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Mohamed Sinwar’s death comes seven months after his brother Yahya was killed in an Israeli mission in Rafah. The Sinwar brothers’ story has now ended. But central to their story is an audacious operation.

On May 13, Israeli forces struck an underground facility beneath the European Hospital in Gaza’s Khan Younis. The Israeli military claimed it had targeted a senior Hamas command node. Days later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told parliament that the military had “eliminated” Mohammed Sinwar, the younger brother of ex-Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. 

Hamas has not confirmed his death, and no official obituary or funeral has been held. That silence has raised speculation about his status, though Palestinian sources close to the group believe he was indeed killed in the strike.

Mohamed’s death comes seven months after Yahya was killed in an Israeli mission in Rafah in October last year. The Sinwar brothers’ story has now ended. Central to their story is an audacious operation: the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier that eventually secured the release of over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, including Yahya himself.

The Making Of A Militant 

Yahya Sinwar was born in 1962 in the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza, the eldest of several brothers in a family displaced during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. His younger brother, Mohammed, was born in 1975 in the same camp. Raised under occupation, shaped by deprivation, and radicalised through Israel’s repeated military incursions into Gaza, both brothers would rise through the ranks of Hamas, albeit in different spheres: Yahya in politics, Mohammed in the military.

While Yahya was known for his strategic mind and political ambition, Mohammed remained largely in the shadows, emerging as a field commander in Hamas’s military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

The Trump administration has ordered US embassies and consulates worldwide to halt all new appointments for student and exchange visitor visa applicants.

China has called on the United States to avoid “disrupting” education and academic exchanges after the Trump administration froze all student visa interviews and appointments at US embassies and consulates worldwide.

“We urge the US to effectively safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of all international students, including Chinese students overseas,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said on Wednesday, as per Newsweek. She added that China “upholds that normal education cooperation and academic exchanges should not be disrupted.”

The appeal comes as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced plans to “aggressively” revoke visas for Chinese students with alleged links to the Chinese Communist Party or those studying in sensitive fields. 

The US will also increase scrutiny of all future visa applications from China and Hong Kong, Rubio said.

By halting the student visa category, which issued over 4 lakh visas in fiscal year 2024, the administration aims to slow international student admissions and reduce immigration. This pause could also slash a key revenue stream for many US universities that rely on foreign students’ tuition.

Donald Trump has ramped up efforts to restrict foreign student admissions, citing national security concerns. On Wednesday, he proposed a cap on international enrollment at Harvard University, limiting it to 15 per cent of the student body.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday called international students “troublemakers” and suggested a 15 per cent cap should be imposed on the admission of foreign students at Harvard University and other American higher education institutions. Speaking from the Oval Office, the President said he doesn’t want “radical people” coming to the United States as students and “making trouble in our country.”

“We don’t want to see shopping centres explode. We don’t want to see the kind of riots that you had, and I’ll tell you what, many of those students didn’t go anywhere, many of those students were troublemakers caused by the radical left,” Trump told reporters. 

Doubling down on his attack on Harvard, Trump said the elite institution would have to show its list of international students to the administration.

“Harvard has to show us their lists. They have foreign students – almost 31 per cent of their students. We want to know where those students come from, whether they are troublemakers, and what countries they come from….These countries aren’t helping us. They’re not investing in Harvard … we are. So why would 31 per cent – why would a number so big…I think they should have a cap of maybe around 15 per cent, not 31 per cent,” he said.

He further suggested that foreign students take up too much of the student body and block the way for Americans to get a better education. 

“We have people [who] want to go to Harvard and other schools, [but] they can’t get in because we have foreign students there. But I want to make sure that the foreign students are people who can love our country.”

The President called Harvard a “disaster” and said students at the Ivy League institution are “totally anti-semitic”

“Harvard has been a disaster. They’ve taken $ 5 billion+… And by the way, they’re totally anti-semitic at Harvard, and some other colleges too. It’s been exposed, very exposed, and I think they’re dealing very badly. Every time they fight, they lose another 250 million dollars… I think this is what everyone’s coming up to me saying, we love the idea of trade schools with that kind of money and money from others, but money from them. You can have the best trade schools anywhere in the world… They can only be used for trade schools, and they’ll teach people how to build AI,” he said.

