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President Donald Trump claimed Thursday and Friday that foreign allies have asked him not to declassify documents from the Russia probe the unnamed foreign countries Trump said that he is honoring the allies’ wishes, as well as the DOJ’s, by backing off of his declassification request

Ireland officially revoked its ban on abortion this week – and its health minister says that under a new law, women won't have to pay for abortion services in the country. The goal is to ensure access and make sure women aren't forced to travel for the procedure, Health Minister Simon Harris says. Irish President Michael D. Higgins signed the abortion referendum bill into law on Tuesday, striking the Eighth Amendment from the books. It was "an extraordinarily historic day," Harris said of the repeal, which follows up on a public referendum in May, when an overwhelming majority of...

A University of Michigan professor refused to help a student study abroad in Israel because of an academic boycott against the country — and claims he’s getting death threats for his decision. John Cheney-Lippold, an associate professor in the American culture department, told student Abigail Ingber he couldn’t write her a letter of recommendation to study in Israel, citing an academic boycott of the country. “As you may know, many university departments have pledged an academic boycott against Israel in support of the Palestinians living in Palestine,” Cheney-Lippold wrote in an email, a screenshot of which was posted to Facebook...

"The president and I agree that since the beginning of this year, Russian-Chinese relations have been showing dynamic growth," Xi said. He announced that ties with his "close friend" Putin had "entered a new era of rapid development and are reaching a higher level." It was the third Xi-Putin meeting in four months, and the first time the Chinese president had attended the event in Vladivostok, which started in 2015 and encourages foreign investment. The growing rapport between the two countries has accelerated under President Donald Trump, whose policies have put greater pressure on both countries, according to Alexander Gabuev, a senior...

The US has imposed sanctions on the Chinese military over its purchasing of Russian military jets and surface-to-air missiles. It says such purchases contravene US sanctions on Moscow introduced over Russian actions in Ukraine and alleged interference in US politics. China recently bought 10 Russian Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and S-400 missiles. Beijing has not joined in the sanctions imposed on Moscow by the US and its Western allies since 2014. Its forces took part in giant Russian war games held earlier this month.

History is recorded daily, whether we like it or not. History isn't what happened, but the stories of what happened and the lessons these stories include. Iran is deteriorating faster than we thought, almost to the point of no return. The Iranian people are aware that after 40 years of complete devastation by the rulers of the Islamic regime, they no longer want the Islamic Republic. In an interview with the Associated Press, Reza Pahlavi remarked, "We all know that regime change is the ultimate formula." Mr. Pahlavi is a harsh critic of the clerical rulers who have dominated Iran...

A reflection on a wish-fulfilling folly. Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Twenty-five years ago, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO chief Yasser Arafat stood in front of Bill Clinton in the White House Rose Garden and shook hands to mark their signing of the Oslo Accords. This pact included handing part of Judea and Samaria to the control of Palestinian Arabs. A year later the Palestinian Authority was created as the controlling authority that still governs part of the so-called West Bank. These changes were celebrated as a major step toward...

Following his return to South Korea after a third summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, President Moon Jae-in told reporters he would like to see all countries that participated in the Korean War sign a formal peace treaty by the end of this year. Technically, the two Koreas, the United States, and China all remain at war, which began on the peninsula in June 1950 when North Korea invaded the South. An armistice — a cease-fire agreement — was signed in July 1953. To officially end it, all four countries would need to sign a treaty. In speaking to...

Scientists originally discovered hyperaccumulators in the 1970s, and so far over 65 such plants have been identified in New Caledonia, 59 in Turkey, and a few others in countries like Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. However, scientists are convinced that many more remain to be discovered. This capacity to store large quantities of heavy metals has been studied by various biological sciences, from molecular biology to physiology and biochemistry, and while much has been learnt about the hyperaccumulation and hypertolerance of zinc and cadmium by some plants, nickel hyperaccumulation mechanisms remain a mystery.The evolution of hyperaccumulators like Pycnandra acuminata is believed to...

Turkey has submitted close to a thousand requests to Germany for search and arrest warrants. Andrej Hunko from Die Linke said Turkey is abusing the Interpol. Germany’s Ministry of Justice responded to a written inquiry by Die Linke (The Left) and said since the coup attempt in 2016, Turkey has submitted large numbers of requests to the German Police for search and arrest warrants. Turkey has submitted a total of 848 requests for search and arrest warrants through the Interpol. QUESTION NOT RESPONDED TO Germany’s Ministry of Justice didn’t provide information on what percentage of Turkish requests had been met,...

