Several thousand people have been killed in Iran since the U.S.-Israeli war broke out, and the conflict has created an additional humanitarian crisis: delays and shortages of medical supplies. Hospitals and health care clinics throughout the Middle East are reporting critical lapses in supplies, which experts fear could lead to a surge in deaths even as the U.S. agreed to a temporary ceasefire.

What did the commentators say?

With the war in a state of flux, humanitarian centers “across the Middle East, Asia and Africa are facing the risk of running out of basic medication and food” due to the “restriction of shipments in the Strait of Hormuz,” said NPR. Some of this food, especially dry and canned goods, can “be stored for a long time,” Bob Kitchen, the vice president of emergencies and humanitarian action with the International Rescue Committee, said to NPR. But health care supplies are a different story, as most of the “medicines or treatments for malnutrition will expire.”

Many of these countries rely almost entirely on foreign aid for medical supplies. Sudan, for example, has “no manufacturing capacity and is entirely dependent on imported medication,” Omer Sharfy of Save the Children in Sudan said to NPR. This means health care workers “won’t be able to find alternatives in the local market.” The war has also “disrupted the movement of medical supplies from WHO’s global logistics hub in Dubai,” said the World Health Organization. By March 11, just 12 days into the war, over “50 emergency supply requests, intended to benefit over 1.5 million people across 25 countries,” were “affected, resulting in significant backlogs.”

Even countries far away from the conflict are bearing the brunt of these scarcities. Fears of syringe and IV shortages in South Korea are “spreading through Korea’s health care sector, prompting authorities to urge medical providers to refrain from stockpiling,” said The Korea Times. The problem is not that the Persian Gulf countries are “major drug producers. They’re not,” said health care news nonprofit Healthbeat. But these nations do “form ‘a critical pharmaceutical transit hub,’ where drugs and their basic ingredients from India, Europe and China routinely pass before heading to Africa, Asia and the United States.”

What next?

Some are hopeful that the two-week ceasefire, announced by President Donald Trump and initially agreed to by Iran, will allow the flow of medicine to restart. But while the U.S. has backed a ceasefire, Israel has continued its assault on the region, carrying out a series of strikes in Lebanon. Iran reclosed the strait in “response to Israeli attacks against the Hezbollah militant group,” said The Associated Press. Iran later accused the U.S. of also violating the deal and claimed that a long-term ceasefire was “unreasonable.”

Even before the strait was closed again, experts say it is unlikely its opening would have made a huge difference in moving global medical supplies. The ceasefire deal would not lead to a “‘mass exodus’ of ships through the Strait of Hormuz,” said The Guardian. The deal also allows Iran and Oman to “charge a fee of up to $2 million a ship on vessels transiting through the strait,” which could further limit the amount of supplies that are able to pass.

With no end to the larger skirmish in sight, fears persist that the shipment of medical supplies could remain at risk. All of these events are happening in an industry that was “decimated by funding cuts from the United States and Europe last year,” said The Washington Post, and is “now straining to meet demand that grows with each additional day of war.”

As the war in Iran drives gas prices skyward, some U.S. consumers are considering electric vehicles as a cost-saving measure. The national average gas price is now over $4 per gallon (and in some states over $5), according to AAA, which means many Americans are understandably looking for less expensive transportation modes. But not all experts believe this sudden spike in gas prices will automatically lead to a surge in the EV market.

What did the commentators say?

Many drivers look to electric vehicles because they “assume their electricity prices won’t be affected by the crises” around the world, said The Associated Press. The fickle nature of oil prices means consumers with gas-powered vehicles are “more vulnerable to fluctuating prices that result from global conflict than those who charge their cars.” Electricity prices are “regulated and much less volatile than gasoline prices,” said Erich Muehlegger, an economics professor at the University of California, Davis, to the AP.

And some may have already reached the point where they want to switch. According to a 2022 AAA survey, “$4 a gallon is the threshold at which a majority of Americans will make changes to their driving habits or lifestyles,” said Vox. This is especially true in California, where the $5-per-gallon gas price means the state has “already passed the point at which EVs are the cheaper option.”

Drivers who switch to EVs can save up to $2,000 per year on gas, while hybrid drivers still see savings of up to $1,500, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. And while Congress “eliminated a federal tax credit that could close the price gap between new electric vehicles and cars that run on gasoline,” there are still some states that “offer credits, rebates or other financial support for electric car buyers,” said The New York Times.

However, potential savings in gas could be offset by an increase in energy costs. Electricity prices have been “increasing nationally for a variety of reasons, including surging power demand from new data centers,“ said the AP. Increased natural gas prices can also “increase the cost of generating electricity,” though these costs “haven’t risen as quickly or as much as oil prices have recently.” And the upfront sticker cost of an EV is “still more than that of a gasoline-powered vehicle.”

What next?

Other factors could preclude a spike in electric vehicle sales. It’s “unclear how long high fuel prices will last,” because they are largely dependent on the war in Iran, said Vox. The limited “availability of chargers for electric vehicles is another barrier to adoption.” Rising gas prices and a general economic downswing can also “put a damper on consumer confidence more broadly.”

For now, the EV market seems to be swinging upward for many car companies. March was Subaru’s “best month ever for electric vehicle sales,” the automaker said in a press release. Toyota Motor North America, which runs the U.S. operations of Toyota and Lexus, saw EV sales in March “up 2.5% on a volume basis and up 6.6% on a daily selling rate basis,” said the company, representing more than half of its total sales volume.

Prediction markets like Polymarket let users bet on future events. At least one trader has been remarkably prescient about U.S. military operations in Iran, feeding fears that prediction markets are being manipulated by insiders with closely held knowledge of government plans.

The anonymous trader has made “dozens of well-timed Polymarket bets” on Iran that earned them nearly $1 million since 2024, said CNN. They won 93% of their bets “even though the events they predicted were unannounced military operations.” Many of the bets “came hours before U.S. or Israeli military activity” against Iran. That pattern is “strong signaling of insider activity” that looks “pretty suspicious,” Nick Vaiman, the CEO of the Bubblemaps analytics firm, said to the outlet. And it came after another trader made $400,000 earlier this year predicting the January U.S. strike that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

Other markets are also seeing suspicious activity. A “spike” in oil futures trading totaling $580 million occurred right before President Donald Trump’s Monday announcement that he was seeking negotiations with Iran, said CBS News. The unusual burst of activity was“certainly enough to raise eyebrows,” Stephen Piepgrass, a partner at Troutman Pepper Locke, told CBS. The indication of insider trading in oil and on prediction markets is drawing scrutiny from lawmakers and regulators.

What did the commentators say?

Prediction markets “are a national security threat,” Matt Motta and Robert Ralston said at Responsible Statecraft. Insider trading raises obvious “fairness” issues, but it also creates the possibility that government officials might prioritize personal gain over national security. Officials with power to influence international affairs could “alter their actions in order to make a profit on a prediction market.” Prediction markets may also “become sources of intelligence for adversaries” by signaling when military action is about to happen. Congress should ban insider bets. “U.S. national security depends on it.”

Profiting from insider information about national security is “effectively a form of treason,” Paul Krugman said on Substack. There is a “blurry line” between using official secrets to make “lucrative trades” and selling those secrets “to the highest bidder.” And it raises broader questions of whether “decisions about war and peace” are being influenced by profit or the national interest. If that seems unthinkable, “you just haven’t been paying attention.”

What next?

A Polymarket trader who predicted the Iran war is “now betting on a ceasefire by next week,” said MarketWatch. Prediction markets are taking steps to tighten the guardrails. Kalshi recently banned two traders for insider trading, the “first time the company had publicly revealed investigations” into the issue on its platform. Polymarket, meanwhile, has updated its rules to ban trading when a user possesses “stolen confidential information” or “has the ability to influence the outcome of the event.”

Republicans and Democrats in Congress are “pressing” for legislation to “crack down on policymakers placing wagers” on the markets, said The New York Times. And if Washington does not act, states will. California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday he will sign an order banning state officials from insider trading on the prediction markets.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has a new boss: Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) was sworn in earlier this week as the next secretary of the agency, and many are questioning how the former senator will run DHS. Mullin’s early tenure will likely be watched with especially close eyes given the recent controversies surrounding DHS and its embattled outgoing leader, former Secretary Kristi Noem.

What did the commentators say?

Mullin takes over as the DHS grapples with a “controversial immigration enforcement effort and an ongoing shutdown,” said CNN. Particular scrutiny has been placed on how the agency utilizes Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers throughout American cities, and many have “demanded changes” to “procedures and tactics following the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota.”

While Noem became the face of aggressive ICE tactics, Mullin struck a different tune during his Senate confirmation hearing, where he pledged to make changes at DHS. Mullin pushed to “make it clear that he wants to take a different approach to immigration enforcement than Noem did,” said USA Today, and has “suggested that large urban operations, such as the volatile approach in Minneapolis, would not be a part of his tenure.” He also claimed ICE agents will no longer be allowed to enter homes “without a judicial warrant, another point of controversy under Noem.”

It remains to be seen whether Mullin’s lack of experience and own set of controversies will work against him. He is not from a border state and never served on any Senate committee with DHS oversight. “If you look at a lot of Trump’s Cabinet secretaries, he doesn’t really go with the most qualified choice at times,” Reese Gorman, a political reporter for NOTUS, said to Vox. President Donald Trump “really tends to pick people who he likes and also just who would give him loyalty.”

What next?

With Mullin pushing for changes at DHS, one of his “first moves is lining up the personnel to help him do it,” said CNN. Mullin is “bringing some of his Senate staff to the department” and has reportedly spoken with Trump “about the people he wanted to bring on.” The president, of whom the new DHS secretary is a staunch supporter, has “expressed complete confidence in Mullin.”

ICE’s recent deployment at U.S. airports and the DHS’ ongoing shutdown, which is now entering its sixth week and causing chaos for air travel, will likely be the Mullin’s first priority. He has also said his “goal as secretary would be to get the department off the front page of the news,” said The Associated Press, even as Mullin himself “has not been seen as a key force in immigration issues.”

Mullin’s confirmation opens up a Senate seat in Oklahoma; the state’s Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, has temporarily appointed energy executive Alan S. Armstrong to take over the chair. His appointment “will not change the balance of power in the Senate, which Republicans control 53-47,” said The Washington Post, and an election for the seat is on the horizon in the upcoming midterms. State law prevents Armstrong from running for the full term.

The U.S. is now $39 trillion in debt. Politicians have been fighting over the federal spending for decades and even briefly balanced the budget at the end of then-President Bill Clinton’s term. But there are concerns the gap between the nation’s income and outlays will soon produce real consequences.

The federal debt has “surged under both Republican and Democratic presidents,” said The Associated Press, but it is growing faster than ever: The number “hit $38 trillion five months ago — and $37 trillion two months before that.” That rate makes it likely the government “will hit a staggering $40 trillion in national debt before this fall’s elections,” said Michael Peterson of the nonprofit Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which focuses on fiscal issues, in a statement. The consequences may include “higher borrowing costs for things like mortgages and cars” and “more expensive goods and services,” said the AP.

What did the commentators say?

The debt milestone is an important “moment in the nation’s accelerating self-assassination,” George Will said at The Washington Post. Interest payments on the debt are already the “fastest-growing part” of the federal budget and could reach $2 trillion annually within a decade. One reason for the balloon is the growing cohort of voters over age 65, who vote to “defend and enlarge their benefits” while leaving the next generation to pay the costs. That creates a danger. The bigger the debt is as a share of the economy, the “less leeway government has to respond to recessions or other economic shocks.”

It is “getting harder to kick” the debt can down the road, Timothy Nash and his co-authors said at RealClearMarkets. The debt now totals about 125% of the gross domestic product, up from 36% in 1981. That threatens American power. The Roman Empire collapsed “after decades of fiscal strain, inflation and military spending,” while Germany’s Weimar Republic failed after “economic instability and runaway inflation destroyed public confidence in the currency.” Unless the U.S. finds fiscal discipline, the debt “risks eroding the very economic foundation that made America prosperous in the first place.”

Congress should establish a “bipartisan fiscal commission,” David K. Young said at Fortune. That would “not solve the problem overnight,” but it could “focus both political parties on finding a solution” while bringing “bipartisan credibility to reforms.” For a commission to be successful, “everything must be on the table,” reviewing all spending and revenue sources. One thing is clear: “The U.S. debt crisis is already here.”

What next?

The U.S. continues to add to its “red-ink balances,” said Politico. The Congressional Budget Office reported in February that the annual budget deficit will likely reach $1.9 trillion this year and grow to $3.1 trillion by 2036, which is expected to help create a $64 trillion national debt within a decade. Interest payments and “spending on safety-net programs” are predicted to drive the “expanding gap” between revenues and spending.

In the immediate aftermath of Poland’s Communist collapse, the country was considered one of the most economically dire in Europe — but the status quo has changed in a major way. Poland now has the 20th largest economy in the world, the country’s statistics agency announced last week, marking its highest-ever global ranking. Experts say there are a variety of factors that led to Poland becoming Europe’s new economic gem.

What did the commentators say?

Poland entered the top 20 economies by leapfrogging Switzerland; it reported more than $1 trillion in economic output for 2025, with its gross domestic product increasing 3.6% year-over-year, according to Poland’s statistics agency. This is a far cry from the early to mid-1990s, when Poland “rationed sugar and flour while its citizens were paid one-tenth what West Germans earned,” said The Associated Press.

But in “35 years — a little less than one person’s working lifetime — Poland’s per capita GDP rose to $55,340 in 2025, or 85% of the EU average,” said the AP. One of the most important factors in Poland’s economic growth was “rapidly building a strong institutional framework for business,” economist Marcin Piatkowski of Poland’s Kozminski University told the AP. This includes the creation of antimonopoly agencies and regulatory bodies, ensuring that Poland’s economy “wasn’t hijacked by corrupt practices and oligarchs, as happened elsewhere in the post-Communist world.”

Poland was also given significant help from the European Union both “before and after it joined the bloc in 2004,” said the AP. Once Poland became an EU state, it got additional funding as a result of its membership that “helped modernize Polish industry and expand an increasingly digitalized services sector,” said The Wall Street Journal. Above all, Polish business leaders “do not feel intimidated or constrained by any lingering sense of inferiority,” Dominik Kopiński, a senior adviser at the Polish Economic Institute, told Deutsche Welle. They “take opportunities when they see them and, more importantly, they are trailblazing for other companies.”

