
The license nobody signed
In July, the president of the United States announced, from a NATO summit, that Ukraine would get a license to build Patriot missiles. He presented it as a settled thing, a favor, almost a joke, saying Ukraine could no longer complain that Washington was not giving it enough. Three weeks later, at Camp David, the […]

The naval tradition that answered Taiwan’s question
Taiwan asked a question this week, and the answer came back wearing the uniform of a tradition. On Tuesday, China announced that one of its frigates would hold a joint exercise with an Indonesian warship in the sea east of Taiwan. The drill happened the next morning. Taiwan’s foreign ministry asked Indonesia to explain itself. […]

When a Reactor Goes Dark, Its Fuel Keeps Announcing Itself
A nuclear reactor that has been switched off does not go silent. The fuel left inside its core and in the cooling pools beside it keeps decaying for months and years, and every decay releases an antineutrino, a particle so reluctant to interact with matter that it slips through steel, concrete, and water without stopping. […]

The pump outranks the bomb
The war with Iran has had an official reason for six months: the bomb. On Thursday, the vice president of the United States published the real ranking. J.D. Vance, speaking on Fox News, put the aims of the war in order. He said the first goal was keeping oil and gas cheap for Americans across […]

The soldiers replaced the settlers at the door
The siege of Qusra has entered its second phase, and the second phase is worse than the first. For days, Jewish settlers surrounded the homes of Palestinian families in this village south of Nablus, cut them off, and held them inside. Then the American ambassador called the settlers terrorists. Then the army arrived. And the […]

Apple trains its own China AI model with Alibaba, adding a hedge to its Qwen bet
Apple has trained a custom large language model specifically for the Chinese market, with support from Alibaba, according to three people familiar with the matter. The move breaks with Apple’s earlier approach of relying on outside models for its AI features in the country, and it comes as Apple prepares to roll out its on-device […]

