In the final days of his presidency, Richard Nixon “came unglued”, said Jamelle Bouie in The New York Times. He reportedly became irrational and obsessive, making wild suggestions and rambling about his past triumphs. His son-in-law and adviser Ed Cox recalled that Nixon would wander the halls of the White House “talking to pictures of former presidents”.

Alas, it seems Donald Trump has reached similar depths of “self-destructive mania”. Witness his recent unhinged letter to Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, in which Trump implied that he was entitled to seize Greenland owing to Norway’s failure to award him the Nobel Peace Prize.

Where to begin? Norway’s government doesn’t choose the winner of the prize. Nor does it own Greenland. And Trump hasn’t, as he insisted, “stopped 8 Wars PLUS”, or anything close. “We have three years left with a mad king. It does not feel sustainable.”

‘Manic performance art’

“Trump has the world’s most consequential case of untreated logorrhea,” said Susan B. Glasser in The New Yorker. According to a new study, in this first year of his second term he has spoken 1,977,609 words in presidential appearances – 145% more than in the first year of his first term.

In his speech in Davos last week, he rambled on for a full hour and a half. In the course of his address he, among other things, explained that only “stupid people” buy wind turbines, and admitted that he had decided to raise tariffs on Switzerland because its prime minister – “a woman” – had “rubbed me the wrong way”. He also kept confusing Iceland and Greenland. Americans are somewhat inured to Trump’s “manic performance art”, but the stunned reaction of Europeans should be a wake-up call. Many there were openly asking: has this man lost his mind? Is he still capable of running the US?

‘Nuttier than a Payday candy bar’

In “a saner, better world”, Trump’s cabinet officials would be discussing invoking the 25th Amendment, said Jim Geraghty in National Review. But of course none of them would dare suggest he was unfit to discharge his powers. Nor did President Biden’s colleagues when he started zoning out in meetings and forgot the name of his defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, referring to him in an interview simply as “the black man”.

“After one president who went senile in office and another who is nuttier than a Payday candy bar, we can only conclude that the 25th Amendment of the Constitution is there for decoration.”

What happened

The Trump administration plans to reinterview and review the files of all roughly 233,000 refugees admitted into the U.S. under former President Joe Biden, several news organizations reported Monday night, citing a Nov. 21 memo from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Joe Edlow. The memo also ordered an immediate halt to all green card approvals for those refugees and said they have “no right to appeal” if the review determined they were wrongfully admitted.

Who said what

The review, CNN said, marks another “unprecedented step in President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown,” this time targeting people who fled war and persecution and underwent “rigorous vetting prior to entering the United States in what is generally a yearslong process.” The “comprehensive review” was “warranted,” Edlow wrote, because the Biden administration had prioritized “expediency” and “quantity” of refugees over “detailed screening and vetting.”

The policy shift is “likely to sow confusion and fear” among the affected refugees, and “likely to face legal challenges from advocates,” The Associated Press said. Trump halted all refugee resettlement before opening up a record-low 7,500 slots, most of them reserved for white Afrikaner South Africans. “To threaten refugees with taking away their status” is “unspeakably cruel and ”a vicious misuse of taxpayer money,” said Mark Hetfield, president of the refugee resettlement program HIAS, in a statement to CNN.

What next?

The USCIS memo “indicated that there will be a list of people to reinterview within three months,” the AP said. “Besides the enormous cruelty of this undertaking,” said International Refugee Assistance Project president Sharif Aly, “it would also be a tremendous waste of government resources to review and reinterview 200,000 people who have been living peacefully in our communities for years.”

At a moment when Democrats should be focused on the future, the party is yet again engaged in “self-destructive debates about the past,” said Lauren Egan in The Bulwark. “The latest hop in the DeLorean” comes courtesy of Kamala Harris’ new campaign memoir—titled 107 Days, after her short and failed White House run—in which the former vice president writes it was “recklessness” that led her and fellow Democrats to not question President Joe Biden’s decision to seek re-election at age 81. It wasn’t a choice, she said, “that should have been left to an individual’s ego.” But she dismisses claims that Biden was too frail to serve as president and blames tiredness for his June “debate debacle” against Donald Trump, after which Biden dropped out and Harris took over the Democratic ticket. Biden world has “reacted with rage” to the book, said Alex Thompson in Axios. One former White House official fumed that Harris was “simply not good” at being veep or a presidential candidate, and that her talents were limited to sitting for “stilted photo ops.”

Biden’s late exit isn’t the only reason for Harris’ bitterness, said Max Burns in MSNBC. Her memoir “paints a picture of a vice president willing to suffer petty humiliations to maximize Democrats’ chances of beating Trump in 2024.” Team Biden dismissed her proposals to increase engagement with Black communities and didn’t push back on Republicans’ mischaracterization of her role as “border czar,” which led her to be villainized for surging immigration numbers. “Their thinking was zero-sum,” Harris writes. “If she’s shining, he’s dimmed.”

This narrative of “Team Biden sabotage” doesn’t fully explain why she lost to Trump, said Ed Kilgore in New York. It may have been “a handicap as she began her uphill climb to November,” but Harris had done plenty already to damage herself in the public eye. One of Trump’s most effective attack ads—“Harris is for they/them, President Trump is for you”— came from her disastrous 2020 presidential campaign, when she endorsed “free gender-transition surgery for imprisoned criminals who were also illegal immigrants.” And if Harris really was treated as dismally by Biden aides as she claims, perhaps she could have talked about it during the campaign “to distance herself from an unpopular president.” Instead, she couldn’t bring herself to say one negative thing about Biden. Maybe Harris thinks this airing of grievances will help position her to run for the Democratic nomination in 2028, but “it all sounds like sour grapes.” Still, “she has every right to tell her side of the sad story.”

‘The rising threat of extreme heat for young athletes’

Laura Schifter at Time

The “devastating consequences of extreme heat are no longer freak weather events but a dangerous new reality for young people,” says Laura Schifter. As “millions of children return to fall sports, these threats continue.” We “can’t shield kids from intense heat. But we can give them language, strategies, and confidence to recognize risks.” Even “when coaches are acquainted with the risks, kids themselves often don’t know about them, leaving children unable to recognize danger early.”

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‘The quiet force imperiling our booming stock market’

Bryce C. Tingle at The New York Times

There is a “puzzling contradiction at the heart of America’s economy,” says Bryce C. Tingle. Stocks are “reaching record highs. But a growing number of American companies are refusing to participate in public markets at all.” The “impact can be felt in every corner of our economy.” The “decline of our public markets goes hand in hand with the meteoric rise of private equity, which too often weakens companies and leaves them less committed to their employees.”

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‘Team Biden never gave Kamala Harris a chance’

Renée Graham at The Boston Globe

Kamala Harris has confirmed “what became apparent during her years as this nation’s No. 2: those most loyal to her boss, Joe Biden, spent more time undermining her than uplifting her,” says Renée Graham. What “comes across is that Team Biden valued the optics of having a Black woman as vice president but not the woman herself.” As “Harris learned, getting in the door isn’t necessarily the hardest part.” It’s the “high price of admission.”

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‘What would a No Kings budget look like?’

David Dayen at The American Prospect

Democrats have “now confirmed what was an open secret last week: They’re going to use their leverage in the upcoming government funding showdown,” to “ask for health care changes,” says David Dayen. But this “diminishes the urgency of the moment.” Presenting the “upcoming battle as an event where Democrats fight for a health care provision is a woefully inadequate way to send a big flashing signal to the public about our shared reality.”

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During his unsuccessful 2020 reelection bid, President Donald Trump often made a point of attacking rival Joe Biden's age and fitness, accusing him of hiding in a basement rather than hitting the campaign trail. Five years later, however, it's Trump who is facing health-related scrutiny after a weeklong August stretch without public events prompted mass social media speculation about the 79-year-old's condition.

Although the president has since returned to a more visible schedule of appearances, the incident has renewed a longstanding debate about Trump's health and his transparency on the topic. This is particularly salient in light of Trump's history of weaponized claims about his opponents' health and fitness for his personal and political gain.

What did the commentators say?

After "years" of his being held up as the "model of health, an exemplar of youth and a man always in his prime," there's "well-earned skepticism" about Trump's well-being, said Time. So it's "completely understandable why tin-foil conspiracists of all stripes" would have jumped on rumors of Trump’s "imminent, or possibly recent, demise."

Trump's week without public appearances "could just be taking a few days down in August," which is "normal for presidents to do," said former Biden White House aide Meghan Hays on CNN. "Or there could be actually something wrong. The problem is we don't know, and they are not being transparent about it."

Trump's circle "only has themselves to blame for this," said Chuck Todd on his Chuck Toddcast podcast. While the administration has been "not forthcoming pretty much about anything," they are "times 10" worse when it comes to Trump's personal health.

Given that the health information this White House does release is either "laughably exaggerated, so bare bones as to be equally dubious," or "only released under pressure," we should not "trust anything" being released through official channels, said journalist Garrett Graff at his "Doomsday Scenario Substack. And while Trump's health does not, at the moment, appear to constitute a news "event," it's "even more puzzling" that the "national media doesn't even treat it as a news 'story.'"

Trump's public absence and the resulting conspiracy theorizing have reignited a debate over the "sensitive issue" of the media reporting on "how healthy an aging leader of the free world actually is," said The Associated Press. While Biden "faced significant scrutiny" over his health, he was also "far less accessible to the media" and made fewer public appearances than Trump, CNN said. Trump's relative availability, in turn, may have "fueled stories" across news outlets, "acknowledging the online hubbub and offering facts about Trump's weekend plans."

The furor over Trump's health is akin to the "many times the internet has gone wild with the Putin is dead and Xi is dead rumors," said political scientist Ian Bremmer on X. That the U.S. experienced something similar "says a lot more about the state of mistrust in information and institutions in the United States than it does about the health of the president."

What next?

Questions about Trump's health are "fake news" and proof of "why the media has so little credibility," the president said during a press conference on Tuesday. But a series of YouGov polls published the same day suggest otherwise: 38% of respondents said Trump's health and age "severely limit his ability to do the job," while 52% of respondents said they trusted the White House's health announcements "only a little" or "not at all."

Trump's press conference this week, coupled with a flurry of activity on his Truth Social account, has managed to "somewhat quell rampant speculation" about his health, said Vanity Fair. But, said internet culture reporter Taylor Lorenz to the publication, "these things snowball, and it's like a pressure valve." When someone as media savvy and omnipresent as Trump "drops out of view for days," said Margaret Sullivan at The Guardian, "that's fair game."

Lots of factors contributed to the downfall of Joe Biden's presidency, but one voter complaint really stood out: The price of eggs. Inflation helped put President Donald Trump back in the White House. Could it derail his presidency, too?

New polling shows that Trump's approval rating among Republicans has "slipped steadily," said Axios. While GOP support for Trump is still robust at 83% of respondents, the wider picture shows the president's policies on inflation "aren't sitting well with Americans by and large." About half of Americans — 48% — "expect inflation to increase in the next six months." That is the highest number for that question since October 2023, and a sign that "financial anxiety" is on the rise as "Trump's trade war begins to show up in inflation data," with "costs soaring for grocery staples and critical materials."

What did the commentators say?

Trump is now "as unpopular on inflation as Biden was in 2022," said Strength In Numbers. Rising prices are a "continued source of stress for voters" no matter who is in charge. July polling showed that 61% of Americans "disapprove of how the president is handling inflation" and just more than half "disapprove of his policies on jobs and the economy." That is not what might have been expected "based on what Trump promised during the 2024 campaign."

"Republicans need to beware the return of inflation," said the National Review editorial board. Inflation has been "stuck around 3% since June 2023" despite efforts to get it down to 2%, and the "administration isn't doing much to help." Trump's badgering of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to lower interest rates would "push the price level even higher." The GOP's deficit spending "isn't going to push prices lower" and neither will the president's tariffs. While a "variety of factors" are keeping inflation stubborn, "voters are unlikely to be interested in a technical conversation" about the causes.

