The Trump administration wants to use a crisis over Hamas militants who got "stuck" in tunnels behind Israeli lines in Gaza to develop a model for disarming the group, two U.S. officials with knowledge of the issue tell Axios.
Why it matters: Convincing Hamas militants to lay down their weapons is the most sensitive issue in President Trump's Gaza peace plan.
UN Ambassador Mike Waltz met Tuesday with Palestinian diplomats in New York to discuss the draft Security Council resolution put forth by the U.S. to authorize an international security force in Gaza, three sources with knowledge of the meeting tell Axios.
Why it matters: The meeting was a rare engagement between the U.S. and the Palestinian Authority on plans for post-war Gaza.
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered officials Wednesday to submit proposals to possibly resume nuclear tests, days after President Trump's surprise directive for the U.S. to end its moratorium on the practice.
Incredible amounts of U.S. firepowerare coalescing in the Caribbean as President Trump plays geopolitical chicken with Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.
The big picture: U.S. Southern Command, which is executing Trump's strikes and would oversee operations in Venezuela, is now at the heart of the action after decades of Pentagon priority paid to the Middle East and Indo-Pacific.
Hamas returned to Israel on Tuesday the body of U.S.-Israeli hostage Itay Chen as part of the agreement to end the war in Gaza.
The big picture: Chen was the last U.S. hostage held in Gaza. The return of his body ended the most serious U.S. hostage crisis since the takeover of the embassy in Tehran in 1979.
President Trump claimed on Tuesday that the U.S. would be "virtually defenseless" against other nations if the Supreme Court strikes down a slew of tariffs.
Why it matters: Trump's comments come just one day before the highest court will hear oral arguments challenging the legality of a key part of his economic agenda.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney was at the center of foreign policy debates in every Republican administration from Gerald Ford to George W. Bush, but virtually no one in today's GOP would openly associate themselves with his worldview.
The big picture:Cheney, who died Monday at 84, will be remembered as one of the driving forces behind the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. He continued to insist the invasion was "the right thing to do" as recently as 2018, but a vanishingly small number of active politicians from either party agree.
President Trump attacked Jewish supporters of Democratic New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani on Tuesday, calling them "stupid" in a last-minute push to influence Election Day turnout.
Why it matters: Trump has a history of insulting Jewish Democrats for their beliefs, making comments that some civil rights groups allege are antisemitic.
