From Antony and Cleopatra to Burton and Taylor, history is filled with volatile relationships.

One might expect some circumspection from politicians about their personal ups and downs playing out in the public arena. But in an era of geopolitical instability and terminal online-ness, the rest of us can barely keep up.

Break-ups

Elon Musk and Donald Trump

It was “perhaps the most widely predicted break-up in American political history”, said Fortune. The “bromance” between Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, and Donald Trump, one of the most powerful, ended in very public acrimony.

The Tesla and X boss was initially known as the US president’s “first buddy” for his seemingly unparalleled access. Musk helped bankroll Trump’s return to the White House, and claimed after his election victory that he loved Trump “as much as a straight man can love another man”. But after taking a chainsaw to the federal government with his “cost-cutting” initiative, DOGE, Musk left the administration in May. Just days later, he urged Republicans to reject Trump’s “massive, courageous, pork-filled” tax bill, which he called a “disgusting abomination”.

After that, the “speed of the fallout was breathtaking”, said The New York Times, and “every bit as lowdown, vindictive, personal, petty, operatic, childish, consequential, messy and public as many had always expected it would be”.

Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana

After leaving the Labour Party in high dudgeon in July, Zarah Sultana attempted to set up a new left-wing grassroots party with now-independent MP Jeremy Corbyn. But the duo couldn’t even decide on the name, much less anything else.

Corbyn claimed Sultana had set up a paid membership system that collected money and data without proper approval and authorisation. Sultana claimed she had been frozen out by a “sexist boys’ club” of Corbyn and four pro-Gaza independent MPs. The pair had a bitter falling out that saw Sultana claiming she had consulted libel lawyers. She later rescinded the threat, and told Sky News that they were like Liam and Noel Gallagher, the famously feuding Oasis brothers who patched things up for their reunion tour.

However, she neglected to invite Corbyn to a rally due to take place on the eve of the (what is now known as) Your Party conference. Don’t look back in anger, indeed.

Keir Starmer and Angela Rayner

Angela Rayner was once seen as the future of the Labour Party – and possibly its future leader. But this summer she became embroiled in controversy after admitting that she had mistakenly underpaid stamp duty on a flat in Hove. Keir Starmer initially stood by his deputy, but the noise grew louder and she was nicknamed “three pads” Rayner.

Rayner referred herself to the independent ethics adviser, and after being found to have breached the ministerial code, she handed in her resignation, plunging Labour into a chaotic deputy leadership race and cabinet reshuffle. Starmer’s response to her resignation letter was ostensibly warm: “You have been a trusted colleague and a true friend for many years.”

But now the rumour mill is once again stirring that Rayner might be gunning for his job. She declined to rule out running for the party leadership if Starmer finds himself defenestrated, telling the Daily Mirror in her first big post-resignation interview that she had “not gone away”. (Neither has her bill: she has reportedly not yet paid her £40,000 stamp duty as HMRC has not sent the bill out.)

Make-ups

UK and EU

One of the most acrimonious break-ups in recent history must surely be Brexit. But this year, there’s been something of a warming in relations between the EU and its erstwhile member, the UK. (The UK, after all, still benefits from EU funds.)

In May, the government and the bloc held their first joint summit since the UK left the EU, and the word on everyone’s lips was “reset”. The former foes agreed on a new deal; Starmer hailed it a “new era”. Not everyone was on board with this make-up: Tory leader Kemi Badenoch called the deal a “total sell-out”.

This month, Labour announced that a new agreement with Brussels to allows UK students to participate in the EU-wide university scheme Erasmus from 2027.

Emmanuel Macron and Sébastien Lecornu

Speaking of rapprochement, French President Emmanuel Macron asked Sébastien Lecornu to return as prime minister just four days after he stood down.

The Élysée Palace said the president had tasked Lecornu with “forming a government” – no easy task in France, given its grande debt problem – and Macron’s entourage “indicated he had been given ‘carte blanche’ to act”, said the BBC.

Lecornu is now aiming his ire elsewhere, blaming “partisan cynicism and presidential ambitions” for his struggle to get next year’s budget plans approved, said Politico. “Everyone wants to push their own agenda and fly their ideological flag,” he said, in remarks that “bore a distinct similarity to those after his surprise resignation”.

Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping

When Xi Jinping met Narendra Modi in September, the Chinese leader used “his favourite catchphrase for China-India relations”, said the BBC: “The dragon and the elephant should come together.”

The relationship between the two most populous countries has been strained for decades, but the Asian giants have taken huge steps to normalise relations. This year, that thawing was “turbocharged by decisions taken thousands of miles away in Washington DC”, when the Trump administration imposed 50% tariffs on Indian imports: a “stunning onslaught from a trusted ally”.

After the September meeting – Modi’s first trip to China in seven years – direct flights between the “dragon and the elephant” resumed, and the visa process was simplified. Their thousands of miles of shared borders are still tense, bristling with troops from both countries. But what relationship doesn’t have boundary issues?

Donald Trump ramped up the pressure on President Nicolás Maduro by ordering a “total and complete” blockade of oil tankers subject to US sanctions heading to or from Venezuela. He accused Maduro’s government of using “stolen” oil to “finance themselves, drug terrorism, human trafficking, murder and kidnapping”.

Referring to the US deployment to the region of a dozen warships and more than 14,000 troops, Trump wrote that Venezuela was “completely surrounded by the largest armada ever assembled in the history of South America”.

Oil prices jumped in the wake of Trump’s blockade order, which came days after US forces had seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. Since September, the US military has killed around 100 people in more than two dozen strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific.

Trump has also threatened to strike drug-related targets inside Venezuela. Caracas denounced his “warmongering threats” and called on oil workers to organise a worldwide protest “against the piracy of those who believe they have a licence to plunder the world’s resources”.

Drug blockades

Trump is tightening the screws on Caracas, said The Wall Street Journal – and not before time. While Maduro is accusing the US of piracy, he’s the one who “stole Venezuelan democracy” by refusing to cede power after losing the 2024 presidential election. More than eight million Venezuelans have fled his police state. Trump isn’t concerned about Maduro’s authoritarianism, said The Guardian. Nor is this about tackling drug cartels: Venezuela isn’t a big supplier of drugs to the US. Trump is driven mainly by the desire to stem refugee flows and get rid of the socialist Maduro, a long-term target.

The US blockade carries some risks, said The Washington Post. It could provoke a marine confrontation that drags the US into a land war in South America. And by reducing the regime’s main source of revenue, it could exacerbate a humanitarian crisis. Still, it’s a more “legally defensible” strategy than the US air strikes on alleged drug smugglers. Given that about 80% of Venezuela’s oil is sold on the black market, and that most tankers stopping there are sanctioned, Trump “can argue that he’s merely stepping up enforcement”. His first-term effort to oust Maduro failed because “his attention drifted”. Will he stay the course this time?

Squeezing Venezuela’s oil trade

Maduro is vulnerable, said Andrew Neil in the Daily Mail. Venezuela has the world’s largest-known oil reserves and used to be one of the region’s richest countries. But more than 25 years of hard-left rule, initially under Hugo Chávez and then his protégé Maduro, have driven it to ruin. Its poverty rate is now about 80%. People talk about the danger of civil war if Maduro is ousted, but this isn’t a divided country. Nobel Prize-winner María Corina Machado would have coasted to victory had she not been barred from standing in last year’s election. In a recent poll, nine out of 10 Venezuelans said they believed that the man who won that vote by a landslide – Machado’s chosen candidate, Edmundo Gonzáles – is their rightful president.

Trump is hoping that his “drip-drip pressure campaign” can bring about a coup without the need for direct US military force, said Tom Rogan in the Washington Examiner. US navy jets are wearing down Venezuelan defence units by forcing them to remain at a state of high readiness, and CIA assets inside the country are no doubt encouraging top officials to move against Maduro. It’s the right approach. If Maduro is ousted, there’s a good chance that there will be an insurgency involving narco-traffickers and at least some unreconciled elements of the old regime. Given Venezuela’s “abundance of deep jungles and sprawling favelas”, the US doesn’t want to get entangled in any counter-insurgency campaign.

Trump is squeezing Venezuela’s oil trade, said Keith Johnson in Foreign Policy. Activity in its ports has sharply reduced and multiple inbound tankers have turned around mid-voyage in recent days. Some oil is still flowing, said a report in the Financial Times. US-based Chevron, which accounts for about a quarter of Venezuela’s oil production, still has a licence to sell oil; tankers not included in the US’ expanding list of sanctioned vessels can still ply their trade. If the US keeps tightening the noose, though, it will create enormous difficulties for Maduro’s regime. “But given that the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ started by Chávez has survived for a quarter of a century, few are willing to bet on the Venezuelan regime collapsing” without direct US military action.

Lack of storage capacity

Trump says the US military build-up will continue until Caracas returns “all of the oil, land and other assets they previously stole from us”. Under Chávez, Venezuela expropriated assets belonging to US oil companies. Trump hasn’t given any further details about how the US blockade on sanctioned tankers will be enforced.

Until recently Venezuela produced about 0.8% of global crude oil output, exporting some 900,000 barrels a day. Most of this ended up in China. Last week, Venezuela’s state oil company, PDVSA, said that crude exports were “continuing as normal”, but experts believe it will soon have to halt production owing to a lack of storage capacity.

Many Americans are not leaving the house without their passports, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues to conduct raids across American cities. Reports of citizens being detained have created a culture of fear, leading them to carry identifying documents wherever they go.

What citizens are being detained?

At least 170 American citizens have been detained by ICE during its raids, according to a ProPublica investigation. This has led some people to carry their passports because of the “threat of mistakenly being taken into ICE detention and potentially disappearing into labyrinthine immigration custody,” said NPR’s KQED-FM. While there is no legal requirement to carry a passport, citizens “may choose to make practical decisions around carrying documentation anyway.”

Reports indicate that the majority of people choosing to do this are people of color, including many Latino U.S. citizens. Walter Cruz Perez, who lives in a New Orleans suburb, has been a U.S. citizen since 2022 and “used to never think twice about only carrying his driver’s license,” said The Guardian. But since the ICE raids in New Orleans ramped up, he’s in the “habit of putting his passport in his cell phone case.” Those in his community “see on the news that people don’t have the chance to identify themselves,” so “you do what you have to do to avoid problems,” he said.

Other people of color are reportedly choosing to carry documentation too. Amid ICE raids targeting Minnesota’s large Somali American population, many of these people “feel they have little choice but to carry their passports to prove they are citizens,” said CBS News. These Somali Americans are “being stopped by ICE and asked to prove citizenship,” Jamal Osman, a Minneapolis City Council member, said to CBS News, saying it “feels like [the] 1930s and ’40s in Germany.”

What can ICE ask for?

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security “vehemently denies that American citizens have been detained, even inadvertently, during its immigrant sweeps,” said Arizona State University’s Cronkite News, with the department calling ICE raids “highly targeted.” Despite this, experts continue to push clarity on what ICE agents can and cannot do when stopping someone.

There is “no legal requirement that U.S. citizens carry papers or have proof of their citizenship on them,” Bree Bernwanger, a senior attorney at ACLU NorCal, said to KQED-FM. There “shouldn’t be a reason to have to carry your papers because immigration agents aren’t supposed to stop people or detain them” unless they have a reasonable suspicion of a crime. But people also “have to make their own decisions about what they are comfortable with in the face of this lawless enforcement.”

Many legal experts say carrying your passport, even if you are an American citizen, is probably a good idea. It is “better to carry your passport — that’s the best,” attorney Layla Suleiman González said in a translated interview with Telemundo Chicago. But even if you are stopped by ICE, you “don’t have to answer their questions, you don’t have to say where you’re from, you don’t have to say whether you are a citizen or not. You don’t have to talk to them.”

President Donald Trump has never been a fan of wind farms, delivering a “haymaker” to the clean energy industry this week by ordering a pause on the construction of five East Coast offshore projects slated to power nearly 2.7 million homes. He thinks wind farms are “ugly” and has frequently invoked potential harms to wildlife, said The New York Times. And administration officials argue that the five wind farms are “national security risks” but offer little evidence.

Trump remains “apoplectic” about his failure to stop construction of one off the coast of his Scottish golf course. Wind farms are “driving the whales crazy, obviously,” he said in January.

The president’s decision marks an “escalation of a yearlong effort to shut down the industry,” said Politico. Electricity customers may soon feel the effects. A New England grid operator warned that Trump’s move “could send power prices soaring,” while a Virginia utility said the pause hurts its ability to “keep up with rising electricity consumption from data centers.” American voters are angry about affordability issues, and Trump’s decision “is running contrary to that in my opinion,” said Tim Ennis, a power market analyst at GridStatus.

What did the commentators say?

The wind pause is a “blow to America’s energy future,” The Washington Post said in an editorial. Halting the projects will particularly “set back the cause of generating enough energy to meet the demands of the AI boom.” The White House cited national security concerns, suggesting wind turbine blades “could interfere with radar,” but those worries “were not significant obstacles during the permitting process.” The permitting process must be reformed to make it more difficult to block “projects the economy desperately needs.”

Trump is making Americans pay more for electricity “because he is angry at windmills,” Dean Baker said in his newsletter. It is true that, as Trump often says, windmills kill birds, which is the “case with any structure.” But “wind energy is cheap” and costs less to produce than coal — about the same as natural gas — all while avoiding greenhouse gases. All this comes while China is building as much wind and solar capacity “as the rest of the world combined.” Americans “will pay a high price for Donald Trump’s irrational hatred of wind energy.”

What next?

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul warned that Trump’s decision will make it difficult for her state to “reduce emissions” while also “fending off grid reliability concerns and spiking utility rates,” said Spectrum News. She was part of a larger group of Democratic governors from northeast states who plotted a “strategy” to save the wind farms from the president’s authority, said The New York Times.

A federal lawsuit challenging the decision is likely, but negotiations with the White House are also possible. The governors, said Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, will be “exercising our rights and doing everything we can to keep these projects going.”

‘Nursing homes are about to get a lot worse, thanks to Trump and RFK Jr.’

Sean C. Domnick at The Hill

For “years, families assumed that if a loved one lived in a nursing home, someone qualified was always watching,” says Sean C. Domnick. But “beginning Feb. 2, 2026, the federal requirement that nursing homes maintain a registered nurse on-site around the clock will no longer exist.” RNs “are the only ones with the training to identify subtle but serious declines,” and “missed diagnoses lead to preventable deaths.” This “takes us backwards at the exact moment we needed a stronger system.”

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‘On reparations for Black residents, the time for action in San Francisco is now’

Amos C. Brown at the San Francisco Chronicle

Rosa Parks “refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama,” because the “time for waiting for things to change was over,” says Amos C. Brown. San Francisco wants to “address discrimination and inequities that have affected the city’s Black community for generations,” but has “allocated not a penny.” An “apology without action and a fund without an allocation are not reparations.” The “time for waiting is over. The time for action has arrived.”

