Summary The Middle East is undergoing a historic transformation with unprecedented opportunities to build new relationships, de-escalate tensions, and foster conditions for stronger integration. At the same time, the region remains on edge because of ongoing tensions in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and other conflict zones, a civil war that broke out recently in Sudan, along with the overarching challenges presented by fraught relations between Iran, Israel, and several Arab Gulf countries — with the longer-term implications of the still-fragile Iranian-Saudi rapprochement yet to be fully assessed. It is difficult to predict where these countervailing trends will take the broader region…

The U.S. Army has said it is seeing an upward trend in recruiting but has refused to provide numbers to bolster the claim. Army Secretary Christine Wormuth told Congress that the branch has improved upon its numbers from last year in its bid to reverse a severe recruiting crisis, but would not fulfill a request to provide the actual data when it was requested by Military.com According to the outlet, requests to the Army for quarterly recruiting data were made in early April, and the branch has declined for weeks to be forthcoming with the numbers and has provided no reason for their refusal.…

A funny thing happened slightly more than 40 years ago. In the 1980 presidential election, pollsters and politicians alike noticed that women were more likely to vote for the Democratic candidate, incumbent Jimmy Carter, than to vote for the Republican Ronald Reagan. In 1976, when Jimmy Carter defeated Gerald Ford, men and women were the same in their partisan preferences. But in 1980, the gap was nine points. Although this gap has been smaller in some elections than in others, for the past half century the gender gap has been a regular feature of American elections. The gender gap was 12…

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, promised nuclear weapons to any nation that joined Russia and Belarus. The comment came just days after the Belarusian leader confirmed the transfer of Russian nuclear weapons to his country. Putin has periodically hinted at a nuclear escalation since the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, dramatically increasing tensions with the U.S. and the West.   “It’s very simple. You have to join the union between Belarus and Russia, and that’s it: There will be nuclear weapons for everyone,” Lukashenko said in a comment aired Sunday night on Russian state TV. “I think it’s…

On a small vegetable farm in Lal-lo town in the northern Philippine province of Cagayan, Eduardo Pamittan starts his day before dawn. Since April, the middle-aged farmer has been trying to finish all his work between 4 a.m. and 10 a.m., before the late morning sun and humidity become “unbearable.”  “I have to wake up so early each day,” he says. “It is really unsafe to work under the unrelenting heat.”  And unrelenting it is, as record-breaking heat There are downsides. Rinaliza Alvarez, mother of a fourth grader who’s attended morning classes this past month, worried that “my daughter would…