Trump's campaign promises to bring down prices "may finally be catching up to him," said Ed Kilgore at New York magazine. It is possible that "inflation has already been baked into assessments of Trump's job performance." But Biden's example is instructive: Improved inflation numbers did not help him in the last two years of his presidency. Americans seem to want to "go back down to where they were before their post-pandemic spike." That can happen only with a recession. This will not be good news to voters who were "sold a bill of good by Trump."

What next?

A new report from Moody's Analytics predicts Trump's policies will "slow U.S. growth and push up inflation" but stop short of an outright recession," said USA Today. "It's not yet stagflation but it's edging that way," said Moody's Justin Begley.

Equis Research, a Latino polling organization, said a third of Latinos who voted for Trump last year are "not set on voting for a Republican" during the 2026 midterms, thanks to "economic issues such as persistently high prices on groceries," said NPR. That discontent "hasn't directly translated into support for Democrats, though."

Is it possible to stage a political cover-up over something that's obvious to everyone? Weirdly, it is, said Alex Shephard in The New Republic. If you don't believe it, just read "Original Sin", the new book by journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson about how Joe Biden's family and colleagues conspired to hide his growing frailty and confusion during his time in the White House.

It was a vain effort in some respects, as Biden's decline was evident to anyone who saw him walk or talk. Poll after poll showed that voters were all too aware of the issue. Yet the White House succeeded in suppressing talk about it, at least until Biden's disastrous TV debate with Donald Trump. It used "tactics that can only be described as Trumpian – denying any and all accusations", and attacking the credibility of any reporter or politician who raised legitimate questions about the president's fitness.

We can't let sympathy with Biden over his recent cancer diagnosis stand in the way of a "reckoning" for this cover-up, said Megan McArdle in The Washington Post. Thanks to "Original Sin", we now know that "the most powerful nation in the world and its nuclear arsenal were left in the hands of a man who could not reliably recognise people he'd known for years, maintain his train of thought or speak in coherent sentences". By late 2023, Biden's staff were apparently pushing as much of his schedule as possible to midday, when he was at his sharpest. Even for small meetings, he often relied on a teleprompter. The hiding of Biden's decline represents a "near-treasonous dereliction of duty" by his staff. Democrats and the liberal press have a lot to answer for, too.

Biden and his backers were lying to themselves as much as to others, said Carlos Lozada in The New York Times. They were in thrall to the "Biden mythology" of the scrappy leader beating the odds. Because of their misgivings about Kamala Harris, and their hatred of Trump, they felt justified in concealing the truth.

But Democrats now need to resist the temptation to pin the whole election debacle on Biden. If he'd dropped out of the race earlier, it's not clear that any other nominee would have done better than Harris. For too long, the Democrats have acted as the anti-Trump party, offering no positive sense of what they believe in. History won't be kind to Biden, but Democrats should be mindful that "it's easier to find a scapegoat than an identity".

The 2024 elections were defined for many by damning allegations that then-President Joe Biden was not only experiencing mental and physical decline, but that his inner circle was obfuscating the true severity of his health challenges. As Democrats eye a return to the White House in 2028, those allegations have resurfaced — this time haunting a party split over how to regain voters' trust. While some have advocated for a full postmortem to enable the party to move on once and for all, others insist the Democrats should focus on the future without relitigating the past.

'Renewed questions' are 'sending shivers' through the party

Democrats face a "fresh reckoning" over Biden's health, with "potential presidential contenders" avoiding debate on whether the party should have "forcefully called on him to abandon his reelection bid earlier," said Politico. Whether or not to criticize Biden or to address his camp's insistence that he was fit for campaigning is "fast becoming the first real litmus test of the 2028" race, given how many Democrats "with 2028 ambitions" were "defending him at the time."

The upcoming publication of "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again" by journalists Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson has contributed to the "renewed questions" about who knew what about Biden's health when, "sending shivers" through the party, said The Washington Post. To "regain the trust of voters," some have argued that party leaders must "state openly that Biden should never have sought reelection" last year.

That Democratic Party leadership has been "unwilling to reckon publicly" with supporting Biden's campaign "for as long as it did" suggests a "lasting fear of speaking out," said The New York Times. There is an awareness among some that by speaking out against Biden's 2024 fitness now, they have exposed themselves to "questions about why they said nothing when it mattered."

"We're not looking backward," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said of rehashing Biden's health at a press conference last week. "We're looking forward at this moment in time."

Not just about Biden

While backward-looking "self-flagellations" by Democrats are often "excessive and pointless," in this case they are "needed," said Michael Tomasky at The New Republic. It's necessary not only for unpacking who may have inappropriately protected Biden's candidacy, but also for the "automatic anointing of Kamala Harris after Biden dropped out," which Democrats should "examine and learn from."

Mainstream political media is also implicated in questions about knowledge of Biden's health. There is an "unhealthy confluence of interests" between White House staff and White House reporters, said John Fund at the National Review. By failing to recognize "how powerful a motivation their sources had to deceive them," the political media "failed in their duty to probe more deeply and question the official White House line."

Fallout from questions about Biden's health may also affect other future candidates for office who played roles in his administration. Such potential candidates may find their campaigns "forced to address what they knew and what they did," USA Today said. Conversely, high-profile Democrats with "some distance" from the Biden 2024 team (people like Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker or New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez) could see their careers "boosted as the sort of fresh faces the party needs."

What happened

Former President Joe Biden was diagnosed with an "aggressive" form of prostate cancer that has spread to his bones, his office said Sunday. Biden, 82, received the diagnosis on Friday and he and his family are "reviewing treatment options."

Who said what

Biden's office said his cancer was given a Gleason score of 9, with 10 being the most malignant. "While this represents a more aggressive form of the disease, the cancer appears to be hormone-sensitive which allows for effective management," the statement said. Once it has metastasized to the bones, "it's very treatable, but not curable," Dr. Matthew Smith of Massachusetts General Brigham Cancer Center told The Associated Press.

Cancer and tragedy have been a "recurring part of Biden's personal and political life," The Washington Post said. He "dedicated much of his later career to cancer research after losing his son Beau to brain cancer in 2015." When launching his 2022 "cancer moonshot" to halve the U.S. cancer death rate over 25 years, Biden said it could be an "American moment to prove to ourselves and, quite frankly, the world that we can do really big things."

What next?

Thanks to prostate cancer treatments developed in the past few years, "life is measured in years now, not months," University of Washington specialist Dr. Daniel Lin told The New York Times. People with metastatic prostate cancer "can live 5, 7, 10 or more years," said Dr. Judd Moul at Duke University. So an octagenarian like Biden "could hopefully pass away from natural causes and not from prostate cancer."

What happened

Former President Joe Biden Tuesday criticized the Trump administration's "damage and destruction" to Social Security, telling a conference of disability advocates in Chicago that President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's DOGE crew have "taken a hatchet" to the federal retirement program and Americans' broader well-being.

Who said what

"In fewer than 100 days, this new administration has done so much damage and so much destruction," Biden said in his half-hour speech, his first major public address since leaving office in January. "It's kind of breathtaking."

Trump — who Biden did not mention by name — and Musk's DOGE operation are "taking aim at Social Security now" in accordance with "that old line from tech startups" to "move fast and break things," he said. "They're certainly breaking things. They're shooting first and aiming later." And "they want to wreck it so they can rob it," Biden added, "in order to give tax cuts to billionaires and big corporations."

The "drastic" staffing and service cuts by Musk — who recently called Social Security the "biggest Ponzi scheme of all time" — and DOGE have led to "website outages, technical glitches, unanswered phone lines, attempts to access private data and other problems" at the agency, The Washington Post said.

The Social Security Administration said on its official X account that Biden "is lying to Americans." White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump has pledged to protect Social Security benefits "for law-abiding, taxpaying American citizens." She also mocked Biden's age, telling reporters "I'm shocked that he is speaking at nighttime. I thought his bedtime was much earlier than his speech tonight."

What next?

Biden will continue to speak up about topics that are "real to people" and "matter to him," a former Biden administration official told Politico. "No one would be talking about Social Security tomorrow if Joe Biden wasn't giving this speech."

What happened

President Donald Trump early Monday said on social media he was declaring former President Joe Biden's pardons of members of the House Jan. 6 committee "void, vacant and of no further force or effect" because "they were done by autopen." The Jan. 6 committee members, he said, would now be "subject to investigation at the highest level." He provided no evidence Biden's pardons were signed with an autopen or why that would render them invalid.

Who said what

Presidents have "broad authority to pardon or commute the sentences of whomever they please, the Constitution doesn't specify that pardons must be in writing and autopen signatures have been used before for substantive actions by presidents," The Associated Press said. There's also "no power in the Constitution or case law to undo a pardon," The New York Times said. Trump was implicitly posting his "belief that the nation's laws should be whatever he decrees them to be," and his focus on the Jan. 6 committee members was a "jolting reminder that his appetite for revenge has not been sated."

The president's recent focus on autopens can be traced to the conservative Heritage Foundation's Oversight Project, which "heavily perpetuated" the theory that Biden — or one of his aides — used the device to sign important documents, NPR said. Most of the group's "initial analysis relied on documents in the Federal Register," which affixes the same digital copy of a president's signature to every signed document, The Washington Post said. The "hard copies — which would contain the actual signature — belong to the National Archives."

The "autopen narrative started to fall apart" Monday afternoon, when White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump was merely "begging the question" of whether Biden was aware of the pardons, the Times said. After she was "reminded" that Biden had "spoken publicly about them," she "acknowledged that she had no evidence" for the allegations.

What next?

Moving to "investigate or prosecute" anyone pardoned by Biden "would mark a significant escalation of Trump's defiance of longstanding legal norms," The Wall Street Journal said. Trump would "likely lose a legal challenge," Axios said, but only after subjecting pardoned officials to an "expensive, stressful legal battle."

What happened

Leonard Peltier, the Native American activist who spent half a century in prison after being convicted of killing two FBI agents, was released from a federal penitentiary in Florida on Tuesday.

Former President Joe Biden had commuted his two life sentences right before he left office, citing Peltier's poor health and lengthy time served. Peltier, 80, has maintained he did not kill the agents.

Who said what

"They may have imprisoned me but they never took my spirit," Peltier said in a statement after his release. He thanked his "supporters throughout the world who fought for my freedom," a group that included Nelson Mandela, Pope Francis, Native American advocacy groups and some law enforcement officials, including one of the lead federal prosecutors who secured Peltier's conviction. Supporters point to withheld exculpatory evidence at his trial and a recanted confession.

FBI officials "strongly opposed clemency" for Peltier, viewing it as a "betrayal of the fallen agents," The New York Times said. He was the only person convicted from the 1975 shootout on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation that left FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams and Native American activist Joseph Stuntz dead.

What next?

Peltier will serve out the remainder of his two life sentences in home confinement on the lands of his Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians tribe in North Dakota.

On January 20, 2025, President Trump placed Cuba back on the State Department's list of State Sponsors of Terrorism just one week after the Biden administration had removed the country's designation. That puts Cuba back on a short list with just three other countries: Iran, North Korea and Syria. With a major regime transition underway in Syria following the abrupt resignation of longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad in December 2024, the country's controversial inclusion on the State Department's list may eventually be scrutinized.

Only eight countries have ever received the designation, which is distinct from the State Department's much larger list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. How did Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria end up on the list and why are they still there?

A short history of a short list

The State Sponsors of Terrorism list was created in 1979 for countries that "have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism," said the State Department. Designation as an State Sponsor of Terrorims carries with it prohibitions on certain kinds of commerce, including the sale of weapons and potentially dual-use items like commercial airplanes and equipment, as well as a ban on U.S. economic assistance.

