Russia struck Ukraine’s capital with ballistic missiles and drones overnight Wednesday, killing at least seven people across the country and wounding fifteen in Kyiv, hours after the Kremlin said it was “in principle, ready to resume” US-mediated peace talks. Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko posted on social media that eight of the fifteen wounded in the capital required hospitalization, and that strikes had damaged metro infrastructure at the Pivdenny Bridge, restricting traffic between parts of the city. Ukraine’s Air Force issued an early-hours warning of “more ballistic missiles towards Kyiv,” instructing residents to remain in shelters. In the overnight exchange, Ukraine launched 630 drones at the Moscow region; Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported the barrage was mostly intercepted, with two people wounded. (France 24 reported Thursday morning on the overnight strikes, the peace-talk signal from Moscow, and the diplomatic timeline leading up to both.)
The strikes followed a three-hour meeting Wednesday in St. Petersburg between US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Vladimir Putin. It was Witkoff’s ninth meeting with Putin. Jared Kushner joined remotely. Witkoff posted afterward that talks were “constructive” but that “there is still important work left to do,” and that discussions would continue at the technical level. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters that Russia is “in principle, ready to resume” trilateral talks in mid-November, after the US midterm elections. Ushakov added that there wasn’t “really much substance” in the Ukrainian and European proposals Witkoff had delivered from his Tuesday meeting with Zelensky in Oslo. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha posted on social media, hours after the overnight strikes, that “appeasement, servility and flattery” would not stop Russia’s war. Zelensky said of the proposed trilateral meeting: “The American side is proposing to organise this meeting as soon as possible. We are in favour of it.” Trump said Wednesday evening that the situation was “the closest we’ve been” to ending the war.
The combination of talks and strikes isn’t new. Korean War armistice negotiations began in July 1951 and dragged through the next two years while both sides continued fighting along the 38th Parallel. The final armistice was signed in July 1953. The two years in between weren’t a failure of the talks. They were the talks. Both sides were using the battlefield to shape what the table would look like. The question in Ukraine isn’t whether Russia’s overnight strikes undermine the peace process. It’s whether they’re part of the process, same as they’ve always been.
The Pentagon has finalized preparations for a potential resumption of major combat operations against Iran, according to a report earlier this month from Axios. The military has been told to be ready. One option under consideration, reported by the New York Times, involves three days of intensive strikes targeting Iran’s drone and missile arsenals, as well as nuclear and infrastructure sites. Trump said publicly that no strikes would restart before November 3, so the question is what comes after the vote. The midterms appear to be the hard boundary on the calendar. (Axios reported the readiness order and the scope of options being prepared, citing US officials familiar with the planning.)
Israel holds its own elections on October 27, five days from now. The IDF Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, reportedly warned Washington that a resumption of fighting in Iran would likely force postponement of the Israeli vote. Washington pressed Israel at one point to strike alone, according to the Jerusalem Post, in part to keep Trump away from midterm fallout. That pressure has since been walked back. Netanyahu’s position hasn’t been stated publicly. What’s publicly stated is that the US has prepared options, the decision has been deferred until after the elections on both sides of the Atlantic, and the Strait of Hormuz is still in the hands of whoever has the most mines.
Two oil tankers caught fire last week after hitting naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Iranian state media said both tankers were carrying about two million barrels of crude. Baird Maritime reported on the incident from shipping-industry sources, noting there was no independent confirmation of the Iranian claims. Brent crude has been trading above $110 per barrel. The US embassy in Riyadh has restricted staff access to the airports in Jeddah and Dammam, following a series of Houthi attacks on Saudi aviation infrastructure. The Riyadh airport attack on October 10 killed twelve people and wounded more than three hundred, one of the deadliest such strikes in Saudi Arabia in more than a decade. (Baird Maritime covered the tanker fires, the mine detonations, and the status of independent verification.)
The Strait carries roughly 20 percent of the world’s oil supply. The war with Iran has now been running since late February. Iraq has reported approximately $60 billion in lost oil export revenue since the conflict began. Neither of those figures, stated plainly and held together, suggests this ends on a fast timeline.
France’s Yellow Vests movement has called a “second act” for Saturday, October 24, with demonstrations planned in dozens of cities. Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu hasn’t indicated any changes to the budget proposal that touched off the protests last weekend. The curfews in Paris, Lyon, and other cities remain in effect. The French Interior Ministry reported 2,397 arrests from last Saturday’s demonstrations, when approximately 550,000 people took to the streets nationwide. Nearly 1,000 police and security personnel were injured. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez offered his resignation after admitting authorities “lost control” in some cities; President Emmanuel Macron rejected it. (Reporting from CNN, NPR, and local French outlets throughout the week has tracked the curfews, the arrests, and the police injuries.)
In 2023, France went through months of sustained protests over pension reform. Élisabeth Borne’s government eventually held the pension legislation. That history runs in two directions: the government held then, which is a reason to think the government might hold now; but it also held after months of sustained pressure, not after one week, which is a reason to think the next few Saturdays matter more than this one.
Twelve days remain before the November 3 midterm elections. Three Republican-held Senate seats are now polling within three points of their Democratic challengers, according to a New York Times and Siena College poll. In Texas, Democrat James Talarico has pulled within the margin of error against Republican Ken Paxton, in a state that hasn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1988. Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take the majority from a chamber Republicans currently hold 53-47. Forecast models, including several running 100,000-simulation scenarios, put Democrats at around 61 percent to win Senate control. Prediction markets on Kalshi and Polymarket agree: both favor Democrats, at 64 and 63 percent respectively. (The Action Network has been tracking polling and prediction-market odds throughout October.)
Since the Second World War, the party holding the White House has lost Senate seats in 13 of the 20 midterm elections. Two of the seven exceptions were 2002, when Republicans gained two seats a year after September 11, and 1998, when Democrats gained five House seats during the Clinton impeachment, an event the public had decided to punish the party that pursued it. What the pattern means for 2026 depends on which exception the current environment most resembles, and there’s genuine disagreement about that.
On October 5, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Karl Deisseroth of Stanford University, Peter Hegemann of Humboldt University Berlin, and Georg Nagel of the University of Würzburg, for their discovery of light-gated ion channels, the molecular foundation of optogenetics. The three will share the prize equally. (The Nobel Prize committee announced the winners on October 5 and published the technical description of the discovery on the nobelprize.org website.)
What they found, across several decades of work and between three different research groups, is that certain single-celled algae have proteins in their membranes that open and close in response to light. The protein is called channelrhodopsin. When light hits it, it lets ions through. When the light stops, it closes. This is how algae steer toward sunlight or away from it: a molecular switch, operated by photons. Deisseroth figured out how to put that protein into neurons. Hegemann had hypothesized the light-gated channel and found its genes. Nagel had confirmed how it functioned. The result is a technique that lets scientists shine a pulse of light onto a specific population of brain cells and turn them on or off. In animal experiments, it has restored light sensitivity in mice with retinal degeneration, and allowed researchers to map the neural circuits of fear and memory with a precision that wasn’t previously possible. No optogenetic treatment has yet been approved for use in humans. That work is in clinical trial stages and takes time.
Per Svenningsson, Chair of the Nobel Committee, said: “Optogenetics provides opportunities for mapping the brain in a way that we could once only dream of.” The discovery started with a question about why pond algae swim toward the sun. That question turns out to have been the right one.
Howard Fenn writes The Day, Monday through Saturday.
