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President Donald Trump will sit down with the Saudi crown prince and Emirati and Qatari leaders on May 14, 2025, in what is being heavily touted as a high-stakes summit. Not invited, and watching warily, will be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Like many other members of his right-wing coalition, Netanyahu appeared delighted at the election of Trump as U.S. president in November, believing that the Republican's Middle East policies would undoubtedly favor Israeli interests and be coordinated closely with Netanyahu himself. But it hasn't quite played out that way. Of course, Washington remains ' certainly in official communications ' Israel's strongest global ally and chief supplier of arms. But Trump is promoting a Middle East policy that is, at times, distinctly at odds with the interests of Netanyahu and his government. In fact, in pushing for an Iran nuclear deal ' a surprise reversal from Trump's first administration ' Trump is undermining long-held Netanyahu positions. Such is the level of alarm in Israeli right-wing circles that rumors have been circulating of Trump announcing unilateral U.S. support for a Palestinian state ahead of the Riyadh visit ' something that would represent a clear departure for Washington....

Earlier this year, Gary Peters made a decision that's utterly ordinary for most 66-year-olds: He was going to retire. Except Peters happens to be a United States senator, so his announcement that he would not seek a third term next year came as a shock. 'Oh, but you're so young!' constituents told him, the Michigan Democrat recalled. Two weeks later, Senator Tina Smith of Minnesota said that she, too, would forgo a reelection bid next year, when she'll be 68. She got the same reaction. 'Only in the Senate can you be a 68-year-old grandma and still be considered fresh blood,' Smith told me with a laugh. When a swing-state member hangs it up in their senatorial prime'the chamber's median age is nearly 65'parties typically react with disappointment, even panic; open seats are harder to defend, after all, and early departures are treated as a vote of no confidence. But many in the party have greeted the recent wave of retirements with an unusual response: appreciation and relief. Smith told me people have been stopping her in airports to thank her for leaving: I love the example you're setting, they've told her. She has welcomed the gratitude, but it underscores a troubling dynamic for her party: Many Democrats can't wait for their leaders to step aside....

In early May, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would split up the agency's main arm devoted to scientific research. According to a report from NPR, scientists at the 1,500-person Office of Research and Development were told to apply to roughly 500 new scientific research positions that would be sprinkled into other areas of the agency'and to expect further cuts to their organization in the weeks to come. This reorganization threatens the existence of a tiny but crucial program housed within this office: the Integrated Risk Information System Program, commonly referred to as IRIS. This program is responsible for providing independent research on the risks of chemicals, helping other offices within the agency set regulations for chemicals and compounds that could pose a danger to human health. The program's leader departed recently, ahead of the restructuring announcement. 'Unfortunately, right now, it looks like the polluters won,' says Thomas Burke, the founder and emeritus director of the Johns Hopkins Risk Sciences and Public Policy Institute and a former deputy assistant administrator of the EPA's Office of Research and Development....