What next?

Even as Poland enjoys economic prosperity, not everyone is convinced that it will last. The country has a low birth rate and an aging society, meaning that “fewer workers will be able to support retirees,” said the AP. Wages in Poland are “lower than the EU average,” and “while small and medium enterprises flourish, few have become global brands.”

The country “must also contend with rising public debt,” said the Journal. Poland’s budget deficit of 6.8% is “significantly higher than the 3% benchmark for EU member states.” If Poland wants to continue climbing the economic ladder, its government will “need to rein in spending and raise taxes in order to ease debts over the coming years.” But there is also some good news, as Poland’s private-sector debt “remains low by EU standards.”

There is also the possibility of Poland leaving the EU, which could create further economic turmoil; dubbed ‘Polexit,’ Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk has accused “right-wing opposition parties of steering the country toward leaving the bloc,” said Politico. “Polexit is a real threat today!” Tusk said on X. If his country left the EU, it “would be a disaster for Poland. I will do everything I can to stop them.”

President Donald Trump won the White House in 2024 on a promise to expel just about every undocumented immigrant. Attendees at that year’s Republican National Convention waved signs emblazoned with “Mass Deportations Now!” logos. But ahead of this year’s midterm elections, the GOP’s message is changing.

The White House wants House Republicans to “stop emphasizing ‘mass deportations,’” said Axios. “Nearly half” of Americans say the Trump administration’s deportation campaign has been “too aggressive” following the shooting deaths of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minnesota. Perhaps more concerning to Republicans: One of every five voters who backed the president in 2024 agrees, according to a Politico poll from January. House members should “focus their messaging on removing violent criminals” going forward, said White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair, per Axios. The “change in rhetoric” is coming as GOP “fears of election losses mount” as the midterms approach, said The Washington Post.

What did the commentators say?

The administration “wants to rebrand its mass-deportation push,” Ed Kilgore said at New York magazine. Trump and his allies argued for widespread expulsions while also creating the impression “that virtually all its targets would be hardened criminals.” The problem? “All sorts of peaceable legal immigrants” have been swept up in ICE roundups, including health care personnel, farm workers and innocent U.S. citizens. Trump’s challenge now is that backing down on mass deportations “could discourage the MAGA base.”

Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “turned a popular issue” for Republicans “into a PR nightmare,” Caroline Downey said at National Review. Her “aggressive and expansive approach” to deportations is “consistent” with Trump’s desires, but an approach focused on criminal migrants is “more politically prudent.” Americans “have ambivalence about deportation,” said Ramesh Ponnuru at National Review. Even Fox News polls show a majority of Americans think ICE has been too aggressive. Conservatives may wish otherwise, but Americans “don’t seem to believe they’re getting what they want” from Trump on immigration.

Trump “knows he’s losing on immigration,” Zeeshan Aleem said at MS Now. But efforts to rebrand his deportation push are “doomed” because the president’s political persona is “predicated on a sweeping nativism.” He has never merely targeted “worst of the worst” criminals but instead has used expulsions to “restrict and reshape American identity.” That makes it “implausible” that Trump could convince the public he is shifting on the issue. Deportations may be unpopular, but “that doesn’t mean a leopard can change its spots.”

What next?

Trump’s MAGA allies are “furious” about the administration’s deportation rebranding, said Politico, asserting that narrowing the focus to criminal migrants is “not a winning policy.” The administration “has a mandate on mass deportations,” said Chris Chmielenski, the president of the Immigration Accountability Project. Trump voters “expect” to see mass expulsions. White House officials are trying to strike a balance. “Nobody is changing” the deportation agenda, said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson in a statement.

As the Iran war enters its second week, violence from the U.S. and Israel’s western assault and counterstrikes by Iranian forces and their allies threatens not only Iranian, Israeli and American targets but the broader region as a whole. While U.S. and Israeli forces have struggled with unclear and potentially conflicting orders, as well as questionable AI-influenced operations, Iranian forces have long been preparing for an attack of this sort in principle, if not in specific execution.

What did the commentators say?

With violence expanding across multiple fronts in the region, Iran is operating with a “complex strategy” designed to combine “military escalation, economic leverage, domestic mobilization and diplomatic signaling,” said Middle East Monitor. By resting on “several interconnected pillars,” Iran’s strategy is meant to address both military maneuvers and prevent the “broader objective” many officials believe animates this war: regime change.

Iran is “fighting for survival, and survival on its own terms,” said the BBC, with the nation’s leaders having been “preparing for this moment for years.” Although it would be “naive” to expect Iran to hope for a “straightforward battlefield victory,” the evidence instead suggests they have “built a strategy around deterrence and endurance.” Theirs is a calculus that “rests partly on the economics of war,” in which “prolonged conflict” forces the U.S. and Israeli militaries to expend “high-value assets” like missile defense systems to intercept “comparatively low-cost threats” like kamikaze drones.

During the Israel-Iran war of 2025, Tehran’s barrage against U.S. troops stationed at the Al Udeid airbase in Qatar was “prewarned and largely seen as a face-saving exercise,” said Al Jazeera. Now, Tehran has seemingly “revised its military strategy to a more aggressive one focused” on national survival.

The updates include repairing facilities damaged by previous air assaults and “fortifying” several nuclear facilities, using “concrete and large amounts of soil to bury key sites,” said CNN. Past conflicts have also highlighted “weaknesses in Iran’s command structures under pressure,” leading a “new authority, the Defense Council, to govern in times of war.”

Iran’s newly established Defense Council is led by Ali Larijani, the country’s “top national security official,” a “veteran politician” and a former commander in the Revolutionary Guard Corps, said The New York Times. Since the council’s creation in the wake of last year’s Israel-Iran war, Larijani, 67, has “effectively been running the country,” sidelining heart surgeon turned politician President Masoud Pezeshkian as someone who can’t be expected to “solve the multitude of problems in Iran.”

Iran is “definitely more powerful than before,” Larijani said in an interview in Doha before the Iran war began, according to the Times. Tehran has “prepared in the past seven, eight months” and “found our weaknesses and fixed them.”

In February, the Revolutionary Guard Corps moved to “revive its so-called mosaic defense strategy,” which gives field commanders the “autonomy to issue orders to their units,” making the country “more resilient to foreign attacks,” said The Wall Street Journal.

The RGC also established about “100 monitoring points” in Tehran to “block potential insurgents or foreign forces” in the days leading up to the U.S.-Israel assault to preemptively neuter any “disruptive antigovernment unrest,” said the Journal. While last year’s war with Israel highlighted Iran’s “military inferiority” and the “limits of regional militia allies” like Lebanon’s Hezbollah, it also gave Tehran an “opportunity to test and refine its war tactics.”

What next?

Iran’s military says it has amassed “enough supplies to continue their aerial drone and missile war” against U.S. and allied positions across the Middle East “for up to six months,” said the National Post. President Trump’s refusal to rule out a ground invasion has also pushed Iranian officials to address the prospect of foreign troops on Iranian soil. “We are waiting for them,” said Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi to NBC’s “Meet The Press” last week. Iranian forces are “confident that we can confront them, and that would be a big disaster for them.”

Ultimately, Iran’s planning and in-war actions rest on the belief that it can “absorb punishment longer than its adversaries are willing to sustain pain and costs,” said the BBC. Their “calculated escalation,” then, is to “endure, retaliate, avoid total collapse and wait for political fractures to emerge on the other side.”

There are only so many weapons to go around. The United States is waging war on Iran, and some observers are concerned the massive expenditure of munitions will make it more difficult to supply Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Conflict in the Middle East may deprive Ukraine of weapons to “defend itself from Russia’s bombardment,” said The Wall Street Journal. The intensity of the U.S. war on Iran “will affect the amount of air defense we receive,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the “sudden depletion” of air defense munitions will make it more challenging to “credibly project U.S. power against Russia in Ukraine,” said Time magazine. America’s “resources and supplies are limited,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). That has raised concerns in Kyiv, said Time. “Everyone understands that the right weapons are our lifeline,” Zelenskyy said.

The Iran war “could save Vladimir Putin’s failing Ukraine invasion,” said The Atlantic Council. Russia “stands to benefit more than most” from the surge in oil and gasoline prices caused by the war in Iran, which could also “distract the Trump administration” from its efforts to mediate a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv. Putin “will now likely be able to breathe a little easier” while the U.S. is distracted.

What did the commentators say?

The “obvious truth” is that Ukraine’s struggle is “not a priority for the White House,” Bohdan Nahaylo said at the Kyiv Post. The Iran war also increases pressure on Europe, which now must “deal with instability in two important areas simultaneously.” European energy markets that “had just stabilized after cutting off Russian supplies” have been thrown into renewed turmoil. That will create new challenges for a continent already “stretched thin” by its backing of Ukraine. The newest crisis will be a “test of Europe’s ability to remain focused and united.”

War in the Middle East “offers Russia several opportunities,” Stefan Wolff said at The Conversation. The oil shock gives Moscow a “new lifeline for financing its ongoing war” while the diversion of U.S. arms to Iran gives Putin an advantage in his “relentless campaign of missile and drone strikes” on Ukraine. The war in Iran will not give Russia a victory in Ukraine, “but it has thrown the world into additional turmoil for no good reason.” That will delay a “much-needed restoration of peace” for a war-weary Europe.

What next?

President Donald Trump is “looking to Ukraine to help its operations against Iran,” said Politico. Zelenskyy’s government has extensive experience with the kind of drone warfare at the center of the Iran conflict, making Ukraine a “world leader” in the kind of “anti-drone defenses” that the U.S. needs right now. The Ukrainian leader said the country would help as long as that assistance “didn’t weaken its own defenses.” Doing so may give Ukraine leverage with Trump: Assistance to the U.S. “serves as an investment in our diplomatic capabilities,” Zelenskyy said.

Maybe it is a coincidence, but maybe not: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is accusing Ukraine of a plot to sabotage his country’s energy infrastructure just weeks ahead of an April parliamentary election that threatens his grip on power.

Orbán is “facing the prospect of defeat by his political rival, Péter Magyar,” said Politico. To make up a polling gap of eight points, Hungary’s leader has accused Magyar of being both pro-Ukraine and pro-European Union. And on Feb. 25, he ordered troops to protect “key sites” such as oil pipelines against the possibility of a Ukrainian attack. Such measures are necessary for the “protection of critical energy infrastructure,” Orbán said. That proclamation drew an “exasperated response” from European leaders trying to present a united pro-Ukraine front as that country fights a Russian invasion in its fourth year. It is wrong if Hungary “uses its own fight for freedom to betray European sovereignty,” said German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul.

What did the commentators say?

Hungary’s leader is “widely seen as the Kremlin’s strongest ally” in Europe, said NBC News. Orbán has cast his relationship with Moscow as “pragmatic” to ensure his country’s “access to reliable supplies of Russian oil and gas.” But critics see his “crackdowns” on media and nongovernmental organizations as borrowing from “Putin’s authoritarian playbook.”

Orbán’s actions are “aiding and abetting Russia’s kinetic war against Ukraine,” said Mark Toth and Jonathan Sweet at The Hill. He has long hidden behind “economic excuses” for his refusal to oppose Russia, claiming that Europe “cannot afford” to back Ukraine in its war, even as he “champions Putin’s interests in the West.” The prime minister would “gladly continue to crassly trade cheap Russian oil for Ukrainian lives.” Now Orbán is trying to convince his country that Ukrainians are the real threat even though “Ukraine is not at war with Hungary.”

This spring’s elections are “shaping up to be the most serious challenge” to Orbán’s power in the last two decades, Timothy Ash said at The Kyiv Post. It is no coincidence that the Hungarian leader’s campaign has been “shaped around picking fights with the European Union and Ukraine.” He appears to believe he can “play Hungary as the victim here” with Ukraine as the culprit for higher fuel prices thanks to energy disruptions caused by the war. The polling showing Magyar in the lead, however, suggests “this Orbán strategy is not really working.”

What next?

Hungary is “holding up about $105 billion in European funding for Ukraine,” said The Washington Post. The loan was “intended to reinforce Ukraine’s military and plug its budget gap,” but Orbán “used veto powers” to block the package that he had already agreed to. Back at home there are "growing fears" that Orbán may “cancel next month's election,” said The Bulwark. Hungary's constitution outlaws elections during a state of emergency, which makes the “manufactured” alarms over Ukraine look like a “deeply sinister” attempt to hold onto power.

President Donald Trump appears to be on the cusp of ordering an attack on Iran, but some Pentagon insiders are warning of potential risks of a new war in the Middle East. Any escalation could bring significant long-term conflict.

The possible downsides of attacking Iran include “U.S. and allied casualties, depleted air defenses and an overtaxed force,” said The Wall Street Journal. Trump is considering a range of options from a quick-hit strike to a longer aerial bombing campaign. While all the scenarios “carry risks,” an extended attack lasting multiple days “could incur significant costs to U.S. forces and munitions stockpiles” and has the “potential to pull the U.S. into a broader war in the Middle East.” Depleting American weaponry against Iran could also “impact preparations for a possible future conflict with China.”

What did the commentators say?

There is “no low-cost, easy, clean military option available in the case of Iran,” said Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group to The New York Times. Iran’s government has command of “extensive military abilities” as well as a “network of regional proxy forces” that could attack U.S. forces in the region, said the Times. An Iranian counterattack could strike Israel, as well as American allies like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Iran’s goal would be to “quickly escalate and export instability” to spread the pain of a conflict, said Sanam Vakil, the director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House.

“The risks of escalation are grave,” said Rosemary Kelanic, the director of the Middle East Program at Defense Priorities, at The Hill. Iran is weak compared to the United States, but history offers numerous examples of “weak countries prevailing over stronger ones.” Weak countries “just need to not lose, to outlast their opponent” until the stronger country decides the costs are not worth it anymore. Iran’s leaders have incentives to take the retaliatory gloves off this time around. Trump’s “regime-toppling rhetoric” about Iran’s government makes this an “existential” crisis for Tehran. That gives the U.S. a “clear imperative” to avoid a “pointless war.”

