Watch Live: SpaceX Starship Prepares For 11th Test Flight With Heatshield Stress Test, Orbital Demos
SpaceX is targeting a one-hour test flight of its Starship megarocket, with the launch window opening at 7:15 p.m. ET. This marks the 11th test flight, expanding on the success of the previous mission with a focus on data collection, heatshield stress testing, and orbital demonstrations, such as deployment of eight Starlink simulators.
Starship Flight 11 aims to build on the momentum from SpaceX’s latest and most successful launch of the year in August. That mission, the fourth of 2025 and tenth overall since 2023, signals continued progress as Elon Musk’s rocket company seeks to accelerate the development of the fully reusable megarocket designed to carry humans and cargo to the Moon, Mars, and beyond.
On track for today’s Starship flight test. The launch window is from 6:15 p.m. CT – 7:30 p.m. CT. Live coverage starts ~30 minutes before launch https://t.co/TSvQZvzB8b
Mission Goals: Build on Flight 10’s success, focusing on:
Data collection for the next-generation Super Heavy booster
Heatshield stress tests
Return-to-launch-site maneuver simulations
Flight Safety: SpaceX continues coordination with the FAA and international air traffic authorities to minimize disruptions. During Flight 10, affected airspace reopened within 7–9 minutes.
Super Heavy Booster:
Reused from Flight 8, with 24 Raptor engines.
Will perform a new landing burn configuration with 13 engines igniting, then shifting to five during the divert phase, and finishing with three center engines for hover and splashdown.
The booster will not return to Starbase but instead splash down in the Gulf of Mexico to collect data on engine transitions and real-world dynamics.
Starship Upper Stage:
Conducts in-space objectives, including deploying eight Starlink simulators (same size as next-gen satellites).
Includes an in-space Raptor relight test.
Tiles have been intentionally removed to stress-test unprotected areas during reentry.
Will execute a dynamic banking maneuver and subsonic guidance test before a controlled splashdown in the Indian Ocean.
Ahead of launch, cryptocurrency-based prediction market Polymarket shows…
Syria Set To Allow Russia To Keep Its Strategic Military Bases In Country
Since the fall of longtime Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in December of last year, which has since drastically changed Syria into a hardline Sunni state no longer aligned with Tehran or Moscow, Russia’s military began slowly moving its military assets from the region, essentially packing up its bases.
Moscow has been seeking to negotiate with the new regime regime in Damascus to keep its two historic bases on the coast, especially the naval base at Tartus, which was for decades Russia’s only deep-water Mediterranean naval port.
Behind the scenes negotiations have seem stalled for months, with little news, however, on Monday Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov weighed in after being silent on the issue. Khmeimim Air Base has lately played host to thousands of Alawite and Christian refugees being persecuted by Sunni radicals, including by government Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) troops.
Lavrov made clear that the Sharaa government is looking favorably on allowing Russia to keep its military presence on the coast, but under the guise of a more humanitarian and logistics purpose.
“Syria would like to maintain Russian military bases in the country, but may repurpose them for different tasks amid new realities, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said during a meeting with journalists from Arab countries,” according to TASS.
“The Syrian side is interested in maintaining our military bases there. As our president has repeatedly said, we will be guided by Syria’s interests in this matter,” he emphasized. “It is clear that under the new circumstances, these bases may play a different role, not just as military outposts,” Lavrov added.
“In particular, given the need to establish humanitarian flows to Africa, these may be sea and air bases serving as humanitarian hubs for sending humanitarian cargoes there, including to the Sahara-Sahel zone and other countries in need,” Lavrov specified.
Damascus and its new rulers may have come to the practical conclusion that it’s better for Russia to have a foothold in the region, at a moment Israel has continued to bomb Syrian cities and military sites with impunity.
If nothing else, a superpower’s military being on the ground, even if just on the coast, could prove diplomatically beneficial to Syria – at a moment it has no anti-air defenses to speak of.
Russia and Turkey could be seen as playing a balancing act in the region in the face of Israeli aggression. Russia still has its own powerful anti-air defenses which protect its coastal assets, also near Latakia.
