What happened

The University of Oklahoma has removed a graduate student after she gave a student a failing grade on a psychology paper that cited the Bible as proof that “belief in multiple genders” is “demonic.” A review determined that the instructor, Mel Cuth, was “arbitrary in the grading of this specific paper,” the university said Monday, and she “will no longer have instructional duties.”

Who said what

The junior psychology major who wrote the essay appealed her zero grade and filed a religious discrimination claim. “Her case became a flashpoint in the ongoing debate over academic freedom on college campuses” after the university suspended Cuth and struck the student’s failing grade, The Associated Press said. Conservative groups and commentators made it an “online cause, highlighting” the junior’s argument “she’d been punished for expressing conservative Christian views.”

The University of Oklahoma’s Graduate Student Senate called Cuth’s removal “reprehensible.” The failed essay, meant to discuss academic research on gender expression and bullying in middle school, included a “prayer” that America’s youth “would not believe the lies being spread from Satan” about multiple genders. Cuth responded that the paper “does not answer the questions for the assignment,” relies on “personal ideology” and “is at times offensive,” though “I am not deducting points because you have certain beliefs,” according to a screenshot posted online by the school’s Turning Point USA chapter.

What next?

Cuth said through a lawyer yesterday she was “considering all of her legal remedies, including appealing this decision.”

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.

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. 

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.” 

What happened

Israel’s Cabinet has approved 19 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said Sunday. The decision — approved Dec. 11 but classified until now, according to Smotrich’s office — brings the number of Jewish West Bank settlements approved by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current government to 69, a nearly 50% increase since 2022.

Who said what

The settlements are “widely considered illegal under international law,” The Associated Press said, and Israel’s “construction binge” in the West Bank “further threatens the possibility” of a two-state solution. Smotrich’s stated goal is “blocking the establishment of a Palestinian state,” the BBC said, and surging violence in the West Bank is “heightening fears that settlement expansion could entrench Israel’s occupation.”

The “unrelenting violent campaign” by Israeli settlers includes “brutal harassment, beatings, even killings,” The New York Times said, while the Israeli military “forces Palestinians to evacuate or orders the destruction of their homes once settlers drive them to flee.” Israel’s military said Sunday it is reviewing the shooting death Saturday of a 16-year-old boy “suspected of hurling a block” at soldiers in the West Bank town of Qabatiya. Video of the incident showed an Israeli soldier shooting the youth at “point blank range,” CNN said, and “nothing appears to be thrown from the alley the Palestinian teenager comes from.”

What next?

The “Israeli onslaught has all but vanquished a free Palestinian existence in the West Bank,” the Times said, and the “desperation among Palestinian villagers and farmers as they watch the takeover of their lands at a pace never seen before” is exacerbated by “fear that the changes are already becoming irreversible.”

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?”

What happened

TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, said Thursday it had secured binding deals with three major investors to form a U.S. version of the popular video-sharing platform. Under the agreements, outlined by TikTok CEO Shou Chew in a memo to employees, Oracle, Silver Lake and Abu Dhabi-based MGX will each own 15% of the new venture, leading a consortium with 50% control of U.S. TikTok.

Who said what

The deal “marks the end of years of uncertainty” about TikTok’s fate in the U.S., The Associated Press said. Congress passed a law that “would ban TikTok in the U.S. if it did not find a new owner,” but after the platform briefly went dark in January, President Donald Trump, “without a clear legal basis,” signed four executive orders to stave off the ban while his administration sought new ownership.

ByteDance is set to retain a 19.9% stake in the new venture, while 30.1% will be owned by its affiliates and partners. It wasn’t clear who would own the last 5%, but Trump suggested in September that Michael Dell and Rupert Murdoch would hold stakes, along with Oracle’s Larry Ellison. “Trump wants to hand over even more control of what you watch to his billionaire buddies,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said on social media Thursday.

What next?

Chew’s memo “suggested that the deal would close on Jan. 22, just one day before the latest deadline for TikTok to find a new owner,” The New York Times said. The Trump administration has to approve the deal, but “at this stage, I see no regulatory issues,” analyst Craig Huber told Reuters, especially since Trump was “very involved in putting the whole sale together from the beginning.”

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.

What happened

A 48-year-old man believed to have murdered an MIT professor and two Brown University students earlier this week was found dead Thursday in a New Hampshire storage unit, law enforcement officials said Thursday night. The suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, was a physics grad student at Brown in 2000 and 2001 after attending the same academic program as the slain MIT professor, Nuno F.G. Loureiro, in their native Portugal, officials said. Valente, a permanent U.S. resident since 2017, died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

Who said what

In the timeline outlined last night by police and prosecutors in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, Valente killed Brown students MukhammadAziz Umurzokov and Ella Cook, and shot nine others, during an economics study session on Saturday. He subsequently drove his rental car to Boston and shot Loureiro at his Brookline home on Monday, then drove to the storage unit he rented in Salem, New Hampshire. Loureiro, head of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, died early Tuesday.

“In most mass shootings in the United States, suspects are either killed or captured quickly,” The Washington Post said. In the Brown case, “frustration grew after police briefly detained” the wrong man on Sunday, and daily news conferences grew “more contentious” as police appeared stumped. Ted Docks, the lead FBI agent in Boston, initially said there seemed to be “no connection” between the MIT and Brown shootings.

The alleged killer’s identity was unknown until Wednesday, when a witness in Providence helped “blow the lid” off the case, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said last night. “That person led us to the car, which led us to the name, which led us to the photographs of the person renting the car.” He said authorities are still searching for a motive but “are 100% confident that this is our target and that this case is closed from a perspective of pursuing people involved.”

What next?

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Thursday night that, at President Donald Trump’s request, she had ordered a pause of the DV1 diversity lottery program that Valente used to enter the U.S. “Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery,” The Associated Press said, and this “latest example” of him “using tragedy” to “limit or eliminate avenues to legal immigration” is “almost certain to invite legal challenges,” as the lottery was created by Congress.

What happened

The Academy Awards will be broadcast worldwide on YouTube beginning in 2029, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Wednesday. ABC, which has broadcast the Oscars exclusively since 1976, will continue doing so until the 100th Academy Awards in 2028.

Who said what

The Oscars will be the first major award show to “completely jettison broadcast television,” The Associated Press said. Putting “one of the most watched non-NFL broadcasts in the hands of Google” is a “seismic shift” for Hollywood and the media industry. YouTube “secured Oscars rights in a bidding war that reportedly included competitors such as ABC, NBC and, at one point, Netflix,” The Washington Post said.

ABC “did not want to overpay,” after finding it “harder in recent years to turn a profit from the show,” Reuters said. This year’s Oscars drew 19.7 million viewers on ABC, a “five-year high” but far fewer than the record 57 million in 1998. YouTube is believed to have “shelled out over nine figures for the Oscars,” Variety said, citing insiders. Disney was “surprised” the “sole streamer” won the bidding war, but losing to YouTube “doesn’t sting as hard” as if a “direct competitor” like NBC had prevailed.

What next?

