festival in 2019, though less significant religiously, attracted 240 million people.
This year, the city, home to about 6 million residents, is preparing to host 300 to 400 million people, government officials said. In preparation, the state has built a temporary campsite across a 10,000-acre area, with tens of thousands of tents and bathrooms, roads, parking lots, water and electricity infrastructure and thousands of security cameras and drones.
Many of those preparations — which will most likely make this the most expensive Maha Kumbh Mela to date, at about $800 million — are meant to prevent deadly stampedes and outbreaks of disease, which have happened in previous festivals. The event is also expected to generate billions of dollars in revenue for the state government, officials said.
To accommodate the bathers, the government has also installed a platform made of sandbags along a seven-mile stretch of the Ganges riverbank. On Monday and Tuesday, millions of pilgrims poured into the river on those steps in the chilly morning fog, praying for happiness, health and prosperity.
What is the festival’s significance today?
The Maha Kumbh Mela has always been an important symbol of Hinduism, though it was usually not politicized until the recent rise of the idea of India as a Hindu nation. This year’s festival is the first since Mr. Modi’s Hindu nationalist political party, the B.J.P., became the country’s ruling party 11 years ago.
“It would be interesting to see if Prime Minister Modi goes,” said Arati Jerath, a political analyst in New Delhi. “It’s supposed to be the biggest and most auspicious time to take a dip in the Ganges.”
Yogi Adityanath, Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister who is also a hard-line Hindu priest, changed the name of the festival’s host city in 2018 to Prayagraj from Allahabad. The move, part of a wave of changes brought on by the B.J.P., replaced the Muslim name given by the 16th-century Mughal emperor Akbar with one that references the Hindu pilgrimage site.
In 2019, when India held a general election, the Kumbh Mela presented a major political opportunity to Mr. Modi and his party to appeal to a receptive audience of millions. Mr. Modi won that election.
The next general election is farther away this time, scheduled for 2029. But Mr. Modi, who won by a smaller margin while his party suffered losses in last year’s vote, has put himself in promotional posters for the festival nationwide and called it an embodiment of “India’s timeless spiritual heritage” on social media, tying the spiritual event to the country’s national identity.
“The B.J.P. is hoping to use it to solidify its Hindu nationalist base,” Ms. Jerath said. But she added it was unclear if that would necessarily earn the party more votes. “Whether it works or not, I don’t know, but it certainly helps to take the B.J.P. one step closer to its goal of turning India into a Hindu majoritarian nation.”
Already the subject of much public scrutiny, President-elect Trump’s pick to lead the U.S. military, Pete Hegseth, appears on Capitol Hill today for the opening of Senate confirmation hearings.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau argued Sunday that social media and the political right exacerbated “culture wars and division” to promote an “anti-incumbency movement” worldwide.
MSNBC host Jen Psaki asked Trudeau about his decision to resign, announced on Jan. 6, and whether it had to do with a global trend of turning against incumbent leaders or his own low approval ratings.
Trudeau conceded it was “probably a bit of everything” but claimed there was “still a lingering frustration towards incumbents” from social media influence, despite the good work he had done.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discussed his resignation on MSNBC on Sunday.(MSNBC screenshot)
“Where I lean in on is all the good things we were able to do,” Trudeau said. “We put forward policies that are going to make a difference for decades to come in Canada. And I think right now we’re seeing a time in politics where emotions and social media are carrying an awful lot of weight in how people feel about things.”
Psaki pressed on the criticism that Trudeau’s Liberal Party as well as the U.S. Democratic Party were “out of touch with the public” and whether there could be lessons from his term to counter that perception.
Trudeau urged progressives to stay focused on the economy and touted Canada as a success for ensuring “fewer barriers for minorities and women and vulnerable people to participate in the workforce.”
“You can easily turn that into a woke argument that says, ‘You’re just working for minorities and women, and you’re not taking care of the economy,’” he conceded.