Americans can “reasonably hope” for the downfall of the Iranian regime, said Thomas Wright at The Atlantic. And the United States could “defeat Iran quickly and decisively.” But an “open-ended regional conflict” is also possible. A “cornered” Iranian regime “could prove more resilient than expected,” leading to a drawn-out war that leaves Americans to “deal with the consequences for years to come.” The June 2025 attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities “bought time” for the U.S. to consider its options. Trump should use that time instead of attacking now.

What next?

The president is “increasingly frustrated” with his military options, said CBS News. Trump wants a “singular, decisive blow” that would force Iran’s leaders to make nuclear concessions at the bargaining table, but Pentagon planners have told him “such an outcome cannot be guaranteed.” What happens next will depend on “how much risk Washington is prepared to bear.”

Mexican security forces struck a major blow against international drug traffickers when they killed Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes over the weekend. Cervantes, known as “El Mencho,” was the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and one of Mexico’s most ruthless drug kingpins. But while his death leaves a power gap in the cartel, there could be even greater effects domestically and internationally.

What did the commentators say?

The most immediate effect of Cervantes’ death was a surge in violence, as “almost immediately, Guadalajara, Mexico’s third-largest city and the capital of Jalisco State, was plunged into chaos as the cartel retaliated,” said The New York Times. The carnage began “spreading to cities and beach resorts across Mexico as gunmen torched stores and banks and blockaded highways.” The U.S. Embassy ordered Americans to “take immediate shelter in their homes or lodgings” amid the “wave of high-intensity violence,” said The Arizona Republic. The blockades set up by the cartel became particularly troublesome as they “paralyzed different points of the state” of Jalisco.

Despite this violence, some across Mexico celebrated Cervantes’ death, as he had “built the Jalisco cartel into one of Mexico’s most feared criminal organizations,” said the Times. The cartel’s violence and brutality are notable “even among the country’s landscape of beheadings, dismemberments and bodies hanging off bridges.” Cervantes’ demise is the “most important blow that has been dealt to drug trafficking in Mexico since drug trafficking existed in Mexico,” said Eduardo Guerrero, a former Mexican security official, to the Times.

There is also likely to be an effect on Mexico’s drug trade, as the Jalisco cartel is “one of Mexico’s most powerful drug trafficking organizations, with significant cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine distribution networks,” said Al Jazeera. There is additional evidence that the cartel played a “major role” in recent fentanyl trafficking into the United States. Many who follow the cartel’s doings say the group’s “growth has been driven as much by strategy as by brutality.”

What next?

Most experts say it is unlikely the Jalisco cartel will simply go away. U.S. officials “consider the cartel to be as powerful as the Sinaloa cartel, with a presence in all 50 U.S. states,” said The Guardian, referencing the infamous trafficking organization led by Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Given that the Jalisco cartel “earns billions from the production of fentanyl and methamphetamines,” production appears primed to continue.

The long-term effect in Mexico will largely “depend on what succession plans Jalisco New Generation had in the event of Oseguera Cervantes’ capture or killing,” said The Independent. Beyond the current carnage, there is usually “longer-term violence associated with any succession.” How bad things will get depends on the cartel itself, but typically, operations where a “cartel boss is removed lead to more violence and fragmentation of criminal groups.”

There could also be ongoing political ramifications, as Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s move to target Cervantes “represented a hard policy turn following a year of intense pressure” from President Donald Trump, said CNN. But a “permanent cartel crackdown would create new dilemmas and political risks.” And while Sheinbaum has said she is focused on restoring peace and coordinating with security forces, historical killings of drug lords “don’t stop drugs flowing to Americans or temper cartels, which seed corruption throughout Mexican business, law enforcement and politics.”

More work in less time with fewer workers — productivity gains are supposed to be one of the big benefits of artificial intelligence. But those promises have not yet come to fruition, according to a new survey of corporate executives around the world.

More than 80% of the 6,000 executives surveyed by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) “detect no discernible impact from AI on either employment or productivity,” said The Register. It’s not for lack of trying: 69% of businesses say they use AI in the workplace, three-quarters “expect to use it over the next three years,” and more than 90% say it has “no impact on employment” at their businesses. The new survey is the latest addition to a “growing body of evidence” that AI’s advocates are “just not living up to their promises — at least not yet.”

The link between AI and productivity is “murky at best,” said Marketplace. That is because any productivity improvements are “going to be really hard to measure,” said Erika McEntarfer of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research to the outlet. There are other factors increasing business productivity at the moment, including new investments in research and the “loosening labor market,” said Marketplace. Figuring out AI’s impact will involve measuring “hundreds of millions of people, doing at least that many, if not more, discrete tasks every day,” said George Pearkes of Bespoke Investment Group.

What did the commentators say?

The NBER survey is “damning,” said Frank Landymore at Futurism. While most firms are using AI in some fashion, the “vast majority” say the technology “hasn’t budged the needle for them yet.” Other surveys have found that AI can “slow down rather than speed up human programmers” and ends up “accelerating burn-out” among human workers. There is precedent for this: The adoption of computers decades ago was “obviously transformative,” but they “didn’t immediately translate to economic gains.” This is why executives will keep “clinging to the hope that the tech’s promises will be borne out in the long run.”

Businesses are experiencing the “pause before the gale,” said James Pethokoukis at the American Enterprise Institute. There is a growing consensus that AI will gradually seep into the workplaces via office software in “useful, but hardly revolutionary” fashion. The firms that see productivity gains will be willing to “thoroughly rethink how work is organized.” When the promised benefits of AI finally arrive, “no one will doubt its existence and import.”

What next?

AI’s economic impact is “just beginning,” said Columbia Business School. But the gap between the promises and the measurable outputs is creating a “growing tension in public discourse.” Artificial intelligence already “feels transformative” in many users’ daily lives, but the “effects are not fully visible in traditional macroeconomic statistics.” What seems certain is that work will evolve as the technology changes. Workers have adapted to new technologies throughout history, said Aaron “Ronnie” Chatterji, OpenAI’s chief economist. “I’m bullish on humans,” he said.

President Donald Trump’s consistent prodding of Iran hasn’t developed into armed conflict, but some foreign analysts are fearful it could be on the horizon. The White House has been pressuring Iran over its nuclear program and recently dispatched a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East as military tensions heighten. Despite this, other experts say the prospect of war with Iran remains unlikely.

What did the commentators say?

Trump has long hinted at the idea of a strike against Iran, and his administration did attack the country’s alleged nuclear weapons armaments in 2025. But White House officials have “discovered that the U.S. could not conduct a major offensive as quickly as they had hoped without real risks to American forces, support from allies, and regional stability,” said The Atlantic. The administration also doesn’t appear to have a plan of attack, as it has “yet to outline to military commanders what it would want to achieve through strikes.”

This likely suggests that the “use of force is not imminent” in Iran, said The Atlantic. Trump has “no good options when it comes to using force,” said CNBC, largely because the U.S. does not have the troop presence built up near Iran to mount a full-on war. While American forces in the region are growing, they are “not adequate to support a significant long-term military operation in Iran which would be necessary to achieve any major military objective,” said Alireza Ahmadi, an executive fellow at the Geneva Center for Security Policy, to CNBC.

But Trump has never shied away from conflict, and things could continue to devolve if negotiations between the U.S. and Iran break down. If he did decide to go to war, or even launch a targeted attack, it would be “something much larger, likely” than “what the Israelis did in the 12-day war,” retired U.S. Army Gen. Jack Keane said on “The Cats Roundtable” radio show. The conflict could create “something that would be quite formidable, that would put the regime clearly on a pathway to regime collapse.”

What next?

Despite “ongoing diplomacy to ease tensions with Iran,” said Al Jazeera, the Trump administration appears to be moving ahead with shoring up its Middle East forces. Recent moves by the White House “put two carriers and their accompanying warships in the region.” This occurred just hours after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with Trump in Washington, D.C., and “reaffirmed his preference for a diplomatic deal with Iran.” Trump “insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a Deal can be consummated,” the president wrote on social media.

Diplomatic negotiations have largely been positive, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said. But Iran also temporarily closed the Strait of Hormuz to “conduct military drills in the waterway,” causing concern since the “strait is the world's most vital oil export route,” said Reuters. And Iran may already be resigned to the fact that a U.S. attack is coming. The country is “preparing for the possibility” of an offensive move by the U.S., The Jerusalem Post reported; satellite images have shown a “larger push to create defensive layers to [Iran’s] nuclear and ballistic missile facilities,” said Jonathan Hackett, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran, to the Post. This is likely in “anticipation of a possible U.S. strike.”

The Trump administration has spent a considerable amount of time and effort actively pursuing an array of the president's purported “enemies,” frequently targeting Democratic notables with histories of clashing with this White House. While the bulk of these actions have come in the form of bombastic Justice Department proclamations and hastily pursued prosecutions, many have failed to gain serious traction, since judges and juries have rejected efforts to criminally convict the president’s political adversaries. As the DOJ stumbles in its pushes for punishment, some Democrats have begun to embrace the attention, leveraging the missteps for their own political purposes.

What did the commentators say?

Democrats notched a “significant legal win” after the Justice Department failed to secure criminal charges against six lawmakers, including Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), who recorded a video reminding military members of their obligation to reject illegal orders, said Politico. Now those six are “looking to gain political momentum” and “build their campaign war chests” after the experience. Given the “attention-driven political economy” in which Washington now operates, President Donald Trump’s attacks have become a “valuable boost” to Democrats, including some with an “eye toward future leadership positions in the party.”

“Sitting down and taking it and being quiet doesn’t actually make you safer,” said Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), one of the Democrats targeted over the video, to Roll Call. “Going on offense” seems the “only way to get their attention.” Trump officials who think they’re “going to intimidate us and threaten and bully me into silence, and they’re going to go after political opponents and get us to back down,” have “another thing coming,” Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), who also appeared in the video, said to Punchbowl News. “The tide is turning.”

There has always been a risk that Trump’s “politicized prosecutions will backfire,” both by “empowering the political martyrs they create” and by “exposing their own corruption,” said Emptywheel. A new suite of legal motions from Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.), charged late last year by the DOJ for allegedly assaulting a federal immigration official during her effort to conduct an oversight visit at a Newark detention facility, suggests such a backfiring “may soon happen.”

The dynamic of Democrats facing overt hostility from Trump’s Justice Department and then seeking to capitalize on it was on display this week during Attorney General Pam Bondi’s testimony to the House Judiciary Committee. Bondi’s “hostile performance” in many ways “played directly into Democrats’ hands,” Politico said. Democrats and “even some Republicans” believe “privately” that Bondi’s appearance will “probably help the Democrats during the fall midterm elections,” said Salon.

What next?

Beyond raising profiles and elevating potential political martyrs, Trump’s attacks on Democrats “often serve as their best fundraising tool,” said Politico. Oftentimes, Democrats’ “largest online fundraising spikes” occurred after a party member “stood up to or was attacked by Trump.” The public, meanwhile, seems to exhibit a “bit more skepticism” about Trump’s retributive prosecutions “than they ever did” the president’s own indictments, said CNN.

Americans believe by a 55%-45% margin that the indictments against Trump had been warranted, while a 58%-42% margin said the “charges against Trump’s foes were not justified,” according to a November Marquette Law School poll. The poll was conducted during the administration’s effort to indict former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, said CNN.

The White House’s “attempt to strong-arm” Kelly “into silence” with lawsuits and threats of military demotions has prompted the former astronaut and fighter pilot to respond in ways that “looked and sounded downright presidential,” said The Boston Globe. Still, if Kelly has presidential aspirations, he is “unlikely to announce them anytime soon.”

Meanwhile, lawmakers who appeared alongside Kelly have been slightly more forthcoming about their futures. Four House Democrats, including Crow, have “hinted” at plans for a “case of their own” after escaping indictment this week, said Fox News. “We are taking names,” said Crow. “We are creating lists.” His legal team has reached out to the Justice Department, “putting them on notice that there will be costs.”

Doomscrollers are familiar with the addictive properties of social media. Should Big Tech companies be legally liable for the way their products affect users’ mental health? A trial underway in California could set an important precedent.

A now-20-year-old plaintiff known in court documents as KGM says Meta and YouTube are “intentionally creating addictive platforms,” said CNN. Those companies’ algorithmic decisions caused her to “develop anxiety, body dysmorphia and suicidal thoughts” when she was younger, said the lawsuit. (Snap and TikTok settled her case before it went to trial.) The tech companies have “engineered addiction in children’s brains,” said lawyer Mark Lanier at trial this week. The trial verdict could influence the resolution of 1,500 similar cases around the country, said CNN.

Meta, in particular, has long been “compared to Big Tobacco,” said The Atlantic. Now the company’s day in court has come. Meta’s defense argues researchers have found only “weak and inconsistent correlations” between mental health and social media use. The trial is the company’s “first chance to tell their story to a jury and get a sense of how well those arguments are playing,” said Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, to the outlet.

What did the commentators say?

The “infinite-scroll apps” that loom so large in teen social life “might soon be a thing of the past,” said Casey Newton at Platformer. Millions of children are “bullied and harassed” on social media, or are “introduced to groomers and predators.” Platforms will have a hard time defending themselves from the criticism. American politics may be polarized, but child safety issues are “increasingly the one thing that partisans of every stripe can agree on.” The California trial may force changes, or perhaps some other regulatory action in the near future. What seems clear: “Change is in fact coming.”

Personal injury lawyers “never let a cultural problem go to waste,” said The Wall Street Journal editorial board. It is difficult to prove that social media is at fault for society’s ills when “personal experience, personality and online exposure” all vary by individual. The young woman at the center of the California trial was “exposed to domestic abuse” as a child, perhaps making her more vulnerable. States and countries are already passing legislation to restrict children’s use of social media, and that is how such issues should be addressed. Lawsuits against Big Tech firms “won’t help teens.”

What next?

Meta and YouTube are pushing back, said The Associated Press. Evidence at the trial will show KGM averaged 29 minutes a day on YouTube over a five-year period. That shows that “infinite scroll is not infinite,” said Luis Li, an attorney for YouTube parent company Google, to jurors. But more trials are coming, said the AP, including a federal case in June involving school districts against Big Tech companies. KGM’s trial and the cases that follow will be a “reckoning for social media and youth harms.”