YouTube will stream the Oscars, “including red carpet coverage, behind-the-scenes content and Governors Ball,” live and “free of charge” from 2029 through at least 2033, Variety said. “There will continue to be commercials.” Nominations for the 2026 Oscars, hosted by Conan O’Brien, will be announced Jan. 22. Without ABC’s production control, the Academy “can do whatever they want” in 2029, one insider told Variety. “You can have a six-hour Oscars hosted by MrBeast.”

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.

What happened

The U.S. gained 64,000 jobs in November but lost 105,000 in October, the Commerce Department reported Tuesday, and the unemployment rate climbed to 4.6%, the highest since 2021. Along with the net loss of 41,000 jobs, the department also revised August and September’s payroll numbers downward by 33,000 jobs. Wages grew an anemic 0.1% last month, the smallest gain since 2023. The October jobs report was delayed because of the government shutdown.

Who said what

“Taken together,” the data released Tuesday “point to one of the weakest American labor markets in years,” The Wall Street Journal said. Hiring has “clearly lost momentum,” The Associated Press said, “hobbled by uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s tariffs” and the “lingering effects” of inflation-fighting high interest rates.

The “economy is flashing new warning signs,” but October’s steep losses “reflected the exit of tens of thousands of federal workers who took a deferred resignation package earlier this year,” The Washington Post said. “All roads lead back to policy out of Washington, D.C.,” RSM chief economist Joseph Brusuelas told the Journal. “I’m not saying this is a harbinger of a recession, but we have some real challenges to the economy that we didn’t have one year ago.”

What next?

The delayed jobs numbers, and a separate Commerce Department report Tuesday that showed flat retail sales, “buttressed the Federal Reserve’s decision to cut interest rates last week,” the Post said. After that meeting, Fed Chair Jerome Powell “warned that official statistics could be overstating job creation by 60,000 jobs a month.”

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.

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.

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.

What happened

Nick Reiner, the 32-year-old son of Hollywood director Rob Reiner, was arrested Monday as a suspect in the murder of his parents. Rob and Michele Reiner were found dead with stab wounds in their Los Angeles home on Sunday.

The Los Angeles Police Department said its initial investigation found that Nick Reiner “was responsible for their deaths,” and he was “booked for murder and remains in custody with no bail.”

Who said what

Police “focused almost immediately” on Nick Reiner, The New York Times said, “in part because” of his openly discussed “struggles with drug abuse and bouts of homelessness” beginning at age 15. He and his father had “explored their difficult relationship” and Nick’s struggles with drugs in a “semi-autobiographical 2016 film, ‘Being Charlie,’” The Associated Press said.

Police have not disclosed a potential motive. President Donald Trump’s post claiming Reiner was murdered because his “TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME” had “driven people CRAZY” drew widespread condemnation, including from “conservative influencers” and his own “MAGA base,” The Washington Post said. Nick Reiner and his father were seen arguing at a holiday party at Conan O’Brien’s house on Saturday night, witnesses told CNN. They “got into a shouting match,” with “Rob Reiner telling his son that his behavior was inappropriate,” the Times said, citing attendees. “Several people commented” that Nick Reiner “looked anxious and uncomfortable in a way that deeply unsettled them.”

What next?

The LAPD said it would turn over the double-homicide case to prosecutors today. It will be “up to the DA’s office to charge” Reiner with “specific counts” by Wednesday night, said CNN.

What happened

The Trump administration offered Ukraine “NATO-like Article 5” security guarantees if it agrees to a peace deal with Russia, a senior U.S. official told reporters Monday night, after two days of high-level talks in Berlin. But “those guarantees will not be on the table forever.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders who attended the talks welcomed the U.S. guarantees, but all sides acknowledged significant differences over demands that Ukraine give up territory Russia has failed to seize in battle.

Who said what

“I think we’re closer now than we have been, ever,” President Donald Trump, who called into the Berlin meeting, told reporters Monday night. Negotiators solved probably “90% of the issues between Ukraine and Russia,” the U.S. official told reporters, and Trump “believes he can get Russia to accept” the “NATO-like” guarantee and European Union membership for Ukraine. The official did not give specifics on the U.S. guarantees but said they “would have to go before the Senate.”

The Trump team argues that the “bitter pill of massive territorial concessions” in the Donbas would be palatable to Ukraine if served up with “robust security guarantees,” an accelerated path into the EU and “billions on the table for rebuilding,” Axios said. But Ukrainian officials and their European allies “are wary that Ukraine could agree to make painful concessions, only for Russia to balk at the deal and hold out for more.”

“Moscow has yet to agree to any of the changes discussed in Germany and has not indicated any willingness to do so,” Reuters said. Still, Trump’s “unprecedented offer” for security guarantees has “sparked some optimism from European leaders” about a pathway to peace.

What next?

More talks are expected this weekend “somewhere in the United States, could be Miami, with working groups, military people, looking at maps,” a U.S. official told reporters. “It was not clear when or how the Trump administration would bring the new details to Moscow,” Politico said. Trump and his team “have said they hope to achieve a peace deal by the end of the year,” The Washington Post said, but Ukrainian and European officials view that as “ambitious.” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, asked Monday about a proposed Christmas ceasefire, said predicting a time frame for a Ukraine peace deal was a “thankless task.”

What happened

Director-actor Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, were found dead in the Los Angeles home Sunday in what police called an “apparent homicide.” Officials did not identify the victims, discovered at the couple’s Brentwood residence, but a spokesperson for the family announced their “sudden” and “tragic passing” in a statement last night, asking for “privacy during this unbelievably difficult time.”

Who said what

Reiner, the son of the late comedy legend Carl Reiner, “catapulted” to fame playing Archie Bunker’s son-in-law on “All in the Family,” The Associated Press said. He became “one of the most prolific directors in Hollywood,” creating “some of the most memorable movies of the 1980s and ’90s,” including “The Princess Bride,” “Stand By Me,” “This is Spinal Tap,” “A Few Good Men” and “When Harry Met Sally.” The Reiners were also active in political causes like same-sex marriage rights and early childhood development programs, The New York Times said, and their stature as “among the biggest names in the Democratic Party was evident in the tributes released after their death.”

The Reiners “had injuries consistent with being stabbed,” the Los Angeles Times said, citing unidentified sources. There was “no sign of forced entry into the home” and a ”family member was being interviewed in connection with the deaths.”

What next?

Rob Reiner’s son Nick, 32, was booked into the Los Angeles County jail on suspicion of murder early this morning, said the Los Angeles Times. He is being held on $4 million bail.

What happened

Hong Kong’s High Court today convicted media tycoon Jimmy Lai of violating the Chinese territory’s 2020 national security law and sedition, in the latest blow to the former British colony’s pummeled pro-democracy movement. The verdict was handed down a day after Hong Kong’s last major opposition party, the Democratic Party, voted to disband under intense pressure from the pro-Beijing government.

Who said what

The Lai verdict, carrying up to life in prison, highlights Hong Kong’s “shrinking tolerance for dissent,” The New York Times said. Officials in the city and mainland China had cast Lai, 78, as the “mastermind of antigovernment demonstrations that engulfed” Hong Kong in 2019, “posing a serious challenge to Beijing’s authority.” Lai said he was promoting the freedoms and autonomy promised by Beijing when Britain handed over governance of Hong Kong in 1997.

