Geopolitics & international affairs
Russian President Vladimir Putin met North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui at the Kremlin on Sunday in a meeting that comes without any obvious diplomatic occasion, and that very fact has set off a wave of speculation about what lies behind it. The visit by Choe, who traveled to Russia at the invitation of […]
President Trump is nearing a decisive fork in the Iran war. Regional mediators are pushing a new 10-day ceasefire aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz. US and Israeli officials see only one alternative: a massive joint military campaign to force Tehran’s capitulation. Trump has not made a decision yet. But officials believe the next […]
China has launched its most ambitious effort yet to shape the future of artificial intelligence, and the question is whether this is the push that finally puts Beijing ahead of Washington on the international stage. On July 16, Xi Jinping delivered the keynote address at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, his first in-person […]
As the US-Iran war ramps up again, hundreds of American diplomats are stuck in an uncertain limbo. The State Department drew down staffing at embassies and consulates across the Middle East after Iran’s attacks on Gulf states. It is still unclear whether they will return to normal business, or when. The scale of the drawdown […]
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani says he is exploring whether the city has legal authority to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visits for the United Nations General Assembly this fall. President Donald Trump has already shut that down. “Benjamin Netanyahu will not be arrested, in any way, shape, or form, while […]
After days of thick wildfire smoke drifting south from Canada choking major US cities, President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs, and now the reverse is happening. Canadian officials have issued air quality warnings as smoke from American wildfires crosses the border northward. The twist comes days after Trump accused Canada of “willful negligence” for allowing […]
A new and disturbing form of online child exploitation is surging worldwide, with predators using encrypted platforms to coerce children into committing acts of extreme violence, self-harm, and even suicide, often live-streamed for an audience of fellow abusers. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) says reports of “sadistic online exploitation” (SOE) jumped […]
The US-Iran war has returned to exactly where it started. Iran on Sunday vowed that “not a single drop” of oil or gas would transit the Strait of Hormuz if American aggression continued, as the US military completed its ninth consecutive night of strikes against Iranian targets. The Iranian declaration came from a senior official […]
The national average gas price in the United States has climbed back above $4 a gallon, as the war with Iran enters its fifth month and shows no signs of ending. Drivers are paying $4.00 per gallon on average, according to tracking data, an increase of $0.85 from the same time last year. The price […]
The Trump administration is quietly debating whether to ban cutting-edge Chinese AI models from the United States, a move that could reshape the global AI landscape and lock in dominance by American frontier labs like OpenAI and Anthropic. The debate, reported by Axios and confirmed by multiple sources, has been reignited by the launch of […]