"Syria is the last country from this original list to remain so designated today," said The Atlantic Council. Its original designation in 1979 stems from the Syrian government's support for "U.S.-listed terrorist groups," including Palestinian guerrilla organizations and the decision to allow those terrorist groups "to maintain headquarters in Damascus," said the Council on Foreign Relations. Over the years, Syria's portfolio expanded to include a significant role in the arming, funding and hosting of the Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah, which was founded after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

Hezbollah also played a major role in landing Iran on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list on January 23rd, 1984. The action followed five years of escalating tensions between the two countries that began when dozens of U.S. diplomats and embassy workers were held hostage in Tehran for 444 days during the Iranian revolution and culminated in the 1983 Hezbollah suicide bombing of a Marines barracks in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. military personnel. Today, Iran continues to back Hezbollah as well as "Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza and various terrorist and militant groups in Iraq, Syria, Bahrain and elsewhere throughout the Middle East," said the State Department.

North Korea was first designated a state sponsor of terrorism in 1988. The bombing of Korean Air Flight 858 from Baghdad to Seoul, which killed all 115 people on board, was "later linked to North Korean agents" said The Washington Post. The designation was rescinded in 2008 "in the hopes of salvaging talks on its nuclear program," only to be reimposed in 2017 by President Trump, said The Atlantic. The pretext was the shocking broad-daylight assassination of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's half-brother at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on February 13, 2017. Analysts at the time warned that the designation would "make diplomacy more difficult without increasing Washington's leverage," said The New York Times. Despite Trump's subsequent summits with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, the designation has not been lifted.

Cuba was initially placed on the list in 1982 for "providing advice, safe haven, communications, training and financial support to guerrilla groups and individual terrorists," said the State Department. The U.S. claimed that Cuba was aiding a number of armed insurgent groups trying to overthrow governments including in El Salvador and Guatemala, as well as providing "funding, training, arms, safe haven and advice to a wide variety of guerrilla groups, and individual terrorists" in the region, said the Congressional Research Service.

President Obama removed the designation in April 2015, only to see President Trump place Cuba back on the list with just days left in his first term. President Trump's decision to reverse the Biden administration's last-minute order to remove Cuba from the list "aligns with his administration's hardline stance on Cuba," said CBS News. But while the move was expected, the new Trump administration's "rationale for the policy reversal was not immediately explained," said Politico.

Could more places be removed?

After a country is designated as a state sponsor of terrorism, "it is hard to remove even if it does not support terrorism," said the Brookings Institution. Inclusion on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list is not permanent and can be rescinded if the country in question undergoes "a fundamental change in the leadership and policies of the government," as well as provides "assurances that it will not support acts of international terrorism in the future," said the Congressional Research Service.

Prior to President Biden's decision to remove Cuba from the list, the last time such a designation was lifted was in October 2020, when President Trump took Sudan off the list when its government agreed to "pay $335m in compensation for its alleged role in the bombing of two US embassies" in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, said The Guardian. Sudan had allowed al-Qaeda, which perpetrated the attacks, to operate out of its territory between 1991 and 1996.

'Biden failed to win the working class. Democrats might want to stop trying.'

Fareed Zakaria at The Washington Post

Since "Bill Clinton's presidency, Democrats have moved left on economic policy," says Fareed Zarakia, and "yet, during that period, Democrats' working-class support has cratered." The party has "moved further left on social and cultural issues." Democrats have a "solid base of college-educated professionals, women and minorities," and "should lean into their new base and shape a policy agenda around them, rather than pining for the working class whites whom they lost decades ago."

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'It's time to stop fetishizing capitalism'

Marlene Engelhorn at Time

Capitalism "is a fetish," says Marlene Englehorn," meaning the "actual definition of the word: an obsessive preoccupation or attachment; a fixation." Capitalism's "power has been blown out of proportion precisely through the obsession, devotion, fixation through which it is regarded." But "any cries for change to the system, even just for the tiniest wealth tax, remain frowned upon by those who benefit the most from capitalism." For "all those capitalism fetishists out there: Get a harness."

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'I knew one day I'd have to watch powerful men burn the world down — I just didn't expect them to be such losers'

Rebecca Shaw at The Guardian

Everything "seems to be going down the tubes," says Rebecca Shaw. Alongside "those holding political office, tech gragillionnaires" like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg "are so incredibly, painfully cringe." Many "knew that one day we might have to watch as capitalism and greed and bigotry led to a world where powerful men, deserving or not, would burn it all down," but "I didn't expect, and don't think I could have foreseen, is how incredibly cringe it would all be."

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'What Trump should do about Greenland'

Dov S. Zakheim at The Hill

An "invasion of Greenland is not necessarily on the cards," but Donald Trump's "concern about the Far North is a legitimate one; he is right to seek a more robust defense against potential Chinese or Russian operations," says Dov S. Zakheim. There is "much that Denmark and other NATO allies can do" to "bolster the alliance's defenses in Greenland." But the "issue need not be one that prompts Washington to even contemplate taking military action."

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In his farewell address to the US nation on Wednesday, Joe Biden listed the accomplishments of his presidency but acknowledged "it will take time to feel the full impact of all we've done together".

The outgoing president opened his 17-minute speech by stressing that the new ceasefire deal in Gaza had been "developed and negotiated by my team". It remains to be seen if this tentative truce will be a lasting legacy of Biden's term but his administration's support for Israel "at every turn", despite its "relentless outpouring of violence", has left an "indelible moral stain", said Stephen M. Walt in Foreign Policy.

Presidential legacies are "complicated matters", said The Atlantic, but, as Biden leaves The White House, he seems "less a transformational figure than a historical parenthesis". His four years in office will be remembered for his failure both to "grasp the political moment" and to achieve "the essential mission of his presidency": to "preserve democracy by preventing Donald Trump's return to power".

Withdrawal from Afghanistan

Biden's "first misstep as president came half a world away", with the shambolic US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, said the BBC's North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher. Backing the Trump-negotiated end to "the forever war", Biden promised there would be no "a hasty rush to the exit" but "we'll do it responsibly, deliberately, and safely".

The reality was anything but, as "scenes of chaos at Kabul airport dominated world news", said The Guardian. Despite the majority of Americans backing the US exit plan, the chaotic and hurried withdrawal painted a picture of a great power in decline, and Republicans on the House Foreign Affairs Committee claimed it "degraded" US national security.

For a president who prided himself on his foreign-policy experience, it was a particularly disastrous moment. Biden's Gallup approval rating dipped below 50% for the first time – a mark it would never reach again.

Inflation hitting hard

On the domestic front, Biden "has much to point to", said The Washington Post, perhaps most notably "an economic recovery out of the pandemic" that is "the envy of other countries".

Biden's landmark "American Rescue Plan" delivered nearly $2 trillion in new government spending, and was quickly followed by a trillion-dollar bi-partisan infrastructure investment bill. But rampant inflation – due, in some part, to these policies – proved stubborn to shift, and voters came to blame Biden's presidency for the high prices in stores.

The fault lay with Biden's focus on policies that took too long to translate into economic benefits for the average American worker. By the summer before the 2024 presidential election, the monthly inflation numbers had dropped below 3%, economic growth was steady, unemployment rates low, and "the US had outperformed the world's other industrialised nations" but "voters continued to have a pessimistic view of the economy," said the BBC's Zurcher. And "they did not forgot nor forgive" at the ballot box.

"The time horizon" associated with Biden's major pieces of legislation was "way out of sync with the exigencies of the presidential election," Brent Cebul, associate professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania, told the BBC.

Support for Ukraine

The Biden administration was quick to support Ukraine following Russia's invasion in February 2022. And Biden's continued support, including $183 billion in military aid, "has been critical to Ukraine's effort to repel the Russian invasion, and has inspired Nato allies to do the same", said international security expert Dafydd Townley on The Conversation.

But fierce fighting "continues on the frontlines with no clear plan for a peace deal", said CBS News.

Biden also faced criticism early in the conflict "for holding back on sending the most lethal weapons", and then, later, Republicans attacked him for "spending too much money on Ukraine aid".

The White House was pursuing a "Goldilocks strategy," said Phillips Payson O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St Andrews, in The Atlantic. Biden and his aides were "hoping to help Ukraine fight without provoking Putin too much".

What this meant in practice is that the Biden administration "has treated the Ukraine conflict like a crisis to be managed, not a war to be won".

Decision to run in 2024

Biden ran for president in 2020 as a transition candidate – an "implicit but clear pledge that he intended to serve a single term", said The New York Times. Yet, despite record low approval ratings, voters' concern about his age and clear signs of physical and mental decline, Biden made the decision to run again in 2024, claiming that he was the only person capable of beating Donald Trump.

A disastrous first presidential debate in June led to pressure from Democrat big-hitters for him to stand down but the damage to the party's re-election hopes had already been done. His replacement, Kamala Harris, had only 100 days to introduce herself to the electorate as presidential candidate, and distance herself from Biden's more unpopular policies.

While history may judge Biden's record more favourably with the passing of time – as it has fellow one-term president Jimmy Carter – the fact that he ran again in 2024 "in the face of voters' broad discontent and on top of the specific concerns they had about his age" will surely "be a part of" his legacy, said The Washington Post.

"He'd like his legacy to be that he rescued us from Trump," Democratic strategist Susan Estrich told the BBC's Zurcher. "But sadly, for him, his legacy is Trump again. He is the bridge from Trump One to Trump Two."

The Hunter pardon

Having repeatedly vowed not to pardon his son Hunter, who was convicted of three felony gun charges, Biden did just that, only weeks after Trump was voted back in. His decision was widely criticised by both Republicans and Democrats, with The Atlantic's Jonathan Chait branding it the "hypocrisy of fatherly indulgence".

Biden said he would "abide by the results of the justice system as a matter of principle", Chait wrote, but "in breaking his promise" and "issuing a sweeping pardon of his son for any crimes he may have committed over an 11-year period", he has prioritised "his own feelings over the defence of his country".

The Hunter pardon put Democrats in the "almost impossible position of demanding equal treatment under the law for convicted felon Trump, while trying to excuse Biden's whitewashing of his son's own criminal record", said Time.

"A father’s love is admirable; a president's lie is not," said The New York Times, "In one of his last major political acts in office, Joe Biden forgot who he was." And the consequence? "History won't be kind."

What happened

President Joe Biden gave a farewell address from the Oval Office Wednesday evening that focused at least as much on the dangers he saw ahead for America as his own accomplishments in office. The 17-minute speech was a capstone to Biden's 50 years in public service, days before he hands power to a president-elect he has called an "existential threat" to democracy.

Who said what

Biden warned that the "dangerous concentration of power in the hands of a very few ultra-wealthy people" was leading toward an American "oligarchy" that "literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair shot for everyone to get ahead." He was "equally concerned about the potential rise of a tech industrial complex," as unchecked social media giants leave Americans "buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation, enabling the abuse of power."

Biden "did not explicitly name" Donald Trump in his speech, The New York Times said, but his warning "went straight at the tension at the heart of the incoming administration, in which billionaires like Elon Musk are positioned to wield enormous influence." Musk, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon's Jeff Bezos have "prime seating" next to Cabinet nominees on the dais at Trump's inauguration on Monday, illustrating the "deepening ties" between favor-currying tech titans and the incoming administration, The Washington Post said. And Trump's Cabinet is "slated to be the wealthiest group of presidential advisers in modern history."

What next?

Biden said it would "take time to feel the full impact" of his accomplishments on infrastructure, climate change, manufacturing, semiconductors and health care, but "the seeds are planted and they'll grow and they'll bloom" for decades. "I still believe in the idea for which this nation stands," but "now it's your turn to stand guard. May you all be the keeper of the flame," he added. "Thank you for this great honor."

The world's major powers are locked into an artificial intelligence arms race. But new rules announced by the White House on Monday seek to guarantee American supremacy in that race.

The Biden administration's "unprecedented new export controls" intend to keep AI technology from falling into Chinese hands, said The Washington Post. The controls restrict the sale of AI-capable chips to "most countries in the world," part of an effort to keep Beijing from repurchasing American-made chips sold to third-party countries. America "leads the world in AI now, both AI development and AI chip design," said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, "and it's critical that we keep it that way."

