Axios

French forces responded on Thursday night to unknown drones flying over a military base that hosts nuclear-armed submarines, a French official confirmed to Axios.

The big picture: This is the latest in a string of mysterious incursions into high-security European airspace. The incidents have sparked suspicions of Russian hybrid warfare — but Moscow has not been directly implicated and little is known thus far about the incident in western France.

President Trump said winning the first-ever FIFA Peace Prize was "truly one of the great honors" of his life at the 2026 World Cup Draw on Friday.

Why it matters: The largely symbolic prize comes months after the president lost his bid for the Nobel Peace Prize despite leaning heavily into foreign diplomacy in his second term.

U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators are holding a second day of talks in Miami around President Trump's peace plan on Friday, U.S. and Ukrainian officials say.

Why it matters: While the Ukrainian and Russian public positions appear irreconcilable, U.S. officials continue to believe compromise could be within reach even on the most sensitive issue of territory.

Top Trump administration officials on Friday decried the European Commission's nearly $140 million (€120 million) fine on Elon Musk's X for violating its moderation law.

Why it matters: The penalty sets up a potential showdown with the Trump administration, which has criticized Europe's content digital market laws as "overseas extortion."

The Trump administration blamed much of America's and the world's current woes on immigration in an explosive new national security document that accuses Europe of undermining peace in Ukraine and China of ripping off the U.S.

Why it matters: The National Security Strategy, released Friday morning, asserts a "'Trump Corollary' to the Monroe Doctrine" that declares the U.S. will assert its political, economic and military will across the Western Hemisphere.

Lawmakers are demanding the Pentagon release additional documents and details on a second strike in the Caribbean that killed shipwrecked survivors on an alleged drug boat following Thursday's briefings from the admiral involved.

Why it matters: The possibility that the strike violated international maritime law and America's own rules of war has reignited calls for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to resign.

Sierra, which builds custom AI agents for enterprise customer service, is expanding to Japan, backed by a new investment from Softbank's Vision Fund 2, co-founders Clay Bavor and Bret Taylor announced at Axios' AI+ Summit in San Francisco on Thursday.

The big picture: AI agents are a hot topic in 2025 — though they've been Sierra's focus from the start. And it has seen rapid growth since its launch last year.

President Trump on Thursday signed a peace deal to end the war in eastern Congo and used the moment to advance another priority: securing U.S. access to critical minerals.

The big picture: The Trump administration has aggressively pursued rare earth minerals and magnets overseas — vital for everything from the production of vehicles to nuclear weapons — after China threatened U.S. access.

President Trump plans to announce before Christmas that the Gaza peace process is moving into its second phase and to unveil the new governance structure for the enclave, according to two U.S. officials and a Western source directly involved in the process.

Why it matters: The fragile ceasefire in Gaza is the biggest foreign policy achievement of Trump's second term so far, and his administration wants to proceed to the second phase to avoid sliding back into war.

The Defense Department is considering publicly releasing video footage of the second strike on an alleged drug boat on Sept. 2, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Reporting on the follow-up attack, which killed two survivors of the first strike, has launched Democratic accusations of war crimes and even bipartisan congressional inquiries.

President Trump declared an end to the war in eastern Congo on Thursday at a signing ceremony alongside Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi and Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

Reality check: The agreement is largely aspirational, and the early signals are ominous. While Trump described the decades-old conflict as "the eighth war that we've ended," there's been fighting just this week between forces aligned with the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth put U.S. operations and troops at risk during a strike in Yemen by sending sensitive information to a Signal groupchat on an unapproved device, a Pentagon watchdog concluded in a long-awaited report.

Why it matters: The March bombshell from the The Atlantic that its editor-in-chief was inadvertently included in a Trump administration Signal chat on airstrikes in Yemen has haunted Hegseth and sparked questions about his handling of sensitive information for months.

A year of upheaval in the U.S. Foreign Service has left a beleaguered workforce struggling to advance the country's diplomatic goals, according to a new survey by the American Foreign Service Association.

Why it matters: The survey paints a grim picture of life in the diplomatic corps since President Trump's administration dismantled key federal agencies and cut thousands of jobs.

Antisemitism in the U.S. has hardened into a "durable" new normal as fewer Americans feel any obligation to push back, according to a sweeping new survey shared first with Axios.

Why it matters: The findings suggest the spike in antisemitism that began in 2023 is not a passing wave but a plateau.

President Trump said Wednesday he supports the release of any video footage of a strike on a suspected drug boat in the Caribbean following a report alleging that the U.S. military issued an order to kill two survivors.

The big picture: Trump defended U.S. military strikes on suspected drug boats as reporters asked him at the White House about the alleged incident near Venezuela in September that has prompted congressional investigations into the legality of the action.