Lithium-ion battery fires are a growing cause for concern around the world, with fears about how electric vehicles, e-bikes, laptop chargers, and power banks pose a risk to people at home, at work, and on the move.
Fires involving lithium batteries – which are rechargeable – are notoriously difficult to extinguish using conventional firefighting methods.
Meanwhile, global demand for lithium-ion batteries is expected to increase significantly between 2025 and 2030.
Matt Humby, a senior technical consultant at fire extinguisher manufacturer Firechief Global, told The Epoch Times he does not think governments or international regulatory bodies had woken up to the danger lithium batteries represented.
“While awareness is growing, regulatory action still lags behind the pace of incidents we’ve had with lithium-ion battery fires,” Humby said. “Many trade bodies … are reactive rather than proactive, and there’s still a lack of global consistency in standards and enforcement.”
However, Grant Gibbs, business development manager of energy storage at safety testers TÜV SÜD, said the United Nations and international standardization bodies, governments, and regulatory bodies around the world were “well aware of the perceived risks” associated with lithium batteries.
He said bodies such as the International Electrotechnical Commission and the International Organization for Standardization are revising and expanding requirements for the testing, transport, and end-of-life management of lithium batteries, with the aim of ensuring “global alignment on safety and sustainability.”
On Sept. 24, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued new guidance: “Devices containing lithium metal batteries or lithium-ion batteries, including—but not limited to—smartphones, tablets, cameras, and laptops, should be kept in accessible carry-on baggage.”
“If these devices are packed in checked baggage, they should be turned completely off, protected from accidental activation, and packed so they are protected from damage.”
The FAA said there were 89 incidents in 2024 in which lithium batteries emitted smoke, fire, or extreme heat on board planes, and up until the end of August 2025, there have been a further 61.
In-Flight Fire Risk
On Jan. 28, 2025, an Air Busan plane was destroyed by fire on the runway in Busan, South Korea. Preliminary findings indicated that a power bank stored in an overhead cabin likely went up in flames shortly before take-off.
All 170 passengers and six crew members were evacuated, with three seriously injured and 24 having sustained minor injuries.
“The Air Busan incident shows how quickly things can escalate. Without stricter controls and better passenger education, an in-flight fire remains a real risk,” Humby said. “Many airlines have placed bans on power banks, but I really think this sector really needs to look deeper into this fire risk.
“It’s taken an aircraft fire to make them really sit up and see what the situation is.”
Humby pointed out that there had been several in-flight fires caused by overheating power banks, including one in August there had been a fire on board a KLM plane flying from Sao Paulo in Brazil to Schiphol airport in the Netherlands.
“They managed to get it under control, because they’re small batteries, so you can probably put them in water or an ice bucket. But planes should be carrying fire-resistant containment bags,” Humby said.
A number of airlines responded in the wake of the Busan incident.
Southwest Airlines told The Epoch Times that, from May 28, 2025, they would require passengers to keep their portable chargers visible while using them.
Emirates has, from Oct. 1, 2025, banned the use of power banks during flight, and ordered them not to be stored in overhead compartments, while Singapore Airlines, EVA Air, China Airlines, Thai Airways, and Cathay Pacific all introduced similar restrictions in March or April 2025.
American Airlines has detailed restrictions, but has only banned large power banks, while Delta passengers are “permitted to travel with lithium ion batteries that contain a maximum of 160-watt hours per battery.”
Gibbs said that “the measures currently implemented by airlines, such as limiting the use of power banks and requiring them to be carried in the cabin, as well as restricting charging during flights, certainly reduce the likelihood of incidents occurring.”
Battery Fires ‘Systemic Issue’
However, he said lithium battery fires were a “systemic issue” that could not be eliminated by airline restrictions alone.
“They are influenced by product quality, user behavior, regulatory oversight, and aircraft systems themselves,” Gibbs said.
In 2016, the International Civil Aviation Organization, a U.N. agency, announced lithium batteries would no longer be allowed in checked baggage on airlines, after concerns were raised by pilots and plane manufacturers.
The ICAO’s 36-state governing council said the prohibition would be in effect until a new fire-resistant packaging standard is designed to transport the batteries.