Biden is "rushing" to restrict AI chip exports because recent developments suggest that China is "catching up in the race" to create massively powerful AI systems, said Time. The Chinese company DeepSeek recently released an open-source AI model that "outperformed any American open-source language model." The development surprised officials "who had believed China lagged behind in terms of AI capabilities." The new rules are a "decisive move to make life much harder for China's AI ecosystem," said Greg Allen of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The 'contest for geopolitical superiority'

America and China are in "grim competition" with each other, and "both intend to be prepared for war," Ezra Klein said at The New York Times. AI superiority is now seen as "central to both sides of the conflict." DeepSeek's new model is part of a new wave of AI systems that can be built cheaply and stored on personal computers. But calls for restraint in the AI arms race will probably take second place to the "contest for geopolitical superiority," Klein said. America is the "leading power when it comes to artificial intelligence," said Jake Sullivan, Biden's national security advisor. "And we intend to keep it that way."

To do that, the new rules "strangle competition" in the tech marketplace, Chris Stokel-Walker said at Fast Company. Banning exports to China "makes sense, given how integral AI will be to shaping our future." But blocking exports to 120 other countries is harder to justify. That seems less about protecting America and "more like an overtly protectionist trade policy." That makes it "more likely countries will look towards China" to power their own AI efforts, Stokel-Walker said.

How long will U.S. lead last?

It's not just chip exports: Biden on Tuesday signed an executive order to ensure that AI data centers and clean-power facilities that supply them energy "can be built quickly and at scale," said The Associated Press. "We will not let America be out-built" in the AI industry, Biden said.

American chipmaker Nvidia and the European Union have both "expressed their displeasure" with the new rules, said Karl Freund, founder and analyst at Cambrian-AI Research, at Forbes. The winner? Beijing. China's chips are slower "but at least you can get them." For AI developers in Africa, South America or Asia, the Biden administration rules mean Chinese technology might "become your best and perhaps only choice." The new rules will slow down China's AI development, Freund said. "But for how long?"

'Nippon Steel: Why we're suing Biden'

Takahiro Mori at The Wall Street Journal

Nippon Steel and U.S. Steel "filed a lawsuit" after "the president's decision to block our companies' partnership" because the government "failed to meet the most basic requirements of due process and fairness," says Takahiro Mori. Japan is "one of America's staunchest allies," and "major companies in allied nations want to invest in the U.S. and employ Americans. Now they wonder if they'll be treated as partners or political pawns." If "politics can dictate the process, it erodes trust."

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'The FBI monitored Latinos for years. Why Biden should make the agency release its records.'

Natalia Reyes at the San Francisco Chronicle

President Joe Biden should "make the FBI publicly release any materials pertaining to the surveillance of the Latino civil rights movement," says Natalia Reyes. It is "not only knowledge of the history of oppression in this country that we stand to gain from the release of the records." These records "might also inadvertently reveal potential pathways for seemingly disparate communities to move forward together." Biden "stands to bring these stories to light."

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'Latin America's Trump backlash is already underway'

Antonio De Loera-Brust at Foreign Policy

President-elect Donald Trump's "public threats to retake the Panama Canal, by force if necessary, have already done meaningful damage to U.S. standing in Latin America," says Antonio De Loera-Brust. For "Panama, there is little funny about the prospect of a U.S. invasion." Latin countries "look for a counterbalance to a neighbor they cannot hope to deter on their own." Trump "would immediately put the United States in a position of regional isolation" in Latin America.

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'Texas web-porn law protects kids without harming adults'

Clare Morell and Meg Leta Jones at Bloomberg

Texas's Supreme Court case argues the "government can restrict children's access to online pornography without harming the free speech rights of adults," and Americans "should hope the justices will see that new technologies can lead them to find Texas's effort constitutional," say Clare Morell and Meg Leta Jones. Two "decades of experience have made clear that filters aren't working." Parents have been "fighting on their own against a relentless tide of pornography supplied by adult sites."

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What happened

President Joe Biden informed Congress Tuesday he was removing Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and easing other sanctions on the island nation.

An hour after Biden's announcement, Cuba said President Miguel Díaz-Canel had agreed to "gradually" release 553 prisoners following talks with Pope Francis. U.S. officials suggested the two decisions were linked.

Who said what

Biden's last-minute moves are the "latest in a series of conflicting U.S. approaches to Cuba by different administrations," The New York Times said. President-elect Donald Trump put Cuba on the terrorism blacklist "in the final hours of his first term," Reuters said, cutting Havana off from international banking and leading to a "deep economic crisis" that "stoked a record-breaking exodus off the island" and mostly to the U.S.

Biden officials have "long acknowledged there has been little justification for Cuba's presence on a list that will now include only North Korea, Iran and Syria," The Washington Post said. An administration official said a recent policy review had found "no credible evidence" of "ongoing support by Cuba for international terrorism."

What next?

Trump has "filled his team with officials hawkish on Cuba," so Biden's Cuba detente is "not likely to last," CNN said.

What happened

Qatari and Egyptian mediators Monday gave Israel and Hamas a final draft of an agreement to end the war in Gaza, as U.S., Israeli and Palestinian officials expressed optimism that a cease-fire deal could be finalized by the end of the week. One official told Reuters the deal came together after a late "breakthrough" in ongoing talks in Doha attended by envoys from President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump.

Who said what

"We're on the brink" of "finally" bringing to "fruition" an Israel-Hamas peace "proposal that I laid out in detail months ago," Biden said in a valedictory foreign policy speech. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said there was a "distinct possibility we can get this deal done this week," before Biden leaves office. Trump told Newsmax he understood "there's been a handshake and they're getting it finished, and maybe by the end of the week."

Two Israeli officials Monday "said a draft agreement was awaiting Hamas' approval, with the next 24 hours seen as being critical," The New York Times said. A Hamas official "said in a text message that progress had been made on all issues and that a deal was possible in the coming two days as long as Israel does not change its position at the last minute." Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces "fierce opposition to a potential deal from within his governing coalition," the BBC said.

What next?

Trump's "Jan. 20 inauguration is now widely seen as a de facto deadline for a cease-fire agreement," Reuters said. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told MSNBC that Trump and his envoy Steve Witkoff have "been a terrific partner in this," and Witkoff's participation in negotiations "has been critical" to ensure there's a deal "the Trump administration will continue to back."

'Iran's war on women must be stopped'

Mariam Memarsadeghi at Newsweek

Never in "history have the women of a nation suffered so profound a reversal of their rights and status as the women of Iran did in 1979," says Mariam Memarsadeghi. This "became symbolic of the Islamic Republic's power and control. In 46 years, nothing has changed." Any "telling of modern Iranian history that does not begin with how the 1979 revolution decimated the dignity of Iranian women and girls is not rooted in truth."

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'We must move fast to avert a national electricity crisis'

Mario Loyola at The Hill

Years of "misguided climate policy have pushed America to the brink of an electricity crisis," says Mario Loyola. The "new administration will have to move fast to avert what could be years of soaring prices and dangerous blackouts." America "will need hundreds of new gas and nuclear plants. Yet investment in such plants has virtually vanished." Regulators "should also require grid operators to prioritize reliability, for example by requiring renewable plants to provide for dispatchable backup."

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'The gratitude we owe to Joseph R. Biden'

Jonathan Capehart at The Washington Post

President Joe Biden "isn't perfect," but "as the nation evolved, so did he," says Jonathan Capehart. Low expectations "caught up with Biden," but he is a "good man who brought his entire imperfect self to the world's most unforgiving job, and his faith in the American people was unshakable." He was "determined to defy the low expectations that hounded him his entire political life." Biden "loves the job because of the power it gives him to solve problems."

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'Just the facts? Facebook, Instagram throw in the towel on fact-checking.'

The Boston Globe editorial board

The "much ballyhooed fact-checking system on a global scale was designed to save face for Facebook and restore some of its credibility," says The Boston Globe editorial board. But it's "back to a virtually unfettered 'town square,' where propaganda, whether about candidates or Covid-19, will go largely unchecked." Gone are the "days like after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection when Trump was at least temporarily banned from Facebook for inciting violence," which is a "win-win-win for Zuckerberg."

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What happened

President Joe Biden on Saturday awarded Pope Francis the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction, the highest U.S. civilian honor. Biden handed out Medals of Freedom to 19 people earlier this month, including Hillary Clinton, Michael J. Fox, Denzel Washington, Magic Johnson, designer Ralph Lauren, George Soros, Lionel Messi, philanthropic chef José Andrés and U2's Bono, but the pope is the only person upon whom Biden has bestowed the honor "with distinction."

Who said what

Francis is "the People's Pope — a light of faith, hope and love that shines brightly across the world," the White House said. "His mission of serving the poor has never ceased. A loving pastor, he joyfully answers children's questions about God. A challenging teacher, he commands us to fight for peace and protect the planet. A welcoming leader, he reaches out to different faiths. The first pope from the Southern Hemisphere, Pope Francis is unlike any who came before."

Biden had planned to present the pope with the medal on a visit to Rome, but he canceled the trip to oversee the federal response to the Los Angeles wildfires. Instead, he bestowed the honor during a phone call. Biden was the sole recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction under President Barack Obama.

What next?

Biden, the second Catholic president, leaves office Jan. 20. The Italy trip was to have been his final presidential trip abroad.

What happened

Former President Jimmy Carter was buried alongside his wife, Rosalynn, in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, on Thursday after being eulogized at a grand state funeral in Washington National Cathedral and then back home at a smaller, private funeral at Maranatha Baptist Church, where he taught Sunday school for many years. All five living presidents and other world leaders attended the state funeral, as did friends and family.

Who said what

Carter, who died at age 100, often "eschewed the pomp of high office as haughty and unbecoming," The Washington Post said. But his state funeral, per tradition, was "replete with the exalted trappings of a presidential send-off." The image of the five living presidents, all wearing black suits and blue ties, offered a "rare image of presidential unity" that spoke of "preservation and strength" in a time of upheaval and polarization, The New York Times said.

Posthumous eulogies written by former President Gerald Ford and Carter's vice president Walter Mondale were read by their sons. President Joe Biden repeatedly praised Carter's character. "Today we may think he was from a bygone era," he said. "But in reality, he saw well into the future."

What next?

Stuart Eizenstat, a longtime friend and adviser to Carter, said in his eulogy it was "time to redeem his presidency and also lay to rest the myth that his greatest achievements came only as a former president." Carter, he said, "may not be a candidate for Mount Rushmore, but he belongs in the foothills."

U.S. officials are considering ramping up defenses against one of China's most ubiquitous technologies: drones. The U.S. Department of Commerce has announced that it is exploring a rule that could restrict Chinese drones in the United States — or ban them entirely.

This new rule would "secure and safeguard the information and communication technology and services (ICTS) supply chain" for drones in the U.S., the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security said in a press release. The bureau believes that foreign involvement in the drone supply chain "may offer our adversaries the ability to remotely access and manipulate these devices, exposing sensitive U.S. data."

The potential new rule comes at the behest of the Biden administration. However, with President Joe Biden having less than a month left in office, the decision on the Chinese drones will ultimately be made by President-elect Donald Trump.

Why is the US worried about Chinese drones?

Drones have "evolved over the past decade to include sophisticated cameras, receivers and artificial intelligence abilities," said The New York Times. This has led to "concerns that they could be turned into a useful tool for an adversarial government," with China at the forefront of these worries. China already has a large presence in the American drone market; Chinese-based companies account for at least 75% of the drones sold in the U.S.

The Commerce Department also noted that Chinese drones could "damage physical infrastructure in a collision, deliver an explosive payload or gather information about critical infrastructure," said the Times, which could create additional national security concerns.

