Washington (CNN)The Trump administration is threatening Russia that they could increase the cost of extending the one remaining nuclear weapons treaty between the two countries if Moscow does not commit to meeting US demands, including agreeing to stronger verification measures, before the American presidential election in November. The two countries have spent months negotiating over the renewal of the New START nuclear weapons treaty. Moscow has said it is open to renewing it for five years, while the Trump administration is seeking a new framework and will only renew the treaty if Russia makes additional commitments. "What we have suggested to the…

It is simply astonishing that the first attempt by the Guardian – the only major British newspaper styling itself as on the liberal-left – to properly examine the contents of a devastating internal Labour party report leaked in April is taking place nearly four months after the 860-page report first came to light. If you are a Labour party member, the Guardian is the only “serious”, big-circulation paper claiming to represent your values and concerns. One might therefore have assumed that anything that touches deeply on Labour party affairs – on issues of transparency and probity, on the subversion of the party’s democratic structures, on abuses…

When he moved to Medford, Oregon, in 2016, a rented trailer was the best that Monty Potter could afford. The $950 per month he paid for the two-bedroom mobile home didn’t leave much room for error on his wages as a grocery store supervisor, but he could manage it for himself and his two school-aged sons. Then came the Almeda fire. Starting in Ashland on September 8, flames ripped northward up the 18-mile greenway that connects a string of communities in Jackson County, all but wiping out the smallest two, Talent and Phoenix. Two people died and at least 2,350 homes were destroyed, including Potter’s, which stood near…

Foreign fighters have played a major role in Syria’s ongoing conflict, with a presence in the country that numbered in the tens of thousands at its peak. One of the most mythologized sources of foreign recruits has been Chechnya, the once-separatist province of Russia’s North Caucasus that was reconquered by the Russian army in the early 2000s. Several thousand Chechen fighters traveled to Syria to fight in various opposition and Islamist factions, where their battlefield prowess made them a prized commodity among Syrian rebel militants. The fortunes of most Chechen fighters, however, like the Syrian rebel movement as a whole, have been…

Security threats and disinformation have made mayhem of life online. It will take experimental cooperation among governments, platforms, and civil society to improve safety without hampering innovation. Traditional approaches to governing have never gotten a handle on cyberspace. There are too many actors and there is too much information, from too many sources, moving too quickly across too many jurisdictions. Bad actors further compound the problem, and discord among the big powers prevents the international community from cooperating effectively. Although most software and digital infrastructure is commercially owned and operated, technology companies lack the legitimacy, breadth of interests, and public policy…