“While ICAO initially envisaged a new ‘fire-resistant packaging’ standard, a fully validated, globally adopted solution has yet to materialize,” Gibbs said.
He said current regulations focus on mitigating risk through stringent transport conditions.
Humby said fire-resistant packaging is “extremely difficult to achieve due to the intensity of thermal runaway events.”
He said small containment boxes had been created, but he said, “Relying solely on packaging is only part of the tool kit, and a broader risk-management approach is needed.”
On Dec. 21, 2022, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration published a final rule on the safe transport of lithium batteries in cargo planes, which took effect on Jan. 20, 2023.
Without a doubt, there are benefits to rechargeable batteries, and in 2019, the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to scientists John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham, and Akira Yoshino for their work on the development of lithium-ion batteries.
In Goodenough’s citation, it was stated, “Storing electrical energy in batteries is a key factor in solving the world’s energy supply. The element lithium is useful in batteries since it willingly releases electrons.”
However, the fire risk from lithium batteries remains.
In June 2023, four people, including two children, were killed when a fire broke out in an e-bike shop and spread to apartments on the upper floors of a building in New York City.
“We have known for many years lithium-ion batteries are a risk and must be part of a fire risk assessment,” Humby said. “The good news is awareness is growing and we are in a much better place than three years ago with this, but plenty still needs to happen. Education is key.”
Princeton University announced this week that it will be reinstating the requirement for undergraduate applicants to submit standardized test scores in the 2027–28 admissions cycle. It is only the latest reversal for an ill-conceived and poorly supported movement to achieve greater equity and diversity by eliminating standardized testing in higher education.
Years ago, I wrote columns on the move by many academics to eliminate standardized testing to achieve greater diversity in colleges and universities.
I have long been a critic of this movement given the overwhelming evidence that these tests allow an objective measure of academic merit and have great predictive value on the performance of students.
The University of California system was an early supporter of this ridiculous move.
Notably, academics in the California system came to the same conclusion as some of us who denounced the move. These tests not only have the most significant predictive value for performance but also play an important role in the advancement of minority students. University of California President Janet Napolitano, however, overrode those conclusions.
Napolitano responded to such criticism with a Standardized Testing Task Force in 2019.
Many people expected the task force to recommend the cessation of standardized testing.
The task force did find that 59 percent of high school graduates were Latino, African-American or Native American but only 37 percent were admitted as UC freshman students.
The Task Force did not find standardized testing to be unreliable or call for its abandonment, however.
Instead, its final report concluded that “At UC, test scores are currently better predictors of first-year GPA than high school grade point average (HSGPA), and about as good at predicting first-year retention, [University] GPA, and graduation.”
Not only that, it found: “Further, the amount of variance in student outcomes explained by test scores has increased since 2007 … Test scores are predictive for all demographic groups and disciplines … In fact, test scores are better predictors of success for students who are Underrepresented Minority Students (URMs), who are first generation, or whose families are low-income.” In other words, test scores remain the best indicator for continued performance in college.
That clearly was not the result Napolitano or some others wanted. So, she simply announced a cessation of the use of such scores in admissions. The system would go to a “test-blind” system until it developed its own test.
Ending standardized testing had an obvious secondary purpose in frustrating new legal challenges on the use of race in college admissions.
Last November, Californians rejected a resolution to restore affirmative action in college admissions.
MIT, Penn, Yale, Dartmouth, Brown, and other schools ultimately reverted to standardized testing. The fact that these schools even joined this movement shows how faculties and administrators jettisoned educational standards for popular causes.
While originally rationalized due to COVID, the move was widely heralded as a victory for equity and diversity. Notably, the policy outlasted COVID as many academics rejected standardized testing as racist. There have even been calls for random selection of students to achieve greater racial diversity.
In the case of Princeton, the faculty took years to give itself sufficient cover to return to standardized testing by studying the obvious. The announcement comes after a five-year review of data, showing that students who submitted test scores generally performed better academically at Princeton than those who did not.
Just as with earlier studies, a new working paper published on the National Bureau of Economic Research website finds that standardized test scores are stronger predictors of college performance than high school GPA, even after controlling for race, gender, and socioeconomic status.
