Ukraine’s president also blasted Moscow’s Victory Day celebrations, where Vladimir Putin is expected to host more than 20 world leaders and oversee a large military parade.
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In the most significant escalation in years, India and Pakistan have exchanged gunfire and airstrikes. On May 7, India launched a series of missile attacks into Pakistani territory, and Pakistan shot down Indian jets in retaliation.
The escalation comes after a terrorist attack in Kashmir left 25 Indian tourists and one Nepalese national dead on April 22. India has claimed that Pakistan supported and aided the attack, which Pakistan has denied.
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The latest escalation, which has killed over 40 people across both sides, is ongoing, and world leaders, including U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres as well as President Donald Trump and officials in China and Russia, have urged de-escalation.
The region of Jammu and Kashmir is at the heart of the conflict, and control over it has been disputed between the two neighbours since independence from the British Empire in 1947.
Here’s what to know about the history of tensions.
1947 – Partition and independence from the British Empire
Clashes over Kashmir between India and Pakistan are as old as the countries themselves. When both countries gained independence from Britain in 1947, princely states were given the option to join either Pakistan or India.
The Hindu maharaja, or prince, of Kashmir was Hari Singh. Since Kashmir was predominantly Muslim in population, but Singh was Hindu, he was unsure whether to become part of India, which is predominantly Hindu, or Pakistan, which is predominantly Muslim.
Pakistani tribesmen invaded Kashmir in October 1947, attempting to take control of the state. Hari Singh looked to India for assistance, and signed the Instrument of Accession. This temporarily incorporated Kashmir into India, which would then be subject to a public vote—though no such plebiscite ultimately took place. However, India would later interpret the treaty as final, claiming the territory as part of India.
This led to the start of the First Indo-Pakistani war, which ultimately resulted in a United Nations-mediated ceasefire in 1949, establishing a border through Kashmir that split control between India and Pakistan.
Under the division, which was set up as a temporary border, India was given roughly two-thirds control over Jammu and Kashmir, with Pakistan controlling the other third. However, both countries still claimed the entire region.
1965 – Tensions continue along a temporary border
Small clashes and disagreements between the two countries continued after 1949, and began to escalate further in the 1960s. In August 1965, Pakistan launched an invasion called “Operation Gibraltar” in an attempt to stir up rebellion in Kashmir. The operation failed, but refueled the conflict over Kashmir.
Over the course of a few weeks, thousands of Pakistani and Indian soldiers were killed as the two nations eventually reached a stalemate. A ceasefire was once again brokered by the U.N., with no changes to the border of control. Both sides claimed victory while maintaining claims to the full territory.
1971 – A third war and permanent division
Until 1971, Pakistan also included the territory of East Bengal. It became East Pakistan in 1955, and fought for independence in 1971 to become Bangladesh.
Conflict in Bangladesh led to a refugee crisis in neighbouring India, encouraging Indian intervention in the push for independence and triggering a third war with Pakistan. Following a swift end to this war and sovereignty for Bangladesh, India and Pakistan tried to further stabilize relations with each other.
In July 1972, both parties signed the Simla Agreement, solidifying the temporary border in Kashmir as the “Line of Control.” Despite both countries still claiming authority over the entirety of Kashmir, the Line of Control officially defines the administrative boundaries for India and Pakistan and remains in place.
1987 – A controversial election followed by violence
It is widely believed that the 1987 local elections in Indian-administered Kashmir were rigged in favor of Farooq Abdullah, the head of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference party. This led to widespread anger and resentment amongst the population, much of which felt disillusioned with politics and the democratic process.
The following years would see a sharp rise in militant uprisings in Kashmir, largely from groups supported by Pakistan vying for separation from India. The Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) was established and, with the support of Pakistan, led the insurgency in the region in the early 1990s. It would later distance itself from Pakistan, instead pushing for Kashmiri independence.
Other groups still maintain support from Pakistan, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). Throughout the 1990s LeT became the most active and prominent militant group in Kashmir.
In 1999, Pakistani soldiers and Kashmiri militants seized several points in the Indian-administered Himalayan region, resulting in retaliatory airstrikes and the deaths of over 1,000 combatants over 10 weeks.
