Iran’s top diplomat briefed his Chinese counterpart on the status of indirect talks with US officials over his country’s nuclear program during a visit to Beijing, according to the Iranian Foreign Ministry.

Ahead of a third round of indirect negotiations scheduled for the weekend, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi thanked Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi for Beijing’s “constructive and effective policy on Iran’s nuclear issue and sanctions removal,” the Iranian ministry said on Wednesday.

Wang said Iran had a right to “the peaceful use of nuclear energy,” and expressed China’s appreciation for Iran’s commitment to not developing nuclear weapons, according to Chinese state media.

US and Iranian officials expressed optimism following a second round of nuclear talks held in Rome on Saturday, but the two sides remain far apart in negotiations, especially on one issue in which they appear to have a fundamental disagreement.

Washington wants Iran to stop production of highly enriched uranium, which it believes is aimed at building an atomic bomb. Iran this week reiterated its right to enrich uranium but has suggested it is willing to negotiate some compromises in return for sanctions relief to ease the pressure on its hard-hit economy.

US President Donald Trump’s Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff is due to attend a third round of talks in Oman on Saturday.

New York
CNN
 — 

Exports of American-made spirits hit a record high last year. However, a hangover is about to hit the industry as tariffs threaten to stunt growth, a leading industry group warned.

Exports hit a record $2.4 billion in 2024, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS). In a report released Thursday, the trade group said that last year’s growth is thanks to a rebuilt trading relationship between the US and the European Union. Exports to the EU jumped 39% in 2024 compared to a year prior — a gain put in peril by President Donald Trump’s trade war.

“Unfortunately, ongoing trade disputes unrelated to our sector have caused uncertainty, keeping many US distillers on the sidelines and curtailing sales growth,” said DISCUS President and CEO Chris Swonger in a release.

American-made whiskey in particular stands in the crosshairs of the trade dispute. The EU had removed tariffs on US whiskey in 2022. Since then, exports from the US to the EU have jumped nearly 60% to $699 million, according to data compiled by DISCUS.

The EU was set to levy new tariffs on American whiskey this month, but delayed them after Trump announced a 90-day pause on the so-called retaliatory tariffs against most other nations. Swonger called the pause a “positive first step toward getting the US-EU spirits sectors back to zero-for-zero tariffs and untangling spirits from these trade disputes.”

EU tariffs would be a major blow for American distillers and spirits makers. The bloc is the largest export market for US-made spirits, accounting for about half of all US spirits exports, worth $1.2 billion last year, DISCUS said.

But it’s not just the EU. Canada is the second-largest recipient of US-made spirits, totaling $221 million last year. Canada’s 25% retaliatory tariff on all US spirits that began last month, and the subsequent removal of many American brands from Canadian liquor stores, is causing uncertainty in this year’s outlook with the country, DISCUS said.

Tariffs aren’t the only problem major spirits makers are dealing with. A decrease in demand following a pandemic-induced boom caused US exports of spirits to the rest of the world to drop by nearly 10%, DISCUS said.

That has resulted in layoffs at major distillers, such as at Woodford Reserve and Jack Daniel’s parent company Brown-Forman, and bankruptcies, including Westward Whiskey, a Diageo-backed distillery based in Oregon.

Despite the recent weakness, sales of US spirits have generally grown over the past two-and-a-half decades. Exports have jumped to $2.4 billion in 2024 from $478 million in 2000.

In its report, DISCUS attributed this jump in part to the US spirits sector “having a fair and reciprocal playing field with 51 countries that have provided tariff-free access for US spirits,” including the EU, Canada and Mexico.

Kyiv, Ukraine
CNN
 — 

Russia launched its deadliest wave of attacks against Ukraine’s capital in nine months early Thursday, hours after US President Donald Trump accused Volodymyr Zelensky of harming peace talks in a fresh tirade against his Ukrainian counterpart.

Moscow sent 70 missiles and 145 drones toward Ukraine, mainly targeting Kyiv, Ukraine’s Air Force said.

