On New Year’s Eve, just minutes before the dawn of 1992, the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time. Arguably the Cold War had been over for a few years already. Glasnost and perestroika had defanged the thorny grip of the KGB and made Soviet citizens less afraid of their own…

BEIRUT (AP) — The militant Hezbollah group fired a barrage of rockets at Israel on Friday, and Israel hit back with artillery in a significant escalation between the two sides. It was the third day of attacks along the volatile border with Lebanon, a major Middle East flashpoint for tensions between Israel and Hezbollah-backed Iran.…

The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) announced Wednesday June 2021 was the warmest June on record in North America. The service’s numbers date back to 1981. The average surface temperatures in North America were about one-quarter of a degree higher than the average for June 2012, the previous record-holder. They were also more than 2…

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military, under the direction of President Joe Biden, carried out airstrikes against what it said were “facilities used by Iran-backed militia groups” near the border between Iraq and Syria, drawing condemnation from Iraq’s military and calls for revenge by the militias. Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby said the militias were…

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — American authorities seized a range of Iran’s state-linked news website domains they accused of spreading disinformation, the U.S. Justice Department said Tuesday, a move that appeared to be a far-reaching crackdown on Iranian media amid heightened tensions between the two countries. The Justice Department said 33 of the seized…

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s president-elect said Monday he would not meet with President Joe Biden or negotiate over Tehran’s ballistic missile program and its support of regional militias, sticking to a hard-line position following his landslide victory in last week’s election. Judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi also described himself as a “defender of…

The U.S. House of Representatives voted Thursday to repeal the 2002 authorization for use of military force in Iraq. The resolution allowed then-President George W. Bush to “defend U.S. national security against the continuing threat posed by Iraq” and to “enforce all relevant Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq.” In 2020, the Trump administration used the…

From Russia’s cyberattacks and election interference to China‘s economic buildup and expansion in the South China Sea, both countries pose pressing challenges to the global balance of power. Earlier this year, a U.S. intelligence report identified how and why Russia and China remain America’s top two international threats. It detailed how China has become a…