Memo

Briefing: Saudi Arabia’s first strikes on Iranian militias, while pushing the U.S. to end the war. A Russian cruise missile in a Polish field, 100 kilometers over the border. + Can Europe’s booming defense industry save its dying factories?

Briefing: Why the U.S. is buying its attack drones from Ukraine. A pause in its bombing of Iran, over the objections of Israel’s prime minister. + Why can’t the Pentagon make what Ukraine makes?

Briefing: War spreads to the Red Sea. Sanctions hit the Russian stock market. + Has politics really killed the humanities in America?

Briefing: In Nicaragua, why an 80-year-old president is clearing the way to hand power to his wife. In Iran, the truce the regime is secretly pushing for—and still swears it doesn’t need. + Why hasn’t Ukraine collapsed into autocracy?

Briefing: An election the U.S.-installed government in Caracas has agreed to hold—and would rather not. Russia’s grain and Ukraine’s ports, each in the other’s sights. + Why have buildings gotten so ugly?

Briefing: A campaign to take apart the world’s war-crimes court. An Ebola outbreak with four in five new cases unlinked to any known patient. + More and more countries are banning kids from social media. Will it work?

Briefing: Ninety American targets over one night, and an unsettled question of who collects at the Strait of Hormuz. A president-elect’s call for Colombian soldiers to disobey the man still in office. + Why is the U.S. government going so easy on white-collar crime?

Briefing: Iran’s supreme leader, missing from his father’s funeral—as from everything. The first Western leader in post-dictatorship Syria, with two bombs, a block from the hotel. + Do America’s biggest media platforms really change minds?

Briefing: The trade pact America won’t renew—or give up on. In South Africa, migrants driven out by a deadline with no force of law. + Why is Turkey’s government moving so hard to kill off its opposition?

Briefing: Two Talibans vs. Pakistan. An Ebola strain with no vaccine. + What are Pakistan’s ruling generals getting from a war they can’t win, anyway?