Cambodian lawmakers passed a constitutional amendment that would allow the government to draft legislation seeking to revoke the citizenship of anyone found guilty of conspiring with foreign nations to harm the national interest. The legal move by supporters of Prime Minister Hun Manet, and the first of its kind in Cambodia, was viewed by critics as a way to suppress internal dissent and eliminate political opponents of his administration and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. The change would apply to lifelong Cambodian citizens, people with dual citizenship, and people from other countries who have been granted citizenship.

A senior State Department official said Friday the department is sending layoff notices to 1,107 civil servants and 246 foreign service officers with domestic assignments in the United States. While lauded by President Donald Trump’s administration as overdue and necessary to make the department more efficient, the cuts have been roundly criticized by current and former diplomats. They worry the reorganization plan will weaken U.S. influence and its ability to counter existing and emerging threats abroad. 

President Trump is assessing the catastrophic flooding there that has killed at least 120 people. Despite his past calls to phase out the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Republican president has praised the federal response to the disaster. Mr. Trump plans to tour affected areas by air, meet first responders, and speak with victims’ families. Top members of Trump’s administration have also shifted focus from reducing federal disaster management efforts to addressing the tragedy’s human impact. 

Fighters with a Kurdish separatist militant group that has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkey have begun laying down their weapons in a symbolic ceremony Friday in northern Iraq, the first concrete step toward a promised disarmament as part of a peace process. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, announced in May it would disband and renounce armed conflict, ending four decades of hostilities.