Mortars are fired at the diplomatic quarter of Kabul during a speech by President Ashraf Ghani. After several hours of fighting, including a helicopter attack on a building behind the Id Gah Mosque, police say the attackers are dead and four people are wounded. (BBC)
A magnitude 7.3 earthquake strikes off the coast of Venezuela, prompting building evacuations in Caracas. Buildings shake across Caribbean and South America's North coast. Several buildings are destroyed. (The Guardian)(Newsweek)
Michael Cohen, the ex-lawyer of U.S. PresidentDonald Trump, pleads guilty to eight felony financial charges. He admits that a $150,000 hush money payment in August 2016, "at the direction" of an unnamed candidate, was for the "principal purpose of influencing" the 2016 presidential election. He is released on $500,000 bail until his sentencing on December 12. He faces up to 65 years, though prosecutors recommend 46 to 63 months. (NBC News)
U.S. RepresentativeDuncan D. Hunter (R–CA) and his wife are charged with wire fraud, falsifying records, campaign finance violations and conspiracy. In the indictment unsealed today, federal prosecutors allege that the Hunters illegally used campaign funds to pay personal bills. (CNN)
A court in Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City begins the trial of twelve people, including two Vietnam-born Americans, on charges of attempting to overthrow the government. (Los Angeles Times)
The mass of exoplanet Beta Pictoris b is measured directly for the first time through astrometry, giving it a mass of 11±2Jupiter masses, and marking one of the first times an exoplanet was detectable through measuring its effect on the host star's location. (Phys.org)