Author: Reporter

After more than eight months of low-scale conflict, Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah are threatening all-out war. The United States and the international community are lobbying for calm and hopeful for a diplomatic solution. They have not been successful so far and time for a political settlement could be expiring. Should war break out, Israel would face a much more formidable foe in Lebanon than it faced in Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel recently that his group has new weapons and capabilities, and it has published surveillance drone footage taken deep...

Thousands of Jewish ultra-Orthodox men clashed with Israeli police in central Jerusalem on June 30, after protesting for several days against a Supreme Court order for them to begin enlisting for military service. The landmark June 25 decision, ordering the government to begin drafting ultra-Orthodox men, could lead to the collapse of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition as Israel wages war in Gaza. Tens of thousands of men rallied in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood to protest the order. But after nightfall, the crowd made its way toward central Jerusalem and turned violent. The ultra-Orthodox see their full-time religious study...

Humanitarian workers have started moving tons of aid that piled up at a U.S.-built pier off the Gaza coast to warehouses in the besieged Palestinian territory, the United Nations said on June 29, an important step as Washington considers whether to resume pier operations after yet another pause because of heavy seas. It was not known when the aid might reach Palestinians in Gaza, where experts have warned of the high risk of famine as the Israel-Hamas war is in its ninth month. This is the first time trucks have moved aid from the pier since the World Food...

The Supreme Court on July 1 ruled for the first time that former presidents have some immunity from prosecution, extending the delay in the Washington criminal case against Donald Trump on charges he plotted to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss and all but ending prospects the former president could be tried before the November election. In a historic 6-3 ruling, the justices returned Trump’s case to the trial court to determine what is left of special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump. The outcome means additional delay before Trump could face trial. The court’s decision in a second...

Armored vehicles rammed into the doors of Bolivia’s government palace on June 26 as President Luis Arce said his country faced an apparent attempted coup. In a sense, the uprising was the culmination of tensions that have been brewing in Bolivia for months, with protesters streaming into the nation’s capital amid a severe economic crisis and as two political titans battle for control of the ruling party. At the same time, the attempt to take over the palace appeared to have lacked any meaningful support, and even Arce’s rivals quickly closed ranks to defend democracy and repudiate the uprising....