The Israeli army has stated that all intelligence on the Russian aircraft downed in Latakia on Monday will be shared with Moscow. The Israeli army statement said when the Syrian air defense systems fired the missiles that downed the Russian aircraft, Israeli Air Force had already returned to Israeli air field. The Israeli army argued that the incident had been caused by the Syrian air defense systems’ “extensive and inaccurate” fire. The statement said, “The Syrian anti-air batteries fired indiscriminately and from what we understand, did not bother to ensure that no Russian planes were in the air.” The Israeli...

Eight European countries at the United Nations, including five Security Council members, on Thursday called on Israel to reverse its decision to demolish the illegal Bedouin village of Khan al-Ahmar, AFP reported. Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Belgium, Poland and the Netherlands warned that the demolition of the village “would severely threaten the viability of the two-state solution”. “We therefore call upon the Israeli authorities to reconsider their decision to demolish Khan al-Ahmar,” the countries said in a joint statement released ahead of a council meeting on the Middle East. Khan al-Ahmar was built in the 1990s on land belonging...

One doesn’t often see a climbdown from Moscow, especially not from strongman Vladimir Putin, and even more so this fast. Yesterday, Russia’s defense spokesman spoke ominously of “the right to take appropriate measures against hostile actions by Israel” after Syrian air defense forces shot down a Russian surveillance plane. Now however, Putin has danced away from the threat, calling the downing the result of “tragic chance events”: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday described the downing of a Russian plane in Syria as the result of “tragic chance events,” appearing to dial back a rare flare-up in tensions with...

Hardly anybody in America cares about the annual Eurovision Song Contest, and that's just as it should be, given that on the whole, it's almost as horrible a viewing experience these days as the Oscars or Emmys. But in Europe, Eurovision is as big as ever – almost as big a draw as the Super Bowl in the U.S., if you can imagine a Super Bowl that no straight man would ever be caught dead watching, but that is a magnet for gays, teenage girls, gays, a scattering of the senile and feebleminded who happened to have left their TVs...

North Korea's Chairman Kim Jong Un wants to meet with President Trump again, says South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has just returned from Pyongyang. Moon also spoke directly to the North Korean public, describing a peaceful future to an audience of some 150,000 people. "We had lived together for five thousand years but apart for just 70 years," Moon said in his speech on Thursday, in which he repeatedly addressed the crowd as "Citizens of Pyongyang, fellow Koreans." Moon continued, "Here, at this place today, I propose we move forward toward the big picture of peace in which the...

Eighty-five years ago, on July 20, 1933, a concordat defining the legal position of the Catholic Church in the Third Reich was signed by Vatican secretary of state Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) and German vice chancellor Franz von Papen. The Reischskonkordat was then ratified by the Nazi-dominated German parliament some six weeks later, on September 10. Pope Pius XI, under whose authority Cardinal Pacelli had negotiated this treaty, was under no illusions about German National Socialism; he detested its racial ideology. And unlike some Vatican diplomats who seem to have imagined that the Third Reich would be...

Air Force leaders, like the leaders of the other military branches, are moving to quickly adapt the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy, which calls for a military-wide reorientation away from low-intensity conflicts like those in Iraq and Afghanistan to refocus on fighting major wars against great power near-peer competitors. It’s important to note that other great powers such as Russia and China, along with regional powers like North Korea and Iran, have been studying the U.S. way of war for decades, and as such, they have developed tactics and strategies designed to exploit what they see as operational weaknesses should...

In a significant symbolic blow to the Iranian regime, the Volkswagen Group — the world’s biggest selling car manufacturer last year — has reportedly agreed to end almost all of its operations in Iran, in line with the restoration of U.S. sanctions on Tehran. The news was disclosed by U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, who since taking up his Berlin posting in May — he presented his credentials on the same day President Trump announced the U.S. was exiting the Iran nuclear deal — has been encouraging the host government to isolate Iran and urging German companies to stop...

Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French far right has been left shocked and furious after a court ordered her to be examined by a psychiatrist to determine if she "is capable of understanding remarks and answering questions". *snip* The unusual summoning is in relation to Le Pen having tweeted out gruesome propaganda images from terror group Isis that showed the bodies of people having been executed by the so-called Islamic State.

I don’t much care who the prime minister of the United Kingdom is at any given time or what his or her policies happen to be, save for a preference that the Brits take seriously their status as an ally and partner with the United States. The same pretty much goes for all of our key allies and other developed nations with whom America is generally friendly. Certainly, I would favor leaders of nations like Great Britain, Germany, France and Canada being more right-leaning in terms of political philosophy, but this is a wholly unrealistic expectation. Leftism and statist doctrine...