2000s – Violence continues beyond Kashmir
After conflict throughout the 1990s and escalation between India and Pakistan at the end of the decade, Kashmir became one of the most militarized areas in the world. Militant groups had a significant presence in the region as did the Indian Army.
A number of Kashmiri militant groups, mostly backed by Pakistan and designated as Foreign Terror Organizations by the U.S, continued with attacks into the 2000s.
In 2001, LeT and another group, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), coordinated an attack on the Indian parliament in New Delhi, resulting in the deaths of 14 people including five militants. LeT also carried out 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, which left 166 people dead.
2019 – Further escalations in Kashmir
Armed police were the target of the next significant attack in Kashmir, after a lone JeM terrorist drove a car full of explosives into an Indian Central Reserve Police Force convoy in February 2019, killing 40 police personnel.
Later that year, the Indian government stripped Kashmir of its autonomy status. Authorities cut internet and phone connections in the region, and thousands of soldiers were sent to help quell any potential uprisings.
The clampdown would last for months, and toward the end of 2019, a new militant group was formed called “The Resistance Front” (TRF). The group carried out smaller attacks and targeted killings of individuals.
2025 – Tourist terror attack and missile exchanges
April 22 saw the most significant escalation in years and has elevated the conflict between India and Pakistan to worrying heights as the two exchange fresh missile fire.
TRF carried out a terror attack last month in Pahalgam, a popular tourist spot, killing 26 people.
India then canceled a longstanding joint water resources management treaty with Pakistan that also served as a de facto peace accord, and Pakistan responded by suspending the Simla Agreement.
After ensuing tit-for-tat exchanges of gunfire across the border, on Tuesday, India fired a total of 24 strikes as part of “Operation Sindoor,” hitting targets in Pakistan’s Punjab province as well as its administered region of Kashmir and killing at least 31 people, according to Pakistani officials.
Pakistan has since responded with its own strikes and continued deadly artillery fire across the Line of Control.
—Chad de Guzman contributed reporting.
U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) adds GoVision device flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog.
The U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) added Qualitia Active! Mail, Broadcom Brocade Fabric OS, and Commvault Web Server flaws to its Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog.
Below are the descriptions for these flaws:
- CVE-2024-6047 (CVSS score 9.8) GeoVision Devices OS Command Injection Vulnerability. Multiple EOL GeoVision devices fail to properly filter user input for the specific functionality. An unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit the CVE-2024-6047 vulnerability to inject and execute arbitrary system commands on the device.
- CVE-2024-11120 (CVSS score 9.8) GeoVision Devices OS Command Injection Vulnerability. An unauthenticated remote attacker can exploit this vulnerability to inject and execute arbitrary system commands on the device. The vulnerability has already been exploited by attackers in the wild. In November 2024, researchers at the Shadowserver Foundation observed a botnet exploiting the zero-day flaw CVE-2024-11120 in GeoVision EOL (end-of-Life) devices to compromise devices in the wild. The GeoVision zero-day CVE-2024-11120 (CVSS 9.8) is a pre-auth command injection vulnerability that was discovered by Shadowserver Foundation and verified with the help of TWCERT. The vulnerability impacts the following EoL products: GV-VS12, GV-VS11, GV-DSP_LPR_V3, GVLX 4 V2, GVLX 4 V3. “Certain EOL GeoVision devices have an OS Command Injection vulnerability. Unauthenticated remote attackers can exploit this vulnerability to inject and execute arbitrary system commands on the device.” reads the advisory published by TWCERT. “Moreover, this vulnerability has already been exploited by attackers, and we have received related reports.” The botnet was used to carry out DDoS or cryptomining attacks. According to Shadowserver Foundation, there were approximately 17,000 Internet-facing GeoVision devices vulnerable to the CVE-2024-11120 zero-day. Unfortunately, the number of Internet-facing GeoVision devices vulnerable to the CVE-2024-11120 zero-day, is still high. Most of the exposed devices are based in the United States (8,720), followed by Germany (1,518), Taiwan (789), and Canada (761).
According to Binding Operational Directive (BOD) 22-01: Reducing the Significant Risk of Known Exploited Vulnerabilities, FCEB agencies have to address the identified vulnerabilities by the due date to protect their networks against attacks exploiting the flaws in the catalog.
Experts also recommend private organizations review the Catalog and address the vulnerabilities in their infrastructure.
