Morning Report

TODAY’S Global Trade story

Trump gives $12B bailout to farmers to offset his tariffs

What happened
President Donald Trump yesterday 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.”

TODAY’S LEGAL Story

Ex-FBI agents sue Patel over protest firing

What happened
A dozen former FBI agents fired for kneeling during a 2020 racial justice protest in Washington, D.C., filed a joint lawsuit yesterday against FBI Director Kash Patel (pictured above) and the Trump administration, alleging unlawful retaliation. The former counterterrorism agents, deployed by President Donald Trump to monitor protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd, said each agent “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 internal investigations 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.

It’s not all bad

AI technology is being used to help fight poaching in rainforests across Cameroon, Congo and Gabon. The Elephant Listening Project installed microphones able to detect gunshots in the forests, and when triggered, the devices send a real-time alert to officials who can try to catch illegal hunters. The AI, developed by the Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at Cornell University, aims to distinguish gunshots from other loud jungle noises, lowering the risk of false positives.

Under the radar

China’s single mothers are teaming up

With China’s marriage rate hitting record lows and its divorce rate on the rise, some of the country’s singles are teaming up. As the cost of living increases, single mothers are “searching for a new kind of partner: each other,” said The Guardian. Women are posting online in search of “like-minded parents” to share both a home and childcare responsibilities.

There are about 30 million single mothers in China, according to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. When parents divorce, “only one in six fathers chooses to raise their children,” said China Daily. That leaves more than 80% of those one-parent families being led by a woman.

“The strain is acute,” said Chinese online magazine Sixth Tone. Long working hours “clash with rigid school schedules” — and many mothers are left “sprinting between office desks and classroom gates.” Despite legal obligations, some ex-husbands refuse to pay child support, and state welfare is minimal. Government data shows that a significant proportion of single-mother families in developed cities live below the poverty line.

In recent years, social media platforms “have become lifelines where women trade advice, pool expenses and, in some cases, find one another,” Sixth Tone said. Some “roommate moms” simply split the rent, but “others share school pickups and grocery runs, piecing together a version of family that is less solitary, less precarious and a little more possible.” And many of the moms say their children are the “biggest beneficiaries” of the arrangement, said The Guardian.

On this day

December 9, 1998

The United Nations declared for the first time that antisemitism was a form of racism. The U.N. officially adopted this stance as part of a resolution approved the following day. Today, an estimated 46% of people globally hold significant antisemitic views, according to a recent ADL Global 100/Ipsos survey.

TODAY’S newspaperS

‘Quitting is all the rage'

“Ukraine refuses to cede territory” in a “major setback for Trump’s peace proposal,” The Washington Post says on Tuesday’s front page. “European leaders press to be heard on Ukraine,” The Wall Street Journal says. “China exports propel surplus over $1 trillion” despite “U.S. tariffs,” The New York Times says. “Court signals boost to executive power,” as “conservative justices lean toward letting Trump fire officials at independent agencies,” says the Los Angeles Times. “Quitting is all the rage in Congress,” says USA Today. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) “joins race for U.S. Senate,” facing off against “fellow rising star” James Talarico in Democratic primary, the Houston Chronicle says. “Vatican passes on female deacons,” says the Detroit Free Press.

► See the newspaper front pages

Tall tale

The thief who laid a golden egg

A New Zealand man was arrested and charged with theft after allegedly grabbing a Fabergé x 007 Octopussy Egg worth $19,200 and swallowing it. The locket, made of 18k yellow gold and covered in diamonds and sapphires, encloses an octopus with black diamond eyes. Following his arrest, the suspect underwent a medical assessment and remained under close watch by Auckland police. The man finally passed the bejeweled egg five days after the theft, officials told 1News.

Morning Report was written and edited by Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Harriet Marsden, Rafi Schwartz, Peter Weber and Kari Wilkin, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.