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‘Christmas is not a Western story — it is a Palestinian one’

Munther Isaac at Al Jazeera

Christmas traditions “have become so common that many assume, almost automatically, that Christianity is inherently a Western religion — an expression of European culture, history and identity,” but “it is not,” says Munther Isaac. Christmas has “become a performance of abundance, nostalgia and consumerism — a holiday stripped of its theological and moral core.” But the holiday is a “story of empire, injustice and the vulnerability of ordinary people caught in its path.” This “disconnect matters.”

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‘Walmart worship’

Michael Massing at The Nation

Since his “announcement in mid-November that he plans to retire early next year as the chief executive of Walmart,” Doug McMillon has been “basking in tributes,” says Michael Massing. During “his 12-year reign atop the world’s largest retailer, Walmart’s annual revenue has increased by nearly $200 billion,” but “what those numbers conceal is Walmart’s contribution to the nation’s stark economic divide.” And the “press has blithely ignored it.” This is “shareholder-driven capitalism at its most grotesque.”

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What happened

The Justice Department yesterday released its second large batch of files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and unlike the tranche released over the weekend, President Donald Trump is mentioned multiple times. The latest 30,000 pages also reference “10 co-conspirators” the FBI wanted to interview in July 2019, days after Epstein’s arrest and before his death in custody. The only Epstein co-conspirator charged was Ghislaine Maxwell, now serving 20 years in federal prison. 

Who said what

In a January 2020 email, an unidentified federal prosecutor in New York said Trump had flown on Epstein’s private jet at least eight times between 1993 and 1996, “many more times than previously has been reported (or that we were aware).” Two flights carried just Trump, Epstein and two “women who would be possible witnesses in a Maxwell case,” the email said. Last year, Trump claimed on social media he “was never on Epstein’s Plane, or at his ‘stupid’ Island.” 

The newly released files also “include several tips that were collected by the FBI about Trump’s involvement with Epstein,” The Washington Post said, though it’s not clear “whether any of the tips were corroborated.” A limousine driver in Dallas reported that during one ride, “Trump continuously stated the name ‘Jeffrey’ while on the phone, and made references to ‘abusing some girl,’” the FBI said. The driver also claimed that a woman told him Trump and Epstein raped her. The Justice Department said on social media yesterday that some of the documents contain “untrue and sensationalist claims” about Trump that, if credible, would have already been “weaponized” against him.

What next?

The Epstein files release has been “marred by DOJ mishandling, and that’s continuing,” CNN said. The Justice Department sounds like Trump’s “personal lawyer,” and the documents contain “curious and heavy-handed redactions that go beyond the limits of the law.” The files “involving Epstein’s 2007 sweetheart plea deal” are so “heavily redacted,” it’s “almost impossible to understand” how he escaped federal prosecution, the Miami Herald said. 

What happened

The Supreme Court yesterday blocked President Donald Trump from deploying the National Guard in the Chicago area to bolster his mass deportation push. “At this preliminary stage, the government has failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois,” the court said in an unsigned emergency docket opinion. Three conservative justices — Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch — publicly dissented. 

Who said what

The ruling was a “rare setback” for Trump before a conservative Supreme Court that has “frequently backed his broad assertions of presidential authority,” Reuters said. This was the “first time the justices have weighed in on Trump’s efforts to dispatch the military to American cities,” The Wall Street Journal said, and their “preliminary” ruling suggests they are “unwilling to rubber-stamp Trump’s assertions of broad authority to use the National Guard to manage protests and violent crime.” 

Yesterday’s ruling “hinged on the definition of ‘regular forces,’” the Journal said. Lower courts had blocked Trump’s deployment after determining that anti-ICE protests aren’t a brewing “rebellion,” but the justices found that Trump had failed to meet the other condition needed to nationalize the Guard over the objections of state officials: showing he was “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.” The court’s majority agreed with Illinois that “regular forces” likely meant the U.S. military, not federal agents. They also noted that presidents can only use the regular military for domestic law enforcement under “exceptional” circumstances because of the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act. 

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) welcomed the ruling as “an important step in curbing the Trump administration’s consistent abuse of power and slowing Trump’s march toward authoritarianism.” The White House said the ruling doesn’t detract from Trump’s “core agenda” of immigration enforcement and protecting federal personnel from “violent rioters.”

What next?

The decision was “not a final ruling,” but it could affect pending legal challenges to Trump’s “attempts to deploy the military in other Democratic-led cities,” The Associated Press said. Lower courts have blocked Trump’s deployments in Oregon and California. But some Republican governors have welcomed National Guard missions in their Democratic-run cities, and minutes after yesterday’s ruling, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) announced that about 350 Guard troops will join immigration agents in New Orleans before New Year’s Eve.

If there is a boundary setter in the GOP, Vice President JD Vance might be it. MAGAdom is feuding over whether antisemitic figures like Nick Fuentes will be allowed in the Republican coalition when President Donald Trump leaves. Observers watched last weekend’s Turning Point USA convention to see if Vance would draw a red line against bigotry in the party.

He did not. Vance ducked a chance to “condemn a streak of antisemitism” that has roiled the GOP in recent months, said The Associated Press. “I didn’t bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to de-platform,” Vance said during the convention’s closing speech. That came after conservative commentator Ben Shapiro criticized Fuentes, Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson during his own address. Those figures and their allies are “grifters and they do not deserve your time,” Shapiro said. Vance, though, refused to take sides in the feud. MAGA Republicans have “far more important work to do than canceling each other," Vance said.

Vance has repeatedly “refused to pick a side in interparty fights over bigotry,” said The New York Times. The vice president earlier this year dismissed outrage over a Young Republicans chat group that featured racist jokes and memes, and in 2024 “embraced false claims about Haitian Americans.” Antisemitism and ethnic hatred “have no place in the conservative movement,” Vance said in an interview published after his TPUSA speech. But Trump’s America is also a place where “you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore,” he told conventiongoers.

What did the commentators say?

“When presented with the simplest moral test, Vance failed,” said Franklin Foer at The Atlantic. Antisemitism is more than “one more woke fixation.” Trump has “always struggled” to denounce antisemitism, but that seemed mostly a product of a “vanity” that would not let him “speak ill of acolytes” like Kanye West. Vance has “clearly made the calculation that antisemites are part of the Republican Party’s base.” He cannot afford to lose them and be the GOP presidential candidate in 2028. That will give license to right-wing antisemites to “dehumanize Jews with greater abandon.”

Vance’s choice is “clarifying,” said Noah Rothman at the National Review. Rather than condemn antisemitism within the GOP, he chose to suggest that “those who object to the promotion of a bigot” are the party’s real problem. Vance “can read the writing on the wall as well as anyone,” and the signs suggest that young conservatives are increasingly big fans of “Hitlerian Caesarism.” That development “should terrify responsible actors in American public life.”

What next?

Vance has not officially announced a 2028 presidential bid but is already starting to “lock down” support for his campaign, said NBC News. Erika Kirk, CEO of Turning Point USA, endorsed Vance at the convention. That is just one sign the vice president is “finding early success in holding together” the various parts of Trump’s coalition: A straw poll of TPUSA attendees found that 84% want him to be the GOP’s next nominee.

If the goal of CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss is to put her network’s content in front of as many eyes as possible, her decision to hold a previously greenlit “60 Minutes” report on American deportees at El Salvador’s infamous CECOT prison was a rousing success. In the days since the report was initially scheduled to air, digital samizdat copies have proliferated across multiple social media platforms, fueled in part by frustrations with Weiss’ censorial efforts and likely spreading far beyond “60 Minutes’” core television viewership. The episode has become a flashpoint in a larger debate over the network’s relation to the Trump administration and CBS’ obligations to the public discourse.

‘Veto power over journalism’

While the “60 Minutes” CECOT report was initially “cleared by the network’s usual process and was previously vetted by standards, legal and senior editors,” Weiss’ insistence on an on-camera statement by the Trump administration, which previously denied a request for comment, has “fueled internal tensions” at the shows and across CBS more broadly, said The Washington Post. “60 Minutes” reporter Sharyn Alfonsi’s account of what she deemed Weiss’ “political” interference seemed like the “earth-shattering moment that staffers have feared” since billionaire Larry Ellison and his son, David, purchased the network and installed Weiss at its top, said CNN.

By refusing to run a story unless it has a White House comment, CBS under Weiss has given the Trump administration “veto power over journalism,” said media reporter Bill Carter on X. Staffers with “integrity” will “likely quit, because it isn’t a news division anymore. It’s TASS,” the Russian state news agency.

The story being “factually correct” and having “undergone a legal review” didn’t seem to matter, said The Cut. Though Weiss is “not an especially deep thinker,” she remains an “adept mogul” who “knows how to play the Hollywood game.”

Trump’s efforts to “reindustrialize the economy or prosecute his enemies have floundered,” but his plan to “corrupt the media is starting to work,” said Jonathan Chait at The Atlantic. After the president initially lauded Weiss’ appointment atop CBS News only to complain she wasn’t “acting quickly enough to impose pliant coverage,” Weiss’ decision to hold the previously vetted CECOT story suggests it’s “not the public’s trust she’s concerned about but Trump’s.”

‘Confrontation and drama’

Alfonsi’s claim that Weiss gave the administration a “kill switch” over the network’s news reporting “sounds very bad,” said Graeme Wood at The Atlantic. But Weiss’ memo explaining her decision to CBS staff “does not say the segment should never run.” Rather, it stresses a need for “more confrontation and drama,” which is itself “more of what Weiss was brought in to CBS three months ago to provide.”

Nevertheless, there’s an “upside” to the fractured news landscape of which Weiss is now a major player, said The Cut. With corporate media “less powerful than it once was,” it’s “far harder for a strongman president like Trump to control the flow of information,” as demonstrated by the surge in bootlegged copies of the CECOT segment across social media.

‘If the press does not defend its freedom now, it will lose it’

Georgia Fort at Newsweek

The White House “recently launched a new webpage on its official government website titled ‘Media Offenders,’” but this is “not routine media criticism,” says Georgia Fort. It is “government intimidation without oversight, and it should set off alarms in every newsroom in the country.” This is a “code red moment. The warning signs have been building for years.” Flagging “journalists as ‘offenders’ creates a pipeline for harassment and targeting.” What the “press does next will determine our freedom.”

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‘For Bass and LAFD, there’s no watering down how bad 2025 has been’

Steve Lopez at the Los Angeles Times

The “year was already a debacle for the Los Angeles Fire Department and Mayor Karen Bass,” but an “investigation found that the fire department cleaned up its after-action report, downplaying missteps,” says Steve Lopez. There was a “blatant attempt to mislead the public,” and “these developments will echo through the coming mayoral election, in which Bass will be called out repeatedly over one of the greatest disasters in L.A. history.” The “story is likely to smolder into the new year.”

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‘A lesson from 1914: living as if every day is Christmas’

Michael Coren at the Toronto Star

It has “become fashionable in historical circles to revise, or even doubt, the 1914 ‘Christmas Truce,’” but it is “tragic, in fact, that the Christmas of 1914 could not have become the norm, and smashed the grip of violence that would leave such devastation,” says Michael Coren. It’s “that cycle that Christmas shatters, or is supposed to shatter.” Christmas is a “time to be with family, to enjoy and be happy, whatever we believe, but it’s so much more than that.”

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‘HUD funding shift would disregard proven solutions to homelessness and destabilize programs’

Donna Bullock at The Philadelphia Inquirer

Homelessness organizations were “thrown into crisis mode last month when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced an extreme shift in funding priorities,” says Donna Bullock. This “offered a stark preview of an administration willing to gamble with the futures of our most vulnerable neighbors and the crippling changes that could still be coming.” The “changes would disregard proven solutions and could destabilize established programs, putting people’s homes — and their lives — in jeopardy.”

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Should technology that’s going to determine America’s future be left “in the hands of 50 state legislatures?” asked Michael Solon in the New York Post. President Trump doesn’t think so. Last week, he signed an executive order setting up an “AI Litigation Task Force” to challenge state laws on artificial intelligence that the administration considers overly burdensome. The order also threatens to restrict those states’ access to federal broadband funding. In an online post, Trump explained correctly that America’s global leadership in AI “won’t last long” if every state imposes its own regulations, forcing AI companies “to get 50 Approvals every time they want to do something.” Consider California’s innovation-crippling “woke” regulations, which require all AI models to comply with Sacramento’s requirements for “safe, ethical, equitable, and sustainable” systems—or else face a $1 million fine. But make no mistake: Trump’s order is a “jerry-rigged solution at best.” The Constitution charges Congress, not the president, with regulating industries involved in “interstate commerce,” and Trump’s order could be nixed by legal challenges. Still, in this age of congressional dysfunction, and given the stakes of our AI race with China— where there are no restrictions at all impeding development—can we really blame the president for “taking action?” 

Trump ran on “America First,” said Dave Lee in Bloomberg. But on AI, he’s “Silicon Valley First.” Looming over Trump as he signed the order was a beaming David Sacks, the venture capitalist and White House “AI czar” who has been lobbying for a “moratorium” on state laws since last year. Why do Sacks and his fellow billionaires care if AI is regulated by states or Washington? Because they don’t want any regulation that might crimp profits— including safeguards to protect minors from suicide-encouraging chatbots—and they’re betting on “paralysis at the federal level” to ensure they don’t get any. 

We need to take the AI threat from China seriously, said former defense secretary Chuck Hagel in The Atlantic, but state regulation is actually our best defense. The kinds of laws states are passing—to tackle “deepfake impersonation of public officials,” for example, or AI-driven phishing scams—are routinely minimized as “social issues” by Sacks and Co. But to China and other bad actors, weak regulations in these areas create precisely the kind of “soft targets” that could let them “distort elections, fracture alliances, and erode civic trust” within America. To preempt these laws in favor of federal oversight that doesn’t yet exist “would be a disaster.” 

The outrageousness of Trump’s order is “one of the few things Republicans and Democrats can agree on right now,” said Tina Nguyen in The Verge. The Left is aghast at the naked profiteering, and the possibility that AI could wipe out jobs and further empower billionaires. And on the Right, MAGA icon Steve Bannon this week accused Sacks of having “completely misled” Trump by persuading him to back an “AI amnesty,” while Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis denounced “federal government overreach” that lets tech companies “run wild.” Bannon and DeSantis are channeling the real fears of red-state voters, said Valerie Hudson in the Deseret News. We saw what unregulated social media did to our children and our families. We’re not going to surrender and let Trump, or anyone, once again put the “pecuniary interests” of tech whiz kids and billionaires above “the lives and well-being of the American people.”

What happened

President Donald Trump yesterday revived his early-term campaign to take control of Greenland, a self-ruling territory of NATO ally Denmark. Trump has publicly coveted the large Arctic island’s mineral wealth, but “we need Greenland for national security, not for minerals,” he told reporters yesterday. “We have to have it,” he added, and Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) will “lead the charge.” 