GPA scores are notoriously unreliable due to grade inflation and varying standards across different schools. In San Francisco, “grading for equity” is a goal in public schools.
JPMorgan Commits $1.5 Trillion To Strengthen America’s Industrial Base
JPMorgan Chase announced a sweeping $1.5 trillion, decade-long initiative to finance and invest in industries central to U.S. economic and national security, committing up to $10 billion of its own capital to select American companies, according to reporting by Reuters on Monday.
The bank is the latest to “fall in line” behind President Trump’s continued focus on national security while safeguarding trade and production domestically.
The plan will channel funds into four core areas — supply chain and manufacturing, defense and aerospace, energy independence, and frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. JPMorgan will expand research through its Center for Geopolitics, hire additional bankers, and form an external advisory council to guide the effort.
“This is a JPMorgan initiative,” Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon said, stressing that it is “100% commercial” and not driven by the Trump administration.
Sure Jamie. Wink, wink.
It’s probably just a coincidence then that the announcement follows rising trade tensions with China and renewed U.S. efforts to secure critical industries such as semiconductors, minerals, and clean energy.
“It has become painfully clear that the U.S. has allowed itself to become too reliant on unreliable sources of critical minerals, products and manufacturing – all of which are essential for our national security,” Dimon said. “Our security is predicated on the strength and resiliency of America’s economy. America needs more speed and investment.”
Reuters reported that Dimon called for policy changes to remove “excessive regulations, bureaucratic delay, partisan gridlock and an education system not aligned to the skills we need,” urging unity in facing the nation’s “immense challenges.” “We need to act now,” he said.
JPMorgan’s “security and resiliency initiative” will include direct equity and venture capital investments in companies building technologies for defense, AI-driven energy systems, semiconductors, and data centers. “Our support of clients in these industries remains unwavering,” Dimon added.
The announcement comes amid growing debate over artificial intelligence and its economic impact. Dimon told the BBC that while AI will “pay off,” much like the early car and television industries, “most people involved in them didn’t do well.”
Rising government spending and public debt create economic stagnation and declining living standards. Many citizens believe that the state will give them prosperity and equality. However, the state only makes paper promises by issuing debt, creating a constantly depreciated currency. Taxpayers are constantly expropriated, while the recipients of subsidies become a dependent subclass. Who wins? Bureaucrats.
Deficit spending is not a tool for growth. It erodes prosperity, creates persistent secular stagnation, real wage growth decline, and poor productivity growth.
High public spending and government debt falsely inflate GDP through government outlays while, in most cases, masking a private-sector recession underneath. GDP is easily manipulated by increasing government spending and changing the calculation of GDP deflators.
The state issues debt, a form of currency, and establishes a system that continuously suffocates the productive sector. In effect, GDP and CPI serve as measures of economic strength that obscure the imbalances created by the state; GDP overstates real growth by incorporating government spending financed by debt, while CPI, like the GDP deflator, underestimates the currency’s loss of purchasing power.
Major economies face a hidden real recession for households and small businesses using “robust” headline figures bloated by ever-rising government debt. Every new dollar of debt now generates less than sixty cents of nominal GDP in the U.S. However, when we look at countries like Japan, France, the UK or Germany, the multiplier effect of new government debt is either nonexistent or negative. The consequences are evident: true productive economic expansion is hurt by rising taxes, regulatory burdens, and inflation, which reduce incentives for private investment and innovation.
Statism creates enormous disincentives for productive investment and promotes malinvestment and the constant transfer of wealth from the productive sectors to the government. Governments finance their ever-expanding budgets in privileged conditions, creating a crowding out of the private sector that suffers the consequences of persistent inflation and raising taxes.
Remember that high taxes are not a tool to reduce debt but to justify it.
Despite political messages promoting growth and stability, statism results in low productivity growth, which in turn causes declining real wage growth and diminishing purchasing power as governments overheat economies by issuing more currency than the private sector demands while maintaining unsustainable public accounts. Persistent inflation is the systemic result of chronic government overspending and central bank easing to sustain sovereign debt bubbles.
