Saudi Arabia has publicly accused the United Arab Emirates – a fellow Gulf Arab state and former partner in the Yemen war – of undermining its national security, an unusually blunt charge that exposes a rift long kept behind closed doors.

The confrontation threatened to open a new front in Yemen’s decadelong war, with forces allied against the Iran-backed Houthis possibly turning their sights on each other in the Arab world’s poorest nation,

Saudi Arabia is starting 2026 with a benchmark-sized dollar bond, as it continues its rapid pace of international borrowing to help fund huge projects meant to diversify the economy from oil.

The kingdom’s 2025 toll of 356 has been reported as a record for Saudi Arabia, beating 2024’s record of 338, by multiple outlets citing an Agence France-Presse tally, which counts numbers from official data released by the Saudi government.

Arguably the biggest upset in World Cup history came courtesy of Saudi Arabia in 2022, taking down eventual champions Argentina in the group stage. The team has made six of the last eight editions of the tournament, even making it to the Round of 16 in 1994. Saudi Arabia has also won three AFC Asian Cups, last doing so in 1996.

After driving for nearly an hour north of Riyadh, the sand dunes start to give way to an emerging metropolis with thousands of newly-built single-family homes stretching over the horizon. They could be part of any American suburb.