"New US sanctions on Russia are the strongest yet against Russia. The point of new Russia sanctions on five major energy firms is to 'shut down' Russia's deepwater, shale, and Arctic exploration, according to one senior US official."

"In line with President Obama's strategy to 'systematically degrade, dismantle and defeat' the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Treasury Department said Wednesday that it plans to up its pressure on the terror group's oil sales."

"As Ukraine looks like a country teetering on the edge of war, there's an important factor to keep an eye on: The country's 15 nuclear reactors."

"As tensions mount and U.S. lawmakers push for stiffer sanctions on Russia for its role in the Ukraine crisis, oil giant ExxonMobil wants no part of it."

"GENEVA -- U.N.-mandated human rights investigators said Wednesday that they believed the Syrian government dropped the chemical agent chlorine on civilian areas on eight different occasions in April."

"Since the 2001 anthrax letter attacks that killed five people and raised the specter of bioterrorism in the United States, the number of high-level biosafety labs operated by governments, universities and others to study potentially lethal pathogens has been expanding rapidly. According to a 2013 report to Congress, the number of these labs grew by almost 10 percent, from 1,362 to 1,495, between 2008 and 2010 alone."

"THE HAGUE, The Netherlands – All 581 metric tonnes of a precursor chemical for sarin gas that were removed from the Syrian Arab Republic and loaded onto the U.S. Maritime Vessel Cape Ray in early July, have been destroyed with neutralization technology aboard the ship while sailing in international waters of the Mediterranean Sea."

"Kurdish and Iraqi forces seized control of Iraq’s largest dam from Islamic State militants as the U.S. deployed air power that helped reverse some gains made by the Sunni-Muslim insurgents in the north."

"More than 1,100 laboratory incidents involving bacteria, viruses and toxins that pose significant or bioterror risks to people and agriculture were reported to federal regulators during 2008 through 2012, government reports obtained by USA TODAY show."

"BAGHDAD — The crisis gripping Iraq escalated rapidly on Thursday with a re-energized Islamic State in Iraq and Syria storming new towns in the north and seizing a strategic dam as Iraq’s most formidable military force, the Kurdish pesh merga, was routed in the face of the onslaught."