Who said what

Trump unexpectedly named Landry as his “special envoy to Greenland” on Sunday. Landry said on social media yesterday he would work to “make Greenland a part of the U.S.” in his new “volunteer position,” which “in no way affects my position as Governor of Louisiana!”

It’s illegal to “annex another country,” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said in a joint statement. “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders, and the U.S. shall not take over Greenland.” 

Trump’s fixation on Greenland “gradually drifted out of the headlines” following his initial push, The Associated Press said. But Danish officials protested in August after “at least three people with connections to Trump” reportedly “carried out covert influence operations in Greenland.” And earlier this month, the Danish Defense Intelligence Service assessed that the U.S. was using its economic power to “assert its will” and threaten military force against both friends and foes.

What next?

Opinion polls in Greenland “show overwhelming opposition to becoming part of the US,” the BBC said. And Trump’s refusal to “rule out using force to secure control of the island” has “shocked Denmark.” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen told local media yesterday he was “deeply outraged” by the developments and would summon U.S. Ambassador to Denmark Ken Howery for an explanation. 

‘The Heritage Foundation blows up’

The Wall Street Journal editorial board

The “debate over the direction of the post-Trump right is underway, and one of the first casualties is the Heritage Foundation,” says The Wall Street Journal editorial board. Some of its “most important conservative scholars and their policy departments said they are leaving.” The foundation “might still play a role under new leadership, but its board has been slow to appreciate the internal dissatisfaction.” It “abandoned its principles, it is losing its people, and soon there might not be much left.”

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‘How Trump’s war on wind reveals a broken government’

Hayes Brown at MS NOW

The Trump administration will “pause leases for ongoing offshore wind farm construction projects,” which is “another example of the administration’s ongoing war on clean energy production,” says Hayes Brown. This has “all the markings of a federal government geared to reverse-engineering justifications for acting on President Donald Trump’s obsessions.” The “scramble to scuttle wind farms at a time like this only serves to underscore how much Trump’s vendettas are costing this country.”

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‘Why holiday music charts are stuck in the past’

Taylor Crumpton at Time

For the “past 30 years, Mariah Carey has dominated the Christmas season,” which “begs the question, is there even room for a new Christmas song, or are we doomed to listen to Mariah Carey year after year?” says Taylor Crumpton. Even though “Billboard changed its criteria to prevent chart stagnation, the annual revival of holiday classics on music streaming services leads to an ongoing monopolization of old Christmas songs at the top of the Billboard Holiday 100 chart.”

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‘When the AI bubble bursts, humans will finally have their chance to take back control’

Rafael Behr at The Guardian

AI represents a “synthetic pseudo-reality mediated by the sycophantic mechanical offspring of narcissist Silicon Valley oligarchs,” says Rafael Behr. The “real bubble is not stock valuations but the inflated ego of an industry that thinks it is just one more data center away from computational divinity.” When the “correction comes, when the US’ Icarus economy hits the cold sea, there will be a chance for other voices to be heard on the subject of risk and regulation.”

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What happened

President Donald Trump yesterday announced he was working with the U.S. Navy to design and build a “Trump class” fleet of “battleships” that would form a centerpiece of America’s revamped “Golden Fleet.” The new warships will “be the fastest, the biggest and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built,” Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago, standing alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Navy Secretary John Phelan and renderings of the proposed vessel. The last U.S. battleship was decommissioned in 1992.

Who said what

Trump said construction would begin “almost immediately” on the first of up to 25 Trump-class ships, the USS Defiant, which would be delivered in “two and a half years.” A U.S. official told The Associated Press that construction was planned to begin in the early 2030s. “There is no funding in the current Pentagon budget” for the warships, Politico said.

The new ships, as described by Trump, “will be armed with hypersonic missiles, nuclear cruise missiles, rail guns and high-powered lasers,” the AP said, “all technologies that are in various stages of development by the Navy,” with some previously abandoned as impractical. Massive new $5 billion warships are “exactly what we don’t need” to defend “against the Chinese threat,” retired Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, now at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told The Wall Street Journal. “They are focused on the president’s visual that a battleship is a cool-looking ship.”

What next?

“This ship is never going to sail,” Mark Cancian, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told The Washington Post. He predicted it would “take four, five, six years” to just develop the ship. Trump said he would meet with defense contractors in Florida next week to accelerate production.

What happened

The Interior Department yesterday said it was “pausing — effective immediately” — all “large-scale offshore wind projects under construction” in the U.S. “due to national security risks” identified by the Pentagon in “recently completed classified reports.” The announcement effectively halts five wind energy projects off the East Coast from Virginia to New England, leaving just two operational wind farms in U.S. coastal waters.

Who said what

Halting the wind farms was the “most sweeping broadsides yet against the renewable energy source” most directly in President Donald Trump’s “crosshairs,” Axios said. Trump has boosted fossil fuels and hampered renewable energy throughout his time in office, but he has been on a personal “crusade” against wind power “ever since, 14 years ago, he failed to stop an offshore wind farm visible from one of his golf courses in Scotland,” The New York Times said. Now his administration is “essentially gutting” America’s “nascent offshore wind industry.” 

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum cited the classified “emerging national security risks” in a statement, but White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said Trump “has been clear” that “wind energy is the scam of the century.” Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont (D), whose constituents were among the 2.5 million households and businesses expected to benefit from the blocked wind farms, said Trump’s “erratic anti-business move” would “drive up the price of electricity” across the region. 

Trump’s “bogus ‘national security risks’” excuse will also “set back the cause of generating enough energy to meet the demands of the AI boom,” The Washington Post said in an editorial. A federal judge two weeks ago struck down Trump’s executive order blocking wind energy projects, calling it illegal, “arbitrary and capricious.” But the “administration’s decision to cite potential national security risks could complicate legal challenges” going forward, The Associated Press said.

What next?

Burgum said on Fox News he was working with wind farm companies “to see if there’s a way to actually mitigate this.” But the indefinite “pause” has already “threatened to stymie a long-debated bipartisan energy permitting bill winding its way through Congress,” Politico said, and the “rising electricity prices” from sidelining nearly complete “major new power sources” could pose a “political problem for Trump’s party.” 

The last federal government shutdown ended just a few weeks ago. The next may start just a few weeks from now. Congress’ deadline to avoid another shutdown “will be here sooner than you think,” said Politico. Despite a month of work to find a deal that can appease both sides, the Senate last week “gave up on passing a spending package” and adjourned for its holiday recess ahead of the Jan. 30 funding deadline. And when they return, the usual dynamics will be at play.

GOP hardliners in the House want to hold tight on spending and “could start making threats” to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) if they do not get their way. “This is people’s political livelihood on the line,” said Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas).

Democrats say they want a deal. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) is setting a “very different posture for his party” than he did before the 43-day shutdown that consumed much of the fall, said Punchbowl News. There will be some Democrats who want to use the deadline as “leverage in the Obamacare fight or something else.”

But Schumer believes there “aren’t enough Democrats willing to plunge into another shutdown,” said Punchbowl News. The party is “trying to work with the Republicans to get it done.” The problem is that “both chambers are far behind schedule” on full-year funding bills for 2026 and “key disagreements remain.”

What did the commentators say?

“Congress has learned nothing,” said The Boston Herald editorial board. Lawmakers should have gleaned from the recent shutdown the “level of pain it inflicted on the American people.” The suspension of SNAP benefits left families “panicked and scrambling.” A “kick-the-can-down-the-road mentality” meant Congress avoided dealing with the issue of health care subsidies for a few years until the issue became “leverage” for the latest round of funding fights. American voters “deserve better than this.”

Government shutdowns are a “relatively recent phenomenon” created by a “broken political environment,” said Scott Minkoff  and Josh Ryan at The Hill. Shutdowns also “disincentivize thoughtful lawmaking” in favor of a “warped” legislative process. The fix may be a two-year budget cycle with “automatic funding when legislators fail to act.” That will not solve all of Congress’ budgeting problems because “deficits, spending priorities and taxation” are always going to spark debate. But the rush of constant deadlines is too easily weaponized. A two-year budget cycle “would restore some sanity.”

What next?

There is “little appetite for another government shutdown,” but Democrats are weighing their demands anyway, said NOTUS. Appropriations bills in the Senate need 60 votes to pass, which means that seven Democratic votes are necessary for any successful bill. That gives those Democrats leverage “in theory,” but they forced the fall shutdown for the fight over Obamacare subsidies and ended up “with very little to show for it.” Some senators are keeping their options open. “We got a long list” of priorities, said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

The UK must “balance the tension between security and prosperity” in its relationship with China, the parliamentary intelligence watchdog has warned, after the prime minister called for a “more sophisticated” approach to its dealings with Beijing.

At a speech in the City of London, Keir Starmer recognised that China posed “national security threats”, but stressed that it was also “a defining force in technology, trade and global governance”.

The Intelligence and Security Committee’s annual report acknowledged the need for “dexterity” in dealing with Beijing, but found the government has been “reluctant to prioritise security considerations”. This despite renewed scrutiny of Chinese interference following the contentious collapse of a spying case, the ongoing row over the London super-embassy and reports connecting a recent cyberattack on the Foreign Office to Chinese-affiliated hackers.

What did the commentators say?

This was “typical Starmer, pursuing a balancing act amid overwhelming imbalances”, said Simon Tisdall in The Guardian. It is “true Britain’s stagnant economy badly needs foreign investment” but “doing business with this predatory authoritarian regime” for nothing more than the “uncertain hope of future dependency-creating economic, financial and tech benefits” is a price simply ”too high” to pay.

Like previous governments, Labour has “found it difficult to come up with a clear answer” as to whether China “should be regarded as a UK national security threat”, said The Sunday Times.

The Intelligence and Security Committee report accused the government of “dragging its heels” over whether to add China to the “enhanced tier” of its threat regime. Under the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, which came into force in July, only those working for Russia and Iran are required to register and declare their activity in the UK, even though many experts agree China poses a greater threat to national security.

And the threat is “very real”, said Luke de Pulford, co-founder and executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, on UnHerd. It includes industrial espionage, cyberattacks and spying on politicians by Chinese operatives in the UK. It is all “part of a broader effort to shape UK institutions to be less resistant to the aims of the Communist Party, and to help Beijing assert its dominance by all and any means necessary, lawful or illicit”.

Make no mistake, China has “the means, manpower and intent to reshape our way of life” but we have chosen to fight “a house fire with a syringe filled with lighter fluid” – in this instance, “the syringe being the resources available to contain the threat, and the lighter fluid being the UK government’s seemingly irrepressible desire to make things worse”.

What next?

Early next year, Starmer will become the first British prime minister since Theresa May in 2018 to visit China. The aim, said The Independent, is to “strengthen economic and diplomatic relations with the state”. As a show of good faith, the government is expected to give the go-ahead for China’s controversial new “mega embassy” in London, despite concerns from the security services.

If he must go, Starmer should use the China trip to push for the release of Jimmy Lai and the “200-odd political prisoners in Hong Kong”, said Melanie McDonagh in London’s The Standard. Both the decision about the Chinese embassy in London and any future trade deal “should be conditional on Jimmy Lai’s release”. This is about “Britain’s honour, if we can still talk in these terms”.

Yet trying to separate politics and security from business and trade is “a naive approach”, said Tisdall in The Guardian. “In navigating the world, Starmer should follow a simple rule: hug friends close – and know your enemy.”

This past weekend, some of the brightest stars in the conservative sky descended on Phoenix, Arizona, for Turning Point USA’s “Americafest 2025” conference. But the far-right revelry and MAGA backslapping quickly shed its veneer of camaraderie to expose deep fracture lines threatening the ultranationalist group’s mission. Across four days of dueling speeches and simmering behind-the-scenes feuds, TPUSA’s first major event since the shooting death of cofounder Charlie Kirk became a microcosm of the broader forces jockeying for MAGA power and influence nationwide.

‘Grifters,’ ‘charlatans’ and ‘hilarious’ attempts at deplatforming

Although its annual conferences have been “long billed as a show of unity for young conservatives,” this year’s TPUSA event was a “public airing of deepening fractures inside the MAGA movement,” Salon said. While “clashes over Israel, antisemitism and leadership” dominated the weekend, Kirk’s death and the “absence of a clear successor loomed large” as tributes “veered into ideological disputes, particularly over foreign policy and the influence of far-right figures within the movement.” After speakers “torched each other as pompous, cancerous cowards,” the group that had once been “so lockstep when President Trump was running” found itself “engulfed in an overt power struggle ahead of 2028,” said Axios.

Conservative broadcaster Ben Shapiro used his conference address to lash out at “grifters and charlatans” who he claimed were “guilty of misleading their audiences with falsehoods and conspiracy theories,” CNN said. He took particular aim at former Fox News host Tucker Carlson for interviewing avowed antisemite Nick Fuentes in what Shapiro said was an “act of moral imbecility.”

Carlson returned fire during his speech, calling Shapiro’s attempt at “deplatforming and denouncing people” at a TPUSA event “hilarious.” He then “downplayed the problem of anti-Jewish hate,” said the Times of Israel, in part by framing antisemitism as “less pervasive than bias against white men.”

Speaking Sunday evening, Vice President JD Vance conspicuously declined to condemn the “streak of antisemitism that has divided the Republican Party and roiled the opening days” of the event, The Associated Press said. That includes former TPUSA staff and now popular podcaster Candace Owens, who has “alleged without evidence that Israeli spies were involved in Kirk’s death.” Taken together, the “tension on display” over the weekend “foreshadowed the treacherous political waters” aspiring conservative hopefuls will face before the next election.

All eyes on 2028

The schisms exposed over the weekend “laid bare” the challenge for any conservative hoping to succeed President Donald Trump atop the MAGA movement, The New York Times said: how to address the “explosive debate” over whether conspiracy theorists and extremists should be “embraced or excluded from the conservative coalition.”

In Vance’s remarks, delivered after Kirk’s widow and current TPUSA CEO Erika endorsed him for 2028, the vice president signaled he was “more than willing to forgo imposing any moral red lines.” At the same time, some observers have claimed that the “narrative of tension” and a looming MAGA civil war is “ginned up by people who hope to prevent” Vance’s political ascension, said the AP. “This is a proxy on ’28,” former Trump advisor Steve Bannon said at the convention, per the National Review. “There are people who are mad at JD Vance,” Tucker Carlson said, per the same outlet, and “they’re stirring up a lot of this in order to make sure he doesn’t get the nomination.”

The United States under President Donald Trump appears to be readying for war in Venezuela or at least is seeking to depose leader Nicolás Maduro. But it remains unclear why, exactly, the White House has decided to take aim at the regime in Caracas.

Trump has “repeatedly” shifted the public rationale for targeting Venezuela, said The Wall Street Journal. Drugs have been offered as a reason but so has ownership of oil fields formerly owned by U.S. companies. American officials say that “multiple rationales” have been discussed during internal administration discussions, but Congress has largely been left out of the loop. Some GOP members are concerned about “defending the prospects of U.S. military action” to anti-war MAGA voters in November. “I want to know what’s going to happen next,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said after a meeting with national security officials.