A rags-to-riches clothing magnate, Lai pivoted to media in the 1990s. His popular Apple Daily newspaper mixed “vivid” and “sometimes racy” journalism with “relentless criticism of China’s ruling Communist Party,” until Hong Kong’s government forced its closure in 2021, The Wall Street Journal said. President Donald Trump “said earlier this year that he would do everything he could to ‘save’ Lai,” but neither he nor Chinese President Xi Jinping “mentioned the case” after they met in South Korea in October.

What next?

The Hong Kong court said it will decide Lai’s sentence in mid-January. Trump said last year that “it would be ‘easy’ to free” Lai, said Mark L. Clifford in a New York Times op-ed, and he “should deliver on that boast by leveraging the global groundswell” of support for Lai and the “reduction of American tensions with China” to convince Xi to release the ailing freedom advocate.

What happened

Two gunmen, identified as a father and son, opened fire Sunday on hundreds of Jewish families gathered to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah at a park in Sydney’s Bondi Beach. The attackers killed at least 15 people, and another 38 remained hospitalized. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese today said that the attack was an “act of pure evil, an act of antisemitism, an act of terrorism on our shores,” and his government would pursue “tougher gun laws.” One alleged gunman was shot dead by police and his 24-year-old son was in a hospital and expected to survive and face charges, police said.

In a separate mass shooting in Rhode Island on Saturday, two students at Brown University were killed and nine others were hospitalized. Police in Providence last night released a “person of interest” who had been arrested, saying a review of the evidence pointed in a different direction.

Who said what

The people killed in the Bondi Beach attack included a “10-year-old girl, a rabbi and a Holocaust survivor,” The Associated Press said. “Jewish leaders in Sydney reacted with grief and rage,” The Washington Post said, “after what they said were months of unheeded warnings about the dangers of rising antisemitism” amid a “surge in antisemitic incidents over the past two years,” following the start of the Hamas-Israel war in Gaza. Police have now increased security at synagogues and other Jewish centers in Australia as well as New York, London and elsewhere.

The “horror at Australia’s most popular beach was the deadliest shooting in almost three decades in a country with strict gun control laws” enacted after a 1996 attack that left 35 people dead, the AP said. The 50-year-old suspect killed by police Sunday “had licenses for six guns” for recreational hunting as a member of a gun club, The New York Times said, “and a total of six were recovered from the scene and two searched properties.”

What next?

Albanese said he would propose new gun laws at a Cabinet meeting today attended by state leaders, as “some laws are implemented by the states.” The proposed reforms include limiting the number of allowed firearms and reviewing licenses periodically. “People’s circumstances can change,” he said. “People can be radicalized over a period of time. Licenses should not be in perpetuity.”

What happened

The Senate Thursday failed to pass competing plans to prevent a sharp rise in costs for people who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act when subsidies expire at the end of the year. The Democratic proposal to extend the subsidies for three years and a Republican alternative each drew a bare majority of 51 votes, but 60 votes were needed to advance under the Senate’s filibuster rule. A handful of Republicans voted for both plans.

Who said what

The dueling votes marked an “unceremonious end to a monthslong effort by Democrats” to extend the subsidies while Republicans “struggled to find an alternative,” The Associated Press said. Senate Republicans “eventually settled on” funneling up to $1,500 into health savings accounts for ACA customers who opt for a “lower-cost, higher deductible bronze or catastrophic health insurance plan.” That money could be spent on out-of-pocket health care expenses but not premiums.

The “stakes for American families are considerable,” but the “political stakes are also vast,” Politico said. For many Republicans, the “pressure posed by the subsidy cliff is rivaled by the anxiety they are feeling about the approaching midterms,” but “that sense of panic has not trickled up to Republican leaders, who appear ready to send lawmakers home next week until Jan. 6.” After “today’s vote,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, the “American health care crisis is 100% on their shoulders.”

What next?

Hope is “fading for any deal to extend the subsidies before the end of the year, if at all,” The Wall Street Journal said. The “next major legislative deadline is Jan. 30, when lawmakers need to pass a new bill funding the government.”

What happened

A federal judge in Maryland Thursday ordered the immediate release of Kilmar Abrego García from an ICE detention facility in Pennsylvania, ruling that the government was holding the Salvadoran immigrant “without lawful authority.”

Abrego García, whose wrongful deportation to a notorious El Salvador prison in March became an early flashpoint in President Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration crackdown, was freed shortly before U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis’ 5 p.m. deadline and was home with his family by Thursday night, his lawyers said.

Who said what

Xinis’ ruling was a “stinging defeat” for Trump, The New York Times said, and the “latest twist” in Abrego García’s “long and byzantine saga” from the El Salvador prison to a jail cell in Tennessee on disputed human smuggling charges, then back to ICE detention after a brief respite at home. Despite that winding path, the reason for his release was “quite simple,” Xinis wrote: The judge who barred his removal to El Salvador in 2019 never issued a “final order for removal.”

Xinis also criticized the Trump administration’s ongoing threat to deport Abrego García to an African country where he has no ties. Government lawyers “did not just stonewall” the court, she said, but “affirmatively misled” it by falsely claiming Costa Rica had withdrawn its offer to receive him.

What next?

Homeland Security Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, who previously vowed Abrego García would “never go free on American soil,” said the administration would “continue to fight this tooth and nail.” An immigration judge Thursday night issued Abrego García a final removal order, and he was ordered to appear at an ICE office in Baltimore today, The Washington Post said, “leading his lawyers and supporters to worry that he could be detained again.”

What happened

Indiana’s state Senate Thursday rejected a new congressional map 31-19, with 21 Republicans joining all 10 Democrats, in a rebuke of President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign. The proposed gerrymander, approved by the state House last week, would have likely flipped the state’s two Democratic-held U.S. House seats, giving Indiana a 9-0 GOP delegation.

Who said what

The failed vote is one of Trump’s “most significant political setbacks since his return to the White House,” Politico said. It followed a “brass-knuckled, four-month pressure campaign from the White House,” including “private meetings and public shaming from Trump,” multiple Indiana visits by Vice President JD Vance, “veiled threats of withheld federal funds,” open threats of well-funded primary challenges, and personal threats against lawmakers and their families.

“The federal government should not dictate by threat or other means what should happen in our states,” said Sen. Spencer Deery (R), one of the no votes. “Hoosiers are very independent,” Sen. Vaneta Becker (R), told The Washington Post. “And they’re not used to Washington trying to tell us what to do.”

Gov. Mike Braun (R) said he was “very disappointed that a small group of misguided state senators” partnered with Democrats to vote against “fair maps” and “reject the leadership of President Trump.” Former Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) praised the “courageous principled leadership” of Republicans like state Senate leader Rodric Bray for giving Trump “a major black eye.” Trump told reporters Thursday night that “Bray, whatever his name is,” had “done a tremendous disservice,” but “I wasn’t working on it very hard” and “we won every other state.”

