Iran lobbed hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel in April in the hope of changing the rules of engagement: Israel had struck an Iranian consulate in Damascus, and Tehran sought to deter any further such direct actions against its interests. Those hopes were shattered last week when an operation attributed to Israel took out Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political chief, on Iranian soil. Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend the inauguration of President Masud Pezeshkian.

In the past 24 hours, Japanese stocks suffered their worst collapse since the 1987 crash, other Asian markets cratered, tech stocks plummeted, the Dow plunged, and several additional global markets suffered from various synonyms for “fell a lot.”
What’s going on in global markets? Any attempt at an explanation has to start here: Nobody actually understands how markets work. This is not a cop-out. It’s a boring statement of fact.

To some people, the story began in a dusty field, gone wild with invasive grass. It was a story about high winds and sparks turning to flames. It was a story about harrowing escapes and people fleeing in terror, the lucky ones rushing into the ocean as the deadly wildfire devoured an entire town. Those were the stories most people heard. Those were the stories most people told. But those of us who know this place and know its history know there is so much more.

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The spirit of mutual support and sportsmanship can be found throughout the Olympic Games, as evidenced so well in this photo from Bercy Arena today. On the podium, both silver medalist Simone Biles and bronze medalist Jordan Chiles of Team USA playfully bow down to the gold-medal winner, Team Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, as she celebrates her win in the women’s floor exercise.

Back in 2016, when Donald Trump was first performing open-brain surgery on the American psyche, it became common to say that politics had become the new national entertainment. Cable news was a reality show, rallies were WWE matches, and the #Resistance was comparable to the Rebel Alliance. Then, during the Biden administration, the quiet governance of a comparatively boring president seemed to potentially indicate another paradigm shift.