Minerals? Oil? Putin?

Trump’s focus on Venezuela is “about oil, not drugs,” Chris Brennan said at USA Today. Venezuela must “return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land and other Assets that they previously stole from us” during the nationalization of that country’s oil industry, Trump said in a Truth Social post. But a war in pursuit of oil profits would be the kind of “American military adventurism” that Trump once decried.

“It is minerals, not drugs,” Krystal Kauffman said at The Hill. Rare minerals used in high technology and advanced manufacturing are “emerging as geopolitical currency” in the race to shape the next century, and Venezuela claims more than a trillion dollars in reserves. If that is the objective, the Trump administration should “negotiate agreements” instead of wage war. “Venezuelans deserve more than to become collateral in a global resource race.”

Venezuela is a “client state of Russia,” David Marcus said at Fox News. Action against Venezuela would be proof that Vladimir Putin “cannot keep his sketchy global friends safe.” The Russian leader is already “stretched” by the Ukraine war and U.S. sanctions. Trump’s target in Venezuela “isn’t really Maduro, it’s Putin.”

Maduro’s regime is “both an importer and exporter of instability,” Bret Stephens said at The New York Times. His government’s ties to China, Russia and Iran give those countries a “significant foothold in the Americas,” while Venezuela’s chaos has produced a “mass exodus of refugees and migrants.” Maduro should be given a chance to leave the country, but “any morally serious person should want this to end.”

A nation-building trap

The Trump administration has asked American oil companies if they want to return to Venezuela but is “getting no takers,” said Politico. Oil markets are already “glutted with supply,” and prices are at “nearly five-year lows,” giving oil companies little incentive to risk “pouring huge investments” into the country’s oil infrastructure. Forcing Maduro out of power would probably be the “easy part,” Gregory J. Wallance said at The Hill. It is the governing afterward that would be difficult. Trump could become the latest American president to “fall into the nation-building trap.”

What happened

CBS News Sunday abruptly pulled a “60 Minutes” investigation into President Donald Trump’s deportations of Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison. The network had promoted the segment for days, saying several of the migrants described to “60 Minutes” the “brutal and torturous conditions they endured” inside the megaprison. In a memo to colleagues Sunday, correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi said CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss “spiked our story” because the Trump administration had declined to comment.

Who said what

“Inside CECOT” was “screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” Alfonsi said in the widely leaked email. “It is factually correct,” and “in my view, pulling it now” is “not an editorial decision, it is a political one.” The administration’s refusal to participate “is a statement, not a VETO,” she added, and if that’s now a “valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a ‘kill switch’ for any reporting they find inconvenient.” Weiss had “asked for a significant amount of new material to be added,” The New York Times said, including an interview with Trump immigration czar Stephen Miller, for whom she “provided contact information.”

Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison hired Weiss, a conservative opinion entrepreneur, after the Trump administration approved his purchase of CBS’s parent company. Ellison is now “courting” Trump’s support for his hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, the Times said, “but the president has used recent episodes of ‘60 Minutes’ to suggest he is displeased” with Ellison’s “stewardship of CBS.”

What next?

Alfonsi referred “all questions to Bari Weiss.” In a statement, Weiss said it was normal for newsrooms to hold stories that “lack sufficient context” or “are missing critical voices,” and she looked forward to “airing this important piece when it’s ready.”

What happened

The Justice Department released a small portion of its files on sex offender Jeffrey Epstein over the weekend, missing a legal deadline to post its entire collection by Friday. Sixteen of the documents, including a photograph with President Donald Trump, disappeared Saturday without explanation, though the Justice Department later reposted the photo along with some new documents. Many of the files were heavily redacted.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche Sunday defended the slow pace of release, saying government lawyers were working diligently to redact “victim information” from the “million or so pages of documents.” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), one of the sponsors of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” the administration was “flouting the spirit and letter of the law.”

Who said what

“Despite mounting expectations, the released files” were “something of an anticlimax,” The New York Times said. They “added little to the public’s understanding” of Epstein’s conduct or “his connections to wealthy and powerful businessmen and politicians who associated with him.” There were “some photos of celebrities and politicians,” including “never-before-seen photos of former President Bill Clinton,” The Associated Press said, “but fleetingly few of Trump.”

The “temporarily deleted digital image” showed “Trump before he became president posing with bikini-clad women,” The Washington Post said. The “minimal” mentions of Trump included a claim in a lawsuit that he and Epstein “both chuckled” over sexual innuendo about a 14-year-old girl in the 1990s, the BBC said. The Justice Department is “covering up things that, for whatever reason, Donald Trump doesn’t want to go public,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” The “short answer is we are not redacting information around President Trump,” Blanche told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

What next?

Massie and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) told “Face the Nation” they were considering filing “inherent contempt” charges against Attorney General Pam Bondi for failing to comply with the Epstein law. Khanna said he was worried more about the “selective concealment” of records than the “timeline” of their release. “Our goal is not to take down Bondi,” he said, but to find out “who raped these young girls, who covered it up and why are they getting away with it?”

‘Chatbots can inflict harm. Why aren’t they held liable?’

Samuel Kimbriel at The Washington Post

Large language models are “capable of interacting with the human psyche at the most intimate level,” says Samuel Kimbriel. If a “therapist can be subject to prosecution in many states for leading a person toward suicide, might LLMs also be held responsible?” In “many of the accounts of teen suicide, what begin with seductive compliments, gradually turn into possessiveness.” Our “social capacities are among the most valuable, but also most vulnerable, features of human life. They deserve protection.”

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‘I didn’t let my kids believe in Santa. They’re glad they didn’t.’

Nicole Russell at USA Today

Kids “are prone to lean into the wonder and magic of the holidays — and this can be a really beautiful, uplifting thing for tired, cynical adults to see,” says Nicole Russell. But after “creating annual Christmas traditions wrapped around Santa Claus, most parents have to sit their kids down” and “reveal to their child that the story they’ve been telling their kid all along is a myth — or really, a lie.” This means “trust is broken, doubt seeps in.”

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‘How America and Iran can break the nuclear deadlock’

M. Javad Zarif and Amir Parsa Garmsiri at Foreign Affairs

The “external securitization of Iran has fed into a parallel dynamic at home, as the state adopted a stricter approach in dealing with domestic social challenges,” say M. Javad Zarif and Amir Parsa Garmsiri. The “result is a securitization cycle: a vicious spiral in which Iran and its adversaries feel compelled to adopt more hostile policies in response to each other’s behavior.” Breaking this “cycle will not be easy, and it will require that foreign powers respect Iran’s rights and dignity.”

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‘Catholicism is cool again’

Randy Boyagoda at The Globe and Mail

What “feels different right now, in the lead-up to Christmas, is that Catholicism, whether in high-profile politics and culture or just ordinary demographics, seems to be enjoying a certain kind of cachet,” says Randy Boyagoda. There is “something at work right now in the public life of Catholicism that’s encouraging this kind of attentiveness.” It “feels easy to be Catholic, trendy to be Catholic and subversive to be Catholic, all at once. That’s a hell of a trinity.”

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There is a political storm brewing in the US over the disclosure of the Epstein files and their link to President Donald Trump.

At least 13 files, including a photo containing Trump, were removed by the Department of Justice from the latest release of documents, only to be republished after a review following concerns over victim identification.

The evidence was reinstated without any “alteration or redaction”, said the DoJ, with deputy attorney general Todd Blanche explicitly stating on NBC News that “it has nothing to do with President Trump”.

What did the commentators say?

“The documents produced no major revelations,” said The New York Times. The photos in particular underlined how Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted sex offender, “attracted a remarkably broad spectrum of famous people into his orbit”, with Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger and Walter Cronkite appearing in the latest batch.

The redactions have caused the most controversy, said The Guardian. Blanche argued that the government “did not have time to review all the files to make redactions needed to protect victims”, with at least one victim claiming that she had been identified in the DoJ dump.

Conversely, in some areas, the redactions were “too aggressive”. For instance, a picture of Clinton, Michael Jackson and Diana Ross was also mistakenly redacted to obscure a child’s face. The child was Jackson’s son, with images “readily available” from commercial photo archives.

There is only one “unequivocal takeaway” from this latest episode, said CNN. The Trump administration’s efforts to “quell the storm have whipped up a new vortex of political energy” that could potentially harm the president.

The most recent release has exposed the “stunning revelation that there are 1,200 people identified as victims or their relatives”, with “materials from dozens of hard drives, old CDs and computers”. Though there is nothing to suggest any direct wrongdoing on Trump’s part, it fuels the “ever-deepening political storm” surrounding him.

There are “several possibilities” explaining the administration’s actions. The “sheer size” of the data could be posing “genuine issues” for officials. The department “may lack the competence” to do such a vast job “comprehensively and quickly”, following “purges of career officials by Trump’s aides”. Lastly, critics of the president “would not be surprised” if the DoJ was trying to brazenly “protect” Trump. Whatever the reason, this will cause a significant “headache” for him.

If Trump has tried to “deflect attention” away from himself, he “may have succeeded”, as the latest tranche of documents “shifted the spotlight” on to former Democrat president Bill Clinton, said the Financial Times. After eventually signing the legislation to release the files, Trump has recognised the “political benefit” of using the files to “tarnish the reputation of a prominent Democrat” and “one of his great ideological foes”.

This speaks to how the files have become a “weapon in America’s escalating ideological war”. On the left, politicians are employing the new information to “discredit” Trump, while the president and his administration are using them to “attack his adversaries”. The conflict continues, as the battles over the files “underscore the claims of Democrats and others that Trump is using the DoJ to pursue his political opponents”: a charge that Trump has “repeatedly levelled at the Biden administration”.

What next?

Representatives Ro Khanna (Democrat) and Thomas Massie (Republican) are seeking to find Attorney General Pam Bondi in contempt of Congress, for not releasing more documents related to Epstein. Both were involved in the original drafting of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, and Khanna now wants to see the “60-count federal indictment of Epstein from 2007 and the accompanying prosecution memo”, said The Washington Post.

In a statement, the justice department said that materials “will continue being reviewed and redacted” in line with legal requirements, exercising an “abundance of caution as we receive additional information”.

Nick Fuentes is a 27-year-old activist and political commentator best known for his Christian nationalist and racist rhetoric. He first attracted attention as a teenager at the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. Since then, he has built up a large following as a social media influencer, particularly via his “America First” broadcasts, on which he airs white supremacist, antisemitic, misogynistic and authoritarian views.

On an episode of his show in March, he summarised his politics as: “Jews are running society, women need to shut the fuck up, blacks need to be imprisoned for the most part, and we would live in paradise. It’s that simple.” He has also repeatedly described Hitler as “cool”.

Where did Fuentes come from?

Fuentes was born and raised in La Grange Park, Illinois. He describes his childhood, in a largely white suburb near Chicago, with a home-maker mother, a breadwinner father of Mexican heritage, and a strong Catholic ethos, as idyllic. He thinks women should stay at home, and shouldn’t have the right to vote. He told Piers Morgan recently that he had never had sex with a woman; he said he was not gay, “but I will say that women are very difficult to be around.” He studied politics at Boston University, but dropped out after his first year to become an activist.

In some ways, Fuentes’s livestream show harks back to a traditional format: he wears a suit, sits behind a desk, and talks rapidly and fluently about current affairs, in a thick Chicago accent. The difference, says Jay Caspian Kang in The New Yorker, is that he inhabits a post-Trump, “post-woke” world, in which “all norms in political commentary have been destroyed”.

Why is he significant?

Because he has become disturbingly influential. His X/Twitter account, which Elon Musk reinstated in 2024, has 1.2 million followers; this month each of his “America First” livestreams have attracted around a million views each. On 27 October, the former Fox News star Tucker Carlson broadcast a sympathetic two-hour interview, which was watched by more than 6.5 million people. Carlson did not challenge Fuentes’s views, which precipitated a major ruction inside the Republican Party and Donald Trump’s Maga movement. Rod Dreher, a conservative columnist, warned that the party has a neo-Nazi problem: between 30% and 40% of Republican staffers in Washington under the age of 30, Dreher said, are “Groypers”.

What is a Groyper?

Fuentes’s fanbase call themselves Groypers, or the “Groyper Army” after their logo: an unwholesome-looking cartoon toad named Groyper, a variant on the “Pepe the Frog” meme that became popular with far-right activists in 2015. More a loose-knit network of internet trolls than an organised movement, they see themselves as Maga’s edgy youth wing, and like to mock right-wing figures who are (relatively) more moderate.

In 2019, Fuentes started to criticise the conservative activist Charlie Kirk, whom he saw as insufficiently right-wing and in the pay of corporate donors. (“Conservative Inc.” is his name for Kirk’s brand of activism.) Fuentes’s supporters often attended Kirk’s events to heckle, in a conflict later referred to as the “Groyper War”.

Unlike the Maga mainstream, Groypers favour Catholic ultra-traditionalism or Eastern Orthodoxy over Evangelical Protestantism, and they oppose US support for Israel. But they’re so steeped in social media in-jokes, memes and irony that it’s hard to know what they really believe.

So what does Fuentes believe?

Being more outrageous than his competitors while suggesting it’s all a big game is a part of Fuentes’s act. As well as praising Hitler and Stalin, he has coined the slogan “Your body, my choice” to needle women concerned about abortion rights after Trump’s second election victory. His irony gives plausible deniability, and helps confuse mainstream critics – but there’s no reason to think he isn’t sincere about his positions: support for an ethnic and religious hierarchy with white Christian men at the top; a belief that black people are inclined to criminality; opposition to legal as well as illegal immigration; vehement anti-feminism; respect for authoritarianism; disdain for democracy.

A former fan (and, in 2022, dinner guest) of Donald Trump, Fuentes now says that “Trump 2.0 has been a disappointment in literally every way”, while Trump himself is “incompetent, corrupt and compromised”. He sees the vice president, J.D. Vance, as a corporate stooge and “a fat, gay race traitor” (Vance’s wife is of Indian descent). He has particularly criticised the administration for its support of Israel.

What are his views on Israel?

He rails against US backing and funding for Israel, questioning the mainstream rationale for the alliance, and suggesting that it serves the interests of Jewish elites rather than the US itself. His thinking often tips over into conspiratorial antisemitic tropes. Central to Fuentes’s thinking is the belief that “organised Jewry” exerts a disproportionate control over US political, financial and media institutions – in ways that harm “traditional America”. He has also said “Hitler was right. And the Holocaust didn’t happen.” Although he later claimed that this was a mere provocation, Fuentes has repeatedly said that the Holocaust is used to push a liberal, multicultural agenda – to “browbeat” whites and suppress white pride.

How is the Republican Party reacting?