Forget antifa. So-called wine moms are fronting the anti-ICE backlash to President Donald Trump’s mass deportation efforts. And Trumpist conservatives are taking notice.

Women are “leading the opposition” during Trump’s second term, said The 19th. A new PBS News/NPR/Marist poll found that while most Americans disapprove of ICE’s actions, the breakdown is particularly stark when it comes to gender: 40% of men approve of ICE, but just 26% of women do. That’s why moms like Renee Good have figured so prominently in protests and in documenting the activities of federal agents. Women are “not always taken as seriously as I believe they should be,” said Katie Paris, the founder of the grassroots organizing network Red Wine & Blue. (You do not have to drink wine to join.)

What did the commentators say?

“Momfluencers” are on the “front lines” of ICE protests in Minneapolis, said Salon. Women social media influencers who usually “portray a very curated version of motherhood” are now focusing on the “presence of federal immigration agents” in their communities. It is natural for motherhood influencers to make that pivot “because we are in the headspace of protecting our communities and protecting our children,” said Yelena Kibasova, a Twin Cities mom who usually posts about parenting and hockey. Staying neutral “feels impossible if you care about your community or your kids’ future.”

“Organized gangs of wine moms” are using “antifa tactics” to harass ICE agents in Minnesota, said David Marcus at Fox News. But their efforts to resist deportation arrests are “not civil disobedience.” Instead, the methods of “following, harassing and doxxing” agents are a crime. One recent poll found that just 24% say it is acceptable to go “beyond peaceful protest” to resist ICE, but that number “leaps to an astounding 61%” among white women aged 18-44. “How on Earth did this become acceptable behavior in our society?”

Blaming “wine moms” for the deaths of Good and Alex Pretti is a “baseless, misogynist myth,” said Darryn DiFrancesco at The Conversation. The strategy “aims to divert blame” from the Trump administration’s “heavy-handed approach to immigration” by once again “blaming mothers for social problems.” Instead of assigning blame, we should recognize that “mothers have a long history of trying to fix” society’s ills. “Mothers like Renee Good are no exception.”

“The world is changing, and women feel it,” said Heidi Lescanec at Katie Couric Media. The women now being labeled as “wine moms” are “standing up for migrants, for children” and for other communities. That is not a temporary fad. “Midlife women are a power base.”

What next?

The wine mom phenomenon may be new, but their tactics are not. There is a “debt of gratitude to Black liberation movements” like the Black Panther Party of the 1960s, said Jill Garvey, the founder of extremism-countering group States at the Core, to The New York Times. Methods have also been borrowed from the American Indian Movement, an indigenous-rights group. The hope is that ICE-watching will one day be embedded in the social structure of cities, said one organizer, “in the same way that people organize a P.T.A.”

While Democrats and Republicans work to reach an agreement on funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the parties remain far apart. Despite Republicans controlling Congress, they are unable to pass funding for ICE without some Democratic votes. Democrats in both chambers of Congress have put forth a series of changes they want to see at the agency, whose funding expires Feb. 13.

What did the commentators say?

These reforms at ICE are a “line in the sand,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). One major issue involves Americans’ homes: Democrats want to “bar federal immigration agents from entering private property without a judicial warrant,” said The Washington Post. ICE has previously advised its agents that they can “enter homes to make arrests without a warrant from a judge, outraging Democrats,” who say this violates the Fourth Amendment.

Americans largely agree with this idea, polls show. Nearly 70% of Americans believe ICE must have “judicial warrants to forcibly enter homes of people subject to deportation,” according to an Economist/YouGov survey. Despite the backing of most of the public, some in the GOP have “balked, arguing that the proposal would add an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy,” said the Post.

The widespread use of face coverings by ICE has also come under scrutiny, and Democrats are “pushing for a mask ban and identification requirements for federal agents,” said The Hill. ICE officials say that wearing masks prevents their agents from being doxxed online, but Democrats argue that officers’ practice of “masking and not displaying ID badges erodes accountability in these operations.” Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), have “indicated changes to a mask and ID policy amount to nearly a nonstarter.”

The party seeks several other changes. They include prohibiting federal funds from being used to “conduct enforcement near sensitive locations, including medical facilities, schools, child care facilities,” and places of worship, said The Guardian. Democrats also want to stop ICE from “conducting stops, questioning and searches based on an individual’s presence at certain locations, their job, their spoken language and accent, or their race or ethnicity.” This last measure follows one notable video that circulated of an ICE agent claiming he was detaining a man “because of your accent.”

And while ICE has recently said it will equip all of its agents with body cameras, this has Democrats “running headlong into a new problem: fear that the technology will provide another avenue for mass surveillance of protesters,” said Politico. Though the party has made these body cams one of their foremost demands, it must also navigate a growing “outcry from privacy advocates that surveillance tools will allow ICE agents to identify and track protesters.”

What next?

Democrats have rejected an offer from the White House, and “finding real agreement in such a short time will be difficult,” said The Associated Press. It will likely be an “impossibility,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), per the AP. And House GOP leadership is also “demanding that some of their own priorities be added to the Homeland Security spending bill,” including a provision that would require proof of citizenship before registering to vote.

American workers are staring down a terrible labor market. It’s so bad that job postings are at their lowest level since the depths of the pandemic.

The demand for new hires “continues to wane,” said CNN. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week that there were just 6.54 million job openings in December, the “lowest level since September 2020.” That leaves “slim pickings” for U.S. workers looking to find a new job, said NerdWallet’s Elizabeth Renter, per the network. And economists are cautious about how tariffs, immigration policy and artificial intelligence will affect the job market going forward. “The hiring recession isn’t going to end anytime soon,” said Heather Long, the chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, in a commentary.

The pandemic is not the only point of comparison. Layoffs in January were the highest since the 2009 financial crisis plunged the U.S. economy into the “steepest downturn since the Great Depression,” said CNBC. American companies announced more than 108,000 layoffs for the month, more than double from a year ago. That signals that employers are “less-than-optimistic about the outlook for 2026,” said workplace expert Andy Challenger in an analysis. Workers are feeling negative, too. Consumer confidence is at its “lowest level since 2014,” said The Associated Press.

What did the commentators say?

Republicans have an “economy problem,” said Karl Rove at The Wall Street Journal. President Donald Trump is not helping himself with a “triumphal tone” that suggests the economy is “booming.” That makes struggling Americans “feel unseen and abandoned.” Trump and the GOP should emphasize their record on tax cuts, but they should also “stress there’s more to be done” through deregulation and deficit reduction. If they are to survive this year’s midterm elections, Republicans “need a better economic message” than what they are currently delivering.

The U.S. is in a “jobless boom,” said Long at Vox. The stock market is reaching “record levels” and economic growth is above 4%. But the “K-shaped economy” is delivering the benefits to the upper end of the income scale while the “bottom 80% are just getting by.” The end of the post-pandemic hiring boom is a factor, but so is Trump’s trade wars and the rise of artificial intelligence. The current economic trends are likely to continue. The country is poised for a “hot growth year” but “hiring could remain anemic for a while.” And that could “mean trouble for Republicans” in November.

What next?

The hiring slowdown is concentrated in “manufacturing, professional and business services,” said NBC News. A Wednesday report from ADP Research found that job growth, where it exists, is happening mostly in “education and health services.”

The job numbers are a “warning sign for Trump’s economy,” said Politico. The president’s approval ratings have been “battered by affordability, inflation and labor market anxieties,” and these are intensified by fears that AI-driven “future growth could leave workers behind.” That could complicate White House messaging that has framed the current economy as the “dawn of a new Golden Age.”

When FBI agents raided election offices in Georgia on Wednesday looking for evidence of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, there was a surprising figure in their ranks: Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard. Her role in relitigating the campaign that President Donald Trump lost — but never conceded — is drawing scrutiny.

It is “unprecedented” for an intelligence chief to join an FBI raid, said NBC News. Her job is to “track threats from foreign adversaries,” and federal law prohibits Gabbard from “taking part in domestic law enforcement.” The White House disagrees. Gabbard is “trying to keep the elections safe,” Trump told reporters this week. It is notable, however, that Gabbard last year “dismantled” intelligence operations tracking “foreign actors seeking to interfere in American elections or institutions,” said NBC News.

Democrats and election experts “expressed alarm and bewilderment” about Gabbard’s role in the raid, said Politico. Trump has “long fixated on unsubstantiated allegations” of fraud in the 2020 election. The raid may not simply be about reexamining 2020, critics said, but could instead be building a foundation for Trump to interfere in future elections. Similar investigations “can happen at any point once again between now and this coming November,” said Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) to the National Association of Secretaries of State Elections Committee today.

What did the commentators say?

Federal agencies are “jumping in line” to help Trump “prove the unprovable” about the 2020 election, said Zachary B. Wolf at CNN. Gabbard, in particular, has been a “voracious spreader of election conspiracy theories.” And it is now clear that she has spent “months of her time” since her elevation to DNI investigating those alleged conspiracies. Her involvement in the Georgia raid is a sign of how far Trump will go to “rewrite his 2020 election loss,” and perhaps to “stymie Democrats hoping to win control of Congress this fall.”

Gabbard has been “less visible” than colleagues on big foreign policy issues like Venezuela and Iran, said Jeet Heer at The Nation. But she has “made herself useful” to Trump as the administration’s “driving force” to vindicate his 2020 conspiracy theories. That is partly about the president’s “narcissism” keeping him from admitting defeat, but it also provides a “perfect rationale for interfering” in future elections. Democrats need to let Gabbard and other officials know that if they “abuse their power, there will be criminal consequences in the future.”

What next?

Trump’s 2020 election claims have been “debunked again and again,” said The New York Times. “Scores” of lawsuits attempting to overturn President Joe Biden’s election win that year were dismissed by judges, and Trump’s then-Attorney General Bill Barr even publicly refuted his boss’ claims. The conspiracy theories were “complete nonsense,” Barr said at the time. Recounts and election audits also affirmed the results, the Times said. “No evidence has ever proved that voting machines in Georgia or anywhere else changed votes in the 2020 election.”

Democrats say they will investigate Gabbard’s role, said Bloomberg. Congress must determine if the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is “straying far outside of its lane,” said Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) at a Thursday intelligence committee hearing.

One of the big victories of American science in the last few decades was conquering measles. But that achievement is being reversed, as the U.S. now stands on the brink of losing its measles elimination status.

Measles cases are “skyrocketing” across the country, with cases reported in nine states, and “hundreds” of patients were quarantined in South Carolina in late December, said Axios. Some of the surges in disease are happening in places where the measles vaccination rate is under the 95% level that public health officials say is “necessary to contain the virus’ spread.” A “record share” of kindergartners were exempted from the vaccine last school year, said CNN, “marking the fifth year in a row” that coverage fell short of the 95% target.

The Pan American Health Organization will review America’s measles elimination status in April, said USA Today. The designation is “more symbolic than anything” but still carries some meaning. The designation is a “significant public health signal,” said the group.

Some experts believe the verdict has already been handed down. America’s public health system is “blue in the ICU,” said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the former director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “I don’t need to check its pulse to know” that it’s hurting.

What did the commentators say?

The South Carolina quarantines are “just a taste of what’s coming” under the anti-vaccine stewardship of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., said The Washington Post editorial board. It might be easy to dismiss the loss of measles elimination status, but outbreaks “almost certainly will become more frequent and more intense in the coming years” thanks to the loss of vaccination coverage. Other vaccine-preventable diseases like whooping cough and chicken pox will also surge. Without a reversal, “expect more horror stories like those from South Carolina.”

Measles is a “nasty virus,” said Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in a blog post. Most people survive an infection, but it can cause “many different complications,” including blood clotting and suppression of the victim’s immune system, and can lead to miscarriages during pregnancy. The current surge of the disease means exposure to the virus is “more likely than it was even a year ago.” The larger problem is that measles is “usually the first, but not the only, pathogen to show itself” when vaccination rates drop. If vaccines are “cast aside, it will not be the only disease to return.”

What next?

Public health authorities consider a virus endemic “after one year of continuous transmission,” said NBC News. That’s a status that will be achieved in the U.S. if the current measles outbreaks can be traced back to the first West Texas measles case a year ago. That possibility is astonishing to some health experts. In most cases, it’s “unheard of to lose your elimination status,” said Amira Albert Roess, a professor of global health and epidemiology at George Mason University, to NBC News, “unless it was a war-torn, collapsing country.”

While many American cities are painted as bastions of murder, a new report has revealed that this is not actually the case. The U.S. logged a more than 20% drop in the homicide rate from 2024 to 2025, marking the largest single-year fall on record and possibly the lowest homicide rate in the country in 125 years. But while both Democrats and Republicans are taking credit for this drop in crime, analysts say there’s more to the story than politics.

What did the commentators say?

The study, published by the independent Council on Criminal Justice, analyzed crime data from 40 of the largest American cities. The “rate of reported homicides was 21% lower in 2025 than in 2024 in the 35 study cities providing data for that crime, representing 922 fewer homicides,” said the study. When the data is finalized, there is a “strong possibility that homicides in 2025 will drop to about 4.0 per 100,000 residents,” which would be the “lowest rate ever recorded in law enforcement or public health data going back to 1900.”

This marks a significant shift from the Covid-era spikes in crime, and “elected officials at all levels — both Democrats and Republicans — have been claiming credit,” said The Associated Press. But even with this data, experts say it’s “too early to tell what is prompting the change.” There’s “never one reason crime goes up or down,” said Adam Gelb, the president and CEO of the Council on Criminal Justice, to the AP. Analysts are “seeing that broad, very broad social, cultural and economic forces at the national level can assert huge influence on what happens at the local level.”

President Donald Trump has claimed that his deployment of the National Guard in several cities and Washington, D.C., has drastically reduced crime. But homicide rates began falling during former President Joe Biden’s administration, and there’s “little to justify any claim that Trump is responsible for last year’s drop in crime,” said The New York Times. There are “many more cities that didn’t have the National Guard that saw their crime go down than cities that had the National Guard who saw their crime go down,” said Alex Piquero, who served as the Biden administration’s head of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, to the Times.

