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With conflict in the Middle East igniting a powder keg that has set the global energy sector aflame, U.S. allies are feeling the heat.

Unidentified drones were spotted hovering over Fort McNair, a Washington, D.C. military base which houses top Trump administration officials, the latest in a string of strange drone sightings near military sites worldwide.

An Israeli-led airstrike on Iran's South Pars gas field triggered a massive Iranian counterattack on Thursday, with Tehran targeting energy infrastructure across the Gulf with scores of ballistic missiles and drones.

Iran intensified its attacks on oil and natural gas facilities around the Gulf on Thursday, raising the stakes in a war that is sending shock waves through the global economy.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth lashed out at the press and "ungrateful allies in Europe" on Thursday while declaring that the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran has been an overwhelming success.

Indonesia's richest man, Michael Bambang Hartono, who helped turn the Djarum cigarette company into one of the country's largest business empires, died Thursday. He was 86.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is scheduled Thursday to meet with President Trump at the White House as the U.S. commander-in-chief seeks assistance from allies to protect the Strait of Hormuz amid the war against Iran.

Two men appeared in a London court on Thursday accused of carrying out "hostile" surveillance last year of the U.K.'s Jewish community on behalf of Iran.

The Bank of England held its main interest rate at 3.75% on Thursday as the sharp oil and gas price hikes following the start of the Iran war have stoked renewed concerns about inflation.

In the escalating war in Iran, the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs would ordinarily be at the center of the geopolitical fray.