Republican mainstays such as Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz have denounced Fuentes, and Carlson for giving him a platform. Senator Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, made clear his position by declaring: “I’m in the ‘Hitler sucks’ wing of the Republican Party.” Elsewhere, the situation has not been so clearcut. After Carlson’s interview, Kevin Roberts, the director of The Heritage Foundation, a prominent right-wing think-tank, put out a video describing Carlson’s critics as a “venomous coalition” of “the globalist class”. (“Globalists” is often used as code for “Jews”.) This led to resignations at The Heritage Foundation; Roberts eventually had to apologise. However, neither Trump nor Vance has ever condemned Fuentes; presumably because they share some of his beliefs and don’t want to alienate the Groypers.

What does Fuentes want?

Apart from attention and money – his influencing operation is carefully monetised, from paid-for questions to branded merchandise – he has said for years that he wants the Groypers to infiltrate the US establishment and the Republican Party, and to displace traditional conservatism with his brand of far-right white nationalism. “Your job is to get into the Ivy League,” he told his followers. “Your job is to get into these offices and do what you need to do, say what you need to say.” He advises them to hide their views: “Hold it close to the chest.” Fuentes generally demurs when he’s asked if he wants to be president himself. But as the Maga movement begins to contemplate the post-Trump future, there are likely to be opportunities for a white nationalist influencer with a large, fervent online fanbase.

The Land of 10,000 Lakes has found itself in the middle of a scandal, with Minnesota at the center of wide-ranging fraud allegations. While the state is hardly the first to become embroiled in such a transgression, prosecutors say the evidence against Minnesota goes back years and may involve the highest levels of state government.

What is the crux of the scandal?

It largely goes back to alleged fraud that took place during the Covid-19 pandemic. Prosecutors have “charged dozens of people with felonies, accusing them of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from a government program meant to keep children fed” during the pandemic, said The New York Times. Federal prosecutors claim that billions of dollars were stolen as part of the schemes, most of which involved Minnesota’s Department of Human Services (DHS). These funds were reportedly used to buy “luxury cars, houses and even real estate projects abroad.”

Though there were several major fraud networks, officials claim they all had “three common threads: The state was billed for services that were never provided, DHS has failed to provide sufficient oversight, and many of those implicated are from Minnesota’s Somali community,” said The Minnesota Star Tribune. One of the most notable cases involved the DHS children’s hunger program Feeding Our Future, and prosecutors have “filed charges against 59 entities that operated meal sites under Feeding Our Future’s sponsorship that amounted to more than $128 million.”

The scandal has “widely been viewed as a by-product of the Covid-19 pandemic,” said CBS News, with former Attorney General Merrick Garland previously calling it the “largest pandemic relief fraud scheme” in the country. Critics of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), who took office in 2019, claim that the “fraud persisted partly because state officials were fearful of alienating the Somali community in Minnesota,” said the Times. Walz, who has not been accused of wrongdoing, has “defended his administration’s actions.”

What happens next?

Additional people are being charged with fraud as the cases continue and more evidence comes out. One notable update from prosecutors alleges that “half or more of the roughly $18 billion in federal funds that supported 14 Minnesota-run programs since 2018 may have been stolen,” said The Associated Press. This would go back to the year before Walz’s administration took over.

The “magnitude cannot be overstated,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph H. Thompson said during a press conference. “What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes. It’s staggering industrial-scale fraud.” The continuing investigations may also “bolster President Donald Trump in his claims” against Minnesota and Walz, said the AP. Trump has garnered pushback after using the fraud cases to “target the Somalia diaspora in Minnesota,” calling them “garbage” and saying “their country stinks.”

Walz has harshly criticized Trump for his anti-Somali rhetoric and has also appointed a statewide director for integrity to oversee his state’s federal agencies. The charges being brought are the “type of strong action we need from prosecutors to ensure fraudsters are put behind bars,” Walz said in a statement. Minnesota “will not tolerate fraud, and we will continue to work with federal partners to ensure fraud is stopped and fraudsters are caught.”

‘A lesson in false limits’

Sally Jenkins at The Atlantic

Few “professionals suffer more from ageism than athletes,” says Sally Jenkins. Fans “want athletes to retire before they lose the luster of their prime and start looking knee sore,” an “expectation that, judging by the recent exploits of the skier Lindsey Vonn and the quarterback Philip Rivers, has cheated audiences.” Too many “athletes, however, are discouraged from competing as they age.” Vonn and Rivers “both saw an opening to compete again, and something adventurous in them said, ‘Why not?’”

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‘This Christmas, let’s ban the world’s most miserable gift-giving game’

Dave Schilling at The Guardian

It is “forced frivolity season,” and people can “say yes to just about every holiday party invite — save for one massive exception. White elephant parties,” says Dave Schilling. There isn’t a “more dispiriting feeling than unwrapping a hardcover edition of a book you’ve been meaning to read or a pair of Bluetooth headphones and having it ripped from your hands.” The “person who invented this cursed activity takes more pleasure in witnessing pain than a dominatrix.”

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‘Without railway reform, your town could be the next East Palestine’

Jess Conard at The Hill

“Three years ago, a 149-car train pulled by three locomotives carrying tons of toxic chemicals derailed in East Palestine, Ohio,” and the “scars — physical, emotional and economic — remain today,” says Jess Conard. The “safety protocols that exist are ineffective,” yet the “standards that would make railroads operate safely are ignored.” These “safety technologies are reasonable and available and could have prevented the disaster in East Palestine.” If “implemented quickly, they could also prevent a disaster in your community.”

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‘More math, not less, will lead students to success’

Bloomberg editorial board

Educators have “embraced trendy curricula that seek to make math more fun, incorporating coursework that feels more relevant to students than, say, dividing polynomials,” says the Bloomberg editorial board. These “approaches, though well-intentioned, tend to lower standards.” Not “only are core math concepts missing by design, but the rigorous statistics and computer science skills needed for more advanced coursework are also lacking.” Math “becomes fun when you practice, and to that end interventions must start early.”

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What happened

The Trump administration Thursday took several steps designed to end gender-affirming care for Americans under age 18. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, proposed pulling all federal funding from any hospital that provides puberty-blocking drugs, hormone therapies or surgeries to minors, and prohibiting Medicaid from paying for such treatments. The Food and Drug Administration also warned makers of breast binders, used by many transgender males to flatten their chests, about “illegally marketing” their products to minors with gender dysphoria.

Who said what

The “sweeping proposals” are the Trump administration’s “most significant moves” yet to quash treatments for transgender minors, The Associated Press said. But this is more than “just a regulatory shift,” The New York Times said. It reflects President Donald Trump’s “laserlike focus” on proving that his government “does not recognize even the existence” of transgender or nonbinary people.

Trump and his party are also “trying to flip the health care script” from “health care affordability” to “an issue that’s worked for them in the past” and “mostly unites Republicans,” Politico said. Most major medical groups oppose the changes, saying the rules “intrude on physician-patient relationships and jeopardize care for everyone,” said CNN. Kennedy and his deputies “frequently invoke parental rights when discussing childhood vaccines,” The Washington Post said, but “when it comes to transition care, Oz said the government needs to step in because parents have been ‘tricked’” into seeking medical or pharmaceutical intervention.

What next?

The public has 60 days to comment on the proposals. If enacted, they “would effectively shut down hospitals that failed to comply,” the Times said. The ACLU vowed to challenge the rules in court.

The Republican Party that once gave us the war on drugs and “Just Say No” is getting a little more weed-friendly. President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to speed the reclassification of marijuana as a less dangerous drug, potentially moving federal policy closer to the decriminalization stance of many states.

Trump’s order is a “major shift in federal drug policy,” said The Associated Press. Under federal rules, marijuana is classified as a Schedule I drug “alongside heroin and LSD.” The president’s move would make weed a Schedule III drug, similar to anabolic steroids. The change to the marijuana classification “would not make it legal for recreational use,” but it could change how the drug is regulated and “open new avenues for medical research.” Many Americans have been “begging for me to do this” to make it easier to alleviate their pain, said Trump.

More than two dozen House Republicans opposed the move, said Fox News. Marijuana reclassification will “enable drug cartels and make our roads more dangerous,” the group said in a letter to the president. Making federal policy more lenient will promote a “dangerous falsehood” that cannabis use is “acceptable and safe.” Trump’s order “does not legalize recreational marijuana use,” a White House spokesperson said in response.

What did the commentators say?

“What happened to making America healthy again?” said Allysia Finley at The Wall Street Journal. Marijuana use has become more accepted and widespread in recent years, and Americans are “becoming sicker and dumber as a result.” Studies suggest cannabis users are more likely to experience heart attacks and strokes, and the drug’s effects can be “linked to impaired decision-making and psychosis.” A Trump administration that is taking aim at SSRI antidepressants and even Tylenol now finds itself in a contradiction. It’s the “antithesis of MAGA.”

“Legalize it,” said The Washington Post editorial board. Rather than merely loosen marijuana restrictions somewhat, the better approach is to “legalize pot federally and let states decide if they want to restrict it any further.” Schedule III classification would allow cannabis to be used in “approved, highly regulated medical settings” and solve issues for otherwise-legal marijuana businesses that cannot deduct “operating expenses, such as rent, payroll and marketing,” from their taxes. But it does not resolve other “thorny legal questions.” The best option is to get the federal government out of marijuana enforcement and “let the states sort it out.”

What next?

Trump’s order also “authorizes Medicare to fully cover CBD products for patients,” said Axios. That may help older Americans shift away from “potentially lethal” opiates for pain relief, said the president. Other changes may be slow to materialize. Even with Trump's order, the federal drug reclassification process “can take years," said Axios.

“Not much is changing for consumers” unless Congress changes the federal laws prohibiting marijuana possession, said Reuters. Recreational cannabis use is legal in 24 states, but experts say more states “could be motivated” to legalize the drug following Trump’s executive order.

EU leaders have chosen to raise €90 billion in joint debt to fund the Ukrainian war effort for the next two years after German-led proposals for a “reparations loan” secured against frozen Russian assets fell apart in the face of internal dissent.

Notably, Hungary, Czechia and Slovakia will not participate in the joint debt scheme, meaning an “EU of 27 member states turned into a gang of 24” at the summit in Brussels last night, said Politico.

What did the commentators say?

Europe has undoubtedly shown commitment to Ukraine, but the decision “hardly sends an unequivocal message”, said the Financial Times. A “failure to find the cash” at all would have been a “terrible indictment of European weakness” when it “desperately needed to show resolve”.

But the bloc “blinked” when it came to the sterner step of using seized Russian assets to do so. Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz “forcefully advocated” for the “reparations loan”, which he had framed as “the only option”, said Euronews.

But it was Belgian PM Bart De Wever who clearly came out on top. With the majority of the frozen Russian funds held by Belgium-based financial services firm Euroclear, De Wever “played hardball”, refusing to accept a deal that could “leave his country exposed to Russian retaliation”. His demands for unlimited protection from any legal complications arising from the use of the assets made the proposal “unpalatable for the rest” of the EU countries.

The joint debt arrangement means there is no guarantee that the funds will ever be paid back. The loan would be “interest-free” and Kyiv would pay it back with “reparations cash from Moscow”. However, it is “by no means guaranteed Russia will ever pay reparations for its invasion and the loan is likely going to become a grant”.

“Arguably, it didn’t need to be so messy,” said Politico. Ukraine’s European allies “have the resources to beat Putin if they really want to”. The EU’s financial position as an “economic superpower” is already strong compared to Russia, with the bloc’s combined GDP standing at €18 trillion against Russia’s €2 trillion.

What’s concerning “for Ukraine’s allies” is the dwindling support among the public in Europe’s biggest economies for Ukraine and its war effort. French and German respondents to a Politico poll “were even more reluctant to keep financing Ukraine than people in the United States”. By deciding on the €90 billion loan deal, “Europe’s leaders opted for the easiest answer this week. And even that was almost too hard.”

What next?

The defeat of the Merz plan in favour of the joint debt funding arrangement was undoubtedly a “fumble”, but from Ukraine’s perspective “there is little difference in the outcome”, said the Financial Times. The loan and the likelihood of it never being paid back relieves any further pressure on Ukraine’s “already aggravated finances”.

As for the Russian assets, EU leaders emphasised that the frozen funds “will remain immobilised and the union reserves its right to make use of them to repay the loan”. But in the meantime, it seems more likely that “successive EU budgets will absorb the cost”.

Police in London and Manchester will take a “more assertive” approach to protesters who call for intifada, according to a joint statement from the two forces following antisemitic attacks in Australia and in the UK. Officers have arrested two people for racially aggravated public order offences after they allegedly chanted “globalise the intifada” at a pro-Palestinian protest in London.

What is an intifada?

Intifada is an Arabic word derived from a verb meaning “to shake off”. It’s used to describe “two major uprisings” against the Israeli presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1987-1993 and 2000-2005, said the Institute for Middle East Understanding.

Both periods of intifada saw Palestinians participate in peaceful protest and acts of civil disobedience, but were also marked by violent clashes with the Israeli security forces and deadly terrorist attacks within Israel. More than 1,000 Israelis and about 5,000 Palestinians died in such incidents between the start of the first intifada in 1987 and the 2005 Sharm El Sheikh summit that brought the second intifada to an end.

How did ‘globalise the intifada’ become a rallying cry?

“Globalise the intifada” is a slogan that has been used to advocate for international support of Palestinian resistance against Israeli military occupation of Palestinian territories.

First popularised at solidarity rallies around the world during the second intifada, it has become a common rallying cry at pro-Palestine demonstrations since Israel launched its military operations in Gaza following the 7 October attacks.

The global intifada is the “‘shaking off’ of colonial dynamics of racism, violence, dehumanisation and division”, said Chloe Skinner for the Institute of Development Studies. The violence in Gaza and the West Bank is rooted in “global systems of power”, and so the struggle against them must be “globalised”.

Why do some people consider it antisemitic? 

As the “most prominent expressions” of intifada have involved “violence”, said the American Jewish Committee, “globalising the intifada” is often understood to mean “encouraging violence” against Israelis and Jews more broadly, even if the “intent of the person saying this phrase may be different”.

It’s “helpful to possess a lexicon of what is typically intended” behind the “vocabularies” used in support of the Palestinian cause, said David Frum in The Atlantic. “Globalise the intifada means shooting or bombing people in Sydney, London, Paris, Toronto, Los Angeles and New York City”, as well as in Israel.

The BBC recently corrected an article on its website that defined intifada as “largely unarmed and popular”. After complaints, the corporation amended the article, saying that the word intifada was regarded by some as a “call for violence against Jewish people”.

But Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal said the Met Police and Greater Manchester Police joint statement marked “another low in the political repression of protest for Palestinian rights”. Intifada is about “uprising against injustice”, he said, and the “implication” that language used to “support the liberation of the Palestinian people” is “only open to interpretation” by pro-Israel groups is “deeply problematic”.