But while Republicans may not be responsible for the drop in homicides, Democrats may not be either. Rather than politics, countries with a “stronger market orientation may experience lower rates of homicide,” said a separate study from the University of Georgia. This is a concept that references how a “nation’s economy functions within a framework of legal rights and freedoms.” Researchers found that a “stronger market orientation could decrease murder rates, with even a one-point shift on a market freedom scale leading to a 22% drop in homicides.”

What next?

The drop in homicides could just reflect an up-and-down pattern, as murders had been “steadily dropping since the late 2000s” before the Covid spike, senior research specialist Ernesto López, the study’s lead author, told CBS News. It is “possible that these rates reflect a longer-term downward trend punctuated by periods of elevated homicides.”

In another piece of good news, the study found that other crime rates had fallen, too. Carjackings declined 27% from 2024 to 2025, burglaries fell 18%, larcenies fell 11% and shoplifting dropped 10%.

The 2011 Fukushima meltdown was a nightmare that all but shut down Japan’s nuclear power industry. But things change, and the country has now restarted the world’s largest nuclear power plant over the objections of neighbors who fear another calamity.

Restarting reactor No. 6 at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant northwest of Tokyo is a “milestone in Japan’s slow return to nuclear energy,” said The Guardian. Japan’s government wants to reduce the country’s carbon emissions and increase its energy security without relying on fossil fuels. But many of the 420,000 people living near the plant say the restart is “fraught with danger.” That makes the move a “human rights issue,” said resident Ryusuke Yoshida. Authorities refused calls to hold a referendum on the plant’s future, said The Guardian, but polls show “clear opposition to putting the reactor back online."

Japan shut down all 54 of the country’s reactors following the Fukushima incident, and has since restarted 14 of the 33 that remain operable, said CNN. The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa restart, though, is seen as a “watershed moment in the country’s return to nuclear energy,” said Reuters. Tokyo Electric Power Co., which also operated the Fukushima plant, said it has a host of new safety measures. The company has learned the lessons of the earlier disaster, officials say. “We remain firmly committed to never repeating such an accident,” a TEPCO spokesperson said.

What did the commentators say?

"Japan’s big nuclear restart is an economic inevitability,” said Yuriy Humber at Nikkei Asia. Restarting reactors can “help lower electricity bills” in a country still experiencing high inflation. A dormant nuclear plant, meanwhile, “still costs tens of millions of dollars a year to maintain,” while an operating plant can bring hundreds of millions in profit. Shifting dependence to liquid natural gas and coal would be “neither cheap nor sustainable.” All of this has long been true, but the trauma of Fukushima forced officials to take a path that is “slow, deliberate and shaped as much by psychology as by policy.”

The nuclear power industry in Japan “cannot simply be switched on again,” said Tadahiro Katsuta at Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Reactors once supplied 29% of the country’s electricity, but that number has dipped to 5% in the years since Fukushima. Renewable energy has started to fill the gap, and is expected to fulfill 40% or more of Japan’s energy needs by 2040. The bottom line, though, is that the Fukushima incident demonstrated the “claimed inherent safety of nuclear power is a myth.”

What next?

The return of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa’s reactor was delayed by a day. The restart was “originally scheduled to resume” on Jan. 20, said Bloomberg, but was put on hold “following an issue with an alarm.” The issue was not serious, a company spokesperson said to The Japan Times, but safety demands that TEPCO “respond sincerely whenever issues are identified.” The reactor went online on the morning of Jan. 21.

Stars and Stripes is the official newspaper of the U.S. Department of Defense, but it has always made independent editorial decisions — until now. The Defense Department has announced that Stars and Stripes will now be under the control of the Pentagon, which plans to move the newspaper’s coverage away from what it calls “woke distractions.” Many critics say this is just the latest in the Trump administration’s crackdown on press freedoms.

What did the commentators say?

The Defense Department will be “returning Stars and Stripes to its original mission: reporting for our warfighters,” said Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell in a statement on X. The Pentagon is going to “refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members.” Stars and Stripes will now highlight “warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability.” It will also no longer publish newswire reports from outlets like The Associated Press, according to Parnell.

This marks a significant shift for Stars and Stripes, which was first published during the Civil War and has been “editorially independent from Defense Department officials since a congressional mandate in the 1990s,” said The Hill. But the change “follows the Trump administration’s restrictions on Pentagon journalists,” most of whom have chosen to “give up working from the building rather than sign on to new, constricting rules imposed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.” The news also comes after The Washington Post reported that applicants to Stars and Stripes are “being asked how they would support the president’s policy priorities.”

The government additionally published a Federal Register rule that “struck previous policy regarding Stars and Stripes’ business operations, including a requirement for a civilian editor and an independent ombudsman,” said The Guardian. All of these updates have drawn “immediate censure from press freedom groups as the latest attempt by the Pentagon to stifle criticism and control what is written about it.”

American troops “deserve credible, trustworthy news guaranteed by the First Amendment, a cornerstone of the Constitution they defend,” said Tim Richardson, the journalism and disinformation program director for PEN America, in a statement. The Pentagon’s action “tramples both the First Amendment and the congressional mandate that the publication remain editorially independent.” Stars and Stripes itself raised similar concerns. The “people who risk their lives in defense of the Constitution have earned the right to the press freedoms of the First Amendment,” said Stars and Stripes Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin in an article for the newspaper.

What next?

Amid the takeover, there is “growing unease among the staff about the Pentagon's plans for the paper and its original reporting,” said Business Insider. Many staffers are also reportedly worried about their jobs after it was “reported the Pentagon plans to staff Stars and Stripes with more active-duty personnel.” This could potentially mean “layoffs for civilian reporters and fewer stories that spotlight problems.”

If the Department of Defense “begins to dictate what the coverage should be, what the ‘news’ should be in Stars and Stripes,” the newspaper “loses its credibility and harms its mission to provide fair and impartial news to the military community,” said Stars and Stripes Ombudsman Jacqueline Smith to Business Insider. Smith also published an op-ed calling for more independent assistance for the newspaper.

The violence and protests in Minneapolis have left Democrats conflicted about how to respond. Some left-of-center activists want to abolish ICE, while some centrists are resisting. Another intra-party debate: whether or not to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

The move to impeach Noem is gaining Democratic support at a “rapid clip,” said Axios, but “not all the party’s lawmakers are happy about it.” Centrists warn the effort is a “waste of the party’s time and energy.” A move against Noem “could be a distraction” from the Democrats’ affordability messaging, said Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.). Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.), who introduced articles of impeachment on Wednesday, disagrees. People in Minnesota “can’t do their jobs because they’re snatching them off the streets,” she said.

A similar conflict is playing out over the future of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Some Democrats running for Congress in deep-blue districts are calling to “abolish ICE” following Renee Good’s shooting death at the hands of an ICE agent, said The New York Times, but it’s a “slogan that many Democrats had hoped to retire.” The agency is “an absolute problem,” said Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.). But Americans prefer a “slimmed-down ICE that is truly focused on security.” Micah Lasher, who is running for Congress in Manhattan, differs. ICE is the “embodiment of a thugocracy,” he said.

What did the commentators say?

Republicans control Congress, so the impeachment push can easily be “dismissed as purely performative,” said Jan-Werner Müller at The Guardian. But such naysaying is too easy. Democrats need to start somewhere in signaling that Noem’s “actions have consequences.” Putting Noem’s actions under a microscope would also help the party break through the fog of multiple Trump administration scandals and outrages. Impeachment, after all, can “concentrate minds and slow down political time.” Impeachment would be an act of “good opposition” that forces members of Congress to “go on the record as to whether they support killings with impunity.”

Trying to abolish ICE would be “emotionally satisfying, politically lethal,” said Sarah Pierce and Lanae Erickson at Third Way. Calls to end the immigration agency are reminiscent of the “defund the police” slogans that emerged during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. That did not work out so well for Democrats. When the debate among Democrats is about “polarizing slogans that read as anti-law or anti-safety, space for practical reform disappears.”

What next?

The chaos in Minnesota is taking a toll on Noem’s national standing: Her approval rating slipped to 36% in the most recent Quinnipiac poll, said The Hill. Americans have also “soured” on ICE in the aftermath of Good’s shooting death. Most voters “say the shots should not have been fired by the ICE agent,” said analyst Tim Malloy, while just a third “believe the shooting was justified.”

Despite those numbers, Republicans “see defending the ICE shooting as good politics,” said Ed Kilgore at New York. Defending the agency is “comfortable ground” for the GOP, while Democrats do more “wrangling about how they talk about immigration and policing.”

President Donald Trump wants to make it more affordable for Americans to go into debt. The president says banks should cap credit card interest at 10% for a year — an idea that elicits some applause from borrowers and a lot of consternation from finance companies.

Trump’s proposed cap could “save Americans billions of dollars,” said Axios, but banks “warn of consumers losing access to credit.” The idea has drawn support from progressives like Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) but also conservatives like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). Banking lobbyists have “freaked out,” however. The proposal emerges as card rates have jumped to “record levels,” hitting highs of 21% during the last quarter of 2025. Banks say an interest rate cap will result in less credit and the demise of rewards programs. That would “drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives,” said the Consumer Bankers Association.

What did the commentators say?

Industry groups say the cap would spark a “severe pullback in lending” because it would make credit cards unprofitable, said Reuters. The Electronic Payments Coalition said more than 80% of credit card accounts would be “closed or severely restricted.” But credit card profit margins “are absolutely massive,” said Brian Shearer of the Vanderbilt Policy ​Accelerator. “There really is some fat to cut."

Credit companies have “behaved as loan sharks,” said Cheryl K. Chumley at The Washington Times. In the recent past, cards “capped at around 12%,” but that was before banks started “soliciting college students as customers” before they started earning real money. As a result, Americans are “ensnared” in debt and the “only clear winners have been the banks.” A cap would force lenders to tighten lending standards and only issue cards to people who can afford the payments. “The truth is some people just shouldn’t have credit cards.”

There is a reason credit cards “carry high rates when granted to risky debtors,” said Charles C.W. Cooke at the National Review. Interest rates are “inextricably tied” to the risk of lending money to people less able to afford debt payments. A cap would mean fewer Americans would be able to get credit cards and customers “who exhibited even a modest pattern of delinquency would have their accounts canceled on the spot.” That might produce the populist affordability backlash that Trump is trying to avoid, from angry Americans suddenly unable to get credit. “It is difficult to overstate how badly this idea would backfire.”

What next?

The financial industry is girding to fight Trump’s proposal, said CNBC. “We owe that to shareholders,” said JPMorgan Chase CFO Jeremy Barnum. Otherwise JP Morgan and other banks will be forced to “reduce the supply of credit,” he said, which would be bad for the “wider economy.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have both “voiced skepticism” about Trump’s idea, said Politico. A bill to cap interest rates is “not something I’m out there advocating for,” said Thune. But a floor vote on the proposal is probably coming at “some point.”

President Donald Trump is celebrating the U.S. attack on Venezuela as a victory for control of that country’s oil reserves. “We’ve taken $4 billion of oil in one day,” he said Thursday on Fox News. “That will increase.” However, it is unclear whether American oil companies are willing to undertake the effort and expense of rebuilding Venezuela’s petroleum industry.

Venezuela’s “huge reserves of crude oil” are not necessarily a “tantalizing prospect for private investors,” said Politico. “Tens of billions of dollars” will be required over the next decade to rebuild the country’s “aging facilities,” a task complicated by the fact that the country’s crude oil reserves require “more expensive processing work” than oil from other sources. Privately, at least, many oil company executives are saying it might be difficult to make the project profitable. The numbers for a big investment “currently do not add up.”

U.S. oil companies like Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips have been “burned in Venezuela before,” said The New York Times. The bigger factor, though, might be that oil prices have “fallen more than 20% in the past year.” Despite the removal of former leader Nicolás Maduro, the country remains fragile. Few oil companies will “rush to go into an environment where there’s not stability,” said former Chevron executive Ali Moshiri.

What did the commentators say?

“The math simply does not work,” said Ed Hirs at The Houston Chronicle. Control of Venezuelan oil will not benefit oil companies or consumers. The break-even cost of extracting and processing the country’s oil is roughly $80 a barrel. West Texas crude, meanwhile, currently sells at under $57 a barrel. The bottom line is that it “will cost more to produce Venezuelan oil than it could sell for.” There is “little upside for consumers or taxpayers” in such an effort, and especially not for independent Texas oil companies, who “would see their taxes used to create a new competitor.”

Trump is offering U.S. oil companies a “poisoned chalice,” said Ron Bousso at Reuters. Those companies are “no strangers to political risk,” operating in places like Libya, Iraq and Angola over the years. But the current situation in Venezuela “looks like more trouble than it’s worth” until the government stabilizes and can be depended upon by firms looking to make an investment. It may be “tempting” to access the country’s resources, “but it’s a lot less attractive if you can’t trust the contract.”

What next?

Oil company executives met Friday with Trump, and their skittishness was clear. The big corporations “aren’t going to be bullied into spending money in a risky country or with risky terms,” said Dan Pickering, the founder of Pickering Energy Partners, to CNN. Trump said this week that U.S. taxpayers might reimburse companies for their investments in Venezuela. “A tremendous amount of money will have to be spent,” the president said per NBC News, and oil firms will be “reimbursed by us or through revenue.”

The United States intends to dominate Latin America. That is clear following the weekend’s operation to remove Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro from power. But the U.S. has competition. China is expanding its influence in the region, offering itself as an alternative to governments leery of American power.

China is Venezuela’s “largest creditor and biggest oil customer,” said The Wall Street Journal. That status is part of a larger push into Latin America, in which Beijing has “displaced the U.S. as the biggest trading partner” for a number of countries. The challenge to American regional preeminence is clear: A recent state television program depicted a “wargame simulation” showing Chinese confronting unnamed Western forces “around Cuba and Mexico.” The U.S.-China competition in the region has “only just begun,” said the Center for Strategic and International Studies in an analysis.

It is Beijing’s economic might that is taking center stage, however. China is ramping up imports of Latin American crops as it “pivots away from U.S. farmers” in the wake of Trump’s tariff hikes, said Investigate Midwest. Brazil has “stepped in as China’s biggest supplier of soybeans” while Chinese firms build “ports, railways, roads, bridges, metro lines” and more in places like Peru to cement the economic cooperation, said Henry Ziemer of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “These are long-term projects.”