Ironically, many citizens hail politicians and governments who promise to lower inflation by printing more currency through subsidies and government programmes. Governments promise to solve the problems they create, paving the road to serfdom.
Capitalism and social media do not cause inequality and discontent. Governments create inequality in its most severe form, which arises from political favouritism.
Artificial creation of currency is never neutral. It disproportionately benefits the first recipient of new money and governments and hurts the last recipients, wages, and deposit savings.
Workers and the middle class cannot protect themselves against the stealth expropriation of the economy. Those with financial means hedge against currency debasement through asset investments, while wage earners and deposit savers suffer the hidden tax of inflation and the erosion of purchasing power.
The hidden costs of public debt are more evident than ever: governments absorb available credit, banks become reluctant to lend to productive private enterprises, genuine investment suffers, and job creation and long-term productivity weaken. Instead of fuelling sustainable growth, government borrowing absorbs capital to bloat the administration machine and promote asset bubbles. Small and medium enterprises face constant penalties while malinvestment thrives.
Keynesian policies promise prosperity through endless spending, and when it does not work, they always say that they did not spend enough. However, the promises of eternal government expansion meet the reality of the economic, fiscal, and inflationary limits, which have already been surpassed in most developed economies. Tax hikes generate diminishing receipt improvements, while productive investment is penalised. Additionally, debt accumulation meets a loss of investor confidence and erosion of currency stability. Thus, with persistent inflation, the purchasing power of the currency deteriorates.
By manipulating interest rates and maintaining elevated public outlays, governments create a stealthy nationalisation of the economy and a slow-motion crisis. This leads to a gradual decline in both purchasing power and living standards.
The solution is to diminish the power of the state, promote sound money, strengthen the private sector, favour entrepreneurship, and make systematic cuts to government spending. Only by refocusing on genuine market-led investment and trimming bureaucratic overhead can economies escape stagnation, restore real wage growth, and revive productivity. Without decisive spending restraint, citizens remain trapped in a vicious cycle of dependency, currency devaluation, and impoverishment.
Rising government spending and public debt do not deliver productive growth. They create stagnation.
Mark Cuban-Backed Startup Lets ‘Low FICO’ People Tap Used Car Equity – Even If Not Paid Off – For 30% APR
While Mark Cuban may be a ‘benevolent pill merchant’ – providing low-income Americans with cheap prescription drugs, the ‘Shark Tank’ billionaire just helped raise $50 million for a Series B round in a Dallas-based financial technology firm that lets people with terrible credit scores tap into the equity in their depreciating used cars at a 30% interest rate – even if it’s not paid off – in which case the entire auto loan is transferred).
The startup, Yendo Inc., makes it even easier to squeeze blood from that stone. After signing up, the company issues the borrower a credit card – which incurs an additional 3% fee if used at an ATM to pull cash out.
[Yendo] offers credit cards backed by vehicle equity to help customers get access to credit who may not be able to otherwise due to low FICO scores. The credit card functions like a normal card. Instead of a cash deposit, it’s secured by the value of a person’s car. -Dallas Business Journal
In addition to Cuban – an early investor in the company, Yendo received funding from Spice Expeditions, Autotech Ventures, FPV Ventures, Pelion Venture Partners and Clocktower Technology Ventures. As Dallas Business Journalnotes, Spice Expeditions founder Nick Huber will join Yendo’s board, along with Lyft co-founder Logan Green.
Founded in 2021, the company will use the funding to build an AI-powered digital bank that will decrease onboarding and operating costs – allowing them to focus on “opening doors for underserved Americans.” The company says that there’s more than $4 trillion in “untapped assets held by nonprime Americans.
Last May, the company raised $165 million in new capital – much if it debt, to increase lending through its asset-backed credit cards. Read more about their history here.
Also – for some reason all of Yendo’s advertising shows black people using their lending:
Mela from Phoenix, AZ “hardly had to leave the couch” to tap into her car’s equity. And apparently one of the highest interest rates on the planet “worked great” for her budget.
So, basically targeting the people screwed over in the Tricolor collapse.
What did Donald Trump do differently to obtain at least temporary calm in the Middle East compared to the failed efforts of past administrations, foreign powers, and the United Nations?
