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Uprising’s guest expert Courtney Morris, assistant professor of African American and women’s Studies at Penn State University, analyzes today’s news headlines:

US air strikes in Syria have begun this morning, with a broad array of targets including the training headquarters and checkpoints of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS). Those strikes were undertaken in collaboration with 5 Arab allies, Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Separately the US also struck a second set of Syrian rebels called the Khosaran Group. Today’s strikes represent a clear expansion of the US’s war in northern Iraq, and the New York Times reports that, “The intensity and scale of the strikes were greater than those launched” in Iraq. President Barack Obama emphasized that the strikes were not coordinated with Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, who ISIS has also been fighting. Meanwhile, Iranian President Hassan Al Rouhani, to whom the US was slowly warming, has denounced the strikes as illegal. Click here for a New York Times article about the story.

Israel is also making headlines with respect to Syria this morning. The Israeli military says that for the first time in 4 decades, it shot down a Syrian war plane that flew over the Golan Heights, a territory that Israel has claimed. A Syrian drone was shot down by Israelis a month ago. Meanwhile, Israeli forces this morning assassinated two men affiliated with Hamas, claiming they were responsible for the kidnapping of the three Israeli teens, whose deaths were used to justify Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. The two men were fatally shot in Hebron. Click here for a Washington Post article about the downing of the plane and here for another Washington Post article about the killing of Hamas operatives.

In domestic news, the US Treasury has announced it will make it harder for American businesses to move their profits overseas in an effort to avoid paying taxes. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said because of Congressional inaction on offshore tax havens, the Obama administration would move forward to regulate so-called “corporate inversions.” But even some Democrats felt the regulations were far too weak to do much. For one thing, they would only apply to new deals. Click here for a New York Times article about the story.