What you need to know

Iran’s missile barrage tests Israel’s defenses as the conflict enters its second week

As the war between Israel and Iran enters its seventh day, the conflict is rapidly intensifying.

On Wednesday night and Thursday morning, Iranian missiles scored direct hits across Israel, striking a hospital in Soroka, in the southern city of Beersheba, as well as parts of downtown Tel Aviv, including the stock exchange. Heavily populated cities such as Holon, Bat Yam, and Petach Tikva were also struck. The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange fell 3% in early trading. Due to Israeli military censorship, the full extent of the damage remains unclear. However, it is known that Iranian missiles have already caused significant damage to oil facilities in Haifa, and strikes earlier this week on Bat Yam destroyed or severely damaged at least 20 buildings, leaving some 1,500 residents homeless.

Iranian missile penetration of Israeli air defenses appears to have improved overnight. While interception rates had exceeded 90% in the past few days, approximately 20% of missiles last night evaded interception. Air defense systems are not designed to intercept every missile, but rather those assessed to pose a significant threat to critical infrastructure. Even so, Iran's growing ability to breach these defenses is notable.

Part of this increased effectiveness stems from Iran’s deployment of more advanced missile systems. The Kheibar (Khorramshahr-4), a road-mobile, liquid-fueled ballistic missile, carries a 1,500-kilogram warhead and has a range of around 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles). It exits the atmosphere before re-entering at roughly Mach 8, making it harder to intercept than older Iranian systems.

The U.S. diplomatic mission in Israel has begun evacuating the family members of diplomats and advised U.S. citizens in the country to register with the State Department in case of emergency, although no formal evacuation plans have been announced. Japan has dispatched military aircraft to East Africa to prepare for potential evacuations from the Middle East.

On the cyber front, an Israeli hacker group known as RedEvilSog claimed responsibility for disrupting Iranian satellite television broadcasts on Wednesday night. Amid severe internet outages (reportedly running at just 3% capacity) the group managed to broadcast a short film about the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom protests across all major satellite TV channels, urging Iranians to rise up. Phone service in Iran was reportedly cut off Thursday morning, with calls being met by automated messages.

Israel’s Minister of Transport, National Infrastructure and Road Safety, Miri Regev, called for a blackout of Tehran in response to the attacks. Meanwhile, the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, urged citizens to report anyone watching Al Jazeera, accusing the network of promoting Iranian propaganda.

Early Thursday, the Israeli Air Force struck the Arak Nuclear Complex, located southwest of Tehran. The site contained a decommissioned heavy water reactor that Israeli intelligence believes was designed to produce weapons-grade plutonium.

The USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group is set to deploy to Europe in the coming days. This will place three U.S. carrier strike groups within range of both Iran and Israel. On Wednesday, the U.S. also deployed F-22 fighter jets (its most advanced stealth aircraft) to Jordan via RAF Lakenheath.

President Donald Trump is still weighing whether to authorize the use of B-2 bombers equipped with GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs to target the Fordow nuclear facility, which lies buried beneath at least 100 meters of solid rock. This weapon has never been used in combat and remains the only munition in the U.S. arsenal capable of penetrating such depths.

On Wednesday night, the odds of a U.S. strike on Iran rose to 70% on the Polymarket prediction platform.

That same evening, three Iranian government aircraft departed Tehran for Muscat, Oman. Although Tehran has denied that these flights involve negotiators, speculation persists that they may be evacuating families of senior officials or quietly laying the groundwork for talks—or possibly both.

On Friday in Geneva, the foreign ministers of Germany, France, and Britain, along with the European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, are expected to hold talks with Iran’s foreign minister.

In a statement issued Thursday morning, Iraq’s Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, one of the most influential Shia religious leaders in the world, warned against the assassination of political or religious figures in Iran, a veiled reference to any attempt on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s life. Several pro-Iranian Iraqi militia groups echoed this warning and pledged military retaliation against U.S. interests should Khamenei be killed.

In the aftermath of the successful Iranian strikes on Tel Aviv and the Soroka hospital, Israel is expected to escalate its operations inside Iran over the course of Thursday. Khamenei now appears to be a clear target.

Either the killing of Khamenei or the direct entry of the U.S. into the war will lead to Iran expanding the conflict into asymmetric attacks against U.S. interests in the region, and oil transport infrastructure in the Persian Gulf. As we have detailed before, Iran has a number of asymmetric military and paramilitary tools at its disposal that it can use in Iraq or the Persian Gulf, which is cannot currently deploy against Israel due to the distance. This includes short range missiles, fast speedboats able to harass shipping, sea mines, and drones.

The one offramp at this time continues to be an Iranian return to direct nuclear talks with the U.S. But the Iranian government is clearly concerned that doing so would not only threaten the existence of the nuclear program that it has been building for 20 years (by eliminating its ability to enrich uranium), but also make it look weak at home and thus threaten regime stability.

America First

The geopolitics of TikTok

The future of TikTok in the United States remains uncertain as President Donald Trump granted a new 90-day extension for its Chinese owner, ByteDance, to find a non-Chinese buyer. The initial extension ended today, 19 June. While the White House confirmed plans for another executive order to keep the app operational, experts note that the TikTok issue, which is rooted in national security, data sovereignty, and technological rivalry, extends beyond traditional trade disputes.

Despite ongoing trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing, there has been no easing of the U.S. government's cautious stance on TikTok. The Trump administration has already delayed enforcement of divestment laws twice this year, and China maintains export controls on technologies used in TikTok, requiring Beijing’s approval for any sale.

President Trump expressed confidence that China would eventually approve a deal. Meanwhile, TikTok, with around 170 million users in the U.S., continues to expand globally amid legal and political uncertainty. It seems that the app was not a central topic in recent U.S.–China trade discussions, leaving its future in limbo.

The planet will be fine, it’s the humans who should be worried

Global warming increases, and reducing pollution makes it worse

New research led by NASA has found that global cloud cover, especially storm clouds over oceans, has been shrinking significantly, declining by 1.5–3% per decade over the past 24 years.

This trend, linked to shifting wind patterns caused by climate change, may help explain why 2023 and 2024 shattered global heat records. The reduction of highly reflective cloud cover in stormy regions near the poles has reduced Earth’s ability to reflect sunlight, amplifying warming beyond what greenhouse gases and El Niño alone can explain.

In parallel, a new climate study warns that humanity is on track to surpass the 1.5°C warming threshold set by the Paris Agreement as early as February 2028. With global CO₂ emissions now at 46 billion tons per year, and only 143 billion tons left in the “carbon budget,” scientists estimate the world has less than three years before breaching this critical limit becomes inevitable.

Warming is now increasing at a rate of 0.27°C per decade, driven largely by fossil fuel combustion and a reduction in atmospheric pollutants that once masked some of the warming. Hence, reducing pollution can paradoxically increase global warming, complicating efforts to reduce warming and pitting two goals of the global environmental movement against each other.

Earth’s energy imbalance, the gap between solar heat absorbed and energy radiated back into space, has risen by 25% in just a decade. The world already temporarily crossed the 1.5°C mark in 2024, and long-term overshoot is likely if emissions continue at current rates.

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