What next?

Indiana was “just one small part” of Trump’s “plan to keep the House in Republican hands” through a “gerrymandering war” that started in Texas and has so far netted his party three likely seats, The New York Times said. But the failure of his “gambit in deep-red Indiana is likely to reverberate around the country as the parties head into the 2026 midterm elections.”

What happened

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) Wednesday introduced articles of impeachment against Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., accusing him of “abuse of authority and undermining of the public health.” Stevens, who is running for Senate in a competitive primary, previously called on Kennedy to resign.

She has also filed the “Stop RFK’s BS Act,” which would “reverse funding cuts Kennedy has overseen,” said The Hill.

Who said what

Kennedy has “driven up health care costs” while “tearing down the scientific institutions” Americans rely on, Stevens said in a press release. With Republicans in control of Congress, The New York Times said, it would be “close to impossible” for her “all but certainly futile” impeachment bid to “get a vote on the House floor or lead to a trial in the Senate.”

Stevens is “part of a growing group of House Democrats effectively going rogue by mounting impeachment efforts without support from party leadership,” Axios said. HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon accused her of “partisan theatrics” intended to “elevate” her “standing in a failing, third-rate Senate bid.”

What next?

Stevens said her effort was more than “political theater” and more substantive than the impeachment measures filed by Reps. Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.) and Al Green (D-Texas). But many Democrats expressed “frustration” at the move, Axios said. “You can’t swing a cat without hitting an impeachable offense in this administration,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif), but “it’s just deeply distracting and unproductive to make that our priority in this moment.”

What happened

President Donald Trump Wednesday said his administration’s new “gold card” visa was open for sale, offering an expedited and “direct path to Citizenship for all qualified and vetted people” in exchange for a $1 million “gift,” or $2 million if their company is footing the bill. Hours earlier, U.S. Customs and Border Protection formally proposed requiring visitors from visa-exempt countries in Europe and Asia to provide a five-year social media history and detailed information about family members as a condition of entry to the U.S.

Who said what

Trump said his “Trump Gold Card” will ensure that U.S. businesses can “finally keep their invaluable Talent” and fill federal coffers. But the new visa, depicted as “gold, credit-card-shaped” and emblazoned with Trump’s photo, faces “questions about its viability and legality,” The Washington Post said. It also “underscores a striking contrast in the administration’s immigration stance: aggressive raids, restrictions and quick deportations alongside expedited entry to the ultrarich.”

The intrusive new “social media snooping rule” for visitors from the 42 countries in the Visa Waiver Program would “come into effect early next year — shortly before hundreds of thousands of football fans” travel to the U.S. for the World Cup, Politico said. Demanding five years of social media history “is outrageous” and would “seriously damage the U.S. tourist industry,” Irish lawmaker Barry Andrews said. “Even the worst authoritarian states in the world do not have such an official policy.”

What next?

Asked if he thought the new policy would harm tourism, Trump said no, telling reporters he wanted to “make sure we’re not letting the wrong people come into our country.” The proposal will be open for public comment for 60 days. “This is not a final rule,” CBP said in a statement, just the “first step in starting a discussion to have new policy options.”

What happened

The U.S. intercepted and seized control of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela Wednesday. The merchant ship has been under U.S. sanctions “for years” after transporting “sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social media. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil called the seizure “blatant theft and an act of international piracy” aimed at robbing Venezuela of its oil.

Who said what

“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela — a large tanker, very large, the largest one ever seized, actually,” President Donald Trump told reporters Wednesday. Asked what will happen to the oil, he said, “Well, we keep it, I guess.” The ship was seized by FBI and Homeland Security agents with military backing, Bondi said. “Using U.S. forces to take control of a merchant ship is incredibly unusual,” The Associated Press said.

The operation was a “significant escalation in the U.S. pressure campaign against President Nicolás Maduro and his country’s oil-dependent economy,” The Washington Post said. The White House did not specify “the legal authority under which the vessel and its contents were seized.” It also wasn’t clear the U.S. “had the legal authority to keep the oil,” The New York Times said, but according to one official, a “federal judge issued a seizure warrant roughly two weeks ago because of the ship’s past activities smuggling Iranian oil, not because of links to the Maduro government.”

The tanker, identified as the Skipper by officials and maritime tracking firms, was sanctioned under its previous name, the Adisa, and was falsely flying the Guyana flag. Venezuela uses dozens of these “shadow” tankers to evade U.S. sanctions on oil exports, the backbone of its economy. The tankers “typically disguise their locations until long after departure” as they head to Malaysia or China, Venezuela’s top oil buyer, Reuters said. The U.S. is No. 2.

What next?

The vessel seizure was a “warning to other tankers waiting to dock and load up Venezuelan crude,” The Wall Street Journal said, citing a Pentagon official. It also “came just hours after Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado left the country on a boat, an escape that potentially gave the Trump administration an opening to take more aggressive action against the Maduro regime.” Machado arrived in Oslo last night, missing her Nobel Peace Prize bestowal ceremony by hours.

What happened

Australia’s pioneering social media ban for teenagers went into effect Tuesday, barring kids under age 16 from 10 popular platforms: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, Twitch, Threads, X and Kick. The social media companies face fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars ($32.9 million) if they fail to take “reasonable steps” to identify and remove underage users.

Who said what

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it was “a proud day” for Australian families that “will make an enormous difference” in protecting kids from the harms of social media. Polls show that the ban, which passed a year ago with broad political support, is “wildly popular with parents” but “far less popular with children,” said the BBC. In a video message, Albanese suggested kids “start a new sport, new instrument or read that book” lingering on their shelf.

The law’s “rollout caps a year of debate over whether any country could practically stop children from using platforms embedded in daily life,” Reuters said, “and begins a live test for governments worldwide frustrated that social media firms have been slow to implement harm-reduction measures.” Critics, including tech companies “desperate to stop other countries from implementing similar bans,” argue that the law is overly broad, will leave kids isolated and can easily be flouted by tech-savvy teens, the BBC said.

What next?

Two 15-year-olds, backed by an advocacy group, have filed a challenge to the law, arguing it “improperly robs 2.6 million young Australians of a right to freedom of political communication implied in Australia’s constitution,” The Associated Press said. An initial hearing will be held in February.

What happened

U.S. District Judge Paul Engelmayer Tuesday cleared the way for the release of potentially hundreds of thousands of documents from the sex trafficking case against Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

The recently passed Epstein Files Transparency Act “unambiguously applies” to the Maxwell grand jury testimony and “voluminous” other records from the case, Engelmayer ruled, including evidence not used in the 2021 trial that resulted in Maxwell’s 20-year prison sentence.

Who said what

Engelmayer said he was approving the Justice Department’s request to unseal the files, but “cautioned that people shouldn’t expect to learn much new information from them,” The Associated Press said. They “do not identify any person other than Epstein and Maxwell as having had sexual contact with a minor,” he wrote, nor do they “discuss or identify any client of Epstein’s or Maxwell’s.”

