The state of Hawaii is formulating a preparedness plan for a North Korean missile attack, much to the dismay of the state’s tourism boosters. “We do not want to cause any undue stress for the public,” Vern T. Miyagi, Hawaii’s Emergency Management Agency administrator said in a statement reported Thursday …

President Donald Trump’s legal team is evaluating potential conflicts of interest among members of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigative team, three people with knowledge of the matter said Thursday. The revelations come as Mueller’s investigation appears likely to probe some of the Trump family’s business ties. Attorney Jay Sekulow, a …

PetroChina is this week unloading the first Chinese purchase of crude oil from U.S. strategic petroleum reserves at a port in eastern China, according to shipping data and two industry sources. The move comes as China, the world’s No.2 oil consumer, steps up imports from the Americas to diversify supply …

Two men have gone on trial in Saudi Arabia charged with spying for Iran and plotting to attack a major oil pipeline, two Saudi newspapers reported on Wednesday. In a rare espionage case involving the two arch-rivals, the Saudi teachers face charges of gathering information on the East-West Pipeline of …

President Trump has decided to end the CIA’s covert program to arm and train moderate Syrian rebels battling the government of Bashar al-Assad, a move long sought by Russia, according to U.S. officials. The program was a central plank of a policy begun by the Obama administration in 2013 to …

NEW YORK (Reuters) – About one in eight people who voted for President Donald Trump said they would not do so again after witnessing Trump’s tumultuous first six months in office, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll of 2016 voters. While most of the people who voted for Trump on Nov. …

(Reuters) – On Tuesday June 20 Mohammed bin Nayef, a powerful figure in Saudi Arabia’s security apparatus for the past two decades and the next in line to the throne, was summoned to meet King Salman bin Abdulaziz on the fourth floor of the royal palace in Mecca. There, according …

Oil prices are likely to be stuck within a range of $40 to $60 for the next year or more, according to the latest investment forecast from U.K.-based wealth manager Coutts. In its mid-year investment outlook, published Wednesday, the private bank – which is reported to have the U.K. queen …

The four Arab nations leading a boycott of Qatar are no longer insisting it comply with a list of 13 specific demands they tabled last month. Diplomats from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt told reporters at the UN they now wanted it to accept six broad …

U.S. President Donald Trump told the New York Times that if Attorney General Jeff Sessions had indicated before being nominated to the post that he would recuse himself from the investigation of Russia’s influence on last year’s election then the president would have “picked someone else.” “Sessions never should have …

France’s armed forces chief resigned on Wednesday in a dispute with Emmanuel Macron over defense budget cuts, an early test of the newly elected president’s mettle and the tough presidential style he is cultivating. In a statement, 60 year-old Pierre de Villiers said he had tried to keep the armed …

Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged on Tuesday to make “unremitting” efforts toward promoting peace in the Middle East following a meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, as China steps up its diplomatic engagement with the region. Palestinian officials have urged China, which supports an independent Palestinian state, to do more …

Image copyrightBBC/GETTY IMAGESImage captionEvans and Winkleman are the BBC’s highest paid male and female stars Chris Evans has topped the list of the BBC’s best-paid stars. He made between £2.2m and £2.25m in 2016/2017, while Claudia Winkleman is the BBC’s highest-paid female celebrity, earning between £450,000 and £500,000. Match of …

The Trump administration is keeping all options “on the table” for responding to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday when asked whether Washington was considering banning Venezuelan oil imports to the United States. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity on a conference call …

After his much-publicized two-and-a-quarter-hour meeting early this month with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin at the Group of 20 summit in Germany, President Trump chatted informally with the Russian leader for up to an additional hour later the same day. The second meeting, undisclosed at the time, took place at a …

Following extensive discussions, the Iraqi Ministry of Oil and Baker Hughes, a GE company (BHGE) signed a contract for fast-track solutions to help the recovery of flare gas in line with the country’s strategy for energy sector development. An advanced modular gas processing (NGL) plant has been recommended for Nassiriya …

Israeli police besieged Makased hospital in East Jerusalem on Tuesday seeking to arrest a Palestinian shot and seriously injured by police the night before in Silwan neighborhood, according to hospital sources. They said a large force has besieged the hospital since the morning with some police officers entering the wards …

Israeli forces have attacked Palestinians staging a sit-in outside the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in East Jerusalem al-Quds in protest at Tel Aviv’s recent restrictive measures around the holy Muslim site. According to Quds News Network, the Israeli troops on Tuesday clashed with the sit-inners outside the Lions Gate, a main entrance to …

Jessica Faulkner didn’t try to hold back her tears. The mother of Pvt. Dustin Faulkner was saying goodbye to her 19-year-old son as the 115th Expeditionary Signal Battalion of the National Guard was honored at a deployment ceremony at Huntsville High School. More than 1,000 people attended the Saturday afternoon …

Ecuador has dealt a blow to Opec unity by announcing it will start raising oil production this month, arguing it needs the money. Opec has for years cheated on its own agreements, particularly when oil prices fail to recover after an output cut. But Ecuador has taken the rare step of …

Russia has been pressing demands that the US give it access to two diplomatic compounds seized in the US last year. After high-level talks between both sides, one Russian official involved said the row had “almost” been resolved. Russia has been angered by the move, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov …

President Trump agreed on Monday to certify again that Iran is complying with an international nuclear agreement that he has strongly criticized, but only after hours of arguing with his top national security advisers, briefly upending a planned announcement as a legal deadline loomed. Mr. Trump has repeatedly condemned the …