Trudeau speaks with the media outside Rideau Cottage on Monday, Jan. 6, in Ottawa.(AP/Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
“Well, the capacity of the political right and, quite frankly, social media to gin up that kind of dynamic can fall into culture wars and divisions that actually don’t stand up to the hard economic truth of the growth we’ve been able to create in Canada is part of the challenge we have,” Trudeau said.
“And that’s part of the challenge we’re facing as a world right now where people are very much in a place where affordability, where reasonable answers, where medium- and long-term policies aren’t what they want to hear about.”
He continued, “They want things to get better right away. And you do have people promising to make things better right away, which is very attractive sometimes, even if the ability to do that isn’t always clear.”
Trudeau suggested social media pushed a negative view of Canada’s economy.(Arlyn McAdorey/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Over the last year, Trudeau began seeing record low approval ratings and mounting criticism from his own party over high prices and rising inflation.
Ukraine carried out “massive” drone strikes on several regions of Russia overnight, local officials there said on Tuesday, in what appeared to be one of the largest recent assaults in a Ukrainian campaign to cripple Russia’s war machine on its home turf.
The attacks, mostly in southwestern Russia, were the latest in a series that have demonstrated Ukraine’s ability to strike deep inside the country, even as Kyiv’s forces face setbacks on their own territory.
Blasts were reported in the border region of Bryansk, and drones also targeted regions well beyond it like Saratov and Tula in western Russia, officials in those areas said.
The Ukrainian military did not immediately comment on the strikes. But Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security, a government agency, said seven regions of Russia had been attacked and that the targets included military production factories, and oil and gas facilities.
The threat forced at least six cities to restrict their airspace on Tuesday morning, according to a statement from Russia’s Federal Aviation Agency. Those included the cities of Saratov and Engels, which both came under overnight attack.
Two industrial plants sustained damage, Roman V. Busargin, the governor of the Saratov region, wrote on Telegram. “Today Saratov and Engels were subjected to a massive UAV attack,” he said, using another name for drones. “Air defenses eliminated a large number of targets.”
It was the second time in a week that Engels, which is the site of an airfield for some of Russia’s long-range, nuclear-capable bombers, has been attacked. Emergency crews only recently extinguished a large fire sparked by a strike on Jan. 8.
Mr. Busargin said that schools would be closed and classes in Engels as well as Saratov city would be held remotely on Tuesday.
The authorities in the Tula region of western Russia similarly confirmed a drone attack that they also described as massive. Dmitry V. Milyaev, the regional governor, said air defenses shot down 16 drones and that falling debris had damaged some cars and buildings. There were no casualties.
And local news media in Kazan, the capital city of the republic of Tatarstan in southwestern Russia, reported that a tanker at a liquefied natural gas base was struck, igniting a large fire.
The head of the republic, Rustam N. Minnikhanov, wrote on Telegram that firefighters had put out the blaze and that there were no casualties or “significant damage.”
In the border region of Bryansk, which has come under more regular attack, powerful explosions were reported. The Russian independent media organization Astra said that a chemical plant had been struck; the report could not be independently verified.
From the start, Kyiv’s strikes inside Russia have aimed at limiting Moscow’s ability to attack Ukrainian cities. But in recent weeks they have taken on added weight: as an attempt to project strength before President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration next week, amid concerns he might temper U.S. support for Ukraine.
Mr. Trump has vowed to end the war swiftly. While he has not said how, many in Ukraine fear that he could make concessions to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that have been red lines for Kyiv.
Ahead of Mr. Trump’s inauguration on Monday, the Russian military has also been putting on a show of force. While Kyiv’s drones were targeting regions of Russia overnight, Moscow’s forces were carrying out an aerial assault on Ukraine that put much of the country under air-raid alerts.
Ukraine’s Air Force said on Tuesday morning that nearly 80 drones were involved in the attack but that it managed to shoot down 60. Apartment buildings and cars sustained damage from downed drones in several regions, it added, but there were no casualties.
Nataliia Novosolova and Nataliya Vasilyeva contributed reporting.