The Justice Department also has a “pending” request before a second federal judge in New York to “unseal records from the grand jury that indicted Epstein on sex-trafficking charges in 2019,” before his suicide in jail, The Washington Post said. “A third federal judge, in Miami, last week ordered the release of transcripts from the grand jury that investigated Epstein from 2005 to 2007.”

What next?

Before the government releases any of the material, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton must “personally certify, in a sworn declaration,” that the records have been “vigorously reviewed” and “found to be in compliance” with the law’s requirements on protecting victims’ identities, Engelmayer wrote in his ruling. Previously, “although paying lip service to Maxwell’s and Epstein’s victims,” the Justice Department “has not treated them with the solicitude they deserve.”

What happened

Florida Democrat Eileen Higgins was elected mayor of Miami Tuesday night, defeating Republican Emilio González 59.5% to 40.5%. Higgins, a former county commissioner, will be Miami’s first woman mayor and the first Democrat to hold the position in 28 years.

She will also be the “first non-Hispanic mayor since the 1990s” in a city where “Cuban American Republicans have dominated” politically for decades, The New York Times said.

Who said what

“Affordability was a key issue throughout the campaign,” CNN said. But Higgins also “spoke frequently in the Hispanic-majority city” about President Donald Trump’s “immigration crackdown,” The Associated Press said, and the “many people in Miami who were worried about family members being detained.”

Like the rest of Florida, “Miami has become more Republican over the past few election cycles, making a Democratic victory all the more striking,” the Times said. The position of Miami mayor is “technically nonpartisan,” the Miami Herald said, but “party politics became a major focus” after “major GOP politicians announced support for González,” including Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis. Last month, the Democratic National Committee said it was going “all in” on Higgins. “Both national political parties were hoping they could point to the race as a win” and a “bellwether” for 2026, said the Herald.

The results were “not a rebuke of the president or the party,” Miami-Dade GOP chair Kevin Cooper said Tuesday night, per Politico, and Democrats are trying to “read something into this that it’s not.” Trump and González “made it into a national race, and they got clobbered,” said DNC finance chair Chris Korge.

What next?

Local races are “not predictive of what may happen at the polls next year,” the AP said, but “some local Republicans are growing increasingly frustrated” at recent Democratic wins and overperformances, including November’s off-year blue sweep. In Georgia Tuesday, Democrat Eric Gisler flipped a state House seat in a district Trump won by 12 percentage points last year.

What happened

A dozen former FBI agents fired for kneeling during a 2020 racial justice protest in Washington, D.C., filed a joint lawsuit Monday against FBI Director Kash Patel and the Trump administration, alleging unlawful retaliation. The former counterterrorism agents, deployed by President Donald Trump to manage protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd, said in their lawsuit they had “kneeled for apolitical tactical reasons to defuse a volatile situation” after being cornered by an agitated crowd, “not as an expressive political act.”

Who said what

The unnamed plaintiffs — nine women and three men — were “one of the largest groups of former law enforcement officials to challenge the Trump administration in court over its continuing purge of personnel at the Justice Department,” The New York Times said. Other agents “pushed out in recent months have worked on investigations involving Trump or his allies and in one case displayed an LGBTQ+ flag in his workspace,” The Associated Press said.

According to the lawsuit, the FBI cleared the agents of all wrongdoing after a photo of them kneeling “went viral, drawing the ire of conservative commentators and politicians,” The Washington Post said, but Patel started new disciplinary investigations over the summer and fired the agents before the reviews were completed, violating FBI rules. The lawsuit contends that orders to fire the agents “came directly from the White House,” CNN said, and that Patel had already selected the agents to fire “before he joined the agency early this year.”

What next?

The former FBI agents are seeking their jobs back as well as a “court judgment declaring the firings unconstitutional, back pay and other monetary damages and an expungement of personnel files related to the terminations,” the AP said.

What happened

President Donald Trump Monday announced $12 billion in aid for farmers struggling with higher fertilizer and equipment costs and the loss of export markets — China, especially — tied to his trade war. He unveiled the bailout at a White House roundtable with farmers. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said $11 billion would be paid to producers of major row crops like corn, soybeans and wheat, with the other $1 billion set aside for fruit and other specialty crops.

Who said what

“Not surprisingly,” Trump tried to portray the $12 billion farmer bailout as “a victory, another piece of evidence — at least to him — that his decision to impose the highest tariffs on American imports since 1930 are working, or will soon,” David Sanger said at The New York Times. But it was the latest of several recent moves to “contain the economic and political damage” of his trade war and “stem the bleeding for a core constituency.”

Trump “repeatedly said during the roundtable that the bailout was funded by tariffs,” but the $12 billion will be drawn from a “USDA fund using taxpayer dollars,” Politico said. His guests “thanked him for the help,” The Associated Press said, but farmers maintain they would prefer to “make a profit off selling their crops — not rely on government aid to survive.”

What next?

Rollins said farms will start receiving up to $155,000 in “bridge” payments by the end of February. Trump, who “has been dismissive of the affordability issue,” said the AP, will travel to Pennsylvania today to defend his “economic stewardship and answer voter angst about rising costs.”

What happened

Paramount Skydance Monday launched a hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, seeking to undo Netflix’s purchase of Warner’s studio and streaming businesses. Paramount said its $77.9 billion all-cash bid for the whole company, including CNN, offered better value to shareholders than the $72 billion purchase price agreed to by Netflix and Warner on Friday. It was Paramount chief David Ellison’s sixth bid for the company in 12 weeks.

Who said what

“We’re really here to finish what we started,” Ellison told CNBC Monday. His debt-heavy offer was backed by his father, billionaire Larry Ellison — a friend of President Donald Trump — and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners, among other investors. “Presidents are not supposed to influence the regulators who review major corporate deals,” The New York Times said, but Trump is “placing himself directly in the middle” of the “biggest media deal of the decade.”

Trump said Sunday night he would “be involved” in approving any Warner sale, and Netflix’s increased share of the streaming industry “could be a problem.” Both proposed deals “present antitrust concerns in a traditional regulatory environment,” The Washington Post said, but “Trump’s evident interest in weighing in on the deal, and his familial involvement in the stakeholders, casts a more uncertain and possibly more political frame” on the jockeying.

Larry Ellison called Trump after the Netflix deal was announced “and told him the transaction would hurt competition,” The Wall Street Journal said Monday, citing White House sources, while David Ellison has assured administration officials “he’d make sweeping changes to CNN,” a “common target” of Trump’s ire. Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, who also reportedly met with Trump last week, said Monday that Paramount’s hostile bid “was entirely expected” and he was “super confident” his merger would go through.

What next?

Trump “will want Paramount and Netflix to compete for his approval of a deal,” the Journal said, citing a person close to the president. Trump told reporters Monday that “none of them are particularly great friends of mine,” and “I want to do what’s right.” Warner shareholders have until Jan. 8 to vote on Paramount’s tender offer.

What happened

Benin’s government Sunday reasserted control after a coup attempt against President Patrice Talon. Eight soldiers calling themselves the Military Committee for Refoundation appeared on state television early Sunday and claimed that Talon had been overthrown and all state institutions dissolved, to restore “national cohesion.” But after a day of chaos in the West African nation, Talon appeared on state TV and said the situation was “totally under control” and “this treachery will not go unpunished.”

