Aircraft from the United States, Australia, France and Britain on Saturday dropped humanitarian supplies to the Iraqi town of Amerli, which has been under siege by "Islamic State" jihadist militants for almost two months, the US Pentagon says.  In a statement, Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby said the airdrop, made at the request of the Iraqi government, had been supported by US airstrikes on the besieging militants.

The State Department actually has a Twitter account focused on countering some of these jihadis and extremists online and specifically on Twitter. It’s hard to say how effective that is, perhaps it’s better than doing nothing. But we shouldn’t kind of delude ourselves into thinking that public diplomacy can really change people’s minds in a very obvious way. The American government doesn’t have a lot of credibility with anyone who is going to be vaguely sympathetic to the aims of th

Foreign countries are sending tens of thousands of students to American universities every year, propping up school budgets and contributing billions of dollars to the U.S. economy. And no city sends students to American universities quite like Seoul. The South Korean capital funneled more than 56,000 students into U.S. bachelors, masters, and PhD programs between 2008 and 2012, according to a new study by The Brookings Institute. 

This year, its call for "Generations Rise: Elevating Muslim-American Culture," may sound overly ambitious and insurmountable, with the Muslim American population being heterogeneous in ethnicity as well as political attitudes and religious beliefs; but understanding what a healthy culture looks like for the vibrant religious community in the U.S. is vital and timely, especially as challenges with integration of Muslim identity with American culture remains at the forefront of issues impacting American Muslims today.

In a polarized region and a complicated world, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria presents a unifying threat to a broad array of countries, including the United States. What’s needed to confront its nihilistic vision and genocidal agenda is a global coalition using political, humanitarian, economic, law enforcement and intelligence tools to support military force.

China’s overreach was costly, among other things it accelerated a developing arms race in Asia and amplified calls for Washington and Tokyo to counter Beijing. Still, China acquired useful information to hone its ongoing strategy in the South China Sea. Understanding why Beijing took this action and its attendant lessons will help Washington and its partners deal with China.

They made it in Philly. But can they make it in L.A.? That's one of many questions surrounding the debut of the Budweiser Made in America music festival, which will take over downtown Los Angeles' Grand Park this Labor Day weekend. The concert, the brainchild of rap mogul Shawn Carter — better known as Jay Z — will be the first paid event at the 2-year-old park that stretches between City Hall and the Music Center. 

Libya is in civil war, fundamentalist armies are building a self-declared caliphate across Syria and Iraq and Afghanistan's young democracy is on the verge of paralysis. To these troubles are added a resurgence of tensions with Russia and a relationship with China divided between pledges of cooperation and public recrimination. The concept of order that has underpinned the modern era is in crisis.