What did the commentators say?

China’s Latin America strategy is “alarming,” said Jianli Yang at the National Review. A new strategy paper from Beijing portrays China as a “champion of the Global South” in contrast to American “bullying,” but its intentions are not purely altruistic. China aims to “impose opportunity costs” on Washington by forcing the U.S. to “devote greater attention and resources to its own hemisphere” instead of Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific region. U.S. leaders must build a smart response or “risk strategic overextension.”

Washington’s “obsession” with China’s moves in Latin America is a “familiar hysteria,” Leon Hadar said at Asia Times. But Beijing’s activities may not “actually threaten core American interests” in the region. China’s trade with Latin America has “increased tenfold” over the last 20 years, but that reflects China’s “massive demand for agricultural goods and minerals.” That is basic economics, “not geopolitical conspiracy.”

President Donald Trump’s return to the White House has actually “reduced and reversed” China’s influence among Latin American countries, said Arturo McFields at The Hill. Beijing has lost sway over the Panama Canal, seen Peru draw closer to Taiwan, and had a diplomat expelled from Paraguay. In the political contest between global powers, then, the U.S. “seems to be one step ahead.”

What next?

Beijing’s Latin America strategy will be “significantly tested” by the Trump administration’s actions in Venezuela, said The South China Morning Post. The White House is “moving aggressively to roll back Chinese influence” in the Western Hemisphere. Some Latin American countries “may adopt a more cautious approach in managing their relations with Beijing when facing pressure from Washington,” said Zhao Minghao, the deputy director at Shanghai’s Center for American Studies, to the outlet.

Losing can be smart business in pro sports. “Tanking” teams in the NBA and NFL sometimes bottom out now in order to position themselves for a better future. Critics say that undermines the competition that is the lifeblood of the games.

The NBA is looking at “new ways to combat tanking,” said ESPN. “Multiple teams” in recent years “either shut down players early or sat players for games” to give them a better shot at a higher draft pick. (Worse teams generally get higher picks and a better chance at the most talented new players.) The point of the proposals is to give middling or losing teams a “reason to continue to try to win games” down the stretch of an otherwise-lost season. Tanking is “an issue for our fans,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said earlier this year. “And so we’re paying attention to it."

Sunday’s NFL game between the New York Giants and Las Vegas Raiders was labeled the “tank bowl” because the loser would have a clearer shot at the league’s No. 1 draft pick, said The Las Vegas Review-Journal. The Raiders sat out All Pro defensive end Maxx Crosby due to a supposed knee injury. Crosby posted pictures of himself playing basketball. “Extremely conflicted” Raiders fans breathed a “sigh of relief” when their team fell behind in a 34-10 loss. That did not sit well with players. If athletes are “purposely trying to lose, you’re messing up your career,” said defensive tackle Jonah Laulu.

What did the commentators say?

“This is professional sports, and trying to win should be paramount,” Eric Koreen said at The Athletic. Instead you see teams like the Washington Wizards and Utah Jazz “throw away seasons at a time” in the name of “long-term interests.” It is true that anti-tanking rules will make it more difficult for bad teams to get better. But it seems likely that “fewer teams will be as far away from success” if they stop trying to lose now for the possibility of getting better later. “There should be no incentive to lose — ever.”

One problem? “American fans want a somewhat level playing field” in their sports leagues, Sam Quinn said at CBS Sports. That is why the major sports leagues try to achieve “parity” by assigning higher draft slots to worse teams. But any plan to curb tanking will make it “harder for the worst teams to improve.” Pro sports could eliminate their drafts and treat rookie players as free agents who sign with the highest bidder, but that would “give big-market teams such a massive and unfair advantage” it would leave small-market teams behind.

What next?

One solution: Make teams play a “one-game playoff” for the rights to their league’s No. 1 draft pick, Jay Busbee said at Yahoo Sports. The USFL football league already did that in 2024 to create stakes between two teams with 1-8 records. The incentives ought to be on winning, and “football ought to be settled on the field.”

The American economy at the end of 2025 looks very different from a year ago. Tariffs are higher, AI occupies a greater share of overall spending, and the federal government under President Donald Trump is demanding a greater say in how businesses are run. All that change leaves observers uncertain about what 2026 will bring.

Wall Street is “generally pretty bullish” heading into the new year, said Fortune. The “massive stimulus” unleashed by Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” should kick in in 2026, giving analysts reason for optimism. But those same observers say the “conditions for success” in the American economy are “getting narrower and narrower.” Many of the good vibes are “derived from the promise of AI,” even though there are “questions mounting” about whether massive investment in the sector will pay off. The one word to describe the economy heading into 2026: “precarious.”

The White House is predicting “growth of 3% to 4% by the first quarter of 2026,” said Reuters. White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett said the fall’s federal government shutdown “knocked a point off 2025’s economic growth.” The question is: “When does it all come back?” said Reuters. Other economists are warning that “slow job growth, higher unemployment and stickier inflation” could dampen the outlook.

What did the commentators say?

“There are “three possible scenarios,” said Nouriel Roubini at MarketWatch. One involves a short recession followed by recovery. The second also involves a “shallow” recession but with a “slower return to growth.” And the third possibility is that “growth remains strong” but inflation also remains stubborn. There are signs the world economy is on track for “stronger growth compared with what we saw in 2025.” Downside risks remain, but “one can be cautiously optimistic heading into the new year.”

The outlook rests on “four pillars,” said Stacey Vanek Smith at Bloomberg. The labor market, inflation, the consumer and artificial intelligence are all factors in projecting how 2026 will go. If any of those elements “falter” during the year, “we’re toast,” said Moody’s Mark Zandi to the outlet. The risk of a U.S. recession appears to be receding, however. A downturn is unlikely “as long as the fundamentals hold and investors keep their heads.”

The “biggest threat to the 2026 economy is still Donald Trump,” said John Cassidy at The New Yorker. There are signs the economy could get a boost from Trump’s stimulus bill, but the optimistic scenario rests on the idea that “things will be more settled in 2026” than they were in 2025 when the president’s trade wars disrupted the global economy. No one can predict if he will cause more chaos in the new year. “Disruption is his essence.”

What next?

Bank of America forecasts “stronger‑than‑expected economic growth” in 2026, though the bank also acknowledges its prediction is “more optimistic than consensus,” said The Street. Americans will probably experience “more price volatility,” unless a weak economy tames inflation, said USA Today. That means American consumers “may be in for another year of hard times and tough decisions.”

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

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

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

What did the commentators say?

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

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

What next?

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

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

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

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

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

What did the commentators say?

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

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

What next?

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

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

President Donald Trump thinks he has found a solution to the skyrocketing price tags for vehicles: building smaller cars. These vehicles are extremely popular in Asia, where they are known as micro cars or kei cars. But many auto industry analysts say translating the success of Asia’s micro car market to the United States is an unrealistic goal.

What did the commentators say?

Trump has mused on social media that the U.S. should start producing these cars, which are “small, fuel-efficient vehicles that are roughly 30% shorter” than a Toyota Camry and the same width as a Smart car, said The Wall Street Journal. Trump’s affinity for the vehicles seemed to arise “after a recent trip to Japan to talk about trade and economic investments.”

These cars are often much cheaper than standard vehicles, and “can cost as little as $8,000 or $10,000,” said CNN, while the “average price of a new car in the United States is currently around $50,000.” Manufacturing cars that are that cheap “would be an answer to affordability issues for many car buyers — and a major political headache for Trump.” But these vehicles “don’t make sense en masse here, from existing regulations to the Trump administration’s own contradictory policies,” said Car and Driver.

Part of the reason is straightforward: these cars “aren’t adapted to U.S. regulations and sold here because the demand simply doesn’t exist,” said Car and Driver. This is partially because Americans “barely buy cars anymore,” and favor larger vehicles like trucks. The incentive for automakers to sell smaller cars has also “gone out the window” with “regulations now set to be relaxed” by the Trump administration on gas-guzzling trucks.

These vehicles also “would have to be redesigned and retested to meet U.S. standards” for safety, said Axios. Current laws say imported micro cars must be at least 25 years old as part of U.S. safety regulations. These standards are different in Asia, and approving them for the U.S. would involve “stronger, heavier chassis and larger crumple zones to withstand crashes.” Manufacturers would also need to install “U.S.-spec safety equipment and lighting systems, among other changes.” This would involve high price tags for automakers that would “defeat the cost and efficiency advantages of micro cars.”

What next?

While these micro cars are exceedingly rare in the U.S., there is another type of these vehicles, kei trucks, which are the “largest class of vehicles being individually imported to the U.S., with around 7,500 arriving last year,” said Fast Company. They are the “size of golf carts” and “can’t go 60 miles an hour,” said Jason Marks, the CEO of electric truck startup Telo, to Fast Company, but they are “still this desirable.”

But while the truck variants of these vehicles are selling well, don’t expect to see micro cars dominating the streets anytime soon. They “would be nearly impossible to sell here” on a mass scale, said Michigan Advance. Despite these concerns, Trump is seemingly pressing ahead with his micro car plan. The president has “cleared them for production and is demanding that automakers manufacture them domestically,” writing on social media that the U.S. should “START BUILDING THEM NOW!”

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

What did the commentators say?

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

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

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

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

What next?

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

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

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

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

What did the commentators say?

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

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

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

What next?

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

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

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

What did the commentators say?

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

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

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

What next?

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

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

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

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

What did the commentators say?

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

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

What next?

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

The fight over the future of Warner Bros. Discovery is really a battle to decide who will control much of the news and entertainment Americans consume. So perhaps it is no surprise that President Donald Trump is wading straight into the middle of the fray between Netflix and Paramount Skydance.

Trump’s assertion this week that he will play a role in deciding the winner of that battle tests the “boundaries of his power,” said The New York Times. “I’ll be involved in that decision,” he said to reporters. Congress gave merger oversight authority to the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department’s antitrust division, said the Times, but the law does not “specify a personal role for presidents” to influence that process “on a whim or for their own benefit.” Trump is thrusting himself into that process, however, forcing executives and shareholders in business sectors far beyond the media industry to “consider the risk” that the president will get involved.

Netflix won the initial bid for Warner Bros., but Paramount this week announced its attempt to bypass Netflix with a $30-a-share hostile takeover effort. A Paramount-Warner merger “could give Trump even more influence over U.S. media,” said The Conversation. The new conglomerate under the helm of mogul (and Trump ally) Larry Ellison and his son, David Ellison, would “control a vast share of U.S. viewership.” Paramount already owns, and has upended, CBS News. Adding Warner-owned CNN to the mix would “concentrate oversight of two of the country’s most prominent newsrooms” under an owner with “strong ties to Trump.”

What did the commentators say?

It is “normal” for the federal government to scrutinize and even attempt to block a “mega-merger deal,” said Brian Stelter at CNN. But it is not normal for a president to “openly opine about it, or to say that he’ll be involved.” It is not just Paramount that understands the changed landscape. So does Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos, who reportedly met with Trump ahead of his company’s bid for Warner Bros. Trump’s involvement raises concerns about “favor-trading and corruption” and “could make the most earth-shattering Hollywood merger in years significantly more difficult to move forward.”

“Let Warner’s shareholders decide,” said The Wall Street Journal editorial board. Neither the Paramount nor the Netflix offer “presents major competition concerns” for federal antitrust enforcers, but each bid should be “analyzed without political interference.” Trump’s involvement is not the “way capitalism is supposed to work,” but now businesses and shareholders are “at the mercy of Trump’s mood.”

What next?

The political battlefield over the company’s sale extends beyond the president. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is part of Paramount’s bid, said Axios. Democrats are also weighing in. Reps. Sam Liccardo (D-Calif.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) said in a letter that they may “try to block or unravel any acquisition by Paramount,” said Semafor. The company’s offer is backed by sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi. That creates “foreign influence risks,” said the lawmakers.

President Donald Trump’s tariff-driven trade war is not slowing down China’s export economy. Beijing this week reported a record $1 trillion trade surplus with the rest of the world in 2025, raising concerns about “growing imbalances” in the global economy.

The trillion-dollar milestone puts China’s well-known “dominance” of world trade “into even starker relief,” said The Wall Street Journal. While Trump’s tariffs have limited the country’s exports to the United States this year — plunging nearly a third in November compared to last year — China’s exports to Africa, Southeast Asia and Latin America have “surged” significantly. The trend has “raised alarms around the world, especially in Europe,” whose automotive and luxury goods sectors find themselves threatened by “nimble Chinese competitors.”

That leaves Europe “squeezed between an ultra-competitive China and a protectionist America,” said Politico. China’s trade surplus “is untenable,” said French President Emmanuel Macron to the Les Echos financial newspaper. European companies were once big investors in China, he said, and now it is time for Chinese businesses to “create value and opportunities for Europe.” Europe could impose Trump-style tariffs on imports, Politico said, but Macron would prefer a “truce” with Beijing.

What did the commentators say?

China’s gigantic trade surplus reveals the difficulty that Trump and others will have “trying to rebalance global trade,” said Amy Hawkins at The Guardian. But it also demonstrates how much Beijing’s economic might is “still overwhelmingly reliant on foreign markets.” And it has raised fears that the country is now flooding non-American markets with “cheap goods that threaten local industry.” It is more likely, though, that those goods will “ultimately end up in the U.S.” after traveling through third countries to avoid Trump’s tariffs.

We could be looking at a “second China shock,” said Alexandra Stevenson at The New York Times. The first shock came two decades ago when American and European companies outsourced manufacturing to China while closing factories at home. The second will come now that China is “redirecting more of its exports to developing countries” that have “less control over how it unfolds.” And there could be “profound” social consequences like unemployment and unrest in countries like Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. “They’re going to need to brace for impact.”

What next?

The next developments may depend on whether the current trade “truce” between the U.S. and China can hold. Some observers believe the relative peace “may not last,” said CNBC. That failure — and a second effort by China to push its exports to other markets — “might compel Europe to impose more restrictive measures to protect its manufacturing sector,” said Jing Wang, a China economist at Nomura, to the outlet.

