Chinese buyers are returning to theU.S. housing market after a long lull, but recent efforts by several states to restrict certain foreign purchases could make homebuying harder for them.
Why it matters: Chinese buyers spent $6.1 billion on existing U.S. homes last year, more than any other international homebuyers.
Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced his resignation as a member of Parliament on Friday, claiming in a lengthy statement that the committee investigating him for misleading Parliament during the "partygate" scandal was determined to "drive me out."
Why it matters: Johnson resigned as prime minister last July amid a cascade of scandals, including over social gatherings held in Downing Street in apparent violation of Covid lockdowns. Now he's out as an MP as well — a remarkable downward trajectory for a man who seemed politically untouchable after winning a landslide in 2019.
U.S. and Iranian officials held indirect talks in Oman last month with Omani officials shuttling between their separate rooms to deliver messages, three sources briefed on the issue told Axios.
Why it matters: The “proximity talks,” which haven't been previously reported, represent the first known indirect engagement between the U.S. and Iran in this way in several months. They took place amid growing concerns in the White House about Iran’s nuclear advances.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has decided to postpone next week's scheduled meeting on the highly sensitive settlement plan in the E1 area of the occupied West Bank, two Israeli officials told Axios.
Why it matters: The E1 area between Jerusalem and the Maale Adumim settlement is the most diplomatically sensitive and internationally explosive area in the West Bank. Building an Israeli settlement there would prevent Palestinian territorial contiguity between the northern and southern parts of the West Bank, which would make it much harder to establish a Palestinian state in the future.
The jockeying between candidates and countries over who'll be announced next month as NATO's next secretary-general appears to have reached the Oval Office.
Driving the news: Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, widely seen as a front-runner for the role, visited on Monday. U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak then visited on Thursday and made little secret of the fact that he was lobbying for his defense secretary, Ben Wallace.
