President Donald Trump announced deals totaling over $200 billion between the United States and the United Arab Emirates on Thursday, including a $14.5 billion commitment between Boeing, GE Aerospace, and Etihad Airways, the White House said.

The US Department of Health and Human Services is planning to drop CDC recommendations for routine Covid-19 vaccines for pregnant women, teens and children, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.

US congressional Democrats on Thursday sought to block arms sales to the United Arab Emirates over its alleged involvement in Sudan's civil war and concern about crypto currency ties, the same day Republican President Donald Trump announced $200 billion in new deals with the Gulf State.Democrats Chris Murphy, Chris Van Hollen, Brian Schatz and Tim Kaine, and Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, introduced resolutions of disapproval in the Senate that would block three arms sales to the UAE.Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, and Sara Jacobs, the top Democrat on the panel's Africa subcommittee, introduced resolutions of disapproval in the House of Representatives.The senators cited concerns that have been raised about Abu Dhabi arming Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries in Sudan's civil war. The UAE has repeatedly denied such charges.They also cited the announcement by MGX, an investment firm backed by the Emiratis, that it would use a stablecoin launched by Trump's World Liberty Financial crypto venture for its $2 billion investment in crypto exchange Binance.

Russia's Vladimir Putin spurned a challenge to meet face-to-face with Volodymyr Zelensky in Turkey on Thursday, instead sending a second-tier delegation to planned peace talks, while Ukraine's president said his defense minister would head up Kyiv's team.They will be the first direct talks between the sides since March 2022, but hopes of a major breakthrough were further dented by US President Donald Trump, who said there would be no movement without a meeting between himself and Putin.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio later echoed that view, telling reporters in the Turkish resort of Antalya that Washington "didn't have high expectations" for the Ukraine talks in Istanbul.The head of the Russian delegation, presidential adviser Vladimir Medinsky, said he expected Ukraine's representatives to turn up for the beginning of discussions on Friday in Istanbul at 10 a.m. local time (0700 GMT)."We are ready to work," Medinsky said in a video posted on the Telegram messaging app. He said his delegation had held "productive" talks on Thursday evening with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan

US law enforcement officials said on Thursday they were looking into a social media post by former FBI Director James Comey depicting an image of "8647," which some Trump supporters interpreted as a threat against President Donald Trump.Comey, who was fired by Trump in 2017, later took down the post, saying he was unaware the apparent political message could have been associated with violence.In US parlance the number 86 can be used as verb meaning to throw somebody out of a bar for being drunk or disorderly, and 47 is code for Trump, the 47th president. Some Trump supporters interpreted the message as one to violently remove Trump from office, including by assassination.The Merriam-Webster Dictionary says on its website that one recent meaning of the term was "to kill" but that it had not adopted that "due to its relative recency and sparseness of use."The Secret Service, which is responsible for protecting the president, said it was aware of Comey's post but did not assess its meaning.