CISA orders federal agencies to fix the vulnerabilities by May 28, 2025.
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Polish police arrested 4 people behind DDoS-for-hire platforms used in global attacks, offering takedowns for as little as €10 via six stresser services.
Polish authorities arrested 4 people linked to 6 DDoS-for-hire platforms, Cfxapi, Cfxsecurity, neostress, jetstress, quickdown, and zapcut, used to launch attacks worldwide for as little as €10. The platforms were used to carry out thousands of attacks against multiple organizations, including schools, government services, businesses, and gaming platforms, between 2022 and 2025.
“In the latest blow to the criminal market for distributed denial of service (DDoS)-for-hire services, Polish authorities have arrested four individuals who allegedly ran a network of platforms used to launch thousands of cyberattacks worldwide. The suspects are believed to be behind six separate stresser/booter services that enabled paying customers to flood websites and servers with malicious traffic — knocking them offline for as little as EUR 10.” reads the Press Release published by Europol. “The now defunct platforms – Cfxapi, Cfxsecurity, neostress, jetstress, quickdown and zapcut – are thought to have facilitated widespread attacks on schools, government services, businesses, and gaming platforms between 2022 and 2025. “
Stresser/booter services are online platforms that offer Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks as a paid service. Originally marketed as tools to test the robustness of networks (hence the name “stresser”), they are often used to conduct malicious activities. Stresser/booter services industrialize DDoS attacks using rented infrastructure, not botnets, and are sold anonymously via underground forums and the dark web.
An international operation led to arrests in Poland for running DDoS-for-hire platforms. Europol, the U.S., Germany, and the Netherlands supported the operation. Dutch authorities deployed fake booter sites and shared seized data, aiding the arrests. The U.S. seized 9 booter domains, and Germany helped identify suspects, highlighting global coordination against DDoS services.
The seizure of the six DDoS-for-hire platforms is part of Operation PowerOFF, which is an ongoing international law enforcement initiative launched in 2018 to combat booter platforms.
In December 2024, a global law enforcement operation, part of the Operation PowerOFF, disrupted 27 of the most popular platforms (including zdstresser.net, orbitalstress.net, and starkstresser.net) to launch Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks.
In November 2024, German police shut down the DDoS-for-hire platform Dstat.cc that allowed its customers to launch DDoS attacks. Two men, aged 19 and 28 from Darmstadt and Rhein-Lahn, were arrested in Germany for allegedly managing criminal infrastructure used for DDoS attacks and large-scale drug trafficking.
Authorities accused them of running the online platform “Flight RCS,” which sold designer drugs and synthetic cannabinoids. The suspects are facing charges of operating a criminal trading platform for commercial and gang activities and are set to appear before a judge today.
Police seized both Dstat.cc and Flight RCS platforms, they also searched seven properties in Germany.
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(SecurityAffairs – hacking, DDoS-for-hire)
Columbia University has once again found itself at the epicenter of pro-Palestinian campus protests after an attempted takeover of its main library by demonstrators on Wednesday.
New York police stepped in, arresting multiple people in relation to the protests, and officials including the mayor and governor, as well as members of the Trump Administration, have addressed the situation that continues to unfold.
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Here’s what to know.
How did the protest begin?
The protests, which erupted days before exams, began at roughly around 3:15 p.m. on May 7, student newspaper the Columbia Daily Spectator reported.
Some 100 protesters entered Butler Library’s Reading Room 301 and hung a “Liberated Zone” banner that resembled banners posted during the pro-Palestinian university encampments last year. Videos on social media showed the occupants, many of whom were wearing keffiyehs and masks, chanting “Free Palestine.” Photos also appear to show that protesters scribbled messages on desks.
A Substack post that appeared to be from Columbia University Apartheid Divest, a coalition of student groups supporting the Palestinian cause, said the protesters “renamed” the library the “Basel Al-Araj Popular University” after a Palestinian activist and writer who died in 2017.
“The flood shows that as long as Columbia funds and profits from imperialist violence, the people will continue to disrupt Columbia’s profits and legitimacy,” the Substack post added, also reiterating calls for the University to divest from companies with business links to Israel.
How have university authorities responded?
