What happened
Joint U.S. and Saudi Arabian airstrikes on Iran-backed militia positions in Iraq have intensified fears that the Middle East conflict is entering a more dangerous phase. At least 20 fighters from Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces were killed in the attacks, while Iran responded by firing missiles at U.S. military bases in Jordan. “We are going to be hitting them very hard because it’s our turn,” President Donald Trump said Wednesday before the U.S. military launched what it called a “heavy wave of strikes” in Iran. 

Who said what
The “scope of the war” in the Middle East has now “widened,” The New York Times said. Iran-linked groups across the region have “opened new fronts and reopened old ones, drawing in forces in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan”.

“This is a war in search of a rationale,” Rep. Kevin Mullin (D-Calif.) told CNN. “We’re losing lives and we’re not going to be any closer to real peace in the Middle East.”

What next?
It is now impossible to know how Tehran will respond because it views this conflict as an existential struggle, said H.A. Hellyer, a Middle East expert at the Royal United Services Institute. The region has entered “uncharted territory.”

What happened
The Federal Reserve Bank yesterday held its benchmark interest rate steady. But it “left the door open” to future rate changes “if inflation remains elevated,” said NPR. By a vote of 9-3, the bank’s rate-setting committee left short-term borrowing rates “in a range between 3.5% and 3.75%.” Holding the rate steady will impact the “cost of credit throughout the economy,” including for “auto loans, business financing and credit cards.”

Who said what
The split vote shows Fed officials have “splintered over how the central bank should tackle elevated inflation,” said The New York Times. “Pressure is building” at the Fed to “act on inflation that has run above its target for five years,” said The Wall Street Journal. The no-votes have “underscored officials’ fraying patience with looking past another price shock” amid tariff and AI-related market turbulence.

What next?
That three policymakers voted to increase the rates suggests, said The Times, that, “in the coming months”, the debate among economists “will center not on whether the central bank will lift borrowing costs, but when.”

If navigating an airport with your partner has caused an argument, you may want to try an airport divorce.

Contrary to the name, it’s not an actual divorce or breakup but a decision by a couple that they will go their separate ways at the airport to tackle preflight activities and tasks before reuniting to fly together. The separation can keep stress to a minimum and allow both people to regulate their emotions before a trip.

At the airport, “we transmute, werewolf-like, into unrecognizable beings,” journalist Huw Oliver, who coined the term “airport divorce,” said in a column for The Times in 2025. Airport divorces are ideal for people who have different travel styles. 

Despite its name, airport divorce is “remarkably domestic,” said Travel Noire. Giving each other “space during the part of a trip that exposes every difference in timing, hunger, anxiety and tolerance for crowds” can make travel more peaceful.

Science supports it. One person’s tension and stress can spread to the people they are traveling with through “interpersonal physiological synchrony,” which can lead to the “coupling of autonomic nervous system signals such as heart rate,” said an article in Nature Reviews Psychology.

While there are benefits to an airport divorce, it may not be for everyone. It works best for “experienced travelers who communicate well and understand each other’s habits,” said Travel Noire. “In that stretch between check-in and takeoff,” said Yahoo, “sometimes a separation is the key to appreciating each other’s company again.”