International

International News
Hungary's President Signs Away His Own Office as Magyar Dismantles the Last Orbán-Era Institutions

Background
Hungary's political order has been undergoing its most significant transformation in over a decade since Prime Minister Péter Magyar's centrist Tisza party swept to power in the country's April 2026 parliamentary election, ending 16 consecutive years of rule by Viktor Orbán's Fidesz party. Tisza's landslide win…
International News
Iran War Reignites: Two US Troops Killed in Jordan as Tehran Shuts the Strait of Hormuz

Background
The war between the United States, Israel and Iran that began on February 28, 2026 has entered its most dangerous phase yet. That conflict opened with a coordinated US-Israeli strike campaign that killed Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei along with dozens of senior officials, including the defense minister, top…
International News
Andy Burnham Becomes Britain's Prime Minister, Pledging a Break From the Thatcher Era

Background
Andy Burnham's ascent to 10 Downing Street on Monday, July 20, 2026, capped a month of turmoil inside Britain's governing Labour Party that began with Keir Starmer's resignation in late June. Starmer's fall followed a string of dismal results for Labour in the May 2026 local elections, as the party watched its…
International News
Iran War Widens as Ninth Night of U.S. Strikes Brings Gulf-Wide Retaliation

Background
The war between the United States and Iran that has convulsed the Gulf for nearly five months began on February 28, 2026, when the U.S. military launched Operation Epic Fury, a sweeping air and maritime campaign against Iranian command-and-control centers, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) headquarters,…
International News
China Launches Global AI Alliance, Positioning Beijing as Counterweight to a U.S.-Led Order

Background
Artificial intelligence has become one of the defining fault lines of great-power competition in 2026, and the past several weeks have made that divide institutional rather than merely rhetorical. Washington and Beijing have spent the year building rival coalitions meant to set the rules for how AI is…
News
Iran-US War Widens to Civilian Infrastructure as Gulf States Are Pulled Deeper Into the Conflict

Background
The war now consuming Iran and its Gulf neighbors did not begin this week, or even this year. Its roots lie in the collapse of nuclear negotiations in Geneva and a shorter, twelve-day air war between Israel and Iran in 2025 that ended without resolving the underlying dispute over Tehran's uranium enrichment…