Most pressing to the U.S. is DJI, a Shenzhen, China-based company that sells over half of all commercial drones in the United States. American officials have "repeatedly raised concerns that DJI drones pose data transmission, surveillance and national security risks, which the company rejects," said Reuters. DJI has also been added to a "list of companies allegedly working with Beijing's military," and the Pentagon has banned the use of the company's drones by the U.S. government. This is part of a "series of steps" taken by politicians to "crack down on Chinese drones over the last year," including a bill signed by Biden that could prevent DJI drones from being sold in the U.S.

What would a Chinese drone ban mean?

If passed, the ban "could impose restrictions similar to those that would effectively ban Chinese vehicles from the United States," said Reuters. The ban would focus on "drones with Chinese and Russian equipment, chips and software."

This would be the "latest move in the escalating trade and tech decoupling between the world's two largest economies," said the South China Morning Post. There will now be an investigation into "threats posed by foreign adversaries, and the potential economic impact of the proposed regulations on affected entities." Trump's administration will decide whether to implement a drone ban in the coming months; the Commerce Department is seeking public comments on the drone supply chain by March 4.

Chinese officials have pushed back against the American allegations. China "stands firmly opposed to the US' overstretching the concept of national security, disrupting and restricting normal international trade and economic exchange, undermining global industrial and supply chains stability," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning per the Global Times, China's English-language state-run newspaper. The country will "take all necessary measures to firmly defend its legitimate and lawful rights and interests."

What happened

The fast-spreading wildfires ravaging Los Angeles grew and multiplied Wednesday, prompting President Joe Biden to sign a sweeping federal disaster declaration and cancel his final foreign trip, to Italy. With the Sunset Fire that sprang up Wednesday evening in the Hollywood Hills, there are five active fires in Los Angeles County, most of them 0% contained. Five deaths were reported in Altadena from the Eaton Fire, and at least 2,000 houses, businesses and other buildings have been destroyed.

Who said what

The "catastrophic blazes" have "erased entire neighborhoods" around this city of 10 million and scorched "more than 27,000 acres, equivalent to nearly 20,000 football fields," The New York Times said. In affluent Pacific Palisades, the "apocalyptic scenes spread for miles," The Associated Press said, with "block after block" of houses "reduced to charred remains." The area is a "ghost town," CNN's Leigh Waldman said. "Everyone keeps saying 'apocalyptic,' but that doesn't begin to cover it."

Biden had been due to fly to Rome on Thursday afternoon for three days of visits with Pope Francis and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, but he decided to stay in Washington to focus on "directing the full federal response" to the "historic fires raging" in L.A., the White House said. At a briefing in Santa Monica earlier Wednesday, Biden said the federal government was "prepared to do anything and everything for as long as it takes to contain these fires."

What next?

The "extraordinarily dangerous fire weather" in Southern California "improved somewhat" last night, the Los Angeles Times said, but "red flag fire weather conditions will persist through much of Friday." When the danger has passed, the decimation of areas "packed with multimillion-dollar homes" may be the "final straw that breaks California's insurance market," Politico said.

'What Bourbon Street stands for'

Jordan Hirsch at Slate

New Orleans' Bourbon Street terrorist possibly "meant to lash out at a symbol of American immorality," but "instead, he attacked what has become one of America's more inclusive and genuinely democratic public spaces," says Jordan Hirsch. Bourbon Street is "America on its night off, distilled into about seven blocks," and the victims were "representative of our country as a whole — Black, brown, and white; blue-collar and white-collar, young and old; women and men."

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'Protecting culture should be a UN goal — and a human one'

Thangam Debbonaire at the Financial Times

Culture can "repair the damage of recent conflict, heal wounded countries, restore relations between nations with troubled pasts and create sustainable economies," says Thangam Debbonaire. But "protecting culture is low as a political priority," as "antiquities and sculptures of religious or cultural significance and artistic magnificence have become a commodity." It is "in everyone's interest to add culture as the 18th goal" of the U.N.'s Sustainable Development Goals and to "pursue all of them with a new urgency."

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'The new phantom menace isn't as bad as you think. Waymo rocks!'

Rick Reilly at The Washington Post

The "robotaxi Waymos can give you the willies," but "for one thing, it's cool," says Rick Reilly. For a "second thing, it's refreshing." Waymo "won't snarl at you because you made it wait" and is "happy to dally for up to five minutes." Waymos "do have a potential yuck factor," but "robotaxi is here whether you want it or not," and "this is the future, no matter how many jobs it vaporizes or human interactions we lose."

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'Biden should pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists'

Timothy William Waters at Politico

Trump promised to "pardon the Jan. 6 insurrectionists. To stop him — and start healing our nation — Biden should pardon them instead," says Timothy William Waters. Pardoning these "traitorous enemies of democracy is morally repellent — which is exactly why a pardon is necessary." It would "serve a higher purpose: helping heal our national trauma." For a pardon to come from the man whose election the insurrectionists tried to steal would send a powerful message of forgiveness."

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What happened

The Pentagon said Monday that 11 Yemeni detainees held for more than two decades at Guantánamo Bay without charges have been transferred to Oman. With four more detainees repatriated last month — two Malaysians, a Tunisian and a Kenyan — the secretive U.S. prison camp in Cuba now holds 15 prisoners, the fewest since 2002.

Who said what

Monday's resettlement is "part of President Joe Biden's fervent effort during his final weeks in office to reduce the number of those held in Guantánamo," The Washington Post said. There were 40 detainees when Biden took office and "resurrected an Obama administration effort to close the prison" that had been halted during Donald Trump's first term, The New York Times said. At its peak, "Guantanamo held about 800 detainees," The Associated Press said.

The Pentagon thanked Oman for supporting "ongoing U.S. efforts focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility." All 11 prisoners had been cleared for transfer years ago.

What next?

The Pentagon said three other Guantánamo prisoners are eligible for transfer, three are eligible for review, two were convicted by military tribunals and the remaining seven are "involved in the military commissions process." Monday's resettlement, the Times said, came "days before "Guantánamo's most notorious prisoner, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, was scheduled to plead guilty to plotting the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks," in a deal that rules out the death penalty.

What happened

President Joe Biden Sunday signed the Social Security Fairness Act, which repeals two decades-old laws that limited Social Security payments for public workers with pensions and their surviving spouses. The change will boost payments to about 2.5 million teachers, firefighters, police officers, postal workers and other beneficiaries by an average of $360 a month.

Who said what

"The bill I'm signing today is about a simple proposition: Americans who have worked hard all their life to earn an honest living should be able to retire with economic security and dignity," Biden said at Sunday's signing ceremony. "That's a big deal in middle class households like the one I grew up in and many of you did."

The new law, "decades in the making," passed "just under the wire," with the Senate approving it 76-20 on Dec. 21 after the House passed it in November on a 327-75 vote, CBS News said. A White House official said Biden was "the first president in more than 20 years to expand Social Security benefits." It's "expected to be one of the last major pieces of legislation of his presidency," ABC News said.

What next?

The "future of Social Security has become a top political issue," not to mention a concern for its 72.5 million recipients, The Associated Press said. The program's trustees said last May that Social Security's trust fund will be unable to pay full benefits starting in 2035, and the new law will "hasten the program's insolvency day by about half a year."

What happened

The U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals dealt a decisive blow to net neutrality Thursday, ruling that the Federal Communications Commission lacked the authority to regulate internet providers like a public utility. The FCC first required broadband providers to treat all legal internet traffic equally — the goal of net neutrality — in the Obama administration.

Donald Trump's Republican-led FCC overturned the rules in 2017, but with President Joe Biden's encouragement, a Democrat-majority FCC voted to reinstate net neutrality last April.

Who said what

The Supreme Court's ruling last June that federal agencies no longer get deference in interpreting regulations "means we can end the FCC's vacillations," Judge Richard Griffin wrote for the three-judge appellate panel. FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel said consumers "have told us again and again that they want an internet that is fast, open and fair," and Congress should "heed their call" and "put open internet principles in federal law." FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, Trump's nominee to lead the agency, said he was "pleased" by the court's invalidation of Biden's "internet power grab," and more deregulation was coming.

What next?

Open-internet advocates could "seek review by the Supreme Court," Reuters said. But that's probably a dead end, former FCC official Marc Martin told The Washington Post. Attention-grabbing "future bad acts" by internet providers could "maybe bring a different Congress to act and give the FCC authority. Short of that, I think it's over."

President Joe Biden is trying to strengthen Taiwan's defenses before he leaves the White House. The United States, said China's leaders (who consider now-independent Taiwan to be China's territory), is undermining "peace and stability" in East Asia as a result.

American leaders, Beijing said, are "playing with fire" with the latest round of military assistance to Taiwan, Politico said. The warning came after Biden authorized up to $571 million in defense-related "material and services" to the democratic island. (The Pentagon at the same time announced it had approved $295 million in military equipment sales.) China's foreign ministry said that Taiwan is a "red line that must not be crossed" by the U.S., Reuters said, and added that it would take "all necessary measures" to protect its claim.

"Beijing regularly protests announcements of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan," said The Wall Street Journal. Its latest pushback comes at a moment of transition, with Donald Trump about to take office. Trump's approach to the China-Taiwan tension "generally remains unclear." Trump has warned Taiwan — like NATO — that it should "significantly increase its military spending and not rely entirely on U.S. military support," said the Journal.

What did the commentators say?

"China is seeking to set the terms for the U.S.-China bilateral relationship for the next four years," David Sacks said at the Council on Foreign Relations. Beijing's talk of "red lines" — including at a recent meeting between Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jingping — is a warning to the U.S. "not to pursue certain policies." China understands the United States probably will not abide by those lines, under Biden or Trump, but publicly announcing them "gives Beijing the opportunity to put the onus on Washington for heightened tensions," Sacks said. Despite that, it seems likely that "U.S. security cooperation with Taiwan will continue apace."

"The incoming administration should reject China's red lines as unworkable both in principle and in practice," Jack Burnham said at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. It is not only Taiwan: Beijing has announced it considers efforts to promote democracy in China and U.S. sanctions to limit Chinese trade and technology acquisition to be other "red lines" that American leaders should not cross. The new Trump Administration should ignore those warnings. Why? "China is attempting to preemptively set the tone of the relationship," Burnham said.

What next?

"Taiwan is buckling up for what could be a far more volatile relationship with Washington," said CNN. Trump has stacked his new cabinet with "China hawks." On the campaign trail Trump argued that Taiwan should pay the United States "protection money" while also saying the country had "stolen" America's electronics chip-making businesses. That leaves leaders in Taipei City nervous, said Chen Ming-chi, a former senior advisor to Taiwan's National Security Council. Trump's "unpredictability," he said, means "we don't know if Taiwan will be safer or more dangerous under his second term."

What happened

President Joe Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of 40 prisoners on federal death row Monday, downgrading their punishment to life in prison without possibility of parole.

He left intact the death sentences of the men convicted of "terrorism and hate-motivated mass murder" in the 2015 Charleston church shooting, 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and 2018 massacre at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue.

Who said what

"I condemn these murderers" and "ache" for the families of their victims, but "I am more convinced than ever that we must stop the use of the death penalty at the federal level," Biden said. "In good conscience, I cannot stand back and let a new administration resume executions that I halted."

Biden pledged to end federal capital punishment during his 2020 run and imposed a moratorium on most federal executions once in office, but he was a "strong proponent of the death penalty" for "much of his political career," The Washington Post said. "Nearly all of those who were on death row were there" because of Biden's 1994 crime bill.

The commutations elicited a "range of emotions," from "relief to anger," The Associated Press said, depending largely on party affiliation and views on capital punishment.

What next?

Donald Trump, who oversaw 13 executions in his final six months in office — versus three from 1976 to 2019 — has pledged to restart and expand the death penalty in January.

What happened

Alexander Smirnov, a former FBI informant, pleaded guilty Monday to falsely claiming that President Joe Biden and his son Hunter were involved in a bribery scheme with Ukrainian energy company Burisma. His bogus 2020 allegation that the Bidens were each paid $5 million by Burisma formed the basis of stalled Republican efforts to impeach Biden. Smirnov also admitted to evading taxes on $2 million in income.

