Latest Middle East News

France is facing an election like no other. Here's how it works and what comes next

Jun. 30, 2024 00:02 AM EDT

PARIS (AP) — French voters are being called to the polls on Sunday for an exceptional moment in their political history: the first round of snap parliamentary elections that could see the country’s first far-right government since the World War II Nazi occupation — or no majority emerging at...

US and Europe warn Lebanon's Hezbollah to ease strikes on Israel and back off from wider Mideast war

Jun. 29, 2024 20:36 PM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S., European and Arab mediators are pressing to keep stepped-up cross-border attacks between Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah militants from spiraling into a wider Middle East war that the world has feared for months. Iran and Israel traded threats Saturday of what...

Polls close in Iran presidential election held after hard-liner's death and as Mideast tensions rise

Jun. 28, 2024 17:13 PM EDT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iranians voted on Friday in a snap election to replace the late hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, with the race's sole reformist candidate vowing to seek “friendly relations” with the West in an effort to energize supporters in a vote beset by apathy. ...

US shifts assault ship to the Mediterranean to deter an escalation of the Israel-Lebanon conflict

Jun. 28, 2024 11:36 AM EDT

WASHINGTON (AP) — The amphibious assault ship USS Wasp entered the eastern Mediterranean Sea this week as the U.S. positions warships to try to keep fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon from escalating into a wider war in the Middle East. While the Wasp has the...

Charitable donations continue to decline, down 2.1% in 2023, according to a new Giving USA report

Jun. 25, 2024 09:47 AM EDT

Charitable giving dropped 2.1% in 2023 after inflation, according to the most recent Giving USA report, the key findings of which were released Tuesday. For years now, nonprofits have been worried about the decline in the number of Americans who give. This year’s Giving USA report...

In one affluent Atlanta suburb, Biden and Trump work to win over wary Georgia voters

Jun. 24, 2024 17:24 PM EDT

FAYETTEVILLE, Ga. (AP) — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump will meet for their first general election debate Thursday in Georgia, the battleground that yielded the closest 2020 margin of any state and became the epicenter of Trump’s efforts to overturn Biden’s election. ...

Aerial drone launched by Yemen's Houthi rebels hits ship in the Red Sea, causing damage and injuries

Jun. 23, 2024 23:04 PM EDT

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An aerial drone launched by Yemen's Houthi rebels struck and damaged a vessel in the Red Sea on Sunday, officials said, the latest attack by the group targeting shipping in the vital maritime corridor. The attack comes as the U.S. has sent the...

How does heat kill? It confuses your brain. It shuts down your organs. It overworks your heart.

Jun. 21, 2024 13:45 PM EDT

As temperatures and humidity soar outside, what's happening inside the human body can become a life-or-death battle decided by just a few degrees. The critical danger point outdoors for illness and death from relentless heat is several degrees lower than experts once thought, say...

A US aircraft carrier and its crew have fought Houthi attacks for months. How long can it last?

Jun. 19, 2024 06:58 AM EDT

ABOARD THE USS DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER IN THE RED SEA (AP) — The combat markings emblazoned on the F/A-18 fighter jet tell the story: 15 missiles and six drones, painted in black just below the cockpit windshield. As the jet sits on the deck of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft...

Trump allies hope his daughter Tiffany's father-in-law can help flip Arab American votes in Michigan

Jun. 16, 2024 08:07 AM EDT

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — One of Donald Trump’s emissaries to Arab Americans is a Lebanese-born businessman who moved to Texas as a teenager, speaks Arabic, English and French, and recently joined the Trump family when his son married the former president’s younger daughter. Massad...