The new hour began on the water, not beneath the chandeliers. A ship anchored off the United Arab Emirates was seized and taken toward Iranian waters on Thursday, while another cargo ship near Oman sank after an attack, according to maritime authorities cited by the Associated Press. The identities of the attackers were not immediately clear. The timing was clearer: the incidents landed as President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping were trying to make the Beijing summit look like proof that the world's two largest economies can still manage their arguments.

The Strait of Hormuz has become the part of the map that makes every communique sound provisional. Before the Iran war, roughly a fifth of the world's oil moved through that waterway. Now the AP reports that the strait has been effectively closed since the conflict began on Feb. 28, while Reuters-linked market coverage shows Brent crude above $105 a barrel and U.S. stocks pretending, with some success, that expensive oil can be metabolized by AI profits.

Trump told Fox News that Xi offered to help end the Iran war and reopen Hormuz. The White House said both sides agreed the strait must remain open. That is useful language, but it is not yet a corridor, a convoy, an inspection regime, or a ceasefire. China has reasons to want movement: it is a major buyer of Iranian oil, and high energy costs eat into the global consumer demand on which Chinese factories still depend. It also has reasons not to become Washington's subcontractor. Beijing's leverage with Tehran is real, but spending it on American terms would be a policy choice, not a reflex.

Xi used the same summit to issue a blunt Taiwan warning. Chinese officials said he told Trump that mishandling Taiwan could produce clashes or even conflict. Trump, in public, leaned into flattery and personal warmth. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said U.S. policy toward Taiwan was unchanged and warned that a forcible Chinese move would be a terrible mistake. The dissonance was the story: public friendship, private alarm, unresolved commitments.

There were trade ornaments as well. Trump said Xi had indicated China would buy 200 Boeing jets. The leaders discussed agriculture, market access, Chinese investment in U.S. industry, fentanyl precursor chemicals and a proposed board of trade. These are not small matters. Soybeans and aircraft can anchor a summit in numbers. But this hour belonged less to deliverables than to the problem of enforcement. A promised purchase is not a reopened strait. A toast is not a Taiwan doctrine.

Markets chose optimism, or at least momentum. The Dow closed above 50,000, the S&P 500 finished over 7,500 and the Nasdaq reached another record, helped by Nvidia, Cisco and the latest roar around AI infrastructure. That rally is not irrational. It is merely narrow, and it is occurring beside a geopolitical bill that has not been presented in full.

The Beijing visit may still yield concrete announcements before Trump returns to Washington. But the summit's center of gravity has already shifted. Xi wanted Taiwan treated as the core question. Trump wanted proof that his personal diplomacy could unlock trade, oil and peace. Hormuz supplied the sharper headline. Ships were seized, oil stayed dear, and the ceremonial language of great-power management had to compete with the old maritime fact: whoever can make passage uncertain can command the hour.

The Beijing summit gave both governments the photographs they wanted: handshakes, flags, a Temple of Heaven walk, a state banquet, and a public vocabulary of stability. Then Taiwan returned to the room.

Chinese officials said Xi Jinping warned Donald Trump that Taiwan remains the most important issue in the relationship and that poor handling of it could put the entire relationship in jeopardy. The warning was notable less because Beijing's position changed than because it arrived inside an event designed to lower the temperature. Trump praised Xi personally. Xi accepted the choreography, then restated the red line.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio tried to narrow the drama, telling NBC News that U.S. policy toward Taiwan was unchanged and that Washington always makes its position clear before moving to other topics. That formula is meant to preserve ambiguity: the United States helps Taiwan defend itself without formally recognizing it as independent. But ambiguity is not the same as calm. The Trump administration has approved an $11 billion arms package for Taiwan, though AP reports it has not yet begun fulfilling it. Trump has also pressed Taiwan on defense spending and semiconductor investment.

