After two years, the war in Gaza appears to be over. Following the Trump administration's active mediation last week, a tenuous ceasefire deal was struck over the weekend, and Israel's hostages have returned home. Of course, only time will tell whether this agreement will truly hold. Even so, it's not too early to draw some preliminary lessons from the conflict that just ended.
The question is no longer whether SpaceX can deliver payloads into orbit; it is whether America’s present, profound dependence on this company could be politically weaponized in the future. The simmering summer-long feud between President Trump and Musk, which largely stemmed from the latter’s objections to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and which saw access to SpaceX used as a key bargaining chip, suggests that the answer to this question is “yes.”
Is the Gaza war truly over? On October 8, President Donald Trump announced that Israel and Hamas had come to terms on a deal to cease hostilities and exchange hostages, something that had been largely unthinkable just weeks prior.
As the economic problems grow, Putin’s government has increased its efforts to distract its population from the extent of the financial and political disaster it has brought upon them. This is evident in the holiday atmosphere that fills its capital city, featuring pop-up gardens, light shows, fountains, and theme parks. Street festivals are the most common form of such celebrations, with over 10,000 events held in Moscow this summer alone.
President Trump is now talking tougher on Ukraine, but the White House clearly still holds out hope that negotiating a just peace between Moscow and Kyiv might be possible. To do that, however, the United States will need to fully grasp how Russia is targeting Ukraine’s future. And it will need to make a return of these innocents a core demand of its approach toward the Kremlin.