The new year begins with a continuation of three topics that figured prominently in 2023: escalating hostilities in the Middle East; a possible return to more traditional higher education after shake-ups at several elite American universities; plus the uncertainty of certain economic assumptions (in 2023, a much-prophesied recession that never materialized). Hoover senior fellows Niall Ferguson, H.R. McMaster, and John Cochrane also discuss the odds of Cold War 2 morphing into World War III; whether economic conditions will overshadow fearmongering in a grim Trump-Biden referendum (in Niall’s words: the choice of “empire or republic”); the best use of this leap year’s spare day; plus why King Charles III would choose to break with tradition by spending a “dry” January in a very wet Scotland.