The White House readout emphasized economic cooperation and Iran rather than Taiwan. That omission is its own signal. Both sides appear to know that the Taiwan question can overwhelm trade mechanics quickly. Beijing wants it named as the core of the relationship. Washington wants to keep it one issue among many. Taipei, meanwhile, publicly thanked Washington for long-term support after the meeting.

So the summit's actual result may be a familiar one: not resolution, but sharper knowledge of the danger. The two leaders left the cameras with warm words. The island left with the same question it had before: whether U.S. support remains durable when Beijing turns a diplomatic warning into a test.

Russia's latest large-scale attack on Ukraine was measured less by a single blast than by duration and volume. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow fired at least 800 drones across about 20 regions on Wednesday, killing at least six people and wounding dozens, including children, according to AP reporting from Kyiv.

The attack stretched across Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa and other population centers. Critical infrastructure was targeted. The point, Zelenskyy said, was to overload Ukrainian air defenses. That phrase has become the grim operating logic of the war: force defenders to spend interceptors, exhaust crews, expose gaps, then threaten missiles after the drones have done their first job.

The barrage followed talk by Vladimir Putin and Trump about possible peace and came shortly after a U.S.-mediated ceasefire expired. The political sequencing matters. Russia is signaling that negotiations, pauses and public diplomacy do not require it to stop testing Ukraine's defensive capacity. Ukraine is signaling that without sustained air-defense supply, every discussion of peace arrives under engines overhead.

The European dimension is tightening again. Reuters reported that Poland scrambled fighter jets during the earlier wave, and the attack reached western Ukraine near NATO territory. That does not make it a NATO war. It does mean that the alliance's eastern edge is once again being asked to absorb risk created by Russia's tactics.

The war's calendar is now four years old. Its method is not stale. Drone saturation has turned into a daily strategic instrument: cheap enough to repeat, heavy enough to terrorize cities, and politically useful because it can be paired with peace talk rather than replacing it. That is why this attack belongs near the top of the page. It shows what the negotiations have not yet altered.

The Supreme Court on Thursday preserved access to mifepristone, the drug used in the most common method of abortion in the United States, while a challenge from Louisiana continues in lower courts.

The order blocks lower-court restrictions that would have required in-person doctor visits and halted mail delivery of the pill. AP reports that patients can continue obtaining mifepristone at pharmacies or through the mail without an in-person appointment, and that access is likely to remain uninterrupted at least into next year while the litigation proceeds.

The case comes from Louisiana's attempt to roll back Food and Drug Administration rules on how mifepristone can be prescribed. The FDA first approved the drug for abortion in 2000 and stopped requiring in-person visits five years ago. Louisiana argues the policy undermines its abortion ban and challenges the drug's safety, even though FDA scientists have repeatedly deemed it safe and effective.

The court's emergency order was not unanimous. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented. Alito, who wrote the opinion overturning Roe v. Wade, sided rhetorically with Louisiana's claim that out-of-state prescribing frustrates the state's ban.

The ruling is temporary in the legal sense and immediate in the practical one. For abortion providers and patients, the question this week was not a grand constitutional theory. It was whether a common medication would remain available by the channels that now define much of post-Roe abortion care: telehealth, pharmacies and mail.

That status quo survived Thursday. The broader fight did not end. Anti-abortion groups are pressing the Trump administration and FDA for a faster review that could produce new restrictions. The court gave access time, not peace.

Kevin Warsh has the title. Jerome Powell still has a chair in the building. That is the first complication in the new Federal Reserve era.

The Senate confirmed Warsh, President Trump's pick, as Fed chair in a largely party-line 54-45 vote. He will replace Powell at a moment AP fairly describes as fraught: inflation has remained above the Fed's 2% target, energy prices have risen with the Iran war, and the rate-setting committee has already shown unusual division.

Warsh, 56, is a former Fed governor and financier with the resume of a conventional central banker and the political burden of an unconventional appointment. Trump has demanded lower interest rates and repeatedly attacked Powell for resisting deep cuts. Warsh once built a reputation as an inflation hawk, but more recently has argued that artificial intelligence and productivity gains can support stronger growth without reigniting prices. Markets will now test whether that is a theory, a forecast or a permission slip.

