What closes and what stays open in a US government shutdown

U.S. government services would be disrupted and hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed without pay if Congress fails to provide funding for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1. Workers dee...

Russian Black Sea commander shown working after reports of his death

Admiral Viktor Sokolov, the commander of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, was shown on Russian state television on Tuesday attending a defense leaders' meeting remotely, a day after he had reportedly been...

Biden, Trump to visit Michigan union workers as auto strikes grow

Joe Biden and Donald Trump will speak to striking auto workers in rare back-to-back events in Michigan this week, highlighting how important unions are to the 2024 presidential election, even thoug...

US told Ukraine it will send ATACMS long-range missiles, NBC reports

U.S. President Joe Biden has informed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Washington will provide Kyiv with ATACMS long-range missiles, NBC News reported Friday, citing three U.S. official...

Philippines vows not to back down as China warns against “trouble” at disputed shoal

The Philippines vowed Tuesday not to back down in the face of a Chinese effort to block its fishermen from a fiercely contested shoal in the South China Sea, while Beijing warned the Southeast Asia...

US adds three Chinese companies to forced labor entity list involving Uyghurs

The United States has added three Chinese companies to the forced labor entity list involving Uyghurs, according to a government posting Tuesday — as part of an effort to eliminate forced labor pra...

Kremlin declines to comment on beating of prisoner by Kadyrov's son

President Vladimir Putin's spokesman declined to comment Tuesday on the beating of a prisoner by the teenaged son of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, an incident that drew condemnation — even from so...

US, Poland sign $2B defense loan agreement amid force modernization

The United States has signed a $2 billion direct loan agreement to support Poland's defense modernization program, the State Department said Monday. Tap for the full brief.

US House to press forward with spending cuts despite shutdown risk

The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is due to try to advance steep spending cuts this week that stand no chance of becoming law and could force a partial shutdown of the U.S. governm...

Striking Hollywood writers reach tentative deal with studios

Hollywood's writers union reached a preliminary labor agreement with studios Sunday, a deal expected to end one of two strikes that have halted most film and television production. Tap for the full...

Karabakh's Armenians start leaving en masse for Armenia

Ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh began a mass exodus by car Sunday toward Armenia — after Azerbaijan defeated the breakaway region's fighters in a conflict dating from the Soviet era. Tap for t...

France to pull troops out of Niger following coup

France will pull its soldiers out of Niger following a July coup in the West African country, President Emmanuel Macron said Sunday — dealing a blow to French influence and counter-insurgency opera...

Serb gunmen battle police in Kosovo monastery siege, four dead

Ethnic Serb gunmen in armored vehicles stormed a village in north Kosovo on Sunday — battling police and barricading themselves in a monastery in a resurgence of violence in the restive north that ...

Somalia asks UN to delay peacekeeper drawdown after “significant setbacks” in fighting Islamists

Somalia has asked the United Nations to pause a planned drawdown of 3,000 African Union peacekeepers for three months — to allow its security forces time to regroup after a militant attack forced t...

Taliban weighs using US mass surveillance plan, met with China's Huawei

The Taliban are creating a camera surveillance network for Afghan cities that could involve repurposing a plan crafted by the Americans before their 2021 pullout, an interior ministry spokesman tol...