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  • The stocks to watch when the Supreme Court rules on Trump’s tariffs

    An upcoming U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the legality of the sweeping tariffs that President Donald Trump rolled out in April — briefly sending markets worldwide into a tailspin — could be the next test for stocks that have been flying high.

    The S&P 500 Index has since rallied 39% from the lows hit that month. It closed at a record high Thursday, in part because tariffs have settled lower than Trump’s highest threats, while support has come from an artificial-intelligence investment boom and a U.S. economy that has kept expanding fast enough to throw off record corporate profits.

    If the nation’s top court says Trump exceeded his authority with the blanket tariffs on countries around the globe, there will still be significant uncertainty. The White House could use other laws to reimpose some new levies, for example. Bond traders could push up yields over worries about the deficit, and that concern could spread into the equity market.

    A ruling this year is increasingly unlikely. The court held its last scheduled public session of the year on Wednesday and isn’t scheduled to sit again until Jan. 9. The court’s standard practice is to issue decisions in argued cases from the bench, generally a day or more after making a public announcement that opinions are likely.

    But when a decision does come, market participants say the initial reaction, at least, would likely be positive for stocks should the court strike down the tariffs. A ruling upholding the tariffs would likely have the opposite effect.

    There are a few reasons why. Striking down the tariffs would eliminate a tax that many businesses haven’t completely passed along to customers, resulting in a drag on the bottom line. Refunds on what they’ve already paid could provide a windfall. And consumer spending may get a boost, too, given that Democrats in Congress estimate tariffs have cost the average American family some $1,200 over the past 10 months.

    Overall, a ruling against the tariffs would boost the earnings of companies in the S&P 500 Index, before interest and taxes, by 2.4% in 2026 compared to current-year levels, Wells Fargo & Co. chief equity strategist Ohsung Kwon estimated in October.

    “That’s good for the market generally, because they look at tariffs as a tax,” said James St. Aubin, chief investment officer at Ocean Park Asset Management. “This will be a catalyst for a little bit of a rally.”

    Some companies, and their stocks, stand to benefit more than others. The tariffs have been particularly painful for those that are heavily dependent on imported goods, such as apparel companies and toymakers. Financial firms, for their part, stand to benefit from a more confident or flush consumer.

    “On the flip side,” said Haris Khurshid, chief investment officer at Karobaar Capital, “materials, commodities, and domestic producers that benefited from protectionism might lag a bit.”

    Here’s a look at some of the sectors and companies with the most at stake when the decision does come.

    Consumer

    Clothing and toy companies — both heavily dependent on imports from China and other Asian countries targeted with some of the highest tariffs — are seen as clear winners, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. Nike Inc. and Mattel Inc. are potential standouts.

    Others include Deckers Outdoor Corp., Under Armour Inc., Crocs Inc., and American Eagle Outfitters Inc., all of which have struggled with tariff-related uncertainty. Home furnishing stocks have been volatile too, including Wayfair Inc., Williams-Sonoma Inc., and RH.

    Texas Capital’s Eric Wold singled out some potential winners among the leisure-related companies he follows: boat-maker Brunswick Corp., toymaker Funko Inc., and Topgolf Callaway Brands Corp.

    Industrials

    Industrial manufacturing giants Caterpillar Inc. and Deere & Co. are among the firms set to benefit the most from tariff refunds, according to Wells Fargo’s Kwon. Stanley Black & Decker Inc., Fortive Corp., and Lennox International Inc. also make the list.

    Shares of automakers General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. advanced during the Supreme Court hearing last month, when the justices’ skepticism about the administration’s arguments increased market speculation that the tariffs would be struck down. While the case doesn’t affect the industry-specific tariff on automakers, they stand to gain from a stronger consumer.

    Investment firm Hedgeye also sees positive implications for transport stocks, expecting a boost if the tariffs are struck down and importers move to snap up inventory before any new ones are imposed. That could benefit United Parcel Service Inc., FedEx Corp., and trucking companies.

    Financials

    Major banks such as JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. faced volatility earlier this year, alongside private equity giants like Blackstone Inc., amid concerns that Trump’s trade war will slow economic activity. Financial-technology companies such as Affirm Holdings Inc. and Block Inc. are prone to big swings, as are stocks linked to cryptocurrencies.

    Lower tariffs may ease pressure on U.S. consumers and support the broader economy. If inflation expectations move lower, it’ll also support the case for more rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, Clear Street analyst Owen Lau said.

    Lower interest rates encourage “loan growth, refinancing, stronger equities markets, and even higher consumer spending,” Lau said, “which will fundamentally benefit financial stocks in general.”

  • JetBlue flight near Venezuela avoids ‘midair collision’ with U.S. Air Force tanker

    JetBlue flight near Venezuela avoids ‘midair collision’ with U.S. Air Force tanker

    WASHINGTON — A JetBlue flight from the small Caribbean nation of Curaçao halted its ascent to avoid colliding with a U.S. Air Force refueling tanker on Friday, and the pilot blamed the military plane for crossing his path.

    “We almost had a midair collision up here,” the JetBlue pilot said, according to a recording of his conversation with air traffic control. “They passed directly in our flight path. … They don’t have their transponder turned on, it’s outrageous.”

    The incident involved JetBlue Flight 1112 from Curaçao, which is just off the coast of Venezuela, en route to New York City’s JFK airport. It comes as the U.S. military has stepped up its drug interdiction activities in the Caribbean and is also seeking to increase pressure on Venezuela’s government.

    “We just had traffic pass directly in front of us within 5 miles of us — maybe 2 or 3 miles — but it was an air-to air-refueler from the United States Air Force and he was at our altitude,” the pilot said. “We had to stop our climb.” The pilot said the Air Force plane then headed into Venezuelan air space.