The university issued a statement shortly after the protest broke out, saying that Columbia’s Public Safety Team was responding to the “disruption.” Individuals were asked to identify themselves and warned that failing to comply could possibly result in arrests.
Video on social media shows protesters attempting to leave the room.
Acting President Claire Shipman said in a follow-up statement that the university requested New York police presence to secure the Butler Library following the “disruption” in Reading Room 301. Shipman said two of Columbia’s Public Safety Officers were injured in the standoff with protesters. “These actions are outrageous,” she said.
Shipman said they sought the NYPD’s help “due to the number of individuals participating in the disruption inside and outside of the building, a large group of people attempting to force their way into Butler Library creating a safety hazard, and what we believe to be the significant presence of individuals not affiliated with the University.”
How did law enforcement respond?
The NYPD did not become involved until hours later. “At the direct request of Columbia University, the NYPD is responding to an ongoing situation on campus where individuals have occupied a library and are trespassing,” the NYPD posted on X shortly after 7 p.m.
The Columbia Daily Spectator reported that at around that time, NYPD officers—including members of the Strategic Response Group, entered the library. A video posted by Columbia University Apartheid Divest showed protesters chanting, “We have nothing to lose but our chains.”
Videos on social media showed NYPD escorting protesters out of the library. Some 75 people were arrested, according to the Columbia Daily Spectator, though the NYPD did not confirm the total number of arrests.
What have officials said?
New York City Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement: “New York City will always defend the right to peaceful protest, but we will never tolerate lawlessness.” The mayor also asked parents of student protesters to make clear to their children “that breaking the law is wrong.”
Adams warned those attending the demonstrations who are not Columbia students to “exit the campus immediately, or you will be arrested. We will not tolerate hate or violence in any form in our city.”
New York Governor Kathy Hochul also posted on X, saying she had been briefed on the situation at Columbia, adding: “Everyone has the right to peacefully protest. But violence, vandalism or destruction of property are completely unacceptable.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X: “We are reviewing the visa status of the trespassers and vandals who took over Columbia University’s library. Pro-Hamas thugs are no longer welcome in our great nation.” The Trump Administration in recent months has pursued deportation cases against a number of participants in pro-Palestinian protests last year, including recent Columbia graduate Mahmoud Khalil.
What is Columbia University’s history with student protests?
Columbia was at the heart of pro-Palestinian protests across U.S. college campuses last year, beginning with the first major pro-Palestinian campus encampment on April 17, 2024, on its Morningside campus. Protesters then barricaded the University’s Hamilton Hall, and called for it to be named “Hind’s Hall” after a child who was killed during Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.
Historically, Columbia was the site of famous 1968 anti-Vietnam war and civil rights protests. Like in 2024, students also took over Hamilton Hall, and New York police also intervened. The 1968 protests have been the subject of archives and exhibits in recognition of how they shaped campus activism and national politics in the U.S.
How has the Trump Administration and the university cracked down on protests?
The university has taken a number of steps to try to prevent similar incidents from happening—after pressure from the Trump Administration.
In March, Columbia said it issued a broad range of sanctions on students who took part in the 2024 protests, including “multi-year suspensions, temporary degree revocations, and expulsions.”
The same month, Columbia announced a series of counter-protest measures, including recruiting special officers authorized to make arrests, imposing restrictions on protests, limiting face mask use, and adopting a formal definition of antisemitism that holds students accountable for a broad range of acts deemed discriminatory to Israel.
The measures came after the Trump Administration announced the cancellation of some $400 million in federal grants and contracts to Columbia. Many of the university’s new policies have been seen by some critics as kowtowing to the Trump Administration.
Two teenagers meet at a party and fall truly, madly, hastily in love. Then life—specifically, their families—gets in the way. It’s a tale at least as old as Shakespeare, whose tragedy Romeo and Juliet has resonated with and been reinvented by every generation for more than four centuries. But it is also the premise of Judy Blume’s 1975 YA classic Forever, a novel grounded in its second-wave feminist era that still feels authentic and audacious 50 years later. Whereas Romeo set the standard for passionate narratives of star-crossed romance, Forever resonated as a more frank, grounded, empathetic companion to young people embarking upon first love.
