Moscow
Reuters
 — 

Three police officers were killed and at least four people were injured when gunmen opened fire on police in the southern Russian region of Dagestan on Monday, regional authorities said.

Sergei Melikov, the leader of Dagestan, said the shooting occurred as the traffic officers had tried to pull over the car the assailants were driving.

The attack occurred around 2 p.m. local time in the regional capital Makhachkala, the interior ministry said.

Two of the shooters have been killed, a spokesman for the city administration wrote on Telegram. He identified them by name and said they were both born in 2000.

It was not immediately clear how many shooters were involved. Other perpetrators fled in a car, state media reported.

Video published on Telegram channels and verified by Reuters showed multiple bodies lying on a city street beside a police vehicle. As passersby stopped to examine them, more gunshots are heard down the street.

Two other shooters, two police officers and several injured civilians, including a 17-year-old girl, were brought to hospital, where at least one of them later died, according to state media. Authorities have opened a criminal case into the incident.

Dagestan, a mainly Muslim region, has suffered several deadly attacks in recent years.

In March, counter-terrorism forces killed four militants affiliated with the Islamic State (ISIS) who authorities said were plotting to attack a regional branch of the interior ministry.

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CNN
 — 

Air traffic controller staffing shortages have been causing major flight disruptions for a week at New Jersey’s Newark Liberty International Airport, a United Airlines hub.

Numerous factors, including runway “rehabilitation work” and outdated technology, have also contributed to the massive delays, which are just the latest major issue to hit US air travel.

United Airlines has just cut 35 daily roundtrip flights from its schedule to minimize disruptions, the airline said over the weekend.

Newark officials have urged travelers to check with airlines about flight status before coming to the airport.

Whether it’s staffing shortages, a technical meltdown or a weather system that wreaks havoc on schedules, here’s some advice on what to do if your flight is delayed or canceled.

As bad as it is to find out your flight has been delayed for a long time, or worse, canceled, it’s better to find out from the comfort of home or a hotel room.

“Check your flight status before you go the airport. Most of these notifications are not happening at the last minute,” said Scott Keyes, the founder of Going.com. “Save yourself the drive to the airport.”

Other tips from Keyes:

Sometimes, the delays and cancellations happen after you’ve arrived at the airport.

Keyes said to head as fast as you can to the airline agents’ desk. “It’s going to make a difference who arrives first. It’s first-come, first-serve. Positioning yourself close to the desk can pay off,” Keyes said.

Then you might want to call up your carrier while you’re waiting. It might be faster to get through to a call center. “Whatever happens first, great,” he said.

Other tactics you can try:

Attitude and research matter

Whether you’re dealing with an agent in person or over the phone, how you approach things can make a big difference.

“Honey attracts more flies than vinegar,” Keyes said. “Look at this from the airline agents’ perspective. … The agent is the one who has the most ability to help you. Asking nicely and sympathetically is far more likely to get what you want than being a jerk about it.”

He had another tip when it’s your turn to talk to an agent about making new arrangements: “Come prepared to offer your own options already. Doing your own research is absolutely helpful.”

Other considerations:

Cooperation between airlines could work in your favor.

“When flights are canceled, many airlines have the option of putting you on another carrier’s flight because they have interline agreements,” Lousson Smith, product operations specialist at Going.com, told CNN Travel.

“This means, for example, if Delta is having service interruptions but American is running a flight to your destination, you may be able to get on that flight.”

Thanks to changes in frequent flyer programs over the past several years, airlines often still have flights available with miles even when demand is high during a weather event, Julian Kheel, founder and CEO of Points Path, told CNN Travel in an email.

“You’ll need to be prepared to spend a lot of miles, and you may not get the best value for them. But you could save yourself some significant cash if you’re trying to evacuate away from a storm,” Kheel said.

“Most US airlines now allow you to cancel flights booked with frequent flyer miles without any fee or penalty right up until departure time. That means you can book multiple alternate flights on different airlines using your miles in case one of them ends up delayed or canceled.

“But don’t try to book alternate flights on the same airline, as duplicates can be automatically canceled. And don’t forget to cancel the remaining flights you don’t end up using so you can get your miles back.”

What do you do if it looks like you’re not going to be able to fly out until the next day and you’re not in your home city?

This depends on the specifics of your situation — in the US, for example, airlines aren’t legally required to put you up in a hotel. US-based airlines have their own individual policies for situations “within the airline’s control” that are tracked by the Department of Transportation, here.

But requirements in other countries are different. In the United Kingdom, for example, you’ll likely be automatically entitled to food and drink vouchers and accommodation. You can read all the details at the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA)’s website.

Your canceled flight will be covered by UK law if it was supposed to be departing from the UK, no matter who you were flying with.

And if your flight was supposed to be arriving in the UK, you’ll be covered by UK law as long as you were traveling on an EU or UK airline. This document from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority explains all the ins and outs of these rules.

