For a while, it felt like a quiet Wednesday on Capitol Hill—the kind of day when lawmakers shuffle between briefings, their conversations a low murmur of schedules and half-finished amendments. But when Senator Mark Warner stepped in front of reporters, his words carried a weight that cut through the rhythm of routine. The Virginia Democrat, who serves as the senior Democratic member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had just emerged from a classified briefing on election security, one of those sessions designed to give lawmakers the latest intelligence in a tense and fragile season. He didn’t have to shout to…

From the outside, it might have looked like a routine diplomatic stop. Emmanuel Macron, in Doha, meeting Qatari leaders, discussing energy and regional stability. But inside, the French president was simmering. When reporters brought up the unrest that had convulsed France over the weekend—the burning cars, the shattered storefronts, the plume of smoke above Limoges city hall—Macron did not hide his fury. He said that comments from Donald Trump and other foreign leaders about the street chaos were “as unacceptable as they are stupid.” The phrase was blunt, almost uncharacteristically so for a leader who usually chooses his words like…