KOENIG

The Vatican announced the election of Pope Leo XIV, the first American pope, shortly after white smoke began pouring from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel on Thursday. [He was born in Chicago.]

Cardinal Protodeacon Dominique Mamberti announced Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost's election as pope to the thousands of faithful who descended on St. Peter's Square.

The 133 voting cardinals deliberated in the Sistine Chapel for roughly 24 hours.

Pope Leo XIV succeeds the late Pope Francis, who died at age 88 on April 21 following health challenges.

• An F/A-18 fighter jet went overboard after trying to land on the USS Harry S. Truman on Tuesday.

• It's the second Super Hornet the Truman has lost in just over a week and the third of this deployment.

• F/A-18s are estimated to cost roughly $60 million apiece.

Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that his government is engaged in indirect talks with Israel aimed at de-escalating tensions between the two countries, following a series of Israeli airstrikes in the wake of Bashar al-Assad’s ouster.

“There are indirect talks taking place through mediators to calm the situation and try to contain it so it does not spiral out of control,” Sharaa said at a press conference in Paris alongside French President Emmanuel Macron, according to Agence France Presse.

“Random Israeli interventions … have violated the 1974” armistice, said Sharaa, adding that “since we arrived in Damascus, we have told all relevant parties that Syria is committed to the 1974 agreement.”

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz issued a sharp warning on Thursday morning in response to the recent escalation by Iranian-backed Houthi forces, declaring that “Israel must be able to defend itself independently against any threat and any enemy.”

In a statement posted in Hebrew on X, Katz wrote: “The Houthis will absorb heavy blows from Israel if they continue firing toward us. The IDF is prepared for any mission.”

Israeli troops are set to “act with great force” until all war goals for Gaza, including the defeat of Hamas and securing the release of every hostage, are achieved, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz warned on Wednesday.

The entire population of the Gaza Strip will be evacuated to the southern part of the enclave during the fighting, and the Israel Defense Force will stay in “every area that is taken,” the defense minister said.

“The operation is intended to defeat Hamas and bring about the release of all the hostages. We will act with great force to destroy all of Hamas’s military and governmental capabilities,” he told soldiers of the IDF’s 162nd “Steel Formation” Armored Division, which is expected to take part in the ground campaign, dubbed “Operation Gideon’s Chariots.”

A fourth round of nuclear talks between Iran and the United States is likely to take place over the weekend in the capital of Oman, with Iranian state media pointing to May 11 as a probable date.

Cautioning that the timing has not yet been finalized, an Iranian source close to the negotiating team tells Reuters: “The talks will take place over two days in Muscat, either on Saturday and Sunday or Sunday and Monday.”

Initially scheduled for May 3 in Rome, the fourth round of negotiations was postponed with mediator Oman citing “logistical reasons.”

In the wake of Israel’s massive attack Tuesday on Sana’a International Airport — along with several power stations and a concrete factory — Iran was warned that it, too, will bear the consequences of the missile attacks on Israel by its Yemeni proxy, the Houthis.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz said Tuesday following the Israeli airstrikes that whoever harms the Jewish State will themselves be struck.

No Emotion. No Applause. Just Resolve: What Israel Proved in One Night

Tania Curado-Koenig 

May 5, 2025

The photo says it all.

No emotion. No applause. Just resolve. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sits flanked by his Defense Minister and Chief of Staff — eyes forward, stone-faced, unshaken. No one is smiling. They are not speaking. They are listening. Calculating. Preparing.

In one night, Israel did what the United States could not in weeks. A coordinated aerial assault destroyed the port of Hodeidah and multiple Houthi-linked concrete facilities used for missile production. Simultaneously, strikes were carried out on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. Israel didn’t posture. It didn’t leak. It acted.

While the U.S. dropped bombs in Yemen and then tried to negotiate with the very regime arming its enemies, Israel took out the infrastructure. While Steve Witkoff exchanged signals with Iran, Israel sent a signal to the entire region: we are not afraid. And we do not wait.

This is not to shame America — but to warn it. We have a president in Donald J. Trump who still believes in strength, in clarity, in covenant. But he is being surrounded by advisors who don’t understand the hour. The Secretary of Defense is more interested in camera angles than battlefield angles. The administration’s mixed signals have empowered Iran, emboldened the Houthis, and jeopardized Israel’s skies.

What we need now is not emotion. It’s intercession.
Not schoolboys with memos — but men with mantles.
Not power for optics — but power for purpose.

Let us learn from Israel. Precision. Silence. Fire. 

Let us pray for America. Discernment. Courage. Conviction. 

Let us surround President Trump — with truth, with counsel, and with boldness from heaven.

Because this war is not only regional. It’s generational.

And the God of Israel — the Lord of Hosts — still leads the battle.

Israeli warplanes carried out a wave of airstrikes in Yemen on Tuesday afternoon, which the military said “completely disabled” Sanaa International Airport in the Houthi-controlled capital and hit other targets.

