President Bashar al-Assad, who wielded fear and force over Syria for more than two decades, fled the country under the cover of night — and a fake political address.

© David Guttenfelder/The New York Times

Lithuania’s national opera house had stopped showing Tchaikovsky’s 1892 masterpiece in solidarity with Ukraine over the war with Russia. Then a new minister expressed fondness for the Russian composer, igniting a furor.

© Andrej Vasilenko for The New York Times

Losing Syrian military bases would hurt the Kremlin’s attempts to project power in the Middle East and Africa.

© David Guttenfelder/The New York Times

The Russian president, in a marathon annual news conference, said that he had not yet met with Bashar al-Assad, the ousted Syrian leader who fled to Moscow, but that he planned to.

© Maxim Shemetov/Reuters

With Germany and France both in political turmoil, the new administration of Donald J. Trump will begin at a time of instability for the continent.

© James Hill for The New York Times

Ukraine’s forces are steadily losing ground on the battlefield. The assassination of a top general in Moscow won’t improve their war effort, analysts and Western officials say.

© Associated Press

It’s easier for governments to restrict freedom of expression than it is to fix material conditions.

The war is entering what could be its final phase. What happens next?

The Chinese leader is digging into the language of revolution, and a radical Russian novel, as he prepares for battle with Donald Trump.

The Chinese leader is digging into the language of revolution, and a radical Russian novel, as he prepares for battle with Donald Trump.

After fiber-optic cables under the Baltic Sea were cut last month, European officials hurried to stop the Yi Peng 3. It’s still at anchor there, with no update on three nations’ investigation.

What will the president-elect do with them?

As a new reality in Syria sets in, a reordering of regional power dynamics is already taking shape.

Understanding the factors that led to the Syrian regime’s collapse is key to putting the pieces of the country back together.

Nuclear war in space could have catastrophic consequences for life on Earth. President-elect Trump must do everything in his power to prevent it.

This time, when Bashar al-Assad started to fall, Russia was not there to catch him.

It is hard not to worry that Syrians’ sense of deep relief today could be followed by a new set of horrors tomorrow.

President-elect Donald J. Trump threatened to impose tariffs on countries that seek to replace the dollar in trade or undermine its global reserve currency status.

No shockwave. No mushroom cloud. But a space nuke would change life on Earth forever.

Protecting land and appointing judges could go a long way toward bolstering Biden’s legacy.

The President-elect is demanding the so-called BRICS countries pledge fealty to the greenback, or risk a new wave of tariffs.

When President Biden visits Angola on Monday, he will promote a rail project meant to show America’s commitment to the continent and to counter Chinese influence.

The devastating outcome of the 1983 game reveals that nuclear escalation inevitably spirals out of control.

When President Biden visits Angola on Monday, he will promote a rail project meant to show America’s commitment to the continent and to counter Chinese influence.

In Angola on likely his last overseas trip in office, the president will tour a slavery museum and spotlight a rail corridor that is part of his administration’s strategy in the region.

The world is braced for disruption from the president-elect, but he may find more common ground with President Biden than many assume.

Multiple countries are investigating and the authorities in Europe say they have not ruled out sabotage. But U.S. intelligence officials have assessed that the cables were not cut deliberately.

The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said hackers listened to phone calls and read texts by exploiting aging equipment and seams in the networks that connect systems.

President-elect Donald J. Trump is considering nominees who fit more comfortably within his often erratic worldview, in which deal-making reigns over ideology.