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in these years, we’ve morphed into the planet’s invading aliens.

Think about it. Over the last half-century, whenever and wherever the U.S. military “deploys,” often to underdeveloped towns and villages in places like Vietnam, Afghanistan or Iraq, it arrives very much in the spirit of those sci-fi aliens. After all, it brings with it dazzlingly destructive futuristic weaponry and high-tech gadgetry of all sorts (known in the military as “force-multipliers”). It then proceeds to build mothership-style bases that are often like American small towns plopped down in a new environment. Nowadays in such lands, American drones patrol the skies (think: the “Terminator” films), blast walls accented with razor wire and klieg lights provide “force protection” on the ground, and the usual attack helicopters, combat jets and gunships hover overhead like so many alien craft. To designate targets to wipe out, U.S. forces even use lasers.

In the field, American military officers emerge from high-tech vehicles to bark out commands in a harsh “alien” tongue. (You know: English.

“It’s amazing that this awakening of civic consciousness has affected the church as well, and not just lay people but clergy, too,” Sergei Chapnin, editor of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, said last week, on the sidelines of a seminar about Russia’s historical identity

the reaction inside the church arose from disgust at official dishonesty surrounding the election. “A Christian has to protest against lies, especially lies to millions of people,

He said clergy members were speaking out because they saw vote-rigging and fraud as violations of the Ten Commandments.

The sotni, as the units are called, take their name from a traditional form of Cossack cavalry division. Activists estimate at least 32 such groups are in Kiev now, with more forming all the time.

Mr. Chontorog said that he had been in the square many times as a protester, but that after the violence on Thursday wanted to commit himself to the fight, which meant following orders from the commander of his hundred.

Thursday, a few antigovernment protesters could be seen carrying weapons. But with reports that the police have killed more than 70 demonstrators, most of the gunfire clearly came from the other side of the barricades. The interior minister reported that 29 police officers had been taken to the hospital and 67 had been captured by the protesters.

SANTIAGO, Chile — The Chilean courts have long been after Ray E. Davis, a former American Navy captain, accusing him of being involved in the murder of two Americans decades ago that inspired the award-winning 1982 film “Missing.”

But it turns out Mr. Davis may have been right under their noses all along, living in a nursing home in an upscale part of the Chilean capital. Any attempts to haul him into court may now be too late; documents show that he recently died here as well.

The death of Mr. Davis, former commander of the United States Military Group at the embassy in Santiago, would leave many unanswered questions about the possible roles played by United States officials in the killings of the Americans Charles Horman, 31, and Frank Teruggi, 24, while in military custody shortly after the 1973 military coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet. It was the Horman case that is depicted in the film “Missing” by the director Costa-Gavras.

Woodrow Wilson’s presidential leadership was often egregious. His frequent failure to master or even to employ the most rudimentary forms of power orchestration amounted to strategic incompetence. The unhappy sequence of blunders that fed upon each other can be traced to the early months of 1917

This sort of behavior was increasingly typical for Wilson: inattention to power orchestration, neglect of strategy, obliviousness to opportunities for leverage. Instead, Wilson succumbed increasingly to the illusion that noble ideals expressed in eloquent words would sway the hearts and minds of the people of the world in a manner which — when combined with the providence of God — would force the leaders of other nations to do the right thing.

in April 1917. Wilson’s adviser, Col. House, requested copies of their pre-existing understandings of war aims and territorial settlements. The British foreign minister, Arthur Balfour, provided them. But in the opinion of Wilson scholar Arthur S. Link — editor of the Papers of Woodrow Wilson — Wilson never even bothered to read these treaties

Denouncing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians under occupation, a group of veterans from an elite, secretive military intelligence unit have declared they will no longer “take part in the state’s actions against Palestinians” in required reserve duty because of what they called “our moral duty to act.”

In a letter sent Thursday night to their commanders as well as Israel’s prime minister and army chief, 43 veterans of the clandestine Unit 8200 complained that Israel made “no distinction between Palestinians who are and are not involved in violence” and that information collected “harms innocent people.” Intelligence “is used for political persecution,” they wrote, which “does not allow for people to lead normal lives, and fuels more violence, further distancing us from the end of the conflict.”

“After our service we started seeing a more complex picture of a nondemocratic, oppressive regime that controls the lives of millions of people,”

In a way, what one division of American soldiers and marines did there in June of 1918 is responsible for the carnage that took place to the east throughout the summer and fall that followed: Had they not attacked and taken those woods from the Germans, many historians believe, Germany would have won the war that month.

Plenty of others believe it, too. “If the Americans don’t stop the Germans at Belleau Wood, the Germans take Paris — the war is finished,” Jacques Krabal told me. Mr. Krabal is the mayor of Château-Thierry; every day, as he walks about the city, he can see, looming over it from the heights above town, the massive American monument built a decade later to commemorate Belleau Wood and the battles that followed it that summer.