The strikes, for the second day in a row, came in response to the Iran-backed group’s repeated missile and drone attacks on Israel, including one missile that hit inside the grounds of Ben Gurion Airport on Sunday, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Dozens of Israeli Air Force aircraft were involved in the strikes on Yemen on Tuesday, including fighter jets, refuelers, and spy planes.

The Israeli Air Force on Monday evening carried out airstrikes in the Houthi-held port city of Hodeidah in Yemen in response to the Iran-backed terror group’s ballistic missile attack on Ben Gurion Airport that left several injured a day earlier.

According to the military, the strikes carried out by some 20 IAF fighter jets targeted Houthi infrastructure along the coast of Yemen, including at the Hodeidah port and a concrete factory near the nearby city of Bajil, some 2,000 kilometers from Israel.

The jets dropped 50 munitions on the Houthi targets, the military said, publishing images showing the jets preparing for takeoff. IAF refuelers and spy planes also participated in the operation.

If Hamas does not agree to Israel’s proposed outline – including the release of 10 hostages in exchange for a 45-day ceasefire – the military operation in Gaza will be significantly expanded, the security cabinet decided on Sunday night.

“The security cabinet unanimously approved the operational plan presented by the chief of staff to defeat Hamas in Gaza and bring back the hostages,” a senior political source said after the meeting.

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that his administration will help bring Gazans food.

"We're going to help the people of Gaza get some food," he said at a press conference in the White House. "People are starving, and we're going to help them get some food. A lot of people are making it very, very bad. What do you... If you look, Hamas is making it impossible because they're taking everything that's brought in. But we're going to help the people of Gaza because they're being treated very badly by Hamas."

A ballistic missile fired from Yemen struck near Israel’s Ben-Gurion International Airport on Sunday morning, lightly to moderately wounding six people and disrupting takeoffs and arrivals.

The attack triggered air-raid sirens across central Israel, including in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and the Shfela/Judaean Foothills. Several attempts were made to intercept the missile, according to the Israel Defense Forces. 

The U.S.-made THAAD system attempted to intercept the missile but failed, as did Israel’s Arrow system, Channel 14 military correspondent Hillel Bitton Rosen reported. Authorities are investigating whether the blast near Terminal 3 was caused by a direct hit, missile fragments or interceptor debris. Police bomb squads and security forces remain on scene.

On his official X account, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasts Qatar, one of the three countries serving as a mediator between Israel and Hamas on hostage talks.

“Israel is fighting a just war with just means,” writes Netanyahu. “After the October 7 atrocities, Prime Minister Netanyahu defined the War of Redemption as a war between civilization and barbarism.”

“The time has come for Qatar to stop playing both sides with its double talk and decide if it’s on the side of civilization or if it’s on the side of Hamas barbarism. Israel will win this just war with just means.”

US President Donald Trump is expected to hold a summit with Gulf leaders during a visit to Saudi Arabia in mid-May, a senior American official and two senior Arab officials told Walla on Saturday. 

Trump administration insiders are reportedly concerned that the United States’ special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, is not capable of dealing withIran, Hamas, or Russia, the insiders told the New York Post on Wednesday.

Some of the anxieties surrounding Witkoff’s capabilities reportedly came from his admission during a Fox News interview that he thought the US had successfully brokered a one-month extension on the last hostage deal.

US President Donald Trump blindsided Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with his decision to immediately open negotiations with Iran last month. Now, the talks hinge on winning key concessions that would prevent the Islamic Republic from ever developing a nuclear bomb, eight sources said.

The pivot to negotiations with Iran in April was a shock for Netanyahu, who had flown to Washington seeking Trump’s backing for military strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities and learned less than 24 hours before a joint White House press event that US talks with Iran were starting within days, four sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Tehran’s leadership remains deeply concerned that Netanyahu may launch a strike, deal or no deal, a senior Iranian security official said. Iran routinely calls for Israel’s destruction and Jerusalem views an Iranian nuclear weapon as an existential threat.

Sitting in front of a packed auditorium in Dubai, a founder of the Trump family cryptocurrency business made a brief but monumental announcement on Thursday. A fund backed by Abu Dhabi, he said, would be making a $2 billion business deal using the Trump firm’s digital coins.

That transaction would be a major contribution by a foreign government to President Trump’s private venture — one that stands to generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the Trump family. And it is a public and vivid illustration of the ethical conflicts swirling around Mr. Trump’s crypto firm, which has blurred the boundary between business and government.

Zach Witkoff, a founder of the Trump family crypto firm, World Liberty Financial, revealed that a so-called stablecoin developed by the firm, would be used to complete the transaction between the state-backed Emirati investment firm MGX and Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world.

The Trump Organization has agreed to a new Middle East golf course and real estate deal that involves a Qatari government-owned firm, two weeks before President Trump is set to travel to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates on a state visit.

The project in Qatar, a key U.S. ally and home to a major American military base, is a partnership with Qatari Diar, a real estate company established by the country’s sovereign wealth fund and chaired by a government minister.

Eric Trump, the president’s son who runs the family business, traveled to the Middle East this week to attend a cryptocurrency conference and promote the company’s real estate developments, which include a separate Trump-branded tower in Dubai, the largest city in the Emirates.