Geopolitics & international affairs
Happy Birthday, Mr. President Donald Trump turns 80 today. The White House is hosting a UFC fight on the South Lawn to celebrate. A federal lawsuit is trying to stop it. That lawsuit is the least of his problems. Eighty is an age that demands a reckoning with mortality, whether a man wants one or […]
US, Iran Set for Electronic Signing Sunday, But Tehran Signals Caution This is a follow-up to yesterday’s article on the US-Iran peace deal. What follows is the next chapter in that story. The stage is set for an electronic signing between the United States and Iran on Sunday. Or perhaps it is not. That depends […]
Ukraine Civilian Deaths Hit Highest Monthly Toll Since April 2022, UN Reports The war in Ukraine killed more civilians in May 2026 than in any month since the first months of the full-scale invasion, the United Nations has reported. The figures are stark: at least 274 dead, 1,763 injured, and a total casualty count exceeding […]
US-Iran Peace Deal ‘Never Been Closer,’ Mediators Say After 105 days of war, a final text exists. Whether anyone trusts it enough to sign is another question. For the first time since the United States and Israel went to war with Iran on Feb. 28, the outline of an actual peace deal exists on paper. […]
Sahel Juntas Systematically Crush Free Speech and Opposition Across Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger The military rulers who seized power across the Sahel promised order. They have delivered repression instead. In Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, three military juntas that came to power through a cascade of coups between 2020 and 2023 are systematically dismantling […]
US Orders Anthropic to Cut Off Foreign Nationals From Its Most Advanced AI Models The US government has forced an AI company to cut off its most advanced models from the entire world – including its own foreign employees. On Friday at 5:21pm, Anthropic received a letter from the United States government. The letter did […]
Oil Markets Now Move on Trump’s Posts, Not Supply and Demand The oil market is not responding to supply and demand. It is responding to whatever Donald Trump posts on social media. On Thursday, Brent crude was trading above $93 a barrel. Then Trump announced he had canceled planned strikes on Iran and claimed a […]
Putin Concedes Ukrainian Drone Strikes Are Damaging Russia’s Economy For the first time since the full-scale invasion began, Putin publicly concedes that Ukrainian drone strikes are landing blows on Russia’s economic engine and social fabric. President Vladimir Putin acknowledged on June 12, Russia Day, that the escalating Ukrainian drone campaign against Russian infrastructure is inflicting […]
Only One in Four F-35s Fully Mission Capable, GAO Report Finds When it flies, the F-35 can do things no other warplane can. The trouble is it does not fly nearly often enough. The most expensive weapons program in human history — a project that has already cost American taxpayers over two trillion dollars — […]
US Quietly Scales Back NATO Fighters, Tankers, and Warships in Europe Washington pulls the plug on Europe’s air cover. The numbers, the reasons, and the uncomfortable reckoning that follows. The United States is quietly but drastically scaling back the air and naval forces it makes available for NATO operations in Europe, according to a New […]