At least eight people were killed in the bombardment, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s Office said, which emergency services said struck 13 locations in Kyiv, including residential buildings and civilian infrastructure. Ukraine’s emergency services earlier reported that nine people had died and more than 60 had been wounded.

It was the costliest attack on the city since July 2024, when 33 people were killed in an aerial barrage that targeted a hospital and residential districts.

More people are likely trapped under rubble, and a search and rescue operation is underway to find them, according to local and national authorities.

Russia’s defense ministry said it carried out “a massive strike with high-precision long-range air, land and sea-based weapons, unmanned aerial vehicles on enterprises of the aviation, missile and space, mechanical engineering and armored industries of Ukraine, production of rocket fuel and gunpowder.”

“The strike objectives were achieved. All targets were hit,” Moscow said.

Following the attacks on Kyiv, Zelensky announced he was cutting short his visit to South Africa, where he landed late on Wednesday, to return to Ukraine.

“It is extremely important that everyone around the world sees and understands what is really happening” he said, adding that Ukraine would immediately contact its international partners regarding its requests to strengthen air defenses.

“It has been 44 days since Ukraine agreed to a full ceasefire and a halt to strikes. This was a proposal from the United States. And it has been 44 days of Russia continuing to kill our people and evading tough pressure and accountability for its actions,” Zelensky added on social media.

CNN producers in Kyiv heard air raid sirens blasting across the city for around six hours in the early hours of Thursday. One CNN producer said they waited in a corridor with their child for six hours as missiles rained on the city, with a drone flying audibly outside their window.

Air raid sirens are a near daily occurrence in Kyiv, but Thursday’s strikes served as an unwelcome reminder of the fear that gripped the capital in the early phases of the war. Images provided by the emergency services showed buildings engulfed in flames at some of the sites struck in the attacks.

Engineers, rescue workers and recovery dogs are searching for people believed to be trapped under the rubble of a home destroyed by the strikes in the Sviatoshyn district, said Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko.

“There is information about two children who still cannot be found at the scene,” he said, adding the situation was “tragic.”

The city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko earlier urged people to take shelter. The Kyiv city military administration has since broadcast an all-clear message.

“Rescuers are doing everything they can to clear the rubble as quickly as possible,” the mayor said on Telegram. “We are currently clearing the rubble manually, we are not using any equipment because there may still be people under the rubble.”

At least 42 people were taken to hospital, including six children, according to Ukraine’s emergency services.

Klymenko said eight regions of the country were targeted in what he called “a massive combined Russian attack” that also hit Zhytomyr, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Poltava, Khmelnytsky, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia.

Five ballistic missiles were among those that made it through Ukraine’s defenses, according to the Air Force.

The Russian attacks hit after Trump and Zelensky became involved in a new public spat, specifically over the future of Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.

As part of its mission to seal a peace deal to end the three-year war, the US administration has proposed recognizing Russian control of Crimea, officials familiar with the details have told CNN.

Such a move would reverse a decade of US policy and could upset the widely held post-World War II consensus that international borders should not be changed by force.

Zelensky has repeatedly said Ukraine would not accept that, saying it would go against the country’s constitution.

On Wednesday, Trump said Zelensky’s position was “very harmful to the Peace Negotiations with Russia.”

“It’s inflammatory statements like Zelenskyy’s that makes it so difficult to settle this War. He has nothing to boast about!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.

Trump’s comments came hours after Vice President JD Vance threatened to abandon negotiations, telling reporters during a visit to India that a “very explicit proposal” had been put to both Russia and Ukraine and that it was “time for them to either say ‘yes,’ or for the US to walk away.”

Earlier, ministerial talks between Ukraine, the US, Britain, France and Germany aimed at furthering work toward a ceasefire were downgraded to take place among less senior officials, after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio withdrew.

“Emotions have run high today,” Zelensky said on X Wednesday as the day’s developments threw fresh uncertainty over the diplomatic efforts to end the war.

The Trump administration’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to visit Moscow on Friday for discussions with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.