China’s economy will increasingly “ride on the strength of domestic demand,” said Bloomberg. For now, though, Beijing “faces a worsening economic picture” at home. There has been a slowdown in domestic consumption and investment is also falling. As a result, analysts believe that China will continue to rely on exports and take “only incremental steps” toward relying on its own people to be customers for the goods it makes.

It is tough for any president to sense what their policies look like in the real world, surrounded as they are by security agents and yes-men. Those protective layers are called a “bubble,” and some observers wonder if President Donald Trump is trapped in his.

Trump has “dramatically scaled back speeches, public events and domestic travel” during the first year of his term, said The Atlantic. He has also cut back on his once-frequent rallies. That gives him limited contact with the American public, creating a “growing fear among Republicans” that the president has become “too isolated” from voter concerns.

Missteps can happen as a result. Americans voted for Trump to “lower prices,” said an anonymous ally of the president to The Atlantic. “They didn’t vote for him to build a damn gilded ballroom.” And Trump is “not hearing them.”

What did the commentators say?

The president’s heavy Twitter use “liberated” him from the "prison of the presidency” during his first term, said Semafor. Now he “scrolls the adulatory Truth Social” and fills more of his time with Trump-friendly Fox News and “new MAGA channels” like Newsmax and OANN. And aides tend to give him a rosier outlook on issues like the economy than what Americans actually experience. But his team pushes back against bubble allegations. Trump has his “finger on the pulse of the American public,” said a spokesman to the outlet.

“Every president wrestles with the White House bubble,” said Lisa Gilbert and Neera Tanden at Talking Points Memo. This one is a problem: Americans are concerned about affordability, but the president is building a ballroom, seeing a $230 million payment from the Justice Department and giving out pardons to the rich and powerful, all while refusing to address the health care crisis. The contrast between the public’s needs and Trump’s actions is “jarring, even grotesque.” It proves that the president’s “gold-plated bubble has cut off any contact with reality.”

The White House recently launched a new website that supposedly tracks anti-Trump media bias, said Margaret Sullivan at The Guardian. But the site is “revealing the bubble Trump increasingly inhabits” by criticizing journalism that does not offer “flattery and sycophancy” to the president. Given the president’s isolation from voters, “harsh reality via the media is a rude intrusion.” Criticizing the media will not help Trump “get out of the trouble — or the bubble — that he’s in.”

What next?

Trump is planning a cross-country “travel blitz” to offset criticism he has “prioritized global issues over pocketbook worries,” said Axios. The president has grown increasingly irritated with that criticism, though, saying that voter concerns about affordability are a "hoax" and "con job” perpetrated by Democrats and the media.

The White House, meanwhile, will continue its plans to expose anti-Trump bias by the media, said The Associated Press. Journalists say that will make it more difficult to get unwelcome news to the public and the president. The country suffers “when we’re not operating from some semblance of a common truth,” said Axios CEO Jim VandeHei.

Congressional Republicans do not often love their leaders. They booted former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in 2023 and replaced him with the then-nearly unknown Mike Johnson. Now Johnson faces a revolt from high-profile women in his ranks.

Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) hold on the speaker’s gavel “appears weaker than ever,” said The New York Times. Public anger has come from GOP figures like Rep. Elise Stefanik (N.Y.), a member of Johnson’s leadership team, as well as Reps. Nancy Mace (S.C.) and Anna Paulina Luna (Fla.), who circumvented Johnson to force a vote on a congressional stock trading ban. House Republicans are often fractious, “but it does seem like there is an unusually high level of discontent,” said Rep. Kevin Kiley (Calif.) to the Times. Johnson “wouldn’t have the votes to be speaker if there was a roll-call vote tomorrow,” Stefanik said to The Wall Street Journal.

Female GOP lawmakers have “less representation in leadership” and hold just one committee chairmanship in the lower chamber, said NBC News. The women “feel they have been passed over for opportunities” and believe Johnson has repeatedly undercut them. “We aren’t taken seriously,” said one anonymous female Republican to NBC. Johnson’s team is pushing back. The speaker has “helped recruit and support women running for office,” a spokesman said. It is a conflict Johnson needs to resolve. Republicans have a slim majority in the House, and he cannot afford any defections.

What did the commentators say?

“The GOP women are humiliating Mike Johnson,” said Joe Perticone at The Bulwark. It started when Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) backed the petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files. It has come to a head with Stefanik, angry with Johnson over her proposal to require the FBI to disclose when it investigates congressional candidates. All of it is a sign that House Republicans are on the verge of “entering into open rebellion” against their leader. The party’s women are “giving Johnson the bird” while GOP men in the House are living with the “indignity of being subservient cogs in the party machinery.”

It is not shocking that a party built on President Donald Trump’s “macho, politically incorrect swagger” is having trouble with women in its ranks, said Matt Lewis at The Hill. Johnson in particular is an evangelical “fond of lecturing about ’distinct roles’ for men and women.” He also makes an easy target for Republicans frustrated by the party’s political challenges, but who will not challenge Trump directly. Is the speaker a “retrograde misogynist” or just a patsy? “Either way, the ending is the same.”

What next?

Johnson is “imploring” his members to “stop venting their frustrations in public,” said The Associated Press. If there are conflicts, “come to me, don’t go to social media,” he said to reporters Thursday. More and more, though, GOP members are “ignoring him,” said the AP. House Democrats are delighted. Republicans are the “gang that can’t legislate straight,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries to the outlet.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been dogged for years by criminal corruption charges. Now he is asking President Isaac Herzog to short-circuit the legal process by giving him a pardon before the court hands down a verdict.

Netanyahu’s pardon application did not “include an admission of guilt” to allegations of bribery, fraud and breach of trust, said CNN. Instead, the request is part of an effort to “heal the rifts, achieve national unity and restore public trust in the state’s institutions,” the prime minister said in a one-page letter. Opposition leaders have been withering in their response. “Only someone guilty asks for a pardon,” said Yair Golan, the head of Israel’s Democrats party, on X. But right-wing leaders supported Netanyahu’s plea. A pardon is “critical for the security of the state,” said Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir in a statement.

The request “immediately hijacked the Israeli political conversation,” said The New York Times. But some opposition figures suggested they would support a pardon for Netanyahu on one condition. Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on X that clemency is possible for his rival if it is conditioned upon Netanyahu’s “respectful retirement from political life.”

What did the commentators say?

Netanyahu has committed a “staggering act of hypocrisy,” said Dan Perry at Forward. The promise to heal Israel’s national divide is “jaw-dropping,” given how Netanyahu launched a “demonization campaign against the courts” following his 2019 indictment. That spawned a fierce nationwide battle over the future of the Israeli Supreme Court. Netanyahu “now plays peacemaker” after poisoning the nation’s trust in its institutions. A pardon should come only with a “full personal admission of guilt — spoken aloud by Netanyahu himself.”

Herzog is facing a “political, national and leadership decision” unlike any other, Shalom Yerushalmi said at The Times of Israel. Israel’s president is unlikely to make a decision that “would tear the public apart rather than unite it” by granting the “most problematic pardon in Israel’s history.” But Herzog is likely to seek a “middle ground,” either by putting conditions on the pardon or by encouraging Netanyahu to return to plea-bargain discussions. There is no chance, though, that Netanyahu will heal the nation. “No one can change this prime minister at the age of 76.”

What next?

Herzog’s office is weighing an “extraordinary step with significant implications,” said The Jerusalem Post. The issue is “shaking many people in the country,” the president said in a statement, adding that he would move only in the “best interests of the State of Israel and Israeli society."

Israeli society is watching. Roughly 400 retired police officers asked Herzog to reject Netanyahu’s request, said The Times of Israel. A pardon might “ignite severe violence in Israeli society,” they said in a petition. Netanyahu is looking outside his country for support. The prime minister asked President Donald Trump to push again for his pardon, said Axios. That may not be forthcoming. Trump has “done all he can do," said a U.S. official to the outlet.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is facing bipartisan scrutiny after he reportedly ordered U.S. forces to “kill everybody” in a strike on an alleged Venezuelan drug-trafficking boat. If those reports are accurate, critics say, Hegseth and the servicemembers who carried out the attack may be guilty of war crimes.

The initial Sept. 2 attack on a Venezuelan boat left two survivors “clinging to the smoldering wreck,” said The Washington Post. A Special Forces commander ordered a second strike to comply with Hegseth’s order, and those survivors were “blown apart in the water.” Hegseth’s alleged instruction to kill all the occupants of the boat, even if they could no longer fight, would be an “order to show no quarter, which would be a war crime,” said Todd Huntley, a former military lawyer now at Georgetown Law, to the Post. But other officials said Hegseth’s order “did not specifically address” what should happen if there were survivors after the strike, said The New York Times. That could leave the mission commander, Admiral Frank M. Bradley, “exposed” to consequences.

Defending Americans or murder?

Hegseth’s alleged order is a “war crime that endangers every American in uniform,” said former Green Beret Karl K. Schneider at PennLive. Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions mandates that combatants who are “out of the fight due to wounds, surrender, or shipwreck” must be treated humanely. Targeting survivors of an attack is “not combat; it is murder.” That strikes at the “moral authority” of the United States. “America must not commit war crimes.”

“This is a very serious matter,” said Andrew C. McCarthy at the National Review. And Hegseth knows it. After the Sept. 2 attack, Hegseth and his commanders changed protocols to emphasize the rescue of survivors. That is why the survivors of an October strike were “repatriated to their native countries.” The defense secretary “knows he can’t justify killing boat operators who survive attacks.”

“Why is Hegseth being attacked for defending Americans?” asked Nicole Russell at USA Today. President Donald Trump was elected to “take drug cartels, terrorism and illegal immigration seriously.” If Hegseth has committed a war crime, it should be investigated, but we should “trust Hegseth to issue lawful commands.” And polls show that most Republicans believe the benefits of taking on cartels “outweigh the risks.”

A defiant tone

The civilian boat crews were “not at war with the United States,” said Fred Kaplan at Slate. Which means that the real question is not whether Hegseth committed war crimes but “whether he’s a criminal, plain and simple.” While a Fox News host, Hegseth crusaded on behalf of veterans accused of war crimes. As defense secretary, he fired top Pentagon lawyers who provide a buffer against illegal orders. Hegseth is a “thug — and proud of it.”

The Post’s report “sent shock waves throughout Washington,” said The Hill, and top lawmakers from both parties vowed inquiries. But Hegseth “struck a defiant tone” to reporters at a presidential Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, said Axios. The sinking of “narcoterrorists” boats has “only just begun,” he said.

President Donald Trump says he has chosen the next chair of the Federal Reserve, but he is not yet naming names publicly.

Current National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett is widely expected to be the nominee, said Axios. Trump is not saying. “I’m not telling you, we’ll be announcing it,” he said to reporters. The next chair will replace Jerome Powell, who has “faced months of complaints and demands” from Trump to bring interest rates down more quickly, said Axios.

Powell’s term does not end until May, so he may have to spend the final months of his term with a “shadow chair” peering over his shoulder, said Fortune. Trump officials have signaled their desire to undercut Powell even if he remains in his position. With a shadow chair in place, “no one is really going to care what Jerome Powell has to say anymore,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to Barron’s last year. The question for Wall Street, then, is “will Powell or his successor hold more sway with the markets?” said Fortune.

What did the commentators say?

The likely choice of Hassett “appears to be about loyalty” to Trump, said John Authers at Bloomberg. Other possible nominees — including Bessent, as well as current Fed governor Christopher Waller and BlackRock executive Rick Rieder — might feel compelled to “establish themselves as independent from the administration.” But being seen as a Trump loyalist could also force Hassett to prove his independence to “win the confidence of markets.” For now, though, “markets aren’t freaking out at the prospect of a Hassett chairmanship.”

“Thank heavens” for Powell, said Brett Arends at MarketWatch. The latest numbers suggest the U.S. economy is “much stronger than people realized” even with the Fed chairman resisting Trump’s demanded rate cuts. If the president had gotten his way, the “likeliest scenario would be that inflation would be rocketing higher again.” Instead, the Federal Reserve has cut rates just twice this year and indicated another rate cut is unlikely in December. Americans should be grateful the current Fed chair has proven his independence and “refused to be intimidated” by Trump.

What next?

Hassett would have “closer ties to the sitting president” than any modern Fed chair, said Axios. That might mean a quick drop in short-term rates, but long-term rates may stay high if Wall Street comes to believe he is “simply doing Trump’s bidding, with little regard for inflation.” That notion “might be difficult for a pick like Hassett to shake.”

The next chair will face an unusually divided Fed board, said The Wall Street Journal. Fed chairs have ordinarily sought the “broadest possible consensus around rate decisions” and split votes have been rare. No longer. There is a “real prospect of three or more dissenting votes” at December’s meeting, whether Powell decides to pause rate cuts or continue them. “It’s not a slam dunk” that Trump’s choice will dictate policy as much as his predecessors, said Krishna Guha, a former New York Fed executive.

Republicans are sending mixed signals about extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies due to expire at year’s end. President Donald Trump has suggested both that he would do a deal and that he would “rather not.” At stake is health care for up to 20 million Americans.

Trump said last week he is “open” to extending the subsidies a year to give Congress time to replace Obamacare, said Politico. An extension “may be necessary to get something else done,” Trump said.

But any action will come grudgingly. “I would rather not extend them at all,” he said to reporters. The ambivalence is clear. The White House planned, then canceled, the announcement of a two-year extension of ACA subsidies with “new limitations favored by conservatives,” said Politico.

Republicans are playing tug-of-war. “Pushback from some Republican lawmakers” stalled the White House announcement, said Scripps News. Obamacare “keeps requiring more and more tax dollars to prop it up,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.). But a “small cadre of politically vulnerable Republicans” is pushing for an extension rather than face the wrath of voters who will see their health costs skyrocket, said The New York Times. “We owe it to them to come up with a solution,” said Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.).

What did the commentators say?

“Republicans need to get serious about health care,” said the Bloomberg editorial board. Without a subsidy extension, as many as “4 million people will become uninsured,” while others will see their out-of-pocket premiums double. Lawmakers need to work on long-term plans to rein in “America’s soaring health care costs,” but in the short-term they must “soften the shock of lost subsidies.” Bipartisan agreement that “extends and reforms subsidies would be the right thing for taxpayers and enrollees alike.”