Who said what

Talon, 67, is “regarded as a close ally of the West” and has been “praised by his supporters for overseeing economic development,” the BBC said. Benin has also been “viewed as a relatively strong democracy” in a region rocked by recent coups, The Washington Post said, but Talon, near the end of his second five-term, “has grown increasingly authoritarian in recent years.”

“There are grievances in the country,” as Talon’s government “is repressive and the main opposition party has been barred from contesting in the elections,” Beverly Ochieng, a leading regional security analyst based in Senegal, told The New York Times. But “the soldiers seem to have misjudged the political mood in the country,” believing “people would come out to support them.”

What next?

The West African regional bloc ECOWAS said last night it had ordered a “regional standby force” to help defend Benin’s government “with immediate effect.” It “remained unclear how many soldiers might be deployed and when they would arrive,” the Times said. But Nigeria has already intervened, sending in fighter jets to “help dislodge the coup plotters,” a presidential spokesperson in Lagos said.

What happened

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., ruled Saturday that prosecutors seeking to reindict former FBI Director James Comey cannot use key evidence, striking a blow to President Donald Trump’s effort to prosecute his perceived enemies. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly temporarily barred the Justice Department from accessing or utilizing information seized from the computer of Comey’s friend Dan Richman in 2017.

Who said what

Kollar-Kotelly said Richman was likely to succeed in proving that the Justice Department should have deleted his files after it closed the earlier Comey case in 2021 and had accessed prohibited data without a warrant. Her ruling “does not preclude the department from trying again soon to indict Comey,” The Associated Press said, but prosecutors would have to do so without “using evidence they had relied on” when Lindsey Halligan, Trump’s handpicked prosecutor in Virginia, “initially secured criminal charges” in September.

A different federal judge threw out the cases against Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James last month, ruling that Halligan had been unlawfully appointed. The Justice Department said it would push on, but Comey’s lawyers argued “he cannot be recharged now because the five-year deadline to bring a case against him expired” in September, The Washington Post said, and the judge “appeared to endorse that view.” The administration’s attempt to secure a new indictment against James, another perceived Trump adversary, was thwarted last week when a grand jury refused to sign off on charges.

What next?

Kollar-Kotelly put the dispute over Richman’s data “on a fast track,” Politico said, ordering the Justice Department to confirm by today that it had “complied with her order and to respond to Richman’s legal arguments” by tomorrow.

What happened

The Kremlin Sunday applauded President Donald Trump’s new national security strategy, saying its “adjustments” are “largely consistent with our vision.” The document, released Friday, seeks “strategic stability” with Russia, asserts U.S. dominance over Latin America and is sharply critical of the country’s traditional European allies, claiming Western Europe faces “civilizational erasure.”

Who said what

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s response, delivered by spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, was “the first time that Moscow has so fulsomely praised such a document from its former Cold War foe,” Reuters said. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “made only a passing reference to Russia” in a speech Saturday on the new U.S. military focus, Politico said, but he laid out a “more conciliatory approach to China’s armed forces,” the focus of recent national defense strategies. The Trump administration will “seek a stable peace, fair trade and respectful relations with China,” Hegseth said, including “respecting” Beijing’s “historic military buildup.”

The strategy “reinforces, in sometimes chilly and bellicose terms, Trump’s ‘America First’ philosophy, which favors nonintervention overseas,” The Associated Press said. But the administration “in some respects, wants to have it both ways when it comes to foreign relations,” Politico said. For example, the document proposes “a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine” to “restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.”

“Little of this is surprising,” Ishaan Tharoor said at The Washington Post, but the strategy starkly “underscored the depth of ideological vehemence within the White House” against the European Union and in favor of Europe’s far right. The continent’s immigration policies, “cratering” birthrates, “censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition” could make it “unrecognizable in 20 years or less,” the document said, so it’s “far from obvious” that “certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.” Trump’s assessment of Europe sometimes “sounds like Putin talking about Europe,” Jürgen Hardt, the foreign policy spokesperson for Germany’s ruling alliance, told DW.

What next?

The U.S. “remains our most important ally” in NATO, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul told reporters, but Europe does “not need outside advice” on “freedom of expression or the organization of our free societies.”

What happened

The Trump administration Thursday dramatically shortened the length of work permits for asylum seekers, refugees and other immigrants seeking humanitarian protections. New permits will be valid for 18 months, from five years previously.

The State Department separately ramped up its vetting for H-1B work visas, blocking applicants if they or their family members “have worked in areas that include activities such as misinformation, disinformation, content moderation, fact-checking” and other forms of “censorship,” Reuters reported.

Who said what

The Department of Homeland Security said “forcing immigrants to renew their work permits more often” will give the government “more opportunities to re-vet them,” The Wall Street Journal said. But the “hundreds of thousands of people” likely affected by the change are the backbone of “meatpacking companies,” construction, and senior care, among other industries.

H-1B visas, reserved for highly skilled workers, are “crucial for U.S. tech companies which recruit heavily from countries including India and China,” Reuters said. The instruction to search LinkedIn and résumés to weed out any applicant “responsible for, or complicit in, censorship or attempted censorship of protected expression” was conveyed in a Dec. 2 cable to all U.S. missions.

What next?

A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on “allegedly leaked documents,” but said President Donald Trump “himself was the victim of this kind of abuse when social media companies locked his accounts” and “he does not want other Americans to suffer this way.” The visa moves “align with” Trump’s “threats of a slew of aggressive actions to curtail legal migration” after a National Guard member was killed outside the White House last month, Bloomberg said.

What happened

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Texas Republicans can use the congressional map they approved in August, at President Donald Trump’s urging. The court’s three liberal justices dissented. A divided three-judge panel in Texas last month threw out the new map, which could flip up to five Democratic-held seats, with a Trump appointee ruling it an impermissible racial gerrymander.

Who said what

The ruling was a “major win for Republicans in Texas and nationally,” boosting their odds of keeping their “narrow majority” in next year’s midterms, The Texas Tribune said. The lower court “improperly inserted itself into an active primary campaign, causing much confusion and upsetting the delicate federal-state balance in elections,” the Supreme Court said in its unsigned “shadow docket” ruling.

Justice Samuel Alito, writing separately in an opinion joined by two other conservatives, argued that it was “indisputable” Texas Republicans were seeking “partisan advantage pure and simple.” Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the court’s liberals, said the ruling “disrespects” the lower court’s diligent work and “ensures that many Texas citizens, for no good reason, will be placed in electoral districts because of their race. And that result, as this court has pronounced year in and year out, is a violation of the Constitution.”

What next?

Trump’s push for Texas Republicans to redraw their map mid-decade sparked a nationwide scramble that has led to GOP-boosting maps in Missouri and North Carolina and a Democratic gerrymander in California. Other states are considering joining the battle. The high court just gave “a green light for there to be even more re-redistricting, and a strong message to lower courts to butt out,” UCLA election law expert Richard Hasen said at his Election Law Blog.