Let us count ten different approaches.
1. Trump curtailed a considerable amount of Iranian oil income and its dispersal. He stopped, for the near future, the Iranian effort to build a bomb. Trump also allowed Israel to destroy Tehran’s air defenses, humiliate it militarily, and eliminate many of its top military officers and nuclear physicists. Thus, Israel’s half-century-long worries about Iranian nukes were addressed. At the same time, its stature as a military power soared to an all-time high—even if it became more isolated politically. Israel became more confident but also more sensitive to past, current, and future American military and political support—or pressure.
2. Trump allowed Netanyahu to destroy Hamas, cripple Hezbollah, and retaliate at will against the Houthis. That liberation led to general dejection among Israel’s enemies and a resurgence in Netanyahu’s own political fortunes. And that rise of Israel and the collapse of the Iranian terrorist network—the “ring of fire”— explain the greater chances for a ceasefire and possibly a peace. Trump allowed no daylight between Israel and the U.S., which, under the Biden administration, may have sent the wrong signals to Hamas prior to October 7.
So there is now no terrorist Palestinian leader, such as a Yasser Arafat or an all-powerful Hamas killer, to sandbag negotiations. Instead, Trump involved a number of self-interested surrogate Arab officials who have the money and influence to rebuild Gaza and restore calm on their own terms. Trump and Israel are not just negotiating from positions of historic strength, but they have also empowered the reasonable Arab nations to have honor and clout in Middle East negotiations in an unprecedented fashion.
3. Trump also leveraged all his benefactions to Israel by pressuring it to agree to a ceasefire.
Even the optics of a strong Israeli leader conceding to Trump that there would be no annexation of the West Bank gave the U.S. credibility in the Arab world as an honest broker and yet paradoxically helped Israel’s global reputation—as well as Netanyahu’s—as a more flexible negotiator.
4. Trump used the Abraham Accords and his much-maligned tariffs, along with expanding or curtailing commercial access into U.S. markets, to pressure—or persuade—the Gulf and moderate Arab states to ensure funding for Gaza reconstruction and the continued political weakening of Hamas. There is a sense in the Middle East, as elsewhere, that when it comes to new technologies such as AI, robotics, genetic engineering, and cryptocurrencies, the U.S. will remain the global leader, and thus a nation to court and please.
5. Trump, in carrot-and-stick fashion, promised a defense protection pact with Qatar—the proverbial untrusted wild card of the Middle East.
But his new quid pro quo “protectorate” also implied reining in Qatar if it should resume its customary double-dealing that so infuriates its neighbors and increasingly enrages the West. The Israeli attack on Hamas leadership in Qatar, and the signal Israel could strike again at will, terrified Qatar and drove it to seek protection in—new dependency on—the U.S.
6. Trump dealt with enemies, allies, and neutrals from a position of strength, comparative advantage, and national ascendance, unlike the appeasing and anemic Biden years or the apologetics of Obama. The successful complex bombing of the Iranian nuclear facilities and the past elimination of terrorist Iranian General Qasem Soleimani and ISIS founder and thug Bakr al-Baghdadi ensured Trump was seen as more serious than either Obama or Biden ever were.
The Arab world and Israel also understood that there are no alternatives to Trump. Russia’s Syrian outpost is gone. Moscow is bogged down in a forever war in Ukraine and under sanctions. It is no longer a force in the Middle East.
Trump has confronted China and exposed its economic vulnerabilities, ensuring that the Arabs saw no outside power comparable to the U.S.
Chinese and Russian allies, like the Iranian theocracy and the former Assad dynasty in Syria, were also shown over the last year to be shrill, impotent, losing clients. At home, restoring the U.S. border, strengthening NATO, rebooting the U.S. military, fast-tracking energy development, and cracking down on crime fed the impression of an American renaissance rather than the continued Obama-Biden-managed decline.
