Lebanon’s parliament failed to elect a new president on Wednesday, with no candidate securing the two-thirds of the votes needed to win and many lawmakers leaving their ballots blank.

A senior Egyptian police officer was killed by a bomb placed under his car in a western Cairo suburb Wednesday, the latest in a series of targeted attacks on police and the military as Islamic militant groups keep up a campaign of violence since last summer’s ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Russia issued a sharp warning on Wednesday that it will strike back if its “legitimate interests” in Ukraine are attacked, raising the stakes in the Cold War-like duel with the United States over the former Soviet republic’s future.