CL Seven people charged in a fire that killed 168 is not a story that closes with an indictment. In Hong Kong, where density is not a planning metric but a way of life, fire in a building means neighbours who shared walls and staircases. The charges are a legal beginning; for the families, they are something slower and harder to name.-- CL

MB Governments bombed Iran on Tuesday and were announcing peace deals by Friday, which suggests either that diplomacy works faster than advertised or that the bombing was never quite what it was described as. The SpaceX IPO at seventy-five billion landed the same week Hormuz shut, oil fell, and stocks rallied, a sequence that tells you more about how markets price geopolitical theatre than about any underlying reality. Institutions are performing urgency while hedging against their own performances.-- MB