Politics

Kenya will press Russia for answers after reports emerged that its citizens are being recruited to fight in Ukraine, the country’s foreign minister said. Musalia Mudavadi told the BBC in an interview on Tuesday that the recruitment was ‘unacceptable and clandestine.’ He said the government has shut down illegal recruiters and would urge Moscow to sign an agreement barring the conscription of Kenyan citizens.  Nairobi estimates that about 200 nationals have been recruited to fight...

A top Iranian security official was spotted in Oman just days after Tehran and the U.S. held indirect nuclear talks in the Mideast sultanate. Ali Larijani, a former Iranian parliament speaker who now serves as the secretary to the country’s Supreme National Security Council, was likely in the country to discuss what comes next after the initial round of talks, The Associated Press reported. The outlet noted that Larijani’s team shared photos of him with...

Russia’s military has been badly battered by its failure to conquer Ukraine, but Moscow is now rebuilding its war machine for the long haul, according to a new assessment from Estonia’s foreign intelligence service, even as the force it is fielding relies more on mass and attrition than military quality.  The report says Russia has suffered catastrophic losses since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with an estimated 1 million soldiers killed or severely wounded, draining...

Vice President JD Vance said Tuesday that the United States should get ‘some benefit’ from Greenland if it’s going to ‘be on the hook for protecting this massive landmass.’  Vance told reporters in Armenia that, ‘it’s very early in the Greenland talks,’ amid the Trump administration’s push to acquire the Danish territory.   ‘We’ve been working quite a bit on this over the last few weeks, but it’s just very simple. Greenland is very important to the national security of the United States...

The No. 2 House Republican in Congress tore into Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday after cold weather left 18 New York City residents dead. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., made the comments in the context of warning that Democrats’ rejection of a bipartisan compromise on funding the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will leave critical offices — like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) — with a dire lack of money. ‘What is not...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he plans to discuss Iran and Gaza with U.S. President Donald Trump during their upcoming visit. The foreign figure, who is traveling to the U.S. to meet with Trump, indicated that the two nations share a close bond, and that he and Trump are close as well. ‘I am now leaving for the United States for my seventh trip to meet with President Trump since he was elected...

A Senate Republican who has routinely broken from the GOP and President Donald Trump announced that she wouldn’t support efforts to pass voter ID legislation.  Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said in a post on X on Tuesday that she would oppose forthcoming legislation that would enact more stringent election integrity laws backed by both Trump and conservatives in the upper chamber. Her opposition underscores a reality many in the Senate already acknowledge: without extraordinary steps...

As U.S.-Iran diplomacy remains primarily focused on Tehran’s nuclear program, Israeli officials and analysts warn that ballistic missiles remain a central red line for Jerusalem and could shape any decision on unilateral action. Before departing for his trip to Washington, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he plans to press Israel’s priorities in the talks. ‘I will present to the president our views regarding the principles of the negotiations — the important principles — and, in...

Emboldened congressional Democrats are once again expanding their battleground map for this year’s midterm elections, when Republicans will be defending their razor-thin majority in the House. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) on Tuesday added five more offensive opportunities in Colorado, Minnesota, Montana, South Carolina and Virginia to their list of what they consider are vulnerable Republican-held House districts. That brings the total number of districts Democrats are hoping to flip to 44. The DCCC...

The top two congressional Democrats have, for now, rejected President Donald Trump and Republicans’ offer to avert a shutdown as the deadline rapidly approaches. For several hours Monday night, both Republicans and Democrats were near-radio silent about the nature of the counter-offer from the White House. That was, in part, because some lawmakers had no idea what was in it. But the silence appeared to spell yet another positive step toward averting the shutdown of...