7. Trump was entirely transactional. Unlike the Biden administration, he did not libel the Saudis, or demonize Netanyahu, or take seriously any of the past proverbial empty “peace plans” of a corrupt UN or of terrified Europeans. He had no sooner destroyed Iran’s nuclear capability than he allowed a ceremonial but innocuous “hit” on a U.S. base in Qatar and then declared he wanted to “make Iran great again.” For someone who is supposedly mercurial, holds grudges, and is reckless, Trump was careful to treat all the major parties with deference and a clean slate and offered them trade and military deals rather than diplomatese and platitudes.
8. Europe went from sandbagging Trump in 2017 to 2021 to calling him “daddy” once they realized that only Trump could save Ukraine and, by extension, Europe from Putin. The result was not an anti-American Europe trying to intrude into the Middle East negotiations or ankle-biting the U.S. To the degree that Europeans save face, it is by symbolically recognizing a Palestinian state, but not materially altering realities on the ground in Gaza.
For the most part, there is now a calmer Europe, relieved that Iran was denuclearized and the Palestinian terrorists in the Middle East might no longer trigger unrest among Europe’s own restive and unassimilated Muslim populations.
9. At this 11th hour, Hamas was reminded that it has no real alternatives—as the rubble of Gaza attests. Trump signaled to Israel that it could and can still go medieval on Hamas and its remnants should they resume terrorism.
Otherwise, Gaza remains a bombed-out wreck. Qatar will be pressured to kick out its conniving Hamas billionaires. The result is a stark choice: any Hamas attempt to rebuild its terrorist networks will ensure that it—and everything around it—will be moonscaped. Trump made it clear there are now no more sacred cows in the Middle East, no more safe spaces, and no more off-limits targets—juxtaposed to numerous win-win incentives that can lead to prosperity and security.
10. The Middle East was not seen as a one-off U.S. peace effort—as is usually the case. Instead, it was envisioned as a continuation of a series of prior successful Trump-led ceasefires between Rwanda and Congo, Armenia and Azerbaijan, India and Pakistan, Kosovo and Serbia, Cambodia and Thailand, and Egypt and Ethiopia. The Israelis and the Palestinians saw Trump’s success elsewhere and may have felt from such momentum that the same might be possible in Gaza.
And if the ceasefire holds, or at least reduces the violence, global attention will next turn to Ukraine.
Expectations in and outside the Middle East will rise that if there can be quiet in war-torn Gaza, then that momentum might lead to progress toward peace on the Ukrainian border as well.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ZeroHedge.
People close to Changpeng Zhao, the former CEO of Binance better known as ‘CZ,’ say discussions are intensifying inside the Trump White House over whether to issue a presidential pardon for the embattled crypto executive, according to reporting from Charles Gasparino, a Senior Correspondent at FOX Business.
Zhao, once among the most influential figures in the digital asset world, served time following a plea deal with the U.S. Department of Justice in 2023 that included a money-laundering conviction and $4.3 billion in fines for Binance.
But according to several sources familiar with the matter, many within Trump’s inner circle now view the case as politically motivated — a hallmark of what they describe as the Biden administration’s broader crackdown on crypto.
Zhao remains Binance’s largest individual shareholder, and a pardon could clear the way for his formal return to the exchange, which he founded in 2017 and grew into the world’s largest Bitcoin and crypto trading platform.
Speculation of a Trump pardon has been looming for most of this year, but the decision is reportedly coming soon.
CZ background
Zhao’s 2023 conviction marked one of the most high-profile cases in the government’s campaign against major exchanges.
U.S. prosecutors accused Binance of allowing illicit transactions with sanctioned entities and failing to implement proper anti-money-laundering controls. CZ pleaded guilty, stepped down as CEO, and paid a personal fine of $50 million.
Zhao served a four-month prison sentence. He was sentenced in April 2024 and released in September 2024, after spending time in a low-security federal prison in California and then a halfway house.
Despite this, even critics of Binance have questioned whether the criminal charges were proportionate. Trump’s team reportedly sees Zhao’s situation as an opportunity to demonstrate a “new era” of crypto policy — one that favors innovation over punishment.
A decision could come before year’s end, but Trump’s attention is divided between foreign policy flashpoints — including conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, and renewed trade tensions with China — and that clemency discussions often take longer than expected, according to Gasparino.
For now, the crypto world is watching closely.