Powell's decision to remain on the Fed's governing board after his chair term ends matters. His governor term runs until 2028. AP reports that he cited the administration's attacks on Fed independence in explaining the unusual move. That could give Warsh a former chair in the room as the committee debates whether expensive oil is a temporary shock or a broader inflation channel.

The clean story would be Trump gets his Fed chair and rates fall. The actual story is messier. Oil is expensive, the dollar and bond yields are not ceremonial objects, and the Fed's credibility depends on persuading households and markets that it still reacts to data more than presidential preference. Warsh may soon discover that inheriting Powell's job is easier than escaping Powell's problem.

Wall Street had every reason to blink: oil above $100, an Iran war still distorting inflation, a U.S.-China summit loaded with Taiwan and trade risk, and a new Fed chair arriving under political pressure. Instead, it bought the AI story again.

The Dow closed above 50,000 on Thursday, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq set fresh records. Reuters reported the S&P finished at 7,501.24 and the Nasdaq at 26,635.22. Nvidia rose 4.4% after the United States cleared sales of its H200 chips to Chinese firms. Cisco jumped 13.4% after stronger results and a forecast lift. Cerebras surged more than 68% in its Nasdaq debut.

The impressive part is not that technology rose. It is that the rally absorbed contradictions. Reuters noted that gasoline helped lift import prices and that inflation reports this week have reduced hope for near-term Federal Reserve cuts. Cisco, meanwhile, paired AI optimism with restructuring: roughly 4,000 jobs, about 5% of its workforce, and a $1 billion charge, according to Investing.com citing company details.

This is the market's current bargain with itself. AI infrastructure spending is treated as a secular force large enough to outrun cyclical pain. Chips, networking and data-center suppliers get valued as toll collectors on a new economy. Oil, war and interest-rate risk are treated as weather unless they directly break earnings.

That bargain can work for a while. It may even be right on direction. But it is narrow and expensive. A market that can celebrate record highs while energy shocks bleed into inflation is not necessarily carefree. It is concentrated. When investors say AI can pay for everything, they are also saying a smaller set of companies must now pay for almost everyone's confidence.

The trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI has reached the moment when old emails, founding ideals and present valuations are asked to fit inside a jury verdict.

Lawyers for Musk and OpenAI made closing arguments Thursday in Oakland, California. Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI, sued in 2024, accusing CEO Sam Altman and other leaders of betraying an original nonprofit mission and shifting the company into a money-making structure behind his back. OpenAI denies that account and says Musk knew of and supported plans to create a for-profit arm that could still support the organization's mission.

The legal questions are narrower than the mythology. Jurors must decide whether Musk filed in time, whether there was a charitable trust that OpenAI broke, whether Altman and Greg Brockman unjustly enriched themselves at Musk's expense, and whether Microsoft aided any breach. AP reports Musk invested $38 million in OpenAI in its early years. Microsoft later became OpenAI's biggest investor.

The courtroom language has been unusually personal. Musk's side attacked Altman's credibility. OpenAI's lawyer argued Musk had misrepresented the company's founding and wanted dominion over artificial general intelligence. The judge also corrected Musk's side after a dispute over whether he was seeking money; AP reports the judge said the claim still involved billions of dollars of disgorgement to fund OpenAI's charitable arm.

The stakes are not just reputational. AP reports OpenAI, Musk's AI company and Anthropic are all moving toward planned initial public offerings expected to be among the largest ever. A Musk win could threaten OpenAI's IPO plans.

The trial is therefore doing two things at once. It is adjudicating claims. It is also putting the AI industry's favorite origin story on public display: altruism, control, money, safety and power all insisting they were there first.

Cannes opened like a festival aware that glamour alone no longer explains the business. The 79th edition began Tuesday with politics, artificial intelligence and Hollywood's shifting priorities on stage, according to AP. Peter Jackson received an honorary Palme d'Or, introduced by Elijah Wood, while Jane Fonda declared cinema an act of resistance.