For more than half a century, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, has been a premier hub for climate and planetary science. That stands to change, however, as the Trump administration announced plans this week to begin “breaking up” the facility for being “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country,” said Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought on X. News of the center’s dismantling, however, has prompted fierce pushback from advocates who warn that closing the facility would mark a catastrophic milestone for the field of climate science.

‘Symbolic of the actual destruction of knowledge’

The NCAR has been vital for critical research on “long-term atmospheric changes, global warming, air pollution, wildfires, extreme weather and geomagnetic storms,” said NBC News. Scientists there have also played “pivotal roles” in “improving weather forecasts, air quality predictions and models of wildfire behavior, flooding and drought risk.” By targeting “one of the world’s leading climate research labs,” said USA Today, the White House plans to “identify and eliminate what it calls ‘green new scam research activities.’” What the White House deems the center’s “vital functions,” including advanced weather modeling, “will be moved to another entity or location.”

The center has played a “key role in developing the science of climate modeling and the measurement of climate observations” for decades, said Michael Mann, the director of the Penn Center for Science, Sustainability, and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania, to Politico. Closing the NCAR “very much undermines” the nation’s standing in climate sciences and is “symbolic of the actual destruction of knowledge.”

The NCAR is “quite literally our global mothership,” said atmospheric scientist Katharine Hayhoe on X. Losing the center would be akin to “taking a sledgehammer to the keystone holding up our scientific understanding of the planet.”

Dismantling and dispersing the NCAR would “set back our nation’s ability to predict, prepare for and respond to” extreme weather, said Antonio Busalacchi, the president of the NCAR’s parent group, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, in a statement following Vought’s announcement.

Possible political punishment

The closure of the center dovetails with the White House’s ongoing effort to dismantle the nation’s scientific institutions at large. Still, scientists have “expressed suspicions that climate research is not the only reason NCAR has been targeted,” said CNN. Instead, some observers speculate that the closure stems from the White House’s “anger over Colorado Gov. Jared Polis’ (D) refusal to release” prominent 2020 election denier Tina Peters from prison. Last week, Trump announced he’d pardoned Peters for her role in working to subvert the 2020 elections, although it’s “unclear whether Trump has that authority, because she was not convicted in federal court,” said The Washington Post.

Asked whether Trump’s frustration with Polis was a factor in the NCAR closure, the White House “did not deny the connection,” said CNN. “Maybe if Colorado had a governor who actually wanted to work with President Trump,” a White House official said to the network, “his constituents would be better served.”

What happened

Former special counsel Jack Smith Wednesday told members of the House Judiciary Committee that his investigators had uncovered “proof beyond a reasonable doubt” that President Donald Trump “engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election,” according to his prepared remarks for the closed-door deposition.

Smith said his team also found “powerful evidence” that Trump had illegally hoarded classified documents and “repeatedly tried to obstruct justice.” Due to Justice Department policy, both investigations were dropped after Trump won last year’s election.

Who said what

Wednesday’s “day-long deposition” gave lawmakers their “first chance, albeit in private, to question Smith” about his twin criminal investigations of Trump, The Associated Press said. It “unfolded against the backdrop of a broader retribution campaign by the Trump administration against former officials involved in investigating Trump and his allies.”

Smith himself faces a “renewed wave of Republican attacks,” said NBC News. He had repeatedly requested a “public forum for his testimony to set the record straight” about his investigations and their nonpartisan nature, Politico said, but committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) “declined that request.” Jordan told reporters after the interview that he had “learned some interesting things,” but declined to elaborate.

What next?

Jordan said “he had not ruled out the possibility of Smith appearing in a public venue,” Politico said, and Democrats supported that idea. Had Smith testified publicly Wednesday, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told reporters, “it would have been absolutely devastating to the president.” Trump previously “told reporters that he supported the idea of an open hearing,” the AP said.

What happened

The House Wednesday night passed a health care bill proposed by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) that would lower some costs modestly but not extend expiring Affordable Care Act subsidies. Defying Johnson, four of the Republicans who pushed his bill to its narrow 216-211 passage also signed a discharge petition Wednesday, clinching the 218 signatures needed to force a vote on a Democratic proposal to extend the subsidies for three years.

Who said what

Several politically vulnerable Republicans had pushed Johnson to allow a vote on their proposals to extend the ACA credits for a year or two, with new limits, to avert a sharp rise in premiums for 24 million Americans in January. “But with most Republicans opposed to the subsidies, Johnson refused to allow an extension in his bill, fomenting the strongest rebellion among Republicans from swing districts to date,” The Washington Post said.

“To me, the clean three-year extension is not ideal,” said Rep. Michael Lawler (R-N.Y.), one of the four Republicans who signed the Democrats’ petition. “But doing nothing is not an answer.” Johnson “forced this outcome,” said fellow moderate rebel Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.).

The “stunning maneuver” by the House GOP “splinter group” was “all but guaranteed to prolong Republican infighting over health care, an issue that has bedeviled the party for years, into a midterm election year” with “considerable headwinds,” The New York Times said. It was also the “latest evidence” that Johnson’s “grip on his fractious majority has slipped” as “rank-and-file Republicans openly question his leadership and flout his wishes,” advancing four “once rare” discharge petitions, a feat last achieved in 1938. “I have not lost control of the House,” Johnson told reporters Wednesday.

What next?

Johnson’s bill “is dead on arrival in the Senate and will do little to quell a major intraparty split over the future of the subsidies,” Politico said. Senate GOP leaders say the three-year extension, if it passes the House next month, is also “doomed to die” in the upper chamber, but “House GOP moderates are now discussing options with their Senate counterparts about a bipartisan compromise bill that could pass both chambers” before the end of January, after the subsidies have lapsed.

‘Pinochet is smiling in his grave’

Ariel Dorfman at The New York Times

Augusto Pinochet, the “strongman who imposed a reign of terror on Chile from 1973 to 1990, must be smiling in his grave,” says Ariel Dorfman, because his “brazen defender and admirer José Antonio Kast has just been elected president of Chile.” Kast’s “victory is not necessarily a public endorsement of his veneration for Pinochet.” But the “rehabilitation of one of the continent’s most infamous autocrats is a particularly agonizing setback” in Chile’s “long struggle for democracy.”

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‘What happens if AI data centers slip the “surly bonds of earth?”’

Anjana Ahuja at the Financial Times

If “ever there was proof that the race to feed the AI boom has become detached from reality, it came in a recent Google announcement that it would build a prototype solar-powered data center in space,” says Anjana Ahuja. This “would be a cosmic challenge — but while orbiting data centers minimize the need for planetary land and water, they promise unearthly problems of their own.” Launches “into crowded orbits risk creating space debris that could threaten vital services.”

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‘You can say that again’

Christian Schneider at the National Review

Every “generation has its own lingo, and this shift in language irritates every generation that came before,” says Christian Schneider. We “shouldn’t bemoan the way language bends, stretches, and pulls; we should celebrate its flexibility.” It’s “not that young people are silly or flippant.” As “society progresses both culturally and technologically, new terms emerge to describe people’s feelings, and the best ideas rise.” New “words or phrases shouldn’t scare anyone, and criticizing language innovation is simply ragebait.”

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‘Why young people are struggling to communicate’

Rachel Konrad and Matt Abrahams at Time

Communication skills are “essential for creating healthy relationships, maintaining mental health, fostering civic engagement, and building a successful career,” say Rachel Konrad and Matt Abrahams. But “while teenagers today are the most connected generation in history, they are also the least prepared to communicate with depth, confidence, and empathy.” The “environments where students develop communication skills are collapsing,” and the “bottom line is that young people are at risk of losing the communication skills that connect us.”

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Within the Trump administration’s maelstrom of camera-ready secretaries, advisers and aides, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles is a behind-the-scenes power, eschewing the headlines preferred by her colleagues as she brokers access and authority within the West Wing. But after a candid Vanity Fair interview in which she offered unvarnished opinions on the president (“has an alcoholic’s personality”), Attorney General Pam Bondi (“completely whiffed” the Jeffrey Epstein file release) and other top administration figures, Wiles suddenly finds herself in the spotlight. While the administration has publicly defended Wiles, not everyone in the MAGA-verse is quite so eager to drop it.

What did the commentators say?

Wiles’ comments, which included questioning the government’s handling of immigration enforcement, elicited a “full-throated defense” in public comments by administration officials, said CNN. But that support “masked a stunned White House inner circle left aghast” by what was taken by some insiders as a “significant blunder from a typically low-profile leader many entrusted to clean up messes, not make them.” Many administration figures have been left “scratching their heads” over the interview, said Politico. In particular, officials wonder how Wiles, “lauded for her political acumen and loyalty,” could have “miscalculated so badly.” The interview ultimately “fuels the idea that events are leading” President Donald Trump, “rather than the other way around.” It is “extremely demoralizing,” said one White House insider.

Informed by Trump’s first-term penchant for “constantly rebooting” his staff, her “disclosures” sent the nation’s capital into an “all-too-familiar guessing game of how much longer Wiles would stay in her job or what game she was playing,” said Time. But the president himself, who has repeatedly defended Wiles since the Vanity Fair interview was published, “delights in this sort of drama,” punishing subordinates “not when they dispute his agenda but when they get credited for shaping it.” By that token, many of Wiles’ comments “may have actually bought favor” from the president for painting the administration’s accomplishments as occurring “because Trump ordered them.”

The scandal is contributing to a broader sense of Trump’s return toward something akin to his “chaotic first term for his fellow Republicans,” said Semafor. To be “as blunt as Wiles,” the administration’s insistence that “things are going well” is starting to “come across as willfully ignorant.” However, Trump ultimately “still needs” Wiles. Unlike former advisor Steve Bannon, who was “excommunicated from Trump world — at least for a while,” Wiles’ job “seems safe” for now, said The Atlantic. To many in the White House, the grace being extended to the chief of staff is a “telling reflection of how indispensable she is to the president.” The White House’s all-hands-on-deck pushback to criticism of Wiles was a “show of force” that “underscored Wiles’ importance to Trump.”

Although “virtually the entire Trump Cabinet” has come to Wiles’ defense in some capacity since the interview was published, her comments “repeatedly stray from or contradict the administration’s public line on Trump’s most controversial policies,” said Axios. At the same time, however, they reveal the “key to her success:” eschewing the role of “guardrail installed to influence or restrain Trump” and being a “facilitator” for Trump’s agenda overall. Authoritarian movements are built on the backs of the “Susie Wileses of the world” said Asawin Suebsaeng on The New Republic’s Daily Blast podcast. Such governments need people who are “willing to go along” with a project “despite their own personal, hidden (unless you accidentally blab about it to Vanity Fair) reservations” about how “grotesque and depraved” that effort can be.

What next?

While Wiles’ position appears secure for now, her comments may nevertheless cause headaches for the White House in the future. Her candid acknowledgement of Trump’s appetite for “retribution” against prominent figures like New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey prompted “multiple attorneys working on the legal defenses for different high-profile political targets” to “immediately” start strategizing on how best to leverage her remarks, said Zeteo. The comments are being taken as a “welcome opportunity” by “lawyers for a variety of Trump targets” both currently under indictment and those waiting for further action by the administration.

What happened

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Tuesday rebuffed bipartisan calls to release video of the military killing two survivors of a Sept. 2 missile strike on a speedboat allegedly carrying cocaine across the Caribbean. “We’re not going to release a top secret, full, unedited video of that to the general public,” he told reporters after a briefing for senators. And in Congress, only “appropriate committees will see it.”

Who said what

Hegseth and other top officials briefed the full House and Senate Tuesday “amid bipartisan pressure for more transparency” and growing “questions about the nature and legality” of the boat strikes, The New York Times said. “Most Republicans exiting the briefing backed the Trump administration’s decision to limit access” to the full video, but Democrats said the administration’s excuse about protecting military secrets was undermined by the 20 boat strike clips it had already posted online, including of the initial Sept. 2 attack. “They just don’t want to reveal the part that suggests war crimes,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

Lawmakers from both parties agreed the briefing “left them in the dark” about President Donald Trump’s “goals when it comes to President Nicolás Maduro” and Venezuela, The Associated Press said. Hegseth told reporters the boat bombing campaign was focused on eradicating cartels “poisoning the American people.” But White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair that Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle.”

What next?

Hegseth said the Pentagon would show the full, unedited video to the House and Senate armed services committees today. The Senate was “on the brink of giving final approval to a defense policy bill that would freeze” a quarter of Hegseth’s travel budget “if he failed to give Congress unedited video of all the strikes, as well as the orders that led to them,” the Times said.

‘Donald Trump’s reaction to Rob Reiner’s death is vile, even for him’

Bruce Arthur at the Toronto Star

It “feels like a sin to make the death of Rob Reiner about something other than Rob Reiner,” but we “live in a world dominated to an unreasonable degree by Donald Trump, and the American president’s reaction was vile, even for him,” says Bruce Arthur. The “death of Rob Reiner, at age 78, was a tragedy,” but Trump “blamed Reiner for his horrendous, awful death” in a “celestial level of narcissism, and another implicit call to political violence.”

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‘The West needs to open its eyes to honor killing’

Kevin Cohen at The Wall Street Journal

There is a “blind spot in Western risk-assessment frameworks,” says Kevin Cohen. Domestic violence “models assume gradual escalation and individual actors,” but “violence can erupt suddenly, collectively and in response to one perceived moral transgression.” When “Western institutions misread these signals, even a well-designed system can fail when it’s needed most.” When a “young woman’s autonomy conflicts with an inherited code of obedience, geography alone doesn’t prevent violence.” These “patterns endure” in “several countries.”

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‘Nigeria must not become America’s next battlefield’

Tafi Mhaka at Al Jazeera

There is a “pattern that has become increasingly familiar across northern Nigeria: mass kidnapping for ransom, striking opportunistically rather than along religious lines,” says Tafi Mhaka. But “with a few lines of incendiary rhetoric, a country grappling with criminal insecurity and institutional collapse is recast as a front line in a civilizational struggle.” Once “framed that way, Nigeria is no longer a society in need of protection and repair, but a battlefield-in-waiting.” That “shift matters.”

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‘They power the US economy, but will struggle to afford health care’

Elizabeth Aguilera at Capital & Main

The loss of enhanced tax credits will be “especially tough for the millions of small business owners and self-employed workers across the U.S.,” says Elizabeth Aguilera. The “consequences will ripple through communities and we all stand to lose,” as “small business owners are the country’s biggest job creators and power local economies.” They “preserve neighborhood culture, prepare our food, care for our children, create entertainment and build community,” but “now face choosing between health care and their livelihoods.”

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What happened

President Donald Trump announced on social media Tuesday night that he had ordered a “TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela.” The military campaign to block oil exports, the lifeblood of Venezuela’s economy, will “only get bigger” until President Nicolás Maduro and his government “return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land and other Assets that they previously stole from us,” Trump wrote.

