Tuesday, October 21, 2025

Trying to keep the peace in the Middle East

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The Short List

Tue Oct 21 2025

Phaedra Trethan | National Correspondent

@wordsbyphaedra

👋🏼 Hello! I'm Phaedra Trethan. Still traumatized from the ending of the 1993 World Series and thus unable to root for the Toronto Blue Jays. So, Go Dodgers! ⚾️

In Tuesday's news:

•	Vice President JD Vance is in Israel to try to keep a fragile peace on track.
•	Two missing babies were found alive, decades after their mother's murder.
•	Where are those stolen jewels? The world wonders.

But first: You can bet this Jersey girl will be going to see the new Bruce Springsteen biopic. 📽️

Vance goes to Israel

Vice President JD Vance is visiting Israel to tamp down flare-ups in the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, part of a whirlwind trip to shore up President Donald Trump's signature foreign policy priority.

Vance's mandate: to take talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the next step and to grapple with long-term ways to keep the peace in the troubled region. What Vance said, and what comes next.

•	Watch the Vice President's remarks.

U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks to members of the media in Kiryat Gat, Israel, October 21, 2025.

Ammar Awad, REUTERS

'My heart stopped'

One December day in 1989, tourists got lost in the vast Arizona desert about 50 miles south of Las Vegas and stumbled across a woman's naked, bloodied body. Two days later, about 400 miles away, two baby girls were found on the floor of a dirty park restroom in Oxnard, a working class California town.

The two events, both tragic, seemed at the time to be unrelated and remained a mystery for decades. Until this year, thanks to the dogged determination of a Mohave County Sheriff's Office detective. How a detective solved two cold cases 36 years later.

Real quick

•	A Trump nominee is losing support after reports of racist and antisemitic texts.
•	Authorities say a man was planning a mass shooting at the airport in Atlanta.
•	The federal government shutdown is stretching into its third week with no end in sight.
•	Could peanut allergies become a thing of the past? 🥜

Where are the jewels?

💎 💎 💎 There are a lot of questions surrounding the brazen daylight robbery at the Louvre in Paris, but one of the most confounding is this: How can the thieves profit off the most famous theft in the world? Surely, selling them without being caught would be impossible. Right?! 💰

•	What experts say might have happened to the jewels, worth an estimated $102.63 million.
•	How it happened. 🧐

A jewel-encrusted brooch worn by French Empress Eugenie, which was among the items stolen by thieves during a heist at Paris' Louvre Museum on Oct. 19, 2025, on display in this undated still frame from a video.

Louvre Museum, via REUTERS

Banned books coming back

📚 A federal judge in Virginia ordered the Pentagon to restore books removed from its schools as part of the Trump Administration's efforts to weed out what they call "wokeness" from the military and education.

Six military families, represented by the ACLU, sued the Department of Defense in April over its actions in DoD schools across the U.S. and 11 other nations, where more than 67,000 students attend classes.

A break from the news

•	Unlike Obi-Wan, Anakin and Yoda, Ben Solo, aka Kylo Ren, is really dead. 😵
•	We might be daydreaming about these must-see destinations. 🗺️ 🏔️ 🏝️
•	Could this beloved kids author call it quits? 🤔

Phaedra Trethan is a national correspondent at USA TODAY. She'd love to hear from readers about The Short List, story ideas from across the nation and what your bucket list destinations are. Email her at ptrethan@usatoday.com.

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