The line is easy to overuse. This year it sounds less like decoration than positioning. Cannes is leaning into the symbolic authority of cinema just as the economics around it grow more cautious. Reuters reported that the festival's film market opened with record attendance, but with buyers circling mostly smaller productions as studios become more risk averse. That is the industry in miniature: fewer giant bets, more careful acquisition, and endless talk about whether AI is tool, threat or excuse.

The old Cannes mythology still works. Jackson, not exactly a tiny-cinema figure, was treated as a master craftsman rather than just a blockbuster maker. Guillermo del Toro returned with a restoration of Pan's Labyrinth, 20 years after its celebrated Cannes reception. The festival can still turn memory into currency.

But the interesting note is not nostalgia. It is the way Cannes is presenting itself as a shelter for authorship at the same time the market is asking what sort of films can still travel, sell and survive. Hollywood's retreat does not make the festival purer. It makes the sales floor more nervous and the rhetoric more intense.

That tension is useful. Cannes has always been both church and bazaar. This year the church is preaching resistance while the bazaar counts smaller checks. Somehow, that may be the honest version of the movies now.

FIFA has discovered the Super Bowl, which is to say FIFA has discovered that the biggest sporting event on Earth was apparently insufficiently gigantic.

The 2026 World Cup final at MetLife Stadium will include a halftime show headlined by Madonna, Shakira and BTS, AP reports. The show will support a Global Citizen education fund, with Coldplay's Chris Martin curating. Good causes will be invoked, fireworks will be implied, and nobody should pretend this is merely an entertainment booking.

This is the World Cup accepting American event logic on American soil: the match is not enough; the interval must become inventory. Every pause becomes a platform. Every platform becomes a sponsorship atmosphere. Every sponsorship atmosphere acquires moral language, because pure commerce sounds impolite when it is wearing a flag.

The lineup is hilariously exact. Madonna supplies imperial pop memory, Shakira supplies World Cup muscle memory, and BTS supplies planetary fandom logistics. There is no aesthetic argument here beyond scale. The show is designed to be unavoidable across generations, languages and algorithms.

Soccer purists will complain, and some of them will be right in the narrow sense. A World Cup final has no need of imported Super Bowl grammar. Its suspense is already operatic. But FIFA is not protecting suspense; it is maximizing attention. The modern sports body does not ask whether something is sacred. It asks how many surfaces the sacred can illuminate.

So yes, the halftime show will probably be spectacular. It will also mark the moment when the World Cup final stopped pretending it was only a match. That pretense had been dying for decades. FIFA is simply putting it on stage.

Diplomacy needs theater. The trouble begins when theater starts receiving credit for the treaty.

Trump's Beijing visit was built for images of mastery: the welcome ceremony, the banquet, the walk, the list of possible purchases, the suggestion that two large men in two large systems can sort the hour by personal chemistry. Xi played his part with precision and then issued the Taiwan warning that mattered more than the choreography. Hormuz, meanwhile, supplied its own brutal edit: one ship seized, another sunk, and oil still expensive.

The White House says the United States and China agree that the strait must remain open. Of course they do. So does nearly every importer, insurer, shipping firm and commuter buying gasoline. Agreement on the desired noun is not the same as control over the verb.

The hard question is what China is willing to ask of Iran, what Iran is willing to trade for maritime de-escalation, and what Trump is willing to concede without calling it concession. Beijing has leverage, but not magic. Washington has force, but not infinite tolerance for $100-plus oil. Tehran has disruption, but that too is a diminishing asset if it converts sympathy into blame.

This is why the summit should be judged by passages, not adjectives. Are ships moving? Are insurers repricing risk downward? Are crude benchmarks falling for reasons more durable than rumor? Is Taiwan more secure after the meeting, or merely more politely discussed?

The pageant may still produce useful work. A deal can be born after a banquet. But peace is not a photograph and confidence is not a toast. In this hour, the strait told the truth more plainly than either podium did.