Trump is once again discovering that “health care policy is hard,” said Jonathan Cohn at The Bulwark. The “conflicting signals” coming from the White House and its GOP allies should “sound familiar” to anyone who follows health care politics. Republicans have repeatedly promised a “better alternative” to Obamacare. “But their plans almost never materialize,” and the plans that do emerge are “deeply unpopular” because they would leave “many millions of Americans without insurance.” Now that scenario is “playing out yet again.”

The president’s health care plan is a “mirage,” said Ed Kilgore at New York magazine. Perhaps Trump is “going back to the drawing board” after pushback from Republicans who wanted new abortion restrictions as a condition for extending subsidies. But the canceled announcement could also be a “feint” meant to signal action when none will occur. Either way, “health care costs aren’t going away as an issue.”

What next?

The “real moment of truth” for Trump and his party may come when government funding is due to run out in late January, said Axios. It is “not out of the question” that a bipartisan agreement could emerge before the end of December, but a “major push” from Trump would be needed to make that happen. “That seems far off at the moment.”

It has been 14 years since Apple CEO Tim Cook replaced company founder Steve Jobs, a legendary figure, and then led the company to even greater financial heights. Now reports say Cook is contemplating retirement next year.

Apple is “stepping up its succession planning efforts” ahead of Cook’s possible retirement, said the Financial Times. Cook turned 65 this month and is looking to “hand over the reins” to a new company leader. The firm behind the iPhone has “very detailed succession plans,” he said in 2023 to singer Dua Lipa on her podcast. The transition comes at a critical time for the tech giant. While Cook has overseen a massive increase in its market valuation, from $350 billion to $4 trillion, the company has more recently “struggled to break into new product categories” and has fallen behind competitors in the artificial intelligence race, said the Financial Times.

Those challenges could prompt Cook to “think about stepping down and letting fresh young blood take over, said Macworld. So could challenges like the massive tariffs that President Donald Trump has levied on countries where Apple produces its products. But Apple is still experiencing “unprecedented success,” recently reporting quarterly earnings of more than $100 billion. That means his replacement “will have very big shoes to fill.”

What did the commentators say?

Cook has “actually been CEO of Apple longer than Steve Jobs ever was,” said M.G. Siegler at Spyglass. Jobs arguably set Cook up for his success. Cook “just needed to execute on the vision Jobs laid out,” but that should not diminish his accomplishments. After all, he was the “person best suited for that task perhaps in the entire world.” Now, though, its failures on AI show Apple is a company “clearly in need of some changes.” That makes it “pretty clear” Cook will retire soon. “It’s just a question of when.”

We are looking at the “twilight of the star CEO,” said Ben Berkowitz at Axios. Cook, along with Disney’s Bob Iger and Walmart’s Doug McMillon, are “stars of the business set” who are “preparing to leave the stage.” Their expected departures come at a “fraught moment for the American economy,” and involve companies that touch every aspect of life. The transitions at the top of these iconic corporations will complicate “what was already certain to be an uncertain 2026.”

What next?

The leak of Cook’s retirement plans looks like a “deliberate test of market reaction,” said 9to5Mac. Apple’s board would likely want to “gauge the response of investors” to Cook’s departure. Cook is probably “eyeing his retirement,” but his loyalty to Apple means he would “only leave at a point when the market is ready for it.”

John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, is the “most commonly mentioned” name to replace Cook, said Fast Company. Cook will likely retain some involvement with Apple, perhaps on its board of directors. “I don’t see being at home doing nothing,” he said in January to the “Table Manners” podcast.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) may not have a tight grip on his post. Some Democrats are angry that their party surrendered in the government shutdown fight, and are placing the blame on the caucus elder.

Democrats are “questioning Chuck Schumer’s future” after the shutdown, said CNN. The 75-year-old is “facing more grumbling than he ever has” from fellow Senate Democrats and even his own New York constituents. There are few expectations of a “coup or immediate change” that would move him out of power in the near term. But some analysts say he “could go down in a primary challenge if he tries” to run for another term in 2028. Schumer is in his “last term, and he may be the only one on Earth unaware of it,” said one House Democrat.

What did the commentators say?

“It’s time for the Democratic Party to head in a new direction,” said Sara Pequeño at USA Today. Schumer is “incapable” of being a leader who is “quick on their feet and ready to do things differently” in opposing President Donald Trump. The shutdown is not the only issue. Schumer also “failed” to endorse Zohran Mamdani, the victorious Democratic candidate in the recent New York City mayoral election. The party’s rank-and-file voters are noticing these shortcomings: Just 35% of Democrats approve of the minority leader’s performance. There is a reason Schumer is taking heat from Democrats. “He deserves it,” said Pequeño.

Those poll numbers make Schumer the “most unpopular Senate leader with his own party” on record, said Ross Barkan at New York magazine. The senator is seen by progressives and “restive moderates” as a leader “out of touch with the current mood.” And in his home state, polls show him losing a primary challenge to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) by a substantial margin. Schumer has been a “lock to win reelection” for decades, but he now might be “wise to retire rather than run again.”

Those looking to replace Schumer as minority leader are “missing two critical ingredients,” said Axios. They do not have a “clear path to his ouster,” nor is there a Senate Democrat “who’d want the job.” Some observers say the movement to push Schumer out of leadership is just beginning. The conversation about his future is “legitimized and the conversation is moving forward,” said Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

What next?

Schumer does have defenders, said NBC News. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) has pushed back against critics like Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) who have publicly called out the Senate leader. House Democrats “should focus on their own leadership,” Kaine said. But Khanna is pressing the case. Schumer is “out of touch with the grassroots” of the Democratic Party, he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“Schumer isn’t going anywhere” for now, said Time. That is because “no one who wants him gone has the power to make it happen.” That does not mean he will regain popularity. Schumer has “come to personify Democrats’ discontent.”

China and Japan exchanged angry words in recent days after Japan’s new prime minister said her country would regard an attack on Taiwan as an “existential threat” to security in the region. The two countries are in a “furious diplomatic spat” over the comments, said NBC News. Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s “unusually explicit" remarks suggested Chinese military action against Taiwan could force an armed response from Tokyo.

Japanese leaders have usually been vague about their commitments to Taiwan, just 70 miles from their country's territory. But China regards the self-ruled island of Taiwan as its possession, and officials responded with angry demands for a Japanese retraction. “The dirty neck that sticks itself in must be cut off,” said Xue Jian, a Chinese diplomatic official, on X. (The post was later deleted.)

Other Chinese leaders were less colorful but still pointed in their comments, said Reuters. Japan would suffer a “crushing defeat” if it intervened in Taiwan, said Chinese Defense Ministry spokesperson Jiang Bin. The grievances are rooted in a long and contentious history, said Reuters. There is “ongoing tension” between the two countries lingering from the Japanese invasion of China during World War II.

What did the commentators say?

Some observers see China’s angry response to Takaichi as a return to its “wolf warrior” days of the early 2020s, Jessie Yeung said at CNN. That is when Beijing officials would “hit back directly — and often colorfully” at criticisms of their country. That aggressive approach receded as Communist officials sought to “win back lost goodwill among Western nations.” But there is a “significant streak of anti-Japanese sentiment” in China, and the prime minister’s comments have prompted “state media and other prominent voices” to fan outrage against Tokyo.

The dispute illustrates the “essence of Japan’s strategic dilemma,” said Zheng Zhihua at The Diplomat. Tokyo wants to “signal deterrence” and send a message of solidarity with its U.S. ally. But it must also do so within the “constitutional limits of its pacifist defense policy.” Japan has also attempted to balance its relations with China with “unofficial” contacts with Taiwan, a “dual track” policy that allows it to “avoid direct confrontation with Beijing while supporting Taiwan’s stability.” The question now is whether Japan can maintain its “maneuvering space” or if the spat “hardens public attitudes on both sides.”

What next?

China “escalated its diplomatic feud” on Sunday, said The New York Times. It sent ships to patrol uninhabited islands that “both countries claim” while also warning Chinese students in Japan about unspecified threats to their safety. On Monday, Japan said it scrambled warplanes after detecting a suspected Chinese drone near the island of Yonaguni, said CBS News. “We are trying not to escalate the situation,” said one Japanese official.

The growing tensions have raised fears of a “rupture in Japan-China ties,” said The Japan Times. There may be more escalation to come. Beijing is prepared to “carry out substantial countermeasures against Japan,” a social media account run by state media said on Sunday.

President Donald Trump’s long relationship with deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein roared back into the public eye this week, as Republicans and Democrats jockeyed to capitalize on the tranches of Epstein-related documents released on Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee. While the White House has swatted down the renewed scrutiny on the Trump-Epstein relationship as the Democrats try to deflect from their own intraparty frustrations, growing public furor over Epstein’s high society enablers and Trump’s connection shows no signs of being so easily dismissed. With Democrats and a growing number of Republicans hungry to pursue the case even further, why has this batch of Epstein-related content become so potently dangerous for the Trump administration?

What did the commentators say?

The Epstein saga has a “dastardly quality” wherein the “more anyone drawn into the morass tries to dig themselves out, the deeper they dig themselves in,” said CNN. It’s a feature proven “yet again” by the Trump administration, as questions about Trump's place in the Epstein case are “becoming impossible for the president to suppress.” The renewed focus on Epstein “couldn’t have come at a worse time for the president” and has prompted a “fresh wave of chaos” that has “knocked the administration on its heels,” said Politico. The Epstein case has been like a “bad case of herpes” that “lies dormant for weeks but doesn’t go away for a long time,” said Jonathan Alter at Washington Monthly.

While nothing in the documents offers “specific proof of anything,” their power to generate “endless new rounds of questions” stems in part from the fact that Trump’s “own party has chosen to release them,” said The New Yorker. The administration’s “attempts at damage control” have meanwhile only “fueled the story” for the public. In one notable example, the administration unsuccessfully pressured Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) to drop her support for releasing more documents during a surprise meeting in the White House Situation Room — a place typically used to “discuss urgent national-security matters,” not political sex scandals. “Yikes. Smoke, meet fire.”

The danger is not merely Trump’s alone. By framing the Epstein files as largely under the purview of the GOP-led House Oversight Committee, rather than requiring a full House vote, conservative hopes of “easing political pressure” on themselves and the White House “appear to have had the opposite effect,” said The New York Times. The committee has, “almost in spite of itself,” facilitated a release of material that has “intensified the drumbeat of demands for more transparency” while keeping attention on the Trump-Epstein relationship.

Some conservatives have taken notice. Releasing the full extent of the government’s Epstein material is the “easiest thing in the world,” Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), one of the president’s staunchest MAGA allies in Congress, said to Politico. Spending time and effort to block the materials’ release “just doesn’t make sense to me.” The issue is simply not going to let up for Trump “until it’s addressed and answered to the American people’s satisfaction,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) on CNN.

What next?

Despite the White House effort to scuttle any push for further document releases, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Wednesday announced that he will bring a bipartisan bill to do just that “on the floor for a full vote next week.” It’s a “totally pointless exercise,” he said, and “completely moot now. We might as well just do it.” The expedited push for a vote is a “reflection of the growing sense of agitation” among some in the GOP who are “sick of the months of growing pressure” to release the documents, lest they “risk being accused of protecting pedophiles,” said CNN.

The bill, which would force the Justice Department to release its full Epstein cache, “appears likely to pick up additional Republican votes — potentially dozens or more,” said PBS News. It will then face a “tougher test” in the GOP-controlled Senate, where it will need at least 60 votes to pass. Next week’s House vote is “going to be historic,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), one of the co-sponsors of the Epstein bill, to NPR. If the bill passes the Senate, “within the next six months, the files are released.”

The worldwide effort to mitigate climate change is not going well. Fossil fuels are still burning, temperatures are rising and effects ranging from historic droughts to super-powered hurricanes are becoming the norm. Authorities are now thinking more about how to adapt.

Climate adaptation efforts are “climbing up the agenda” as the world deals with “record-breaking hot years and extreme weather disasters,” said the Financial Times. World leaders gathering this week for the COP30 climate summit in Brazil have an eye on “shoring up economies against climate change. There is a tension between those who believe “governments and businesses are being too slow” to adapt and those who worry adaptation will “distract and divert finances from efforts to reduce” greenhouse gas emissions. Mitigating climate change is necessary, but near-term adaptation is the “first half of our survival,” said COP30 President André Aranha Corrêa do Lago.

The big question is cost. Adaptation efforts would include everything from “funding air conditioners and fans” to “AI mapping of soil conditions to improve crop yields,” said Reuters. A new United Nations report says developing countries will need $310 billion a year to buy those and other tools, but “where that money will come from is unclear.”

What did the commentators say?

The world must “stop burning fossil fuels,” University College London’s Susannah Fisher said at The Conversation. That is the first step to “stop further damage and make it possible to adapt.” In the meantime, nations must also prepare for the “future we are currently heading toward.” That means making big shifts in how people live, work and eat in order to “create new futures where they can thrive” even as the world warms. For now, though, adaptation efforts do “not go far enough to manage these effects of climate change.”

Participants at COP30 “must get serious” about financing adaptation efforts, said Demet Intepe at the World Economic Forum. Many countries are already “deeply affected by floods, heatwaves and wildfires,” which makes adaptation efforts an “essential lifeline for communities threatened by climate-related disasters.” It is unlikely the money will come from the private sector. Adaptation efforts like “coastal flood protection” are expensive but create “minimal opportunities for financial returns.” Without the opportunity to create new profits, there will be no substitute for the “scale and reliability of public finance.”

What next?

Any solutions negotiated at COP30 will happen without the help of the United States, which is still one of the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters. America is “not sending any top officials” to the summit, said The New York Times. In President Donald Trump’s second term, his administration has “abandoned” the country’s promise to “curb the burning of fossil fuels at home.”

Other countries are trying to keep up with their own goals and fill the gap left by the U.S. Germany and Spain have pledged $100 million to climate adaptation efforts, said Bloomberg. But more than $300 billion will be needed to help developing countries adapt, and that is a “figure that’s far higher than amounts currently being made available” from richer countries.