What happened

A select group of lawmakers Thursday viewed video of the Sept. 2 military strike on an alleged cocaine-trafficking boat, including the follow-up strike that killed two survivors clinging to portions of the destroyed vessel.

Following a series of classified briefings by Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who ordered the second strike, Democrats called the footage “disturbing” and urged its public release, while some Republicans defended both the strike and President Donald Trump’s broader campaign to blow up suspected drug traffickers. A 22nd boat strike announced Thursday evening killed four more people, bringing the total death toll to 87.

Who said what

The footage of the Sept. 2 strike showed that after the first missiles destroyed most of the boat, “two survivors, shirtless, clung to the hull, tried unsuccessfully to flip it back over, then climbed on it and slipped off into the water, over and over,” The New York Times said, citing lawmakers and staffers. Before Bradley ordered the second strike that killed the survivors, military officials spent 41 minutes discussing “what to do as they watched the men struggle to overturn what was left of their boat,” CNN said. The survivors did not radio or call for assistance or backup, as previously claimed by defense officials.

“What I saw in that room was one of the most troubling things I’ve seen in my time in public service,” said Rep. Jim Himes (Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.), the Senate Armed Services Committee’s top Democrat, said he was “deeply disturbed” by the video and the briefing “confirmed my worst fears” about Trump’s “military activities.” His GOP counterpart, Sen. Roger Wicker (Miss.), declined to comment after the briefing.

Senate Intelligence Committee chair Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said the strikes were “righteous” and “entirely lawful and needful.” He said he "saw two survivors trying to flip a boat loaded with drugs bound for the United States back over so they could stay in the fight.” Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) told reporters he was “concerned” about the strikes because, if the survivors had been rescued, they “would be put in jail,” not “subject to capital punishment.”

What next?

Congressional Republicans have “turned back attempts to put a check on Trump’s power to engage in the missile campaign,” which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “has vowed will continue,” The Associated Press said.

What happened

President Donald Trump Wednesday announced that the Transportation Department will roll back automotive fuel efficiency standards finalized last year. “People want the gasoline car,” he said in the Oval Office, with the CEOs of Ford and Stellantis and a GM plant manager standing behind him. The new rules would require automakers to produce cars and light trucks averaging 34.5 miles per gallon by 2031, from 50.4 mpg under the Biden-era rules.

Who said what

The White House said slashing fuel efficiency rules would cut upfront costs for a new vehicle by $930. But drivers would collectively spend $185 billion more on fuel by 2050 and emit about 5% more carbon dioxide, environmentalists and economists said, citing the same Transportation Department estimates.

Watering down fuel efficiency standards is “the second part of a one-two punch” against former President Joe Biden’s push to boost electric vehicles, The New York Times said, after Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress got rid of Biden’s EV tax credits earlier this year. Since they also eliminated fines for violating the fuel standards, automakers can already ignore them, said Dan Becker at the Center for Biological Diversity. But future administrations will now find it harder to reinstate the higher standards.

What next?

The Transportation Department will likely finalize the new rule next year. Auto executives “publicly praised” Trump’s announcement but “have privately fretted that they are being buffeted by conflicting federal policies,” the Times said. The rollback also pushes the U.S. “further out of sync with the rest of the world, where the electric vehicle market is growing.” This will “signal to the Chinese that the world market is open to you and we’re just going to abandon it,” Becker told The Washington Post.

What happened

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth risked the lives of military personnel when he disclosed highly sensitive information about a pending military strike in Signal group chats in March, the Pentagon inspector general found in a classified report shared with Congress Wednesday, according to lawmakers and multiple news organizations. Hegseth violated Pentagon rules, the watchdog reportedly found, but it could not be determined if he improperly shared classified information, since the defense secretary can unilaterally declassify such material.

Who said what

“No classified information. Total exoneration. Case closed,” Hegseth said on social media. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said the “objective, evidence-based” inquiry “leaves no doubt” that Hegseth “endangered the lives of American pilots” and “created unacceptable risks” to their mission by “sharing classified operational details on an unsecure group chat.” Rep. Adam Smith (Wash.), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, called the report a “damning review of an incompetent secretary of defense who is profoundly incapable of the job.”

The report’s release “comes at a delicate time for the former Fox News host, as scrutiny intensifies of his leadership,” especially over potentially illegal strikes on alleged drug traffickers, Reuters said. “Hegseth and his inner circle have been bracing for months” for the report’s release, hoping it “would mark the final chapter” of this “prolonged political headache,” CNN said. But instead, it could “compound existing concerns voiced by lawmakers from both sides of the aisle about Hegseth’s judgment.”

What next?

President Donald Trump “stands by” Hegseth, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Wednesday. An unclassified, redacted version of the inspector general’s report was expected to be released publicly today.

What happened

President Donald Trump Wednesday unexpectedly pardoned Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), who was charged last year with accepting nearly $600,000 in foreign bribes tied to Azerbaijan and Mexico.

The Biden administration “weaponized the Justice System” against “Political Opponents” like Cuellar, Trump said in a social media post announcing his pardons of the “beloved Texas congressman” and his “wonderful wife, Imelda.” But Trump Wednesday also pardoned sports executive and arena developer Timothy Leiweke, who was indicted by his own Justice Department in July for allegedly rigging the bidding process for a new arena in Texas.

Who said what

The Cuellar pardon “immediately stoked speculation” that the Lardo Democrat “might finally switch to the GOP after years of entreaties,” or simply retire, affording the GOP a potential pickup of his “competitive Rio Grande Valley seat,” said Politico. But Cuellar put that speculation to rest, saying the pardon “came as a surprise,” but “nothing has changed, and we’re going to be ready to win reelection again.” Hours after his pardon, he filed to run again as a Democrat.

It’s “tempting to try to divine some sort of political motive” for Trump’s “surprise pardon” of Cuellar, The Washington Post said in an editorial. But like the rest of his “string of shocking pardons — most notably the Jan. 6 rioters” — it appears he views his “pardon power” as a “monarchical” tool to “dispense the law for whoever he sees fit.” That’s “Trump’s prerogative,” constitutionally speaking, but his “excessive use of clemency is almost as problematic” as his “personalized system of punishment.”

What next?

Cuellar has “no strong primary challengers” in his “bid for a 12th term,” The Texas Tribune said, but Republicans had been “targeting” his seat as a “top pickup opportunity in 2026.” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was “blindsided” by the pardon, Axios said. Cuellar and his wife will no longer go on trial in April for bribery and money laundering, but the congressman still faces a House Ethics Committee investigation into his conduct.

What happened

Republican Matt Van Epps won Tuesday’s special election in Tennessee’s deep-red 7th Congressional District, defeating Democratic state lawmaker Aftyn Behn 54% to 45%. Van Epps will replace former Rep. Mark Green (R), who won the seat by 21 percentage points last year as President Donald Trump carried the district by 22 points.

