When President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reopens Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia for prayers next week, it will be the crowning symbol of his mission to reassert Turkey’s role as a Muslim power on the global stage. Yet Turkey’s rarely seemed more alone.
A pro-Western party in North Macedonia is trying to form a coalition government after it claimed victory in somewhat historic but troubled elections. The Balkan nation’s first national vote under a new state name faced a suspected hacking attack impacting the publishing of results.
A UK Appeals Court has ruled that, while it is working with government authorities, a Christian adoption and foster care agency cannot refuse to place children with same-sex couples, the Christian Post reports. The Court ruled Tuesday that the Cornerstone Adoption and Fostering Service can recruit carers who identify as evangelical, provided it does not legally require them to be heterosexual.
Turkey, a member of NATO, tested the Russian-made S-400 air defense system on US-made F-16 jets during a drill in November 2019, Russia’s state media TASS has reported. The use of the S-400 against the F-16s was already reported last year, but the new details from Russian media appear to cement the claim and infer that something more was going on in those tests.
The top Democrat on the US Senate Armed Services Committee has announced a funding package of $500 million for Israel’s missile defense as part of a key US defense bill, the Time of Israel (ToI) reports. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand made the announcement Tuesday even as four progressive Congressional Democrats are demanding cuts in US aid to Israel if it proceeds to annex parts of the West Bank.
The US Defense Department has published a list of twenty major companies, including Huawei, that it has determined are owned or backed by the Chinese military, BBC News reported Thursday. A result of this determination, the US may apply new sanctions against the companies listed.
House Democrats passed a bill Friday to make Washington, D.C., the 51st U.S. state, a historic move unlikely to gain traction in the Republican-held Senate.
Legislators in the South Carolina state city of Charleston voted Tuesday unanimously to remove a statue of former vice president and slavery advocate John C. Calhoun from a downtown square, amid widening anti-racism protests.
The European Union’s top court ruled Thursday that Hungary’s legislation requiring non-governmental organizations to reveal their foreign donors is against EU rules. The Luxemburg-based Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) condemned a law that forces NGOs receiving at least 7.2 million Hungarian forints ($23,000) to register with authorities.
U.S. Senate Republicans unveiled a law enforcement reform bill on Wednesday as a rival to more sweeping Democratic legislation, as Congress sought to curb racial discrimination and police abuses three weeks after the death of George Floyd.
U.S. Senate Republicans unveiled a law enforcement reform bill on Wednesday as a rival to more sweeping Democratic legislation, as Congress sought to curb racial discrimination and police abuses three weeks after the death of George Floyd.
Authorities in the U.S. state of Rhode Island have banned a blind woman from a public park and library for speaking about her faith in Christ, her lawyers confirmed Wednesday.
The Republican-led Senate Judiciary Committee has approved subpoena power for a politically charged congressional investigation of the Justice Department’s probe into Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and its contacts with Russia.
US Senate Republicans announced on Tuesday that they are working on a bill to address police reform and racial injustice, Reuters reported. The move came after Congressional Democrats put forward police reform legislation on Monday.
Senior legislators from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative block condemned Saturday the reported decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to withdraw a quarter of the American troops stationed in Germany.
In a warning to Washington, Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a new nuclear policy that allows him to use atomic weapons even in response to a non-nuclear attack.
The state of Minnesota will start an investigation into the Minneapolis Police Department’s (MPD) policies and procedures over the last ten years, to determine if officers “engaged in systemic discriminatory practices,” the Star Tribune reported. The inquiry follows the death of George Floyd, who died on May 25 after an arresting officer kneeled on his neck for nearly nine minutes as he lay face down on the road, unarmed and with his hands cuffed behind his back.
The United States has announced that it will withdraw from the Open Skies treaty because of violations of the agreement by Russia.
Hungary’s Parliament has approved legislation that bans transgender people from changing the gender they were assigned at birth on official documents.
U.S. Senator Marco Rubio will serve as acting chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday, after Senator Richard Burr announced he would step aside from the position during a federal investigation of his stock trades.