Who said what

Smirnoff, motivated by "bias" against Biden, spun his "routine and unextraordinary business contacts" with Burisma into "fabrications" about bribery, prosecutors said in their indictment. According to court documents, the BBC said, Smirnov "had ties with Russian intelligence" and used his "$2 million in unreported income to buy a Las Vegas condominium," lease a Bentley and spend heavily on clothes and jewelry.

Smirnov's indictment was brought by special counsel David Weiss, a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney "who also prosecuted Hunter Biden on gun and tax charges," The Associated Press said.

What next?

Smirnov is scheduled to be sentenced next month. As part of a plea deal, prosecutors and defense lawyers agreed to recommend four to six years in prison.

What happened

President Joe Biden Thursday commuted the sentences of 1,499 people and granted 39 pardons. The White House called it the "largest single-day grant of clemency in modern history."

Who said what

Those whose sentences were commuted had been released from prison to home confinement during the Covid-19 pandemic. They have "successfully reintegrated" into their communities and "shown that they deserve a second chance," Biden said, and many would have received "lower sentences if charged under today's laws, policies and practices." This group of convicts had been of "particular concern" to advocates, The New York Times said, as some congressional Republicans are pushing legislation that "would have forced them to return to prison."

The 39 pardons, which fully wipe out convictions, went to people convicted of nonviolent crimes, particularly drug offenses. All have shown a "commitment to making their communities stronger and safer," Biden said. "None are household names," USA Today said.

After pardoning his son Hunter before he was sentenced for gun and tax offenses, Biden has been under pressure to pardon "broad swaths of people, including those on federal death row, before the Trump administration takes over in January," The Associated Press said. Prior to yesterday's announcement, Biden had been "relatively constrained in his use of the presidential act of forgiveness," the Times said.

What next?

Biden "said he would continue to review clemency petitions in the coming weeks," The Wall Street Journal said. Commuting all federal death sentences to life in prison is one of the moves "under active discussion." Donald Trump is a "staunch supporter" of "capital punishment," The Washington Post said.

Donald Trump's presidency ended with a rush of executions — a total of 13 federal inmates were put to death during the final months of his first administration. Now death penalty opponents are asking President Joe Biden to empty out federal-level death rows before Trump takes office again.

A coalition of death penalty opponents is asking Biden to "commute all federal death sentences to life without parole," said The Washington Post. There are currently 40 people on federal death row, including the gunman who killed Black churchgoers in South Carolina and the surviving Boston Marathon bomber. But the execution opponents — a group of "former prison officials, relatives of homicide victims, civil rights advocates and religious leaders" — say the death penalty is "arbitrary, unfair and biased." Biden's decision to issue a mass commutation would have long-term effects, said the Post: The move "could not be undone by his successor."

What did the commentators say?

Biden's career has been full of "contradictions" on the issue, David Rose said at UnHerd. Biden pledged in 2020 to pass legislation abolishing the federal death penalty, and Attorney General Merrick Garland adopted a moratorium on executions. But as a senator, he sponsored a crime bill that expanded the number of death-eligible crimes to include (as Biden said at the time) "everything but hang people for jaywalking." For liberals and pro-life Catholics, Rose said, Biden has one last chance to "redeem his record and leave a humane legacy."

Biden has the power to prevent "another gruesome Trump execution spree," Austin Sarat said at Slate. There are precedents, albeit at the state level. In 2022, outgoing Oregon Gov. Kate Brown commuted the death sentences of 17 men in her state. "The state should not be in the business of executing people," Brown said at the time. Illinois Gov. George Ryan commuted 167 death sentences in 2003. The problem? "Biden has not seemed eager to wield his clemency power in this or any other area," Sarat said. That must change. Biden should "use his clemency power to empty the federal death row."

"It's too late for the president to abolish the death penalty," Elizabeth Bruenig said at The Atlantic. Biden has approached federal executions in much the same way that President Barack Obama did: "Leaving the architecture for carrying out capital sentences in place but benevolently neglecting to use it." But if Biden "really does abhor capital punishment as he has claimed," then he still has a pathway toward keeping his old campaign promises. The outgoing president "has the freedom to act on his values and save dozens of lives."

What next?

"Trump's government-in-waiting has for years intended to bring back a wave of federal executions," said Rolling Stone. The president-elect "doesn't think murderers and rapists should get off easy," a Trump adviser said. Federal inmates with death sentences are apprehensive about what the change in administrations will mean, said Angela Elleman, a death penalty defense lawyer. "There's a lot of fear on federal death row."

All across America, people are turning off the news. Some of them are liberals still traumatized by the election, for whom the idea of hearing about President-elect Donald Trump's latest ALL-CAPS pronouncement is just too triggering. Some are right-leaning bros, who believe that traditional media outlets have become too "woke" and that only moon landing-skeptical podcasters can be trusted to tell it like it is. But a good number of those tuning out, I'm confident, are doing so because they feel like the firehose of breaking news is drowning them. It is our curse to live in interesting times — just consider all that's happened in the past few days. There was an attempted coup in South Korea; a resumption of civil war in Syria; a U.S. president pardoning his prodigal son, after repeatedly promising not to; and a whole convoy of Trump-related happenings, from his nomination of a MAGA vengeance artist as FBI director to his suggested annexation of Canada.

In normal times, any of these stories would dominate the headlines for days. But these are interesting times, and so each shocking development gets only a brief moment on the chyron before being pushed aside by yet another world-shaking story. We are not designed to cope with such an onslaught, and so our caveman brains tell us to seek safety — or at least to switch off CNN, delete that news app, and take up whittling or some other adrenaline-reducing activity. Such a flight response is understandable but not conducive to a healthy democracy, which requires an informed citizenry. Yet being informed is not the same thing as being overloaded. Fewer of us would suffer from news fatigue if we weren't being blasted from all directions and at all hours with news alerts and updates: On our phones' home screens, in our email inboxes, on our never-ending social media feeds, and even on TVs at the bar. No news is bad news, but too much news is simply exhausting.

This is the editor's letter in the current issue of The Week magazine.

'The Syrian rebels' lessons for Washington'

Walter Russell Mead at The Wall Street Journal

"There are important lessons here for policymakers around the world" concerning the Syrian rebels, says Walter Russell Mead. The "rebel victory in Aleppo is a direct consequence of the wars in Ukraine and the Levant," and "there are two other lessons that Washington needs to take in." The "first is that Israel is an excellent ally, and the U.S. benefits when we support it," and the "second lesson is about how to deal with Russia."

Read more

'Joe Biden's selfish parting act'

Edward Luce at the Financial Times

The "timing of Biden's blanket act of immunity for his son Hunter was unfortunate," says Edward Luce. It "enabled Trump to distract attention from his nepotism," and the "rule of law in America looks like a game in which the well-connected always seem to have a get-out-of-jail-free card." The "rule of law in America is about to receive the mother of all stress tests," and "if it fails, Biden will have played a role in weakening the guardrails."

Read more

'As we support survivors of domestic violence, let's not forget those behind bars'

Norma Cumpian at Newsweek

Domestic violence is a "daunting challenge that demands our attention year-round," says Norma Cumpian. There is a "population whose needs are rarely discussed — those whose domestic abuse drives them to commit crimes." Many "women behind bars are also mothers," and the "need for greater understanding — and support — is tremendous." We "must better acknowledge the role domestic violence plays in leading many women into our justice system — and the unique challenges they face when they get there."

Read more

'Donald Trump didn't win by a historic landslide. It's time to nip that lie in the bud'

Mehdi Hasan at The Guardian

Donald Trump "won the popular vote and the electoral college," but "contrary to both Republican talking points and breathless headlines," there "was really nothing at all historic or huge about the margin of victory," says Mehdi Hasan. Trump's "margin of victory over Harris is a minuscule 1.6 percentage points," so he "doesn’t represent the popular will." Republicans "may feel they won a huge victory over the Democrats," but the "facts don't care about their feelings."

Read more

What happened

President Joe Biden Sunday night pardoned his son Hunter for any offenses he "committed or may have committed or taken part in" since early 2014. The pardon, which spares the younger Biden a possible prison sentence for felony gun and tax convictions, reversed the president's repeated promise he would not grant his son clemency.

Who said what

Hunter was "selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted" for offenses that are rarely charged, "only because he is my son," Biden said in a statement. "I believe in the justice system," but "I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice."

Republicans and some Democrats criticized the pardon. Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) said Biden "put his family ahead of the country" and set a "bad precedent that could be abused by later presidents." Donald Trump, who pardoned several political allies and his in-law Charles Kushner right before leaving office in 2021, called it "an abuse and miscarriage of justice."

What next?

Sunday's pardon came as Trump "made it clearer than ever that his second term would be focused on retribution and revenge" against Biden, The New York Times said, "with Hunter Biden as a prime target."

As Democrats "sift through the wreckage of their shattered coalition", one question should jump out at them, said Ruy Teixeira in The Liberal Patriot: "Who is the Democratic Party for, exactly?"

It was no surprise that Donald Trump made further inroads with his base of white, working-class men in the election. But he also improved on his 2020 vote share with Latinos, Asians, urban voters, and young voters. Even women, predicted to turn out in droves to protect abortion rights, voted for Kamala Harris by a smaller margin than for Joe Biden. It was a truly bleak result for the Democrats, said Jonathan Martin on Politico. Unlike in 2016, they couldn't even claim the consolation of winning the popular vote. The only upside is that the depth of the defeat presents them with an opportunity for a total rethink. "Democrats now have a mandate for change."

The first thing they need to change, said Maureen Dowd in The New York Times, is their preoccupation with group-based identity politics. Although Harris didn't make a big deal of her gender or ethnicity during the campaign, that didn't compensate for the fact that the Democrats in the Trump years became the party of "condescension and cancellation". As the nation's self-appointed language police, they shamed anyone not fluent in gender-fluid pronouns or in "faculty-lounge terminology" such as "Latinx" and "Bipoc" (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour). They embraced ideas such as defunding the police and letting biological males play women's sports. This intellectual and moral preening played well with college-educated women – the only cohort where Democrats made gains – but it "alienated half the country, or more". Most Hispanic and Latino people do not like the term Latinx; and there is data showing that more white progressives think "racism is built into" US society than black and Hispanic Americans.

The Democrats have an image problem, agreed Mike Pesca in The Atlantic. Despite Harris' efforts to sell them as "the party of change, freedom and not being weird", many voters see them as prigs, killjoys and scolds. With its stultifying "rules-bound persnicketiness", the party "resembles that most American of institutions: the HR department".

Still, the Democrats shouldn't lose all perspective on this, said Jackie Calmes in the Los Angeles Times. The result was a shock but it was not a total rejection of their agenda. In historical terms, Trump's margin of victory was slim. He may have won votes by using the issue of transgender rights against Harris, but voters in many states took the Democrats' side on ballot measures for abortion rights, a higher minimum wage and mandatory paid leave; and polls suggest strong support for irregular migrants being able to apply for legal status, a policy the Democrats favoured. In short, the party is in a stronger position than it seems. It should learn the lessons and move on.

The Ukrainian military has a new weapon in its arsenal, as President Joe Biden has given permission for Ukraine to begin firing U.S.-made ATACMS missiles into Russia. The Ukrainians wasted no time and shot at least six of these missiles at a weapons facility in Russia's Bryansk region, according to officials from Russia and Ukraine. Russia shot down five of these missiles, which were launched on the war's 1000th day.

Ukraine's approval by the Biden administration to use ATACMS missiles represents a significant reversal of course; the White House has previously restricted Ukrainian forces from using the long-range missile system against Russian targets. But with no end to the war in sight — and Biden preparing to cede the presidency to Donald Trump — the U.S. is hurriedly increasing its wartime assistance in the region.

What is ATACMS?