Who said what

“Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” Trump wrote, and must return “our Oil, Land” and other assets “IMMEDIATELY.” The post marked a “major escalation of his pressure campaign” against Maduro, The Wall Street Journal said, though “it was unclear how many tankers would be affected.” An “effective embargo” is already in place following last week’s U.S. seizure of a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, Reuters said.

Trump’s announcement Tuesday “underscored” his focus on Venezuela’s oil, which was largely put “under state control in the 1970s,” CNN said. The Trump administration says its naval buildup and controversial strikes on civilian boats in the region are about fighting drug trafficking. But “behind the scenes,” officials have “focused intently on Venezuela’s oil reserves,” The New York Times said. Trump “has said both privately and publicly that the United States should take Venezuela’s oil” for years.

“Oil industry experts and former U.S. officials questioned the legal and policy rationale of Trump’s declaration,” The Washington Post said. “A naval blockade is unquestionably an act of war,” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) said on social media. “A war that the Congress never authorized and the American people do not want.”

What next?

A “high-level meeting” scheduled for today “could result in new orders to U.S. naval and air forces gathered in the Caribbean” and “more forceful U.S. naval operations in the next several days,” the Post said, citing a person familiar with the situation. Trump has also been threatening land strikes in Venezuela. But “if he were to authorize some activity on land, then it’s war,” White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said in a Vanity Fair interview published Tuesday, and “then Congress” would need to assent.

The MAGA media universe is made up of influencers, podcasters and thought leaders who rally their conservative listeners and viewers behind President Donald Trump. Now, that right-wing ecosystem is “ripping itself to shreds” over conspiracy theories and petty feuds.

MAGA’s most prominent personalities are “attacking each other with a fury normally reserved for the left,” said Axios. Podcaster Candace Owens has attacked Turning Point USA after founder Charlie Kirk’s death. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson is in a feud with Trump ally Laura Loomer over Carlson’s plans to buy a home in Qatar. And YouTube commentator Benny Johnson is threatening to sue over “personal attacks” from longtime provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.

The “chaos” reflects a “wider Republican breakdown” as Trump’s poll numbers continue to drop, said Axios. The feuds are hitting high gear as the MAGA movement considers what happens after Trump. The combatants sense the “future of this political movement is up for grabs,” said Open Measures researcher Jared Holt.

What did the commentators say?

Owens was “MAGA’s favorite conspiracist,” but her “foray into conspiracy theories” about Kirk’s assassination has proven disruptive inside the movement, said The Washington Post. Owens has made a number of unfounded charges about Kirk’s death, including the notion that his murder was an “inside job” undertaken by “French or Israeli government agents.” She is “burning everything down,” said Tim Pool, another right-wing podcaster.

Owens’ antisemitic theories about Kirk’s death are “next-level lunacy,” said Rich Lowry at the National Review. She is “more alluring and sinister” than disgraced conspiracy-monger Alex Jones in working to “turn MAGA in a direction hostile to Israel, Jews, and Judaism.” She might be a “marginal figure” whose influence does not reach into the mainstream discourse the way Tucker Carlson still can. But she is working to “turbocharge” conspiracy thinking on the right, “with a special focus on the Jews.” That is a way of thinking “from which nothing good has ever come.”

MAGA influencers are revealing the “movement’s biggest weakness,” said Amanda Marcotte at Salon. The right-wing media ecosystem is “dominated by hustlers” more interested in a payday than the Trumpist “political project.” Aside from Trump, few GOP politicians hold sway over their party’s base. That leaves the job of shaping conservative opinions to the “social media influencer class” that understands “what gets the MAGA audiences going is lurid conspiracy theories.” Now that dynamic is getting out of control. GOP leaders have “no one to blame but themselves for this failure.”

What next?

Owens and Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow, met on Monday in an effort to stem the feud. Both emerged from the “lengthy meeting” suggesting “tensions had eased,” said The Hill. “Time to get back to work,” Kirk said on X. “We agreed much more than I had anticipated,” Owens said. It is a sign of Owens’ “share of the media market” that Kirk felt the need to give her the “concession” of a meeting, said Chris Stirewalt at The Hill.

What happened

Jared Kushner’s private equity firm Affinity Partners Monday pulled out of a deal to finance a Trump-branded development in Serbia’s capital, Belgrade. Affinity’s withdrawal came hours after a member of President Aleksandar Vucic’s Cabinet and three other officials were indicted for allegedly abusing their positions and falsifying documents as the government worked to strip the bombed-out former military site of its cultural-heritage protections.

Who said what

Affinity said it was withdrawing from the half-billion-dollar deal “because meaningful projects should unite rather than divide, and out of respect for the people of Serbia and the City of Belgrade.” It was an “abrupt end to an increasingly controversial project that Kushner,” President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, “has worked on for more than two years,” The Wall Street Journal said.

The project to build apartments and a Trump-branded luxury hotel on a central Belgrade site bombed by NATO in 1999 involved Kushner and the Trump Organization, “run by the president’s sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr.,” The New York Times said. The project, “fiercely championed” by Vucic, “exemplified the willingness of foreign governments to bend over backward to further the financial interests” of Trump and his family. Serbia “has plenty of things it wants from the Trump administration, such as lifting sanctions on its sole oil refinery,” the Journal said.

What next?

The Serbian prosecutor’s office said its corruption investigation was ongoing and could lead to further indictments. Vucic in recent days has “vowed to pardon any officials caught up in the case,” the Journal said, and “stepped up his rhetoric” against the “semi-independent” prosecutor’s office.

The growing ubiquity of artificial intelligence remains a divisive topic among the public, but the White House is fully leaning into the AI boom. President Donald Trump has announced the creation of a new AI-based ‘United States Tech Force’ that will seek to poach employees from the private sector to lure them to government jobs. But this initiative follows a year in which the Trump administration cut thousands of federal employees.

How will this program work?

The U.S. Tech Force will be a two-year program intended to “tackle the most complex and large-scale civic and defense challenges of our era,” according to the Tech Force website. The program will involve on-the-job training in the areas of “software engineering, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data analytics or technical project management.”

The program is set to partner with 28 major tech companies to accomplish this. Some of the most notable brands include Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Dell, Google, Nvidia, OpenAI and Oracle. It will aim to hire about 1,000 people to start, with salaries ranging from $130,000 to $195,000, said Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor to reporters, though the Tech Force website states salaries will range from $150,000 to $200,000.

What “sets the Tech Force apart from most federal positions is its accessibility,” said Fortune. Unlike most other jobs in the U.S. government, candidates for the Tech Force “need not hold traditional degrees or meet minimum experience thresholds,” though they must “demonstrate strong technical skills through work experience.” This differs from many other federal jobs, which “require a college degree with a certain major field of study or specific academic courses,” said the federal government’s employment website, USAJobs.

What next?

It is unclear how successful this program will be, given that the “government has long needed more tech workers, but that deficit most likely worsened this year, when an unknown number departed,” said The New York Times. This is largely due to players like Elon Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) sought to hire tech workers but “made sweeping job cuts as well — including senior technologists in the Digital Service.” DOGE slashed about 260,000 total federal jobs through firings, buyouts or early retirement, according to Reuters.

DOGE also oversaw the elimination of key programs like 18F, a “digital services agency created in 2014 that developed software and technology products for various federal agencies and employed nearly 100 people,” said the Times. Trump’s new Tech Force is likely just an “effort to replace the more senior tech talent that DOGE had fired,” said Mathias Rechtzigel, a former government employee with the U.S. Digital Corps, to the Times. It is a “reaction to DOGE not going well.”

The administration has seemingly admitted that the purpose of Tech Force is to “address a technical and early career talent gap across the government,” said CNN. The government is looking to lure engineers away from private AI companies, which often offer “sizable salaries and other perks to attract top engineers and researchers.” Earlier in 2025, Trump also signed a set of “initiatives and policy recommendations that centered on growing U.S. AI infrastructure and scaling back regulation.”

‘Has the world really lost its thirst for Scotch whiskey?’

James Moore at The Independent

Scotch is “one of Scotland’s most iconic products,” but “it is not in a happy place,” says James Moore. Scotch distillers have been “caught in a perfect storm, with taxes and tariffs battering both domestic and international consumption.” The “real enthusiasts may choose to swallow higher prices. But casual drinkers? That’s a different matter altogether.” Those “involved in producing Scotch could be forgiven for pouring themselves a stiff drink to help drown their sorrows.”

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‘The Sydney Hanukkah attack didn’t come out of nowhere’

Aviva Klompas at Newsweek

The “Jewish families who gathered at Bondi Beach in Sydney to celebrate Hanukkah were targeted for doing exactly what the holiday represents: showing up openly as Jews,” says Aviva Klompas. They were “not caught in a geopolitical dispute.” This “was not the result of a policy disagreement or a misunderstanding about Israel.” The attack was “also not sudden or inexplicable. It was the foreseeable result of a sustained failure to take antisemitism seriously before it turned lethal.”

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‘Olivia Nuzzi, Karine Jean-Pierre and Eric Trump have all written the same book’

Carlos Lozada at The New York Times

Political memoirs “tend to fall into recognizable categories,” says Carlos Lozada. A “recent spate of books highlights the presence of a new category, one well suited to our time: the grievance memoir.” The books of Eric Trump, Karine Jean-Pierre and Olivia Nuzzi are “all outraged by affronts real and imagined, fixated on nefarious, often unspecified enemies.” They are “animated, above all, by a certainty that they’ve been wronged not just by people or institutions but also by broader forces.”

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‘Will Ford’s $19.5 billion EV charge be another dead end?’

Liam Denning at Bloomberg

For “years after General Motors took a bailout from Washington, it was scorned in some quarters of the population as ‘Government Motors,’” and while “Ford Motor Co. lacks the requisite initials, the same epithet could be applied to its latest pivot on electric vehicles,” says Liam Denning. Ford is “reconfiguring for changed political realities given that the environmental benefits of EVs, lower emissions, aren’t rewarded in the market but instead incented by regulation.” But Ford “isn’t an innocent bystander.”

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“Bitcoin has proven to be one of the best-performing assets in modern history,” said Al Jazeera. With the value of cryptocurrency increasing “some 1,000 times” over the last decade, it was only a matter of time before governments and banks wanted in.

After being launched following the 2008 global financial crisis, bitcoin was widely dismissed as a “speculative asset with no intrinsic value”. But it has been taken increasingly seriously “by governments, financial institutions and investors alike”, with far-reaching implications for politics, the economy and the way we live.

‘Big bets’

“A number of countries have made big bets” on crypto in the last few years. El Salvador holds more than “$600 million worth of bitcoin reserves”, accepting the asset “as legal tender” from 2021 to 2025.

Donald Trump’s return to the White House marked an optimistic shift in the US’s recognition of crypto as a legitimate currency “after years of government-led crackdowns on the sector”. In January 2024, the US Securities and Exchange Commission approved bitcoin for spot exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which track real-time shifts in stock market value rather than futures. This move allowed investors “exposure to the asset on the stock exchange for the first time”.

Spot crypto ETFs also had “bipartisan support” in South Korea’s 2025 election, said The Block. Lee Jae-myung, of the centre-left Democratic Party, the election’s eventual winner, said crypto funds would “provide more opportunities for South Korea’s younger generation”.

Nigel Farage is an open “supporter of cryptocurrency” and has made Reform the first UK party “to accept donations in bitcoin”, said the BBC. A £9 million donation to Reform from Thailand-based British businessman Christopher Harborne, “the largest ever single donation by a living person to a British political party”, has raised questions about the role cryptocurrency investors may play in future elections.

Ethical quandaries

In Trump’s Washington “crypto is ascendant”, said The Economist. Trump-appointed regulators are “more permissive” and investors are “piling into it”, while pro-crypto lobbying groups are throwing their weight behind political candidates who support it.

The president and his family also promote crypto. In January, the launch of the $TRUMP coin, a cryptocurrency mostly owned by “companies associated with the Trump family”, pointed towards the president’s direct financial interest in crypto. But “clear conflicts of interest” could ultimately do “more harm than good” for the industry.

Trump’s crypto endeavours are just one of a “myriad of entanglements that government ethics watchdogs have warned about for a decade now”, said The Guardian. One of the “primary worries” is the potential for “foreign actors to purchase influence” with the president via “investment in his cryptocurrency”.

In the UK, ministers believe “donations made with cryptocurrency pose a risk to the integrity of the electoral system”, said The Guardian. It is particularly difficult to “work out” who controls or owns crypto wallets based abroad, opening the door to influence by “foreign powers or criminals”.

Ministers are working on legislation that would ban cryptocurrency electoral donations, but the “complex nature of cryptocurrency” means that the proposal is unlikely to be ready in time for next year’s Elections Bill.

“After a five-year manhunt that fueled intense speculation and conspiracy theories,” said Kyle Cheney in Politico, we may finally know who planted pipe bombs near the U.S. Capitol before the Jan. 6, 2021, riot. The FBI announced last week that it had arrested Brian Cole Jr., 30, at his Virginia home on suspicion of leaving the deadly devices outside the Democratic and Republican national party headquarters. “No new tip led to Cole’s arrest.” Instead, investigators scoured the mountains of already collected evidence, including phone tracking data and bank records that show Cole—who allegedly told agents he believed President Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen—bought galvanized pipe, timers, and other bomb components. This is “compelling circumstantial evidence,” said former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance in her Substack newsletter. Yet rather than explain her case, Attorney General Pam Bondi used a press conference to falsely claim the Biden administration had failed to aggressively investigate the plot. FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino joined in the attack, saying it was refreshing to have a president who actually goes after “the bad guys.” 

Bongino’s triumphalism is “more than a little ironic,” said Jim Geraghty in National Review. The former Fox News host spent years insisting the pipe bombs were part of an elaborate Deep State hoax, claiming the plot was “a freakin’ inside job” intended to tar Trump and the MAGA faithful as violent terrorists. In a February episode of his podcast, Bongino even called the pipe bombs “the biggest scandal in U.S. history” and argued that former vice president Kamala Harris may—“in some fashion”—have helped cover up the truth. Yet now that the agency he leads has demolished that “vast conspiracy theory,” Bongino wants us to forget all the nonsense he spouted. “I was paid in the past, Sean, for my opinions,” he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity last week. Now “I’m paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts.” 

Sorry, but conspiracy theories don’t die that easily, said Will Sommer in The Bulwark. Despite Bongino and Bondi’s attempt at truth-telling, the MAGAverse is still convinced the Deep State is responsible. Hard-right Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said he’d never believe Cole was a Trump supporter or “lone wolf,” while Infowars host Breanna Morello claimed without evidence that one of the case’s prosecutors was somehow compromised. To accept Cole is just another election denier would blow up their whole worldview. And perhaps just as importantly, if Cole did plant the bombs, there’d be “no conspiracy theory for right-wing media to keep pursuing.” And that would be bad for business.

