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Trump dares, Thune wins and China erases a tragedy

 
Today's NATIONAL story

Trump tests GOP loyalty with Gaetz, Gabbard picks

What happened
President-elect Donald Trump stunned Washington yesterday by naming Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) as his pick for attorney general and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence. As with Fox News host Pete Hegseth, Trump's nominee for defense secretary, Gaetz and Gabbard have little experience in their proposed jurisdictions and none overseeing large organizations. Both also bring significant controversies. And Gaetz, The Associated Press said, is "one of the more universally disliked members of Congress, including among GOP lawmakers."

Who said what
Republican lawmakers have "rallied intensely" around Trump, "betting their political futures on his success," the AP said. But by nominating such controversial figures, he's "already challenging those congressional Republicans to defy him."

The Gaetz nomination especially is a "loyalty test" for Senate Republicans, who will have a 53-47 majority, The Washington Post said. If confirmed, Gaetz would lead a Justice Department that was investigating him for possible sex trafficking until 2023, when it ended the yearslong investigation without charges. He was also under investigation by the House Ethics Committee from 2021 until yesterday evening, when he effectively ended the probe by resigning from the House. The committee had been set to vote Friday on whether to release its report on allegations he engaged in sexual misconduct and illegal drug use and accepted improper gifts. Gaetz denied the allegations. Trump called him a "deeply gifted and tenacious attorney."

Gabbard, nominated to lead 18 spy agencies and oversee a budget of $76 billion, "has many critics and no formal intelligence experience," Politico said. An Army reservist and former National Guard member, the ex-Democrat is "known chiefly" for her isolationist stances "and sympathetic views on autocrats like Russia's Vladimir Putin and Syria's Bashar al-Assad." Gabbard is a "walking Christmas tree of warning lights," Tom Nichols said at The Atlantic, and "her appointment would be a threat to the security of the United States."

What next?
Senate Republicans "will be under immense pressure to either confirm" Trump's "parade of loyalists" or "sidestep" the process and let him "unilaterally install Cabinet members" with recess appointments, The New York Times said. Republicans are "unlikely to block too many of Trump's more controversial picks," given the blowback, Burgess Everett said at Semafor. But "it's also hard to see a world where he gets all of them through."

 
 
Today's Politics story

Senate GOP selects Thune, House GOP keeps Johnson

What happened
Republicans yesterday elected Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) to be their leader in the upper chamber, making him the next Senate majority leader in January. Thune, 63, will replace Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the longest-serving Senate leader, after beating Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) in a secret ballot. House Republicans voted to keep Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) as House speaker in the next Congress.

Who said what
Thune pledged to work closely with President-elect Donald Trump to enact his agenda, though "the two men have not always seen eye to eye," said NBC News. Thune was among the few Republicans who "rejected Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him," leading to a rift the incoming Senate leader spent the past few months working to mend. Scott's candidacy had been "championed in recent days by several prominent Trump allies," CNN said, but the secret ballot gave cover to "Republicans wary of offending Trump's most ardent supporters."

Johnson's victory was eased by Trump's endorsement and a deal between the hard-right Freedom Caucus and the "more mainstream conservative Main Street Caucus" that notably raised the bar for toppling a speaker, The Associated Press said. But the "outcome belies a more difficult road ahead for the speaker." Johnson's "true test is a formal vote on the House floor in January, where he'll have almost no room for error" in the closely divided chamber, Politico said.

What next?
Thune — elevated to majority leader 20 years after he unseated Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) — said his initial priorities will be border security, energy policy and "overturning costly Biden-Harris regulations."

 
 
Today's INTERnATIONAL Story

China tries to bury deadly car attack

What happened
A 62-year-old man in Zhuhai, China, rammed an SUV into a crowd of people exercising at the local sports complex Monday evening, killing at least 35 and severely injuring 43 others, Chinese officials said Tuesday. By yesterday, "two days after the deadliest known violent attack in China in a decade," The New York Times said, "officials were working to make it seem as if nothing had happened."

Who said what
Officials have said little about the suspected assailant, only that his surname is Fan, he was upset about his divorce settlement and was in a coma after stabbing himself. Online discussion, news articles and videos of "China's deadliest mass killing in years" were all "being censored," The Associated Press said. "Uniformed and plainclothes police monitored" the Zhuhai People's Fitness Plaza and "prevented visitors from gathering or taking photographs." Candles and flowers people had laid outside the sports center were all removed by yesterday afternoon.