Space and technology billionaire Elon Musk announced that his term as the chief of the Department of Government Efficiency has come to an end.

Space and technology billionaire Elon Musk announced that his term as the chief of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has come to an end, thanking US President for the “opportunity to reduce wasteful spending”.

Musk said that the DOGE mission will strengthen over time to become a “way of life” in the government.

His departure comes a day after Musk’s first ever criticism of Trump, where he said the President’s signature “big, beautiful” spending bill increases budget deficit and undermines the DOGE team’s work. “A bill can be big, or it can be beautiful. But I don’t know if it can be both. My personal opinion,” Musk said.

Musk was the largest donor to Trump’s 2024 election campaign, featured in his pre-poll outings and then remained firmly by his side as the Republican assumed office. Trump, on his part, praised Musk in his victory speech, beaming as he said “a star is born”.

As the DOGE department started work at a feverish pace, Musk went looking for “super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries” willing to work over 80 hours a week on unglamorous cost-cutting tasks. Tens of thousands of people were removed from government payrolls and several departments were downsized or shut down, even as the Tesla chief butted heads with other senior Trump officials.

The Florida state appellate court on Wednesday rejected the Pulitzer Prize Board’s attempt to pause the ‘Russiagate’ lawsuit until the MAGA leader’s current term in office concludes.

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday declared victory against the “Russia Hoax” after a Florida court sided with him in a defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Board relating to awards given to The New York Times and the Washington Post for their coverage of Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election.

This came as a Florida state appellate court rejected the Pulitzer Prize Board’s attempt to pause the ‘Russia-gate’ lawsuit until the Republican leader’s current term in office concludes. The ruling came as the board failed to show any “constitutional conflicts” requiring a delay, according to Law & Crime.

What Trump Said

Hailing the ruling, Trump took to his Truth Social platform and said it was a “major win” in his effort to challenge “illegal and defamatory”  Pulitzer Prizes given to leading US publications for their “malicious stories on the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax.” 

The Manhattan-based Court of International Trade said the US Constitution gives Congress exclusive authority to regulate commerce with other countries that is not overridden by the President’s emergency powers to safeguard the American economy

A US trade court on Wednesday blocked Donald Trump’s ‘Liberation Day’ import tariffs from going into effect, ruling that the President overstepped his authorities with the across-the-board duties on countries that sell more to the United States than they buy. The American Commander in Chief has claimed broad authority to set global tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which is meant to address “unusual and extraordinary” threats during a national emergency. 

The Trump administration urged a court to uphold the tariff power, saying the legal setback could change the course of an “asymmetric” trade truce with China and revive the India-Pakistan conflict. Officials claimed that Trump used his tariff power to broker a ceasefire between India and Pakistan earlier in May, after both nuclear-powered neighbours were involved in a conflict following a terror attack by Pakistan-based terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pahalgam on April 22.

They told the court that trade negotiations regarding tariffs were underway with several countries, and the issue remains in a “delicate state” with July 7 as the deadline to finalise the trade deals.

What The Court Said

Rejecting all arguments, the Manhattan-based three-judge Court of International Trade ruled that Congress did not delegate “unbounded” powers to the President under IEEPA. It only authorises the president to impose necessary economic sanctions during an emergency “to combat an unusual and extraordinary threat,” the bench said.

By April 2025, American political news publication Politico cited sources close to Trump and said Musk would step back from his DOGE role “in the coming weeks”

Musk and Trump’s partnership seems to have ended after the Tesla boss quit the Department of Government Efficiency, citing disappointment over the President’s budget bill.

The “bulls**t artist” and the man who “doesn’t seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States” are no longer friends, or at least they don’t work together anymore.

For, you see, billionaire Elon Musk, who bankrolled President Donald Trump – to the tune of nearly US$300 million – to a second term in the White House, has walked away from his ‘job’ at the Department of Government Efficiency.

The ‘bromance for the ages’ – that cheeky description offered by British publication Independent in December last year – seemed to unravel after Musk’s public criticism of Trump’s ‘one, big beautiful’ bill.

He said “my time has come to an end” and that he was “disappointed” at the President championing a bill “… which increases the budget deficit… and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing”.

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