For decades, the Justice Department has pursued wide swaths of its civil rights enforcement efforts guided by what’s known as disparate impact standards. These rules regulate the use and withholding of federal funds in cases when a “seemingly neutral policy or action” results in “disproportionate and unjustified negative harm to a group, regardless of intent,” said Congress.gov.

Last week, however, Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division will now focus only on deliberate instances of discrimination moving forward. Accordingly, Justice Department attorneys “will not pursue Title VI disparate-impact liability against its federal-funding recipients,” said the department in a notice posted to the Federal Register.

‘Important tool’ taken ‘off the table’

“For far too long,” the Justice Department has “required recipients of federal funding to make decisions based on race,” said Bondi in a statement announcing the policy change. The previous rules “encouraged” people to challenge “racially neutral policies, without evidence of intentional discrimination,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon in the same release. But those rules also “undergirded” other organizational investigations into police departments of housing providers “accused of engaging in a ‘pattern or practice’ of discrimination,” said Politico.

It is a “sad commentary” that the White House has “chosen” the 68th anniversary of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division to do away with a rule that “for nearly 60 years has helped root out illegal race and national origin discrimination by recipients of federal funds,” said former DOJ employee Christine Stoneman to Bloomberg Law. The move is “part of a broader policy overhaul” for the department, “in a year of personnel and enforcement upheaval” for the civil rights division, said Bloomberg.

The change allows institutions to “turn a blind eye to troubling statistics” if they “didn’t mean to do it,” said Antonio Ingram II, a senior counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, to The Chronicle of Higher Education. “This is 2025,” and “examples of discrimination based on race or sex are not going to be what we saw in the Jim Crow South.”

‘Laudable’ decision

Critics’ claims that the new policies “somehow authorize discrimination” are “bogus,” said The Washington Post editorial board. Instead, the revised regulations “do the opposite.” Although some of President Donald Trump’s “anti-woke agenda” has been “irresponsible,” the rule change is a “reasonable correction to past overreach.”

Disparate impact theory was “imposed undemocratically and conflicts with the Constitution,” said The Wall Street Journal. Despite having sent “mixed signals over the years,” the Supreme Court should “eventually reject it” altogether. While the administration’s push to rescind disparate impact regulations is “laudable,” it won’t “solve the constitutional problem” at the heart of the issue. The “best thing that could happen,” said Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, to The Daily Signal, would be for Congress to “pass a bill making it clear that only intentional discrimination is covered by the Civil Rights Act.”

The new DOJ rules will likely face legal challenges, said Newsweek, and will “shape debates” in both the judicial and legislative branches “regarding the role of statistical evidence in civil rights law.”

‘The hunting tradition that explains Pennsylvania’s wild politics’

Salena Zito at The Washington Post

Bear camp is “about much more than hunting, and for anyone trying to understand Pennsylvania politics, it’s essential,” says Salena Zito. It “sits at the crossroads of rural and urban, illuminating Pennsylvanians’ sense of place and their traditions.” Pennsylvania’s “lack of affiliation to political parties and stubborn refusal to fit nicely into pigeonholes promise to confound pundits.” Hunting is “emblematic of what makes voters in this state tick — because the core principles animating bear camp are not political.”

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‘Australia just banned kids from social media. Shouldn’t we all?’

Robin Abcarian at the Los Angeles Times

Australia became the “first country in the world to enact a social media ban for kids under 16,” and the “ban is an incredibly bold, life-affirming move,” says Robin Abcarian. Americans “will look back at this period of unbridled social media use, free-for-all texting and never-ending screen time and wonder how we could have done this to our kids.” While “parents bear some of the responsibility for out-of-control social media use of their kids, they can only do so much.”

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‘The needless rift between America and Colombia’

Kevin Whitaker at Foreign Affairs

After “decades of successful cooperation on fighting drug trafficking and transnational crime, relations between Colombia and the United States are at a historic nadir,” says Kevin Whitaker. It is “possible that the U.S.-Colombian relationship could collapse entirely, bringing an end to the array of political, diplomatic, law enforcement, military, and judicial cooperation developed over the last four decades.” For “Colombia, a definitive break would dramatically worsen security, especially in rural areas, and enable armed groups to extend their reach.”

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‘How Mayor Brandon Scott curbed violence in Baltimore’

Liz Skalka at The New Republic

With Mayor Brandon Scott “at its helm, Baltimore has achieved what many see as remarkable progress: homicides began a year-over-year downward slide in 2023, and the city will very likely close out 2025 at a new record low,” says Liz Skalka. Scott’s strategy “employs focused deterrence, using carrots and sticks.” The carrot includes “access to resources, including mentorship and job training.” Scott’s “understanding of what drives — and cures — violent crime is at odds with the conventional wisdom out of Trump’s federal government.”

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President Donald Trump likes to say that he has ended a number of wars during his term in office, and FIFA just gave him a peace prize for his work. But several of the conflicts he claims to have resolved appear ready to reignite, raising questions about his approach to life-and-death dealmaking.

Some of the peace deals that Trump claims to have struck have “simply unraveled,” said NPR. The president hailed a so-called peace accord between Thailand and Cambodia in October, but the border dispute between the two countries “flared up again” a month later, and then again this month. And there is still “low-level fighting” between Israel and Hamas, despite the ceasefire brokered by Trump. His unorthodox approach can sometimes produce “unexpected results,” said The Atlantic Council’s Matthew Kroenig. In places like Gaza, though, Trump has a habit of “declaring victory before it’s achieved.”

What did the commentators say?

The “crumbling peace deals” show the limits of Trump’s “high-speed” approach, said The Wall Street Journal. The Thailand-Cambodia deal and a faltering June accord between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo both depended on the United States using its “economic and military might” to get the parties to the table. Critics say those deals also “largely failed to resolve key issues” that led to fighting in the first place. That could have “serious consequences for regional stability,” said Kevin Chen at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.

There is a difference between “making a deal” and “making peace,” said Peter Beaumont at The Guardian. Trump’s specialty is dealmaking, which is a “fundamentally transactional affair” and quite different from the difficult work of “mediated peace processes.” The president has a “performative” instinct for the “handshake and the signing” of a deal more than a “durable and fair peace” that can leave both sides satisfied. Trump’s “lack of commitment” to an enduring process is “transparently obvious to all involved.”

Trump works for peace “loudly, dramatically and quickly” but without “sustained attention,” said The Economist. The approach “may pause, but cannot end” the globe’s most enduring conflicts. Despite the FIFA honor, the world can take comfort that Trump still wants a Nobel Peace Prize and might be willing to work for it. The Nobel committee should “keep dangling its own prize just beyond his grasp.”

What next?

Trump’s patience is “running thin” while Ukraine and its European backers consider a Trump-backed deal that would largely bow to Russia’s “hardline demands,” said NBC News. The “stop-start diplomacy” on the war since Trump returned to office has “yet to yield any breakthroughs.” The president is ready to move. “Sometimes you have to let people fight it out, and sometimes you don’t,” he said to reporters last week. Trump seems not to want to “get pulled into another round of negotiations,” said Neil Melvin, the director of international security at the Royal United Services Institute. That raises the risk that he will “do a deal over the heads of the Europeans with Russia.”

What will it take for the ultra-Orthodox community to play its part in Israel’s survival? Despite 7 October 2023; despite the “near-existential” threat Israel faces across a variety of fronts; despite the “attendant acute military manpower crisis” and the enormous sacrifices experienced by so many Israeli families in the Gaza war – despite all this, the Haredi community remains adamant that young ultra-Orthodox men should be exempt from Israel’s compulsory military service.

It’s pure moral cowardice, said David M. Weinberg in The Jerusalem Post. Nothing in the Torah forbids serving in war. Yet now, in a cynical bid to win back the support of his erstwhile Haredi government partners, Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party has introduced a bill that essentially entrenches the community’s “draft evasion”.

Exemptions have become ‘institutionalised’

“The roots of this issue go back to the founding of the state,” said Eric R. Mandel in the same paper, “when David Ben-Gurion exempted approximately 400 Torah scholars from military service.” Back then, Haredim were far fewer in number, and Israel’s first prime minister believed their small and insular world would soon enough fade from existence. “Instead, the opposite occurred.” Driven by one of the highest birth rates in the developed world, Haredim today make up about 13% of Israelis; by 2065 it’s estimated they’ll reach 25%.

And over the decades, their exemption from Israeli life has become “institutionalised”, producing a class of citizens who neither serve in the army nor participate in the workforce, yet still enjoy hefty state subsidies. That imbalance had already created serious tensions within Israeli society; but post-7 October and the ensuing war in Gaza, what was once a cultural issue has now become Israel’s “greatest internal security threat”.

A turning point in all this came in June 2024, said Sam Sokol in The Times of Israel (Jerusalem), when the supreme court called a halt to the all-too-blatant pro-Haredi discrimination and ruled that the government must start conscription immediately. After the ruling, religious “yeshiva” schools harbouring draft dodgers saw their budgets slashed, and draft refusers lost access to state benefits.

But Netanyahu’s coalition has long been dependent on two ultra-Orthodox parties, Shas and United Torah Judaism (UTJ), said Haaretz (Tel Aviv). So even though the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) are short 10,000 soldiers, or between 12 and 15 battalions, in the wake of the Gaza war, Netanyahu’s government, in direct violation of the supreme court’s ruling, has repeatedly called up reservists in their 30s and 40s – men with families – instead of recruiting from the 80,000 or so eligible 18- to 24-year-olds from the ultra-Orthodox community.

New bill ‘chock-full of loopholes’

Likud’s new bill is an attempt to put this inflammatory issue to bed, said Shalom Yerushalmi in The Times of Israel: Netanyahu is parading it as a “historic achievement”, claiming it will force thousands of Haredi men into uniform. In reality, “not a single battalion, never mind a division, will come of it”. And that’s because it’s “chock-full of loopholes”, said Sam Sokol. Criminal sanctions on draft dodgers are only due to come into effect in 2027; not only full-time “yeshiva” students, but anyone who’s studied in a “yeshiva” for two years between ages 14 to 18 will be considered ultra-Orthodox, and granted yearly deferments from enlistment.

The only recruitment likely to rise in number given those incentives is that of applicants to “yeshivas”. The bill has caused turmoil in Israel, said Ravit Hecht in Haaretz, and even within Bibi’s coalition. But the PM won’t mind. Having given the appearance of coming up with a solution, he can now sit on the bill while the nation argues it out. In short, he has resorted to “his time-tested tactic of playing for time” ahead of the 2026 elections. It’s classic Netanyahu, said Sima Kadmon on Ynet (Rishon LeZion): throw “a chunk of meat into the arena”, make us fight among ourselves and, in so doing, crucially, make us forget all about “his own failures”.

Reform UK has received a record £9 million donation from Christopher Harborne, a British-Thai cryptocurrency mogul, according to the latest quarterly declarations to the Electoral Commission.

It’s the largest-ever single donation by a living person to a British political party. News of the gift comes at a time when Reform is leading in the national polls, but has been forced onto the defensive over a series of other, less welcome, stories.

‘Toxic’ and ‘divisive’

Last week Nigel Farage denounced what he called “a false story” in the Financial Times, which reported that he had told donors that he expected “a deal or merger” between his party and the Tories ahead of the next general election. “The idea I’d work with them is ludicrous,” he said. Reform also faced more questions about Farage’s alleged behaviour at school.

Twenty-eight former pupils and teachers now claim to have witnessed racist or antisemitic behaviour by him at Dulwich College in south London. Richard Tice, Reform’s deputy leader, said Farage’s accusers were peddling “made up twaddle”.

Farage has admitted that he was “offensive” at school, but insists he never made comments “with malice”. He angrily accused the BBC of “double standards and hypocrisy”, saying it should apologise for all the politically incorrect programmes it broadcast during the same era, such as “The Black and White Minstrel Show” and “It Ain’t Half Hot Mum”.

Farage faced separate accusations of racism last week over a campaign video in which he lamented the “cultural smashing of Glasgow”, citing the recent finding that nearly one in three school pupils in the city speak English as a second language. The comment prompted Keir Starmer to call Farage a “toxic, divisive disgrace”.

This week, it emerged that Farage had been reported to the police over claims of falsified election expenses. A former member of his campaign team, Richard Everett, says the Reform leader exceeded the £20,660 local election spending limit during his successful bid for the Clacton constituency last year by about £9,000, because some costs – including the refurbishment of a Reform-themed bar in the campaign office, and the loan of an armoured Land Rover used in a rally – weren’t declared. A Reform UK spokesman denied any wrongdoing.

President Donald Trump’s $12 billion bailout of American farmers will provide at least temporary relief from their struggles. But critics say the underlying problems, including his tariffs, still have not been solved.

Trump’s trade wars have “bludgeoned the already struggling U.S. agricultural sector,” said Axios. Farmers were staggering under the weight of “falling commodity prices and rising production costs,” but the president’s tariffs did not help. China stopped buying American-grown soybeans as retaliation, “crushing the largest export market for American farmers.” Now more than half of U.S. farms are “losing money.” The newly announced bailout “will provide much-needed certainty” to the sector, Trump said. Others are not so sure. A “one-time payment is not a long-term fix,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.).

Many farmers see the bailout as a “welcome stopgap,” said Fortune. But they do not believe it will “solve the agricultural industry’s problems.” The payments from the Trump administration are “not the ultimate solution we’re looking for,” said Charlie Radman, who grows corn and soybeans in Minnesota. Many of Radman’s colleagues say they want “trade, not aid.” American farmers “need more demand for our product,” said Iowa corn farmer Dan Keitzer to Fortune.

What did the commentators say?

Aid to farmers is Trump’s solution to a “self-created trade mess,” said The Washington Post editorial board. It is not just that the tariffs have cut off export markets for American-grown foodstuffs. They have also “driven up input costs for farmers,” who now must pay $100-a-ton more for fertilizer than they did a year ago. The president’s aid package will only partly offset the $44 billion that U.S. farmers are expected to suffer this year. Americans get “higher food prices and fewer options” while the farmers who feed them are doing worse than if Trump had “never imposed tariffs.”

The bailout is proof tariffs do not work, “but don’t expect the White House to think too hard about it,” said Eric Boehm at Reason. Farmers need aid because Trump’s trade wars are “creating higher prices for farmers” while also “making American agricultural products less competitive” in worldwide markets. Trump should have “learned this lesson already.” His first-term tariffs ended up forcing a $28 billion bailout of American farmers. History is repeating itself “with the same predictable results.”

What next?

American farmers “aren’t out of the woods yet,” said Foreign Policy. After the bailout was announced, Trump threatened new tariffs on Canadian fertilizer. That would “risk further straining” the finances of American farmers who use the product. And the president shows no signs of abandoning his overall tariff-driven approach to trade. The import fees have “greatly enhanced” U.S. national security, the president said on Truth Social. That will not come as good news to farmers who support Trump, but also who want to sell their products rather than live with uncertainty. They want “export market access, not handouts,” said Cornell University economist Chris Barrett.