Pronounced "attack-ems," ATACMS stands for the Army Tactical Missile System. They are "ballistic missiles that, depending on the model, can strike targets 190 miles away with a warhead containing about 375 pounds of explosives," said The New York Times. The weapons are manufactured by U.S. defense company Lockheed Martin, which says ATACMS "gives commanders the immediate firepower to shape the battlespace."

ATACMS are generally referred to as long-range missiles, but "that is a subjective term," said the Times. ATACMS can travel further into Russian territory than any other Ukrainian weapons, but "cannot travel as far as a cruise missile or intercontinental ballistic missile."

Why is Biden allowing Ukraine to use these weapons?

The ATACMS decision "follows months of pleas" by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to "allow Ukraine's military to use U.S. weapons to hit Russian military targets far from its border," said USA Today. Despite these pleas, the Biden administration had repeatedly stated that it would not permit Ukraine to use ATACMAS weapons outside of Ukraine's own borders.

However, the White House seemed to rethink this strategy after "Russia's deployment of North Korean ground troops to supplement its own forces, a development that has caused alarm in Washington and Kyiv," said USA Today. Beyond this, it is unclear how President-elect Trump will handle the war once he gets into office, meaning that Biden is looking to shore up as much support for Ukraine as possible before he leaves office.

What does this mean for the future?

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that he "would regard any use of U.S.-supplied weapons against Russian territory as an attack by the United States," said Slate. Putin has also said that he would retaliate by attacking U.S. military bases in Europe if the ATACMS were continually used.

Even more notably, Putin approved a broadened nuclear doctrine that "appeared to be a thinly veiled threat to the United States and its allies over their ramped-up support for Ukraine," said NBC News. This new doctrine would allow Russia to launch a nuclear weapon if they are attacked by a non-nuclear country, such as Ukraine, that is supported by a nuclear country, like the U.S.

While moves are being made by Western forces — including the precautionary closing of the American embassy in Kyiv due to threats of air attacks — the use of ATACMS appears likely to continue in the immediate future. They also might run out by the time the Trump administration takes charge. When it comes to Putin's threats, world leaders "expressed doubts that the change amounted to much more than a new and more intense effort to deter the West," said NBC.

What happened

The U.S. Treasury Department Monday imposed sanctions on Amana, Israel's largest settlement development organization, and its Binyanei Bar Amana subsidiary, calling the groups "a key part of the Israeli extremist settlement movement" and accusing them of supporting growing settler violence in the occupied West Bank.

Who said what

Amana has "established dozens of illegal settler outposts and directly engaged in dispossession of private land owned by Palestinians in its support of settlers," said the State Department, which separately sanctioned three companies and three people "for their roles in violence targeting civilians" or property crimes.

Barring Amana from conducting business with Americans or accessing U.S.-held assets was "potentially the most significant sanction" yet under an executive order President Joe Biden issued in February, Haaretz said. The Amana sanctions were "an earthquake for the settlement project," Eitay Mack, a human rights lawyer who spent years pushing for sanctioning West Bank settlers, said to The Associated Press.

Amana is a "well-established decades-old group that has close ties with Israeli leadership," the AP said. Mack and nearly 90 congressional Democrats have urged Biden to also impose sanctions on far-right, pro-settler Israeli Cabinet ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.

What next?

Biden's West Bank sanctions "could be quickly reversed under President-elect Donald Trump, whose incoming administration is expected to be pro-settler," Reuters said.

What happened

President Joe Biden made a stopover in the Brazilian Amazon Sunday, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to visit the world's largest tropical rainforest. Biden took a helicopter tour of the jungle around Manaus and visited a nearby nature reserve situated where the Negro and Amazon rivers meet, signing a declaration designating Nov. 17 International Conservation Day.

Who said what

"The fight against climate change has been a defining cause of my presidency," Biden said, noting hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. investments in renewable energy and global climate aid. "I will leave my successor and my country a strong foundation to build on, if they choose to do so." It's true that "some may seek to deny or delay the clean energy revolution that's underway in America, but nobody — nobody — can reverse it," he added. Not when so many Americans are "enjoying its benefits" and "countries around the world are harnessing the clean energy revolution to pull ahead themselves."

President-elect Donald Trump is threatening to rip Biden's climate policies "to shreds when he returns to office in January," Politico said. Trump has "pledged to again pull out of the Paris agreement" and "rescind unspent money in energy efficiency legislation," The Associated Press said. And on Saturday he picked Chris Wright, "the head of fracking company Liberty Energy," to be the next energy secretary, The Washington Post said. Wright "contends that the climate crisis is a myth" and "runs a foundation that promotes expanded fossil fuel production."

What next?

Biden travels next to Rio de Janeiro for a G20 summit "where the future of global climate policy is likely to be a major point of discussion," Politico said. At a concurrent United Nations climate summit in Azerbaijan, "global leaders were already discussing a path forward without the U.S. playing a key leadership role."

What happened

President Joe Biden lifted restrictions on Ukraine using U.S.-provided long-range missiles to strike deep inside Russia under certain circumstances, U.S. officials told multiple news organizations Sunday. The reversal in policy, after months of lobbying by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, will initially allow Kyiv to fire Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) rockets at 50,000 Russian and North Korean troops amassing to recapture Russia's Kursk province from Ukraine.

Who said what

Biden's "major change in U.S. policy" was prompted by "Russia's surprise decision to bring North Korean troops into the fight," which the U.S. sees as a major escalation, The New York Times said. Allowing the use of ATACMS "deep inside Russia" probably won't "fundamentally alter the course of the war," but it could "help the Ukrainians blunt the effectiveness of the Russian-North Korean assault" and "send a message to the North Koreans that their forces are vulnerable and that they should not send more of them."

Despite the media reports of the ATACMS shift, "blows are not inflicted with words," Zelenskyy said Sunday night. "Such things are not announced. The rockets will speak for themselves." Ukraine "plans to conduct its first long-range attacks in the coming days," Reuters said.

President Vladimir Putin warned in September that Western rockets hitting Russia would "substantially change the very essence" of the conflict, and senior Russian lawmaker Vladimir Dzhabarov called Sunday's U.S. shift "a very big step towards the start of World War III." But Russia has "set out 'red lines' before," the BBC said, and many were "crossed without triggering a direct war between Russia and NATO."

U.S. officials noted that the damage from Kyiv's "significant new tool" will be constrained by Ukraine's "very limited stocks of ATACMS," The Washington Post said. But France and Britain quickly followed suit, allowing Ukraine to strike deep inside Russia with their similar SCALP/Storm Shadow long-range missiles, Le Figaro said.

What next?

Biden's ATACMS shift, made Thursday, appeared to be part of his team's "push to give what it can to Ukraine" before Donald Trump takes office, The Wall Street Journal said. Trump has said he wants to negotiate some end to the war, and Ukraine and Russia both view Kursk as one of Ukraine's biggest bargaining chips in those talks.

World leaders are meeting in Brazil for a G20 summit that looks set to usher in a new era of "transactional" geopolitics driven by national self-interest rather than international consensus.

Agreement will be sought on issues such as trade, climate change and international security. But many observers are "bracing for a shift in the global order", said Reuters, with the return to power of US president-elect Donald Trump, who has threatened a global tariff war and a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine.

What did the commentators say?

European leaders are "waking up to an uncomfortable new reality", said the Financial Times: "transactional geopolitics is back".

Trump, who will take control of the White House in just over two months, "prefers bilateral negotiations and quid pro quo arrangements" to multilateral frameworks such as the G20 and "his acolytes are already laying the groundwork for his regime".

In a sign of how the US election has already emboldened Trump's allies, French President Emmanuel Macron met arch-libertarian Argentinian President Javier Milei on Sunday in a "last-ditch attempt to stop him derailing" this week's summit, said Politico.

Milei, who last week became the first foreign leader to meet Trump in person following his election victory, had threatened to block a joint G20 communique that referenced taxing the super-rich, climate change policy and gender issues. Negotiators managed to salvage the draft statement by adding a footnote saying that Argentina does not agree with some of the points. But the drama has "frustrated counterparts" because "Milei has little regard for multilateral institutions like the G20, and few qualms about irking world leaders with whom he disagrees", Bloomberg said.

They also see in Milei the "impending shadow of Trump's impact on other governments and the future crumbling of global pacts aimed at aligning economic policies in the spirit of compromise", said the FT.

Diplomats drafting a joint statement have also "struggled to hold together a fragile agreement" on how to address the escalating Ukraine war, or "even a vague call for peace without criticism of any participants", said Reuters, citing sources familiar with the discussions.

Keir Starmer has implored fellow leaders to "shore up support for Ukraine" even as the consensus around standing united against Vladimir Putin appears to be "fracturing" and the Russian president looks "emboldened", said Sky News.

What next?

With the US represented by "lame duck" Joe Biden, China's President Xi Jinping is set to be a "central player" at a summit riven with geopolitical tensions, said Reuters.

This week, Starmer will become the first PM in six years to meet his Chinese counterpart. The meeting is part of what he calls a new "pragmatic approach" to try to advance economic ties and galvanise progress on challenges such as climate change.

While diplomacy always requires a degree of pragmatism, what will worry Western leaders is that a world in which "countries pick and choose their stance on individual issues depending on a narrow vision of national benefits rather than through multinational compromise" could lead to a "more permanent fracturing of groups like the G20", said the FT. These alliances have long served as a bridge between the West and developing nations, but a shifting world power balance is increasingly being seized upon by rivals such as China and Russia to "strengthen alternative groupings and undermine western alliances".

There goes Joe Biden's legacy, said Isaac Chotiner in The New Yorker. Had Kamala Harris won last week's election, the president might have been remembered for some of his achievements in office. As it is, he'll now just be known as the man who beat Donald Trump, and then let him straight back into the White House through his own stubborn refusal to cede power.

It was clear long before this year that Biden was too old to stand for re-election. Yet having originally presented himself as a transition candidate, he decided to run again anyway, only pulling out in July after his disastrous debate performance. Biden should have resigned a year ago, said Holman W. Jenkins Jr in The Wall Street Journal. Harris could then have been tested as a president, and in a proper Democratic primary. Republican voters might have "taken the cue that Mr Trump's era was over too".

It was Biden's agenda that really messed things up for the Democrats, said Isaac Schorr in the New York Post. One of the main reasons he beat Trump in 2020 was because he "offered the American people some semblance of normalcy". He promised to govern from the centre as a benign moderate. Yet once in power, he suddenly thought he could be Franklin D. Roosevelt. He started governing "as if he were president of some far-left campus club", relaxing controls on the borders and pushing through a series of massive spending bills that exacerbated the inflation problem.

The president hoped to solve three problems at once with his multibillion-dollar climate and infrastructure spending bills, said Kate Aronoff in The New Republic. He wanted to revive America's industrial heartland, challenge China's dominance in clean energy, and win back disaffected working-class voters. In economic terms, the approach has reaped dividends: America is today enjoying a manufacturing boom and low unemployment. But politically, "Bidenomics" has proved a complete dud. It hasn't alleviated the cost-of-living crisis, and it isn't helping the Democrats win elections.

The cruel irony, said Franklin Foer in The Atlantic, is that these long-term investments, which have provided the foundations for economic growth, will probably start paying off politically under Trump, who opposed the legislation. "Biden will have passed along his most substantive legacy as a gift to his successor."

What happened

President Joe Biden arrived in Peru Thursday for an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Lima followed by a G20 summit in Brazil, with a first-ever presidential visit to the Amazon rainforest in between. Biden's six-day trip marks the "final major international summits of his presidency," The Associated Press said, but even as he meets with "heads of state he's worked with over the years," the other world leaders have shifted their focus to "what Donald Trump's return to the White House means for their countries."

Who said what

Biden was always going to arrive at the summits either "as the confident statesman burnishing a legacy and preparing to hand off to his vice president" or facing "anxious world leaders and fresh questions about whether, as he'd spent four years claiming, 'America was back,'" CNN said. "He wanted the first. He got the latter." The gatherings will be "a kind of elegy for a bygone era that defined American foreign policy for most of the president's life," The New York Times said.