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The release of the stunning Netflix drama series Forever proves that Blume’s book is also timeless and universal. Set in the cinematic, technology-mediated metropolis of late-2010s Los Angeles, among Black teens from very different backgrounds—rather than the novel’s white, suburban, 1970s New Jersey—creator Mara Brock Akil’s (Girlfriends, Being Mary Jane) update strays significantly from the original. Her fidelity is to the emotional realism of the source material, the way it takes young characters’ inner lives seriously while also honoring the wisdom of loving parents who see their children’s first love from a more experienced perspective.
Blume’s first-person narrator, Katherine, and her boyfriend, Michael, were the kind of pleasant, nondescript everyteens onto whom it was presumably easy for kids growing up half a century ago to project themselves. Akil takes an approach better suited for a visual medium, making the two halves of the couple equal co-leads and finely honing each character. Justin Edwards (Michael Cooper Jr.) is a rich kid, born into a largely white, private-school-and-pool-party milieu, with an endearingly awkward manner and a protective mother who’s kept him innocent. Caught between NBA dreams, the college-admissions grind, and a hard drive full of hip-hop beats, he’s struggling to separate his own ambitions from what’s expected of him. Lovie Simone, a star of Power Book III: Raising Kanan who gave a mesmerizing lead performance in the dark boarding school drama Selah and the Spades, complements Cooper’s dreaminess as the focused and driven Keisha Clark. A working-class striver who excels at academics as well as track, Keisha has to fight for the kind of future Justin takes for granted. She’s well on her way to achieving the lifelong dream of a full-ride scholarship to Howard, to the delight of her proud mom (Xosha Roquemore) and adoring extended family, but she’s also keeping a potentially ruinous secret.
Though they went to elementary school together, Justin doesn’t recognize Keisha when the 16-year-olds meet at a New Year’s Eve house party. But their chemistry is immediate. She always had a little crush on him. And the adorably inexperienced Justin takes encouragement from his parents. “What your mother wants more than for you to have a future,” his dad, Eric (Wood Harris), tells him, kidding but not kidding, “is for you to have a future with a Black girl.” Still, the courtship is bumpy. Add smartphones and social media to the perennial teen hurdles of nerves, hormones, family, peer pressure, gendered double standards, etc., and the fodder for drama and miscommunication is endless. In the rare moments when Forever feels stuck, it’s because, as realistic as it might be, the cycle of breakups and reconciliations gets repetitive.
Like Blume (an executive producer of the series), Akil avoids the pitfalls of either objectifying her young characters or sanitizing their formative sexual experiences. In the teenage Southern California of Euphoria, hooking up is just one manifestation of a generation’s dead-eyed debauchery; here, it can be scary or risky, but it’s also a healthy way for people who care about each other to connect. Forever shows us the cringey intergenerational sex talks (Eric makes Justin put a condom on a cucumber—in the dark), the frustrated couple repeatedly foiled in pursuit of privacy, the first time that lives up to nobody’s fantasies, the growth of true intimacy.
Equally sensitive and nuanced is the show’s depiction of Justin’s and Keisha’s parents. They, too, walk a fine line, neither the shouty disciplinarians who are so common in YA fiction nor “cool” moms and dads who just want their kids to like them. Keisha’s mother, Shelly, has worked so hard to help her daughter avoid the mistakes she made as a young woman that Keisha feels compelled to reward Shelly with perfection. Karen Pittman—who’s been wonderfully ubiquitous lately, with roles in And Just Like That and The Morning Show—is a standout as Justin’s overbearing mom, Dawn. She and Eric rarely agree on how much independence to allow their son. Every parent agonizes over how heavy-handedly to wield wisdom accrued from their own experiences, whether to interfere in their child’s choices or let them make their own mistakes.
Thanks in part to this expansion of perspective, Forever is more than a great teen drama or an adaptation that effectively updates a 50-year-old book. Writing so specific, it’s universal; the intimacy of the directing (including a premiere helmed by executive producer Regina King); the intensity Simone and Cooper bring to their roles; the richness of the cinematography; a hip-hop and R&B soundtrack that reflects the music of the characters’ lives—it all combines to make one of TV’s best romances, full stop. It may be a coming-of-age story, and teens are sure to treasure it as they did Blume’s book. But whether you’re a kid or a parent or neither, Black in California or Jewish in Jersey or Asian in Minnesota, if you love love in all its complexity, Forever is for you.