A Trump pardon for CZ would mark not only a personal vindication for Zhao, but also be somewhat of a political statement: Trump signaling that the world’s most powerful government is truly open for Bitcoin business.
Trump Proclaims End Of “Age Of Terror & Death” After Hamas Releases All Remaining Hostages
On a historic day, Hamas has released all remaining Israeli hostages following two years of war. Twenty in total have been released, with an initial seven handed over in the first wave, followed by 13 more. Twenty-eight additional deceased captives are expected being returned, though there are reports that only four of the deceased have been transferred back to Israel at this point.
In return, 250 Palestinian prisoners serving long and life sentences are now being released from Israeli prisons as part of the first phase of the US-brokered deal. Additionally, over 1,700 Palestinians being held without charge are to be released.
Israeli media observed that many of the hostages, some of whom haven’t been so much as photographed in two years, are looking noticeably thin, and they were also forced to wear a quasi-military uniform as they were set free. Several videos have already featured teary-eyed reunions of hostages with their parents, families, and loved ones.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the freedom of all the remaining hostages in speech before the Knesset, also vowing to keep the peace. “Mr. President, you are committed to this peace. I am committed to this peace. And together, Mr. President, we will achieve this peace,” he said. He declared today “marks the end of two years of war.”
President Trump, having touched down on Air Force One in Tel Aviv hours before, also addressed parliament in Jerusalem, and was thanked by Netanyahu for his “pivotal leadership in putting forward a proposal that got the backing of almost the entire world.”
He said Trump’s ceasefire plan “brings all our hostages home” and “ends the war by achieving all our objectives” and also “opens the door to an historic expansion of peace in our region and beyond our region.” That Netanyahu has publicly proclaimed the end of the war is a crucial development as there has been much speculation on this point, and whether Israel’s military will actually withdraw.
With Trump seated beside him, Netanyahu said, “This is your first visit to Israel since you recognized Jerusalem as our capital and moved the embassy here. Thank you for recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.” He then claimed, “Thank you for standing up to the lies against Israel in the United Nations.”
President Trump took to the podium, and receiving a standing ovation, proclaimed, “This is not only the end of a war. This is the end of the age of terror and death and the beginning of the age of faith and hope and of God.”
Hostages are welcomed home by thousands of Israelis after two painful years in Hamas captivity
One of the most historic and emotional moments in the history of Israel 🇮🇱
Hostages are welcomed home by thousands of Israelis after two painful years in Hamas captivity 🎗 pic.twitter.com/h0hqRQ1JyA
“It’s the start of a grand concord and lasting harmony for Israel, and all the nations of what will soon be a truly magnificent region,” he stated. “I believe that, so strongly. This is the “historic dawn of a new Middle East.”
There was a moment of a disruption in parliament soon after Trump began:
Trump’s Knesset speech was protested by Arab MP Ayman Odeh and Communist MP Ofer Cassif with placards reading ‘genocide’; Odeh and Cassif were forcibly removed from the plenary session. pic.twitter.com/EPcIuVWmBv
After two “harrowing” years, “the guns are silent,” Trump continued, adding that the region is now “at peace” and he expressed hope that this will be the case “for eternity.”
At one point the president heaped praise on US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump son-in law and adviser Jared Kushner, who is said to have helped broker the ceasefire deal.
The Hostage and Missing Families Forum says only four of the 28 bodies of dead hostages will be returned to Israel today, calling it a “blatant breach” of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas.
There has not been an announcement on the identities of the four, and there has been no confirmation from Israeli authorities on the number of bodies expected today.
Several families of dead hostages were told by Israeli authorities yesterday that their loved ones’ bodies would not be returned today or tomorrow, and that Israel would spare no effort to locate and return them.
BREAKING: Hamas releases all surviving 20 Israeli hostages after two years in captivity. pic.twitter.com/M5CAPe3nQE
Another key moment in the speech was when Trump said “Bibi would call me so many times” asking for weapons – “so many that Israel became strong and powerful… that’s what led to peace.”
Interestingly, a number of people in the audience were observed wearing MAGA-style hats that read “Trump The Peace President.”
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