Despite this, sometimes airlines can’t help everyone, as the CAA says, “this can happen when staff are stretched during major disruptions.” The CAA advice is to organize “reasonable care and assistance yourself, then claim the cost back later. If you end up paying for things yourself, keep every receipt and do not spend more than is reasonable.”

Other things to consider:

Travel insurance and receipts

Consider buying travel insurance, advised Airport Parking Reservations in an email to CNN Travel.

It said “most travel insurance policies provide additional cover for travel uncertainty. Additional [coverage] usually becomes applicable if your flight is postponed by more than 12 hours due to a strike, adverse weather or a mechanical breakdown.”

The site also advises that you keep any receipts of airport purchases. You can try to get the money back from the airline later.

Airlines in the United States are now required to give passengers cash refunds if their flight is significantly delayed or canceled, even if that person does not explicitly ask for a refund.

The Department of Transportation says the final federal rule requiring that airlines dole out refunds — not vouchers — went into effect on October 28, 2024. Find out the details here.

London
CNN
 — 

The Trump administration has sent an unmistakable message to Europe: You’re on your own.

In three dizzying months, the White House has reversed decades’ worth of American foreign policy, pledged to scale back its presence on the continent, and pushed to wrap up Russia’s war in Ukraine, even if that might mean handing Ukrainian land to Moscow.

The new reality is one to which Europe is still adjusting. But 80 years to the week after American and European allies forced the surrender of Nazi Germany, a future in which the continent is left alone to defend itself from the Russian menace is no longer hypothetical.

“Europe has been living for 80 years in a situation in which peace was given for granted. And apparently peace was offered for free,” Roberto Cingolani, a former Italian government minister who’s now chief executive of European defense giant Leonardo, told CNN during a recent visit to the company’s headquarters in northern Italy.

“Now, all of a sudden, after the invasion (of) Ukraine, we realize that peace must be defended.”

A breakneck race is underway in Europe’s NATO-member states to ready the continent in case of confrontation with Russia. The race is winnable: Europe boasts militaries large and expensive enough to at least partially plug the hole Washington is threatening to leave.

But armies in Western Europe need a serious influx of funds and expertise to prepare themselves for the worst-case scenario.

In recent years, Britain, France and Germany have pumped funds into their aging militaries after a plateau in spending during the middle of the 2010s.

But it could be several years until the impact of those funds are felt on the front lines. Troop numbers, weaponry and military readiness have waned in Western Europe since the end of the Cold War. “The high level of attrition in the Ukraine War has painfully highlighted European countries’ current shortcomings,” the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank, wrote in a blunt review of Europe’s forces last year.

Nations nearer the Russian border are moving faster. The Trump administration has hailed Poland as a paragon of self-sufficiency. “We see Poland as the model ally on the continent: willing to invest not just in their defense, but in our shared defense and the defense of the continent,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in Warsaw during the first European bilateral meeting of Trump’s second term.

But Poland’s rapid escalation in defense spending has more to do with its own, generations-old tensions with Russia than with a desire to earn a place in Trump’s good graces. Warsaw and Washington are at odds on the conflict in Ukraine; Poland has for years warned Europe of the threat posed by Russia, and has steadfastly supported its neighbor as it defends territory from Putin’s advances.

The US has stationed troops in Europe since the end of the Cold War, and their numbers have grown since Russia’s full-scale invasion, with around 80,000 on the continent last year, according to a Congressional report. But the deployment is still far smaller than at the height of the Cold War, when nearly half a million American troops were stationed in Europe.

For decades, American foreign policy emphasized the importance of those deployments not just to European security, but to its own. Troops on the continent provide forward defense, help train allied forces, and manage nuclear warheads.

Now, the future of those deployments is not clear. European leaders have publicly urged Washington not to reduce numbers, but Trump, Hegseth and Vice President JD Vance have all made clear their intention to strengthen the US military posture in the South China Sea.

Today, most US land and air bases are located in Germany, Italy and Poland. US bases in central Europe provide a counterweight to the Russian threat, while naval and aerial locations in Turkey, Greece and Italy also support missions in the Middle East.

The locations serve as “a crucial foundation for NATO operations, regional deterrence, and global power projection,” according to the Washington-based Center for European Policy Analysis think tank.

The most important deterrent Europe holds, however, is its nuclear warheads.

During the early stages of Russia’s war, President Vladimir Putin repeatedly prompted worldwide alarm by hinting at the use of a nuclear weapon. That fear subsided after the war became bogged down in Ukraine’s east.

But nuclear deterrence is an area on which Europe is heavily reliant on the US. Britain and France – the two European countries with nuclear weapons – have only about a tenth of Russia’s arsenal between them. But the American nuclear war chest roughly matches Russia’s, and dozens of those US warheads are located in Europe.