President Donald Trump promised on Monday he would take more legal and regulatory steps during the next six months to protect American manufacturers, lashing out against trade deals and trade practices he said have hurt U.S. companies. Trump climbed into an American-made fire truck parked behind the White House, took …

The United Arab Emirates has denied it was behind the alleged hacking of Qatar’s state news agency in May. The Washington Post cited US intelligence officials as saying the UAE had orchestrated the posting of incendiary quotes attributed to Qatar’s emir that he insisted were fabricated. The incident helped spark …

Russian Island, near the port city of Vladivostok in the far east, was a decaying former military base and home to a scattering of cattle when President Vladimir V. Putin suddenly envisioned it as a $1.2 billion campus where he could welcome heads of state for an Asia-Pacific conference. That …

The Secretary General of OPEC, Mohammad Barkindo, said today that the cartel he oversees, “has broken the ice in reaching out to shale producers in the U.S.” The announcement came as a surprise, since many have assumed that OPEC and shale producers are engaged in a prolonged battle in the …

The Syrian government army and self-defense units have driven Islamic State (a terrorist group outlawed in Russia) militants from gas fields in al-Hala and Zamla south of Raqqa (520 kilometers away from Damascus), Suriya television said on Sunday citing a spokesman for the Syrian army command. According to Suriya, after …

The Trump administration on Thursday announced its first offshore oil and gas lease sale, offering 76 million acres (30 million hectares) in the Gulf of Mexico and reduced royalty rates for shallow-water leases to encourage drilling at a time of low oil prices. U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said the …

Donald Trump’s campaign paid $50,000 to the law office now representing Donald Trump Jr. a little more than a week before news surfaced of an unreported meeting with a Russian attorney that has prompted new accusations of collusion. The payment to the Law Offices of Alan S. Futerfas, dated June …

French President Emmanuel Macron said his defense chief has no choice but to agree with what he says, a weekly newspaper reported on Sunday, after his top general criticized spending cuts to this year’s budget. “If something opposes the military chief of staff and the president, the military chief of …

The head of Islamic State in Afghanistan, Abu Sayed, was killed in a strike on the group’s headquarters in Kunar province earlier this week, the Pentagon said on Friday. Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said in a statement that other members of the Islamic State group were also killed in the …

Cuban President Raul Castro on Friday denounced U.S. President Donald Trump’s partial rollback of the U.S.-Cuban detente, saying it ignored broad public support for better relations and would satisfy only a few Cuban-American hard-liners. In his first public riposte to Trump since the latter unveiled his new Cuba policy last …

If anyone had any doubts how Pope Francis feels about people who always complain, the answer is now tacked to the door of his frugal suite in a Vatican residence: “No Whining”. Under the explicit warning, the red-and-white Italian language sign goes on to say that “violators are subject to …

Ramallah, Amman- US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, announced on Thursday a tripartite agreement over a water deal between Israel, Palestine and Jordan. The deal guarantees the accession of Palestine to the “Red-Dead Water Project”, which has been negotiated for many years. “The United States welcomes the …

Three gunmen opened fire at police near Jerusalem’s holiest site on Friday, wounding three Israelis, two of them critically, before the attackers were killed by security forces, Israeli police said. The gunmen arrived at the sacred site, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, …

The Royal Court has announced that Prince Abdulrahman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, 86, passed away on Thursday. The funeral prayers will be performed following evening regular prayers at the Grand mosque in Makkah on Friday. The former deputy  defense minister passed away after a struggle with disease and a long journey in the …

One of the biggest icebergs on record has broken away from Antarctica, scientists said on Wednesday, creating an extra hazard for ships around the continent as it breaks up. The one trillion ton iceberg, measuring 5,800 square km, calved away from the Larsen C Ice Shelf in Antarctica sometime between …

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he did not fault his son Donald Trump Jr. for meeting with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 presidential election campaign and that he was unaware of the meeting until a few days ago. Asked if he knew that his son was meeting …

A California Democrat filed an article of impeachment against President Donald Trump Wednesday in a longshot bid to remove the president from office. Rep. Brad Sherman accuses Trump of obstructing investigations into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, in part by firing former FBI Director James Comey. Sherman acknowledges …

A suicide bomber rammed a car laden with explosives into a gathering of jihadist rebels near the rebel-held northwestern Syrian city of Idlib on Wednesday, killing and injuring scores, rebel sources said. They said the blast ripped a textile factory where members of Hayat Tahrir al Sham, an alliance of …

Trump International Hotels Management LLC said late on Tuesday a data breach at a service provider compromised card payment details at 14 of its properties. The compromised information included payment card numbers and card security codes for some of the hotel chain’s reservations processed through service provider Sabre Corp’s central …

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson ended talks with ministers from Saudi Arabia and three Arab allies on Wednesday over how to end a month-long rift with Qatar but there was no immediate word of a breakthrough. Tillerson, en route to mediating country Kuwait, had inked a U.S.-Qatari accord on …

Ships carrying personnel for China’s first overseas military base, in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, have set sail to begin setting up the facility, as China’s rapidly modernizing military extends its global reach. Djibouti’s position on the northwestern edge of the Indian Ocean has fuelled worry in India that …

A top Vatican cardinal recently dismissed by Pope Francis struck back this week, calling the Pope’s treatment of him and other Vatican employees “unacceptable.” “I cannot accept this way of doing things,” Cardinal Gerhard Muller said in an interview with German newspaper Passauer Neue Presse. “As a bishop, [the Pope] …