Top World News

Mar 21, 2026 - World

An avalanche in Italy’s South Tyrol has killed two skiers and injured several others, after sweeping through a busy high alpine slope

Mar 21, 2026 - World

Over the past week, Donald Trump has cycled through claiming the United States needs no assistance from allies in its Iran conflict, then requesting their support, and finally expressing rage at their refusal—a pattern that reflects an escalating personal crisis as the war continues and public approval declines.Greg Sargent of The New Republic identifies this behavior as evidence of Trump's central "political weakness": his inability to control himself, which has trapped him in a corner regarding Iran with no path forward that serves his political interests.The Strait of Hormuz closure sits at the core of Trump's predicament, providing Iran with significant strategic advantage.The underlying dynamic reveals Trump's calculation: he recognizes that reopening the strait presents serious challenges and that escalating military action carries substantial political risks for both him and the GOP heading into midterms. His strategy involves enlisting allies to share both the political burden and potential blame for either failure to reopen the strait or any military setbacks.This approach lacks merit. Reopening the strait is genuinely difficult. The geographic reality presents a legitimate obstacle because its geography privileges Iran by enabling small vessels to inflict disproportionate damage and casualties. According to Tom Nichols, advisers informed Trump of all this in advance, but he assumed our strength would overwhelm such boring complexities, and he never developed a plan B.Trump's antagonism toward allies compounds the problem. He has spent the past year weakening alliances across the board, issuing repeated threats to invade territories like Greenland and imposing tariffs on allied nations seemingly motivated primarily by nationalist aggression.Trump faces a difficult position. He will bear responsibility for the global consequences of the strait closure—including rising prices on gas and other products affecting American consumers. However, military action to reopen it could generate its own political costs. This dilemma stems from geographic realities that strengthen Iran's capacity to cause significant damage despite its diminished military capabilities. Yet as Bill Kristol details, no one around Trump appears able to coax him to reason through these fundamentals.Voters are unlikely to hold NATO allies responsible for America's weakening commitment to the alliance or for declining to rescue the nation from a crisis of Trump's making. Instead, public blame will rest with Trump. This reality explains his intense frustration—he understands he will be held accountable for this failure, and he recognizes no clear path to resolution.

Mar 21, 2026 - World

Almost 60 injured in blaze in Daejeon with footage seemingly showing people jumping from burning building to escapeA fire at a car parts factory in South Korea has killed 14 people and injured almost 60 others.Firefighters said all of the missing are now accounted for after a search operation of the wreckage of the three-storey building. Continue reading...

Mar 21, 2026 - World

At least 400 killed in Pakistan’s strike on drug rehab centre, Taliban say, with families searching unmarked mass gravesSohrab Faqiri spent Eid, the Muslim festival to mark the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, looking for the grave of his brother, killed in a massive Pakistan airstrike on Kabul this week.Pakistan’s bombardment campaign, on what it says is terrorist and military infrastructure in neighbouring Afghanistan, appeared to have gone catastrophically wrong. A rehabilitation centre for drug addicts was hit on Monday night, according to the United Nations and the Afghan authorities. The UN’s preliminary death toll is 143 people, while the Taliban administration puts the figure at more than 400 dead. Continue reading...

Mar 21, 2026 - World

Police in Scotland have charged an Iranian man and a Romanian woman after they tried to enter a naval base that houses Britain’s nuclear-armed submarines