The erasure was a "precise enactment of the Chinese government's usual playbook after mass tragedies," the Times said: Silence "nonofficial voices," spread "assurances of stability," and "minimize public displays of grief." On "one level, you can understand" the reaction, BBC China correspondent Stephen McDonell said: This attack, like other "inexplicable assaults on the community, are copycat in nature." But it's also true, he added, that Chinese officials "sometimes want these bad things to simply go away as quickly as possible."

What next?
Beijing's goal in Zhuhai was to "stifle potential questions and criticism of the authorities, and force the public to move on as quickly as possible," the Times said. And "to a large degree, it appeared to be working."

 
 

It's not all bad

Jordan has become the first country to be recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) for having eliminated leprosy, a historic milestone for a disease that has affected humanity for millennia. The WHO praised Jordan for its dedicated efforts, having gone more than 20 years without any local cases being reported. WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he hopes it will inspire other nations to redouble their efforts to eradicate neglected diseases.

 
 
Under the radar

Generative AI's rapid rise over recent years has fueled panic about misinformation, job losses and more. Now experts say science itself may be under threat.

Due to recent developments in AI, nearly every element of a scientific paper can now be artificially produced quickly and easily. And AI-generated images — from diagrams to microscopic imagery — are increasingly difficult to identify. Specialists are concerned about "a torrent of faked science" as a result, said Nature. "At a time when trust in scientific expertise and the media are both declining (the latter more precipitously than the former), rolling out an AI experiment with a lack of transparency is, at best, ignorant, and, at worst, dangerous," said Jackson Ryan in The Guardian.

This isn't just a hypothetical problem, either. AI-generated images have already been identified in several scientific journals. As AI tools get more sophisticated, identifying faux images only gets harder. Most of the falsified images being identified now were published years ago. And the "telltale signs that sleuths can spot" in Photoshopped or otherwise doctored images tend not to exist in AI creations, Nature said. 

Academics, scientists and specialists are acutely concerned about AI's lasting impacts on the field, but not all hope is lost. "I have full confidence that technology will improve to the point that it can detect the stuff that's getting done today," said "scientific image sleuth" Kevin Patrick. "Fraudsters shouldn't sleep well at night. They could fool today's process, but I don't think they'll be able to fool the process forever."

 
 
On this day

November 14, 1948

Charles, the future king of the United Kingdom, was born at Buckingham Palace in London. Charles was the longest-serving heir apparent in British history before his accession to the throne in 2022, following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II. He was diagnosed with cancer this year and has had a back-and-forth battle with his health since.

 
 
TODAY'S newspaperS

President Joe Biden hosted President-elect Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday, and unlike in 2020, "Trump, Biden vow smooth transition," The Atlanta Journal-Constitution says on Thursday's front page. The New York Times sums up the meeting: "Enemies meet and play nice, for a moment." Between his Biden meeting and new Cabinet picks, "Trump returns to D.C., offers a preview," the Los Angeles Times says. He "stuns allies and foes" by choosing Matt Gaetz for attorney general, The Boston Globe says. "Trump tests clout with surprise picks," The Washington Post says, and "uphill fights loom for confirmations." 

► See the newspaper front pages

 
 
Tall tale

Pitch perfect

Scientists say the "magical" mud rubbed on every ball used in Major League Baseball really does have special properties. New research shows that the mud, gathered from a secret spot along the banks of a Delaware River tributary, contains a unique balance of clay and sand that allows it to work as both a lubricant and a friction agent. "It spreads like face cream and grips like sandpaper," said study co-author and geophysicist Douglas Jerolmack.

 
 

Morning Report was written and edited by Theara Coleman, Nadia Croes, Catherine Garcia, Scott Hocker, Anya Jaremko-Greenwold, Justin Klawans, Devika Rao, Rafi Schwartz, Peter Weber and Abby Wilson, with illustrations by Stephen Kelly and Julia Wytrazek.

Image credits, from top: Julia Beverly / Getty Images; Graeme Sloan / Bloomberg via Getty Images; Hector Retamal / AFP via Getty Images; Illustration by Julia Wytrazek / Getty Images