Who said what

Republicans won, maintaining their 219-213 advantage in the House, “but instead of celebrating, many are dreading what it means about the midterms,” Politico said. House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) team “was bracing for a tighter-than-comfortable race,” but the “single-digit margin was still a hard pill to swallow after national Republicans pulled out all the stops — including a Trump tele-rally and Johnson visit to the district — to rescue Van Epps in the final days.” GOP-aligned groups spent $7 million in the race, versus $3 million for Democratic-aligned groups, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Trump hailed the “BIG Congressional WIN” on social media, calling it “another great night for the Republican Party!!!” Van Epps said his victory showed that “running from Trump is how you lose. Running with Trump is how you win.” Nobody in Washington “believed we could get even this close,” Behn said following her defeat. “Tonight isn’t the end. It is the beginning of a next chapter of Tennessee and American politics.”

What next?

The district’s “13-point shift toward Democrats” should be a “five-alarm fire” for Republicans “ahead of the 2026 midterms,” said elections analyst G. Elliott Morris. “A 13-point shift may seem extraordinary or jaw-dropping,” Nate Cohn said at The New York Times, but “for Republicans this year, it’s simply the norm.”

What happened

President Donald Trump Tuesday called Somali immigrants “garbage,” saying they have “ripped off” Minnesota and he doesn’t “want them in our country.” Trump’s comments, at the end of a two-hour Cabinet meeting, came as the Department of Homeland Security prepares to launch an immigration operation targeting Somali immigrants in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, according to several news organizations. DHS Tuesday night announced it has also suspended all immigration applications for people from Somalia and 18 other non-European countries.

Who said what

Somali immigrants “do nothing but bitch” and “their country stinks,” Trump told reporters. The U.S. “is at a tipping point,” and ”we’re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.” Somali American Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) “is garbage,” he added. “She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.” Trump’s ”obsession with me is creepy,“ Omar responded on social media. “I hope he gets the help he desperately needs.”

Trump’s “xenophobic tirade” was “shocking in its unapologetic bigotry,” The New York Times said, even for a president with a “long history of insulting Black people, particularly those from African countries.” Eleven of the 19 countries now temporarily barred from applying for visas, asylum, green cards or citizenship under last night’s DHS order are in Africa. All 19 have been under a partial travel ban since June.

What next?

The ICE-led operation in the Twin Cities, home to about 84,000 people of Somali descent, is “expected to target Somali and Afghan immigrants,” The Minnesota Star Tribune said. The raids “could begin in the coming days,” The Associated Press said, and “hundreds of people are expected to be targeted.”

What happened

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Tuesday denied direct responsibility for a Sept. 2 follow-up boat strike on alleged drug traffickers, saying he “watched that first strike live” but “moved on” before Vice Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley ordered a second strike that killed two survivors.

It was Hegseth’s “most extensive public accounting yet of his involvement in the strike,” The Washington Post said, as legal experts and lawmakers seek details to determine “whether the episode constitutes a war crime and, if so, who bears responsibility.”

Who said what

“I did not personally see survivors,” Hegseth said at a Cabinet meeting, sitting behind a misspelled nameplate identifying him as the “SSecretary of War.” The boat “was on fire and was exploded, and fire, smoke, you can’t see anything. You got digital, there’s — this is called the fog of war.”

The U.S. is “not at ‘war’ with immigrants or drug dealers,” as Trump claims, and “any order to ’kill everybody,’ however conveyed, would be a black-and-white violation of the law,” Michael Waldman, the head of NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice, said in a New York Times op-ed. Hegseth “seems to be a war criminal. Without a war. An interesting achievement,” columnist George Will said in The Washington Post. “The killing of the survivors by this moral slum of an administration should nauseate Americans.”

President Donald Trump also distanced himself from the second strike at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting. “I still haven’t gotten a lot of information, because I rely on Pete,” he told reporters. “I didn’t know about the second strike. I didn’t know anything about people, I wasn’t involved in it.” At a press briefing Tuesday, Pentagon spokesperson Kingsley Wilson said the boat strikes were “presidentially directed,” adding, “At the end of the day, the secretary and the president are the ones directing these strikes.”

What next?

Bradley is expected to hold a classified briefing for lawmakers Thursday. But these allegations “demand extraordinary public investigation into any wrongdoing, not whispered consultations in the halls outside a congressional subcommittee room,” NYU’s Waldman said. “The House or Senate should start by creating a select committee to investigate any misuse of the president’s war powers.”

What happened

Canada Monday became the first non-European Union country to join the EU’s $170 billion Security Action for Europe initiative, giving Canadian defense firms expanded access to the European market.

SAFE is “part of a major drive” to get the EU “ready to defend itself by 2030 amid fears of a Russian attack and doubts about U.S. protection,” Reuters said.

Who said what

“Welcome to SAFE, Canada!” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on social media. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said his country’s “participation in SAFE will fill key capability gaps, expand markets for Canadian suppliers and attract European defense investment into Canada.” In a joint statement, the EU and Canada called the agreement the “next step” in their “deepening cooperation” and “symbolic” of their “shared priorities.”

Carney’s pivot to Europe comes as Canada “looks to diversify its military spending away from the United States” after President Donald Trump’s “actions — including launching a trade war and suggesting Canada become the 51st U.S. state — infuriated Canadians,” The Associated Press said. Canada’s government “continues to review the purchase of U.S. F-35 fighter jets to explore other options.”

What next?

Bringing another G7 partner into SAFE strengthens the program’s credibility as the EU “seeks to coordinate long-term weapons demand and ramp up Europe’s defense industrial base,” Politico said. Talks for the U.K. to join “broke down on Friday.” EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius Monday said all 19 participating European nations have submitted their spending plans, financed by low-interest SAFE loans, and 15 of those plans included “billions, not millions” to support Ukraine.

What happened

The U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals Monday agreed with a lower court that Alina Habba, a former personal attorney to President Donald Trump, has been unlawfully serving as U.S. attorney for New Jersey since July 1. The theory put forward by the government to justify Habba’s appointment was “so broad that it bypasses the constitutional process entirely,” said the three-judge panel.

Who said what

The ruling was a “blow to the Trump administration,” which has installed several U.S. attorneys “through a series of unusual maneuvers” to sidestep a 120-day window for interim appointments, The New York Times said. It is “apparent” that the Trump administration is “frustrated by some of the legal and political barriers to getting its appointees in place,” Judge D. Michael Fisher wrote for the panel. But the “citizens of New Jersey” and lawyers at the U.S. attorney’s office “deserve some clarity and stability.”

Monday’s ruling “applies only to Habba’s appointment,” The Washington Post said, but it “could have far-reaching implications for other controversial Trump appointments.” Acting U.S. Attorneys Lindsey Halligan in Virginia and Bill Essayli in California have also been “jammed up in court proceedings” over whether Trump “sidestepped the Senate and improperly exploited loopholes in federal vacancy laws” to appoint them, Fox News said.

What next?

It “isn’t clear who will lead” New Jersey’s U.S. attorney’s office now, said CNN. Habba’s case “may be the first of its kind to reach the Supreme Court,” the Times said, though Halligan’s appeal of her disqualification “could be expedited by virtue of being entangled with criminal cases against President Trump’s enemies.”