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Senate Passes Sweeping Russia-Iran Sanctions Bill Named for Lindsey Graham, 86-11

Background

The U.S. Senate voted 86-11 on August 7, 2026, to pass the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, a sweeping sanctions and tariff package aimed at Russia's war economy and Iran's weapons and energy sectors. The bill's roots stretch back more than a year: Senator Lindsey Graham, working with…
News
Senate Panel Holds Anthony Fauci in Contempt of Congress After He Invokes the Fifth Amendment More Than 100 Times

Background

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the most visible face of the U.S. government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, has spent much of 2026 at the center of a renewed congressional inquiry into the origins of the virus and the government-…
International News
Tanzania Launches Regional Criminal Panel to Probe Deadly Election Violence as Lissu Remains Jailed

DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania  

Ten months after Tanzania's October 2025 general election set off the deadliest unrest in the country's recent history, President Samia Suluhu Hassan this past week inaugurated a new criminal commission — staffed in part by judges from Namibia and Uganda — with a mandate to identify…
International News
Congo Bans Copper and Cobalt Concentrate Exports, Betting Mineral Leverage Can Do What Peace Deals Haven't

Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo 

The Democratic Republic of Congo has banned exports of copper and cobalt concentrate, a government order made public this week that marks the sharpest escalation yet in President Félix Tshisekedi's drive to force foreign mining companies to process…
International News
Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan Sign Landmark Mutual Defense Pact in Mecca

Background

On August 7, 2026, the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan gathered at Al-Safa Palace in the holy city of Mecca to sign what officials are calling the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, a trilateral mutual-defense treaty that commits each of the three states to treat an armed attack on any one of them as…
International News
Yemen on the Brink: Deadliest Houthi Offensive Since the 2022 Truce Raises Fears of Renewed Civil War

Background

Yemen's civil war, which erupted in 2014 when the Iran-aligned Houthi movement — formally known as Ansar Allah — seized the capital, Sanaa, and much of the country's north, has been effectively frozen since April 2022, when a UN-brokered truce between the Houthis and the Saudi-led coalition backing Yemen's…