In the spring of 1918, the Germans launched a series of offensives in France designed to win the war before too many more American troops could get there. The first two were exceedingly successful; the third was, too, until a fledgling American force pushed back at Château-Thierry. The Germans instead took up positions behind formidable defenses in nearby Belleau Wood — only about 40 miles from Paris, the closest they’d gotten since 1914. The French were panicked: As their roads clogged with terrified refugees, Allied commanders confided to one another that the war was lost, and drew up plans to abandon the French capital. Their only hope was to drive the Germans out of Belleau Wood somehow, but French commanders dreaded the prospect of such an assault. So they asked General John J. Pershing to do it.

(Reuters) - Russia still has troops in eastern Ukraine and retains a very capable force on the border despite a partial withdrawal, NATO's military commander said on Friday.

"But the force that remains and shows no indications of leaving is still a very, very capable force," said Breedlove, NATO's supreme allied commander Europe.The presence of a "large coercive force" on the Ukraine border was not helpful to progress in implementing the Minsk agreement, he said, referring to a ceasefire agreement between Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels reached in the Belarussian capital last month.

NATO has suspended practical cooperation with Russia in protest against Moscow's annexation of Crimea and its support for the pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Lightly armed, poorly equipped and exhausted by months under fire -- but determined to keep fighting:

reality of life on the front line

Kurdish YPG

WASHINGTON — Russian submarines and spy ships are aggressively operating near the vital undersea cables that carry almost all global Internet communications, raising concerns among some American military and intelligence officials that the Russians might be planning to attack those lines in times of tension or conflict.

While there is no evidence yet of any cable cutting, the concern is part of a growing wariness among senior American and allied military and intelligence officials over the accelerated activity by Russian armed forces around the globe. At the same time, the internal debate in Washington illustrates how the United States is increasingly viewing every Russian move through a lens of deep distrust, reminiscent of relations during the Cold War.

“I’m worried every day about what the Russians may be doing,” said Rear Adm. Frederick J. Roegge, commander of the Navy’s submarine fleet in the Pacific, who would not answer questions about possible Russian plans for cutting the undersea cables.

Writ small, social researchers say, the tussle could foretell a future in which an ever-smaller upper crust will command financial heights far beyond the dreams of lesser mortals, even those who qualify, like many of the folks in Highgate, as pretty well off themselves.

These days, equality campaigners say, 80 immensely rich people have amassed the same wealth as the poorer half of the world’s entire population.

Among the most talked about is a 25-bedroom house called Witanhurst, said to be the second-biggest residential property in London, after Buckingham Palace, a vast pile with vistas over the 800-acre Hampstead Heath.

Pakistan attack: Gunmen kill 19 at Bacha Khan University

One Pakistani Taliban commander said the group had carried out the assault, but its main spokesman denied this.The group killed 130 students at a school in the city of Peshawar, 50km (30 miles) from Charsadda, in 2014.

The attackers struck at about 09:30 local time (04:30 GMT), apparently climbing over a back wall under cover of the thick winter fog.

South Korea and US set for 'largest ever' war games

South Korean defence minister Han Min-koo has said the exercises will be twice the size of last year.

The North responded to the sanctions by saying it was readying nuclear weapons for 'pre-emptive' use, and firing short-range missiles into the sea.Military analysts doubt the country has the ability to put nuclear warheads on its missiles.

Donald Trump has been condemned by many on the left and some on the right as being beyond the pale, a toxic virus that exists on the fringes of the political mainstream. But where do his policy views actually fit when compared to his fellow presidential candidates - and past Republican commanders-in-chief?

Tax-cutting has been a much-loved tune in the Republican hymnal for decades, and this year's crop of candidates are humming along. John Kasich, Donald Trump and Marco Rubio all promise various combinations of capital gains tax cuts, income bracket simplification and lower marginal rates. Mr Rubio's proposal also includes a significant boost to the tax credit given to those with children.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump touts increased spending on national defence as a key part of his "make America great again" programme and generally supports broad government surveillance powers. Marco Rubio does as well, and stakes out the far-right position, promising to boost military spending by $1tn (£710bn) over 10 years.

By April, German chemists had tested a method of releasing chlorine gas from pressurised cylinders and thousands of French Algerian troops were smothered in a ghostly green cloud of chlorine at the second Battle of Ypres.

With no protection, many died from the agonies of suffocation.

Within a few days, the Daily Mail published an editorial lambasting "the cold-blooded deployment of every device of modern science" by the Germans.

Bernie Sanders is mad as hell -- and he's hoping Democratic voters are, too.

Hillary Clinton tied herself tightly with President Barack Obama and argued she'd build on his legacy, as the Democratic presidential contenders clashed Sunday night in Charleston.

Sanders = Trump

Hundreds of human reviewers across the globe, from Romania to Venezuela, listen to audio clips recorded from Amazon Echo speakers, usually without owners’ knowledge

This global review team fine-tunes the Amazon Echo’s software by listening to clips of users asking Alexa questions or issuing commands, and then verifying whether Alexa responded appropriately.

Amazon says these recordings are anonymized, with any identifying information removed, and that each of these recorded exchanges came only after users engaged with the device by uttering the “wake word.”