Biden will sit down with China's Xi Jinping on Saturday after holding a joint meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol today. But Yoon is already "dusting off his golf clubs, in case the chance to bond with the golf-loving Trump should present itself," the AP said. "A lame duck is a lame duck," former U.S. diplomat Ricardo Zúñiga told the Times. "And they know it."

Biden can't offer assurances about how U.S. policies will change under his successor, but he will "reassure the world that transitions of power are normal for democracies," said James Bosworth, the founder of the political consultancy Hxagon. "Biden will get public applause and praise, even as world leaders nervously await the transition."

What next?

Biden will offer his fellow world leaders the "same message that he's had for four years as president, which is that he believes that America's allies are vital to America's national security," national security adviser Jake Sullivan said to reporters. "When he goes to this Asia-Pacific summit in Peru, he'll go with our alliances in the Indo Pacific at a literal all-time high," Sullivan added. "And that's what he's going to hand off to President Trump."

'Trump's tariffs would smother his economic successes'

Phil Gramm and Donald J. Boudreaux at The Wall Street Journal

Donald Trump "hopes to supercharge economic growth" by "imposing across-the-board tariffs of at least 10%," but there is "strong evidence that such measures wouldn't achieve the president-elect's objectives," say Phil Gramm and Donald J. Boudreaux. The tariffs "would also likely trigger a trade war that would erode, if not overwhelm, the positive effects of tax reform and deregulation." They would additionally "increase our production costs and reduce our competitiveness at home and abroad."

Read more

'Biden's legacy is secure, but he could augment it by stepping aside'

Carrie Friedman at The Washington Post

Joe Biden should "step down and install Vice President Kamala Harris as the 47th president of the United States," says Carrie Friedman. Biden "could show the world, show us all — but especially this country's moms, daughters, and the Black and Brown women who have carried this country on their backs — that it can happen, it can be done." The Supreme Court has "given the president immunity for official acts of the presidency. It's time to take advantage."

Read more

'DEI attacks are widening the racial wealth gap'

Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman at Bloomberg

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work "offers a path to real, lasting wealth generation, helps create a bigger consumer class, and it's good for the economy," says Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman. If "DEI is thoughtfully implemented, it complements — and doesn't overshadow — industrious, creative work." But "biases can push Black and Latino people into career pathways that are divorced from wealth-building," and "as a result, underrepresented minorities remain a substantial part of America's permanent economic underclass."

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'Apps love to show us old photos. It might be harming us more than we think.'

Louis Staples at Slate

Many "digital memory prompts — being told 'You have a new memory!' by a device or app — are now a normal part of our lives," says Louis Staples. But "sometimes, we're reminded of things that aren't so funny." Smartphones "don't always get it right, and they might be making our lives more difficult." These "flashbacks also strip images of vital context," and "only posting the good parts of our lives can contribute to feelings of distress" in others.

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Donald Trump gets to make Supreme Court appointments for the next four years. That has some Democrats asking — quietly — if Justice Sonia Sotomayor should step down while President Joe Biden can still name a replacement.

The conversation is "blowing up largely outside of public view," said Politico. But Sotomayor, a liberal justice, is 70 years old and has diabetes. Democrats still rue Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's refusal to give up her seat during Barack Obama's presidency — which allowed Trump to appoint Amy Coney Barrett as Ginsburg's replacement after she died. Progressives don't want to see history repeat itself. Democrats "need to act when they have power," said Molly Coleman, executive director of the People's Parity Project.

Other progressive voices have joined the call, said Newsweek. "This would probably be a good day for Sotomayor to retire," David Dayen, editor of The American Prospect, posted on social media the day after the election. But others have pushed back, said The Guardian. "I don't think it's sensible," Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said of the retirement talk.

'No appetite for change'

The talk of a Sotomayor retirement is "way, way too late," Jay Willis said at Balls and Strikes. Supreme Court nominations usually take two months to complete — not counting on the time it takes for the White House to decide on the replacement for a retired justice. True, Republicans managed to confirm Barrett in just 30 days in 2020. Theoretically, "Senate Democrats could follow the same playbook" before Democrats leave power in the White House and Senate. In reality, that's unlikely to happen. "For this ambitious bit of political hardball to work," Willis said, "everything would have to go right."

Democrats have already "missed the window," Lisa Needham said at Public Notice. Party officials "are right to be concerned," and successfully pressured Justice Stephen Breyer to step down in 2022 to make way for a new liberal justice. But there's "no appetite for sudden change" among the Senate Democrats who would need to do the work to make the confirmation of a replacement happen. Besides, Needham said, there's something unseemly about trying to oust Sotomayor, "arguably both the most passionate and most progressive member of the bench."

'No time to lose her voice'

Sotomayor is expected to stick in her seat, said The Wall Street Journal. "This is no time to lose her important voice on the court," said an anonymous source described as "close to the justice." She does have supporters for that decision. Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the law school at the University of California, Berkeley, was one of the first commenters to ask Ginsburg to step down. He's not doing so this time. Ginsburg was 81 at the time he urged her to retire, Chemerinsky said. "And Sotomayor is 70."

That's not so convincing to others who want Sotomayor to step down, said The Washington Post. "This could be Democrats' last chance to fill her seat for some time," said Josh Barro, who writes the Very Serious newsletter. Democrats could go more than a decade before winning back control of the White House and Senate. "She could be well into her 80s," Barro said, "by the next time she has a good opportunity to retire."

'Biden's failure to deliver this campaign promise might have cost Democrats'

Ryan Teague Beckwith at MSNBC

If Americans "want to debate what Biden should have done to put the Democratic ticket in a better place, we should start with what he wanted to do and couldn't," says Ryan Teague Beckwith. This "includes most of the social safety net expansion that Biden campaigned on." To "break through that wall of indifference, a president needs not only to deliver, but to do it in such a tangible way that voters notice and connect the results with the president's actions."

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'How America embraced gender war'

Jia Tolentino at The New Yorker

The "big two genders are said to be at war. The results of the presidential election can hardly be read otherwise," says Jia Tolentino. Kamala Harris' strategy "reflected a reality that has since been unveiled by the results — a gendered battle intensified by young people, who are fighting for a sense of individual purchase on a world they have barely begun to properly live in." For "those of us whom God made heterosexual, the intimate realm is politicized."

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'Massie should go full Milei on the USDA'

Dominic Pino at the National Review

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) "would be a good person to lead" the USDA, which is "perhaps our most socialistic government department," says Dominic Pino. Massie "would be a positive sign that Trump intends to keep his promise to shake up the federal bureaucracy." Massie would be a "departure from Trump's first term, when he increased subsidies and the farm bill continued its long-running expansion." It "could be a good test case of the new powers available to cut the administrative state."

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'Why Trump being president again is not actually good for Truth Social'

Alex Kirshner at Slate

There is a "paradox behind Trump's win," says Alex Kirshner. While "his victory has already been good for Trump Media stock, his return to power is unambiguously horrible for Truth Social's actual business." The "business fundamentals of Truth Social have so far been untethered from its company's stock performance," but Truth Social's "path to being a serious player as a social media platform is even longer than it was before Trump beat Kamala Harris."

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The United States experienced a temporary, violent crime wave during the Covid-19 pandemic. According to official data, many violent crimes are currently on track to be at or near historic lows since the FBI began tracking data. Even though the worst of that post-pandemic crime wave has passed, public concern about crime remains high. A September 2024 Pew survey found that violent crime was fifth on voters' list of priorities this year. That means that both major party campaigns are trying to reassure voters that their policies will address the problem.

From reformer to hardliner

Vice President Kamala Harris promised to "fundamentally transform how we approach public safety" as a candidate for president during the summer and fall of 2019. Harris – then a U.S. Senator from California – released a criminal justice reform platform in September 2019 that promised to end mass incarceration, abolish private prisons, abandon the war on drugs and establish a new national commission to study the criminal justice system and recommend reforms. She also sought to reform the juvenile justice system. The proposal promised to "end life sentences of children and offer opportunities for sentence reduction to young people convicted of crimes."

During the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020, after she dropped out of the 2020 presidential race but before she was selected as Joe Biden's running mate, Harris appeared to endorse aspects of the "defund the police" movement, arguing that funding police departments to the exclusion of social priorities was misguided. The Biden-Harris ticket that year then promised significant reforms to the criminal justice system.

Yet the pandemic crime wave put the brakes on Harris' criminal justice reform platform almost immediately, as the newly-inaugurated administration realized that the public appetite for reform had been eclipsed by fears of a violent crime wave. Leading Democrats have yet to return to their previous messaging about tackling police violence and addressing systemic racism in the criminal justice system despite the drop in crime rates. "The change reflects a broader shift in thinking among Democrats and their nonpartisan allies who work in violence reduction, criminal justice and police reform," said Marin Cogan in Vox.

A promise to legalize marijuana

Since becoming the Democratic Party nominee in August after President Biden withdrew from the race, Harris has had very little to say about crime or criminal justice. One exception is federal marijuana policy. Despite the increasing number of states that have fully legalized recreational marijuana, more than 200,000 people were arrested on marijuana charges in 2023. As a senator, Harris cosponsored a bill in 2019 to decriminalize marijuana.

The Biden-Harris administration announced in April 2024 that it would ask the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to change its appraisal of marijuana to classify it as a less harmful substance that has medical uses but stopped short of recommending outright legalization or decriminalization. And then on October 14, Harris said that as president she would support legalization of marijuana, a stance that goes much further than the official policy of President Biden. In 2023, 70% of respondents said that they supported legalizing the drug, a record high in Gallup's long-running poll of the issue.

Harris has made few concrete promises about either criminal justice reform, violent crime or policing. There is no section on crime or law enforcement in her campaign's 82-page policy booklet that was released in September. In her convention speech, she did not address crime directly but said that as a prosecutor she worked on behalf of victims and that "everyone has a right to safety, to dignity and to justice." She has instead positioned herself as a tough-on-crime prosecutor who supports law enforcement.

Harris is "embracing her identity as a prosecutor in a way that would have been unimaginable four years ago," said Shaila Dewan in The New York Times. That posture may also be an effort to portray former president and Republican nominee Donald Trump – who was convicted on 34 felony counts by a New York jury in May – as a criminal. How well that plays with voters remains to be seen.

What happened

The Biden administration warned Israel in an Oct. 13 letter that U.S. military aid was at risk unless the Israeli government allowed significantly more food, medicine and other humanitarian aid into Gaza within 30 days, U.S. officials confirmed Tuesday, after Axios' Barak Ravid posted the letter. The sharply worded missive, from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to their Israeli counterparts, is the "strongest such warning" in Israel's yearlong campaign to "root out Hamas militants," Reuters said.

Who said what

Blinken and Austin said to continue qualifying for military assistance under U.S. law, Israel must allow at least 350 aid trucks a day into Gaza, implement "adequate humanitarian pauses" to allow aid delivery and vaccinations, and stop isolating northern Gaza, among other demands. Their letter was sent amid "growing frustration in the administration that despite repeated and increasingly vocal requests to scale back offensive operations against Hamas, Israel's bombardment has led to unnecessary civilian deaths," The Associated Press said. Blinken made similar demands in April, but after a period of improvement, Israel reduced aid deliveries to almost nothing in recent weeks, officials said.

Israel is "highly dependent on U.S. military aid as it fights a war on several fronts," Axios said. An Israeli official said the letter "is being thoroughly reviewed" and Israel "intends to address the concerns" with U.S. officials.

What next?

The Biden team's "reluctance" Tuesday to "confirm that it would restrict arms shipments fueled immediate doubts about the seriousness of the warning," The Washington Post said. But the "30-day deadline set by the letter would fall after the election," The New York Times said, "potentially making it politically easier" for President Joe Biden to take stronger actions to ensure compliance.