    Derek Dombrowski, a spokesperson for JetBlue, said Sunday: “We have reported this incident to federal authorities and will participate in any investigation.” He added, “Our crewmembers are trained on proper procedures for various flight situations, and we appreciate our crew for promptly reporting this situation to our leadership team.”

    The Pentagon referred the Associated Press to the Air Force for comment. The Air Force didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

    The Federal Aviation Administration last month issued a warning to U.S. aircraft urging them to “exercise caution” when in Venezuelan airspace, “due to the worsening security situation and heightened military activity in or around Venezuela.”

    According to the air traffic recording, the controller responded to the pilot, “It has been outrageous with the unidentified aircraft within our air.”

  • Rod Paige, 92, nation’s first Black secretary of education

    Rod Paige, 92, nation’s first Black secretary of education

    Rod Paige, an educator, coach, and administrator who rolled out the nation’s landmark No Child Left Behind law as the first African American to serve as U.S. education secretary, died Tuesday.

    Former President George W. Bush, who tapped Mr. Paige for the nation’s top federal education post, announced the death in a statement but did not provide further details. Mr. Paige was 92.

    Under Mr. Paige’s leadership, the Department of Education implemented No Child Left Behind policy that in 2002 became Bush’s signature education law and was modeled on Mr. Paige’s previous work as a schools superintendent in Houston. The law established universal testing standards and sanctioned schools that failed to meet certain benchmarks.

    “Rod was a leader and a friend,” Bush said in his statement. “Unsatisfied with the status quo, he challenged what we called ‘the soft bigotry of low expectations.’ Rod worked hard to make sure that where a child was born didn’t determine whether they could succeed in school and beyond.”

    Roderick R. Paige was born to two teachers in the small Mississippi town of Monticello, which had roughly 1,400 inhabitants. The oldest of five siblings, Mr. Paige served a two-year stint the U.S. Navy before becoming a football coach at the high school and then junior college levels. Within years, Mr. Paige rose to head coach of Jackson State University, his alma mater and a historically Black college in the Mississippi capital city.

    There, his team became the first — with a 1967 football game — to integrate Mississippi Veterans Memorial Stadium, once an all-white venue.

    After moving to Houston in the mid-1970s to become head coach of Texas Southern University, Mr. Paige pivoted from the playing field to the classroom and education — first as a teacher, and then as administrator and eventually the dean of its college of education from 1984 to 1994.

    Amid growing public recognition of his pursuit of educational excellence, Mr. Paige rose to become superintendent of the Houston Independent School District, then one of the largest school districts in the country.

    He quickly drew the attention of Texas’ most powerful politicians for his sweeping educational reforms in the diverse city. Most notably, he moved to implement stricter metrics for student outcomes, something that became a central point for Bush’s 2000s bid for president. Bush — who later would dub himself the “Education President” — frequently praised Mr. Paige on the campaign trail for the Houston reforms he called the “Texas Miracle.”

    And once Bush won election, he tapped Mr. Paige to be the nation’s top education official.

    As education secretary from 2001 to 2005, Mr. Paige emphasized his belief that high expectations were essential for childhood development.

    “The easiest thing to do is assign them a nice little menial task and pat them on the head,” he told the Washington Post at the time. “And that is precisely what we don’t need. We need to assign high expectations to those people, too. In fact, that may be our greatest gift: expecting them to achieve, and then supporting them in their efforts to achieve.”

    While some educators applauded the law for standardizing expectations regardless of student race or income, others complained for years about what they consider a maze of redundant and unnecessary tests and too much “teaching to the test” by educators.

    In 2015, House and Senate lawmakers agreed to pull back many provisions from “No Child Left Behind,” shrinking the Education Department’s role in setting testing standards and preventing the federal agency from sanctioning schools that fail to improve. That year, then-President Barack Obama signed the sweeping education law overhaul, ushering in a new approach to accountability, teacher evaluations, and the way the most poorly performing schools are pushed to improve.

    After serving as education secretary, Mr. Paige returned to Jackson State University a half century after he was a student there, serving as the interim president in 2016 at the age of 83.

    Into his 90s, Mr. Paige still publicly expressed deep concern, and optimism, about the future of U.S. education. In an opinion piece appearing in the Houston Chronicle in 2024, Paige lifted up the city that helped propel him to national prominence, urging readers to “look to Houston not just for inspiration, but for hard-won lessons about what works, what doesn’t and what it takes to shake up a stagnant system.”

  • Chile holds an election that could deliver its most right-wing president since dictatorship

    Chile holds an election that could deliver its most right-wing president since dictatorship

    SANTIAGO, Chile — Ultra-conservative José Antonio Kast secured a thumping victory in Chile’s presidential runoff election Sunday, defeating the candidate of the leftist governing coalition and setting the stage for the country’s most right-wing government in 35 years of democracy.

    With over 95% of the vote counted, Kast won more than 58% of the votes as Chilean voters overwhelmingly embraced his pledge to crack down on increased crime, deport hundreds of thousands of immigrants without legal status, and revive the sluggish economy of one of Latin America’s most stable and prosperous nations.

    His challenger, communist candidate Jeannette Jara who served as leftist President Gabriel Boric’s popular labor minister, had just over 41% support.

    “Democracy spoke loud and clear,” Jara wrote on social media, saying that she called Kast to concede defeat and congratulate him on his successful campaign.

    Kast’s supporters erupted into cheers in the street, shouting his name and honking car horns.

    His campaign spokesperson, Arturo Squella, declared victory from the party headquarters in Chile’s capital of Santiago.

    “We are very proud of the work we’ve done,” he told reporters. “We feel very responsible for this tremendous challenge of taking charge of the crises that Chile is going through.”

    Kast’s election represents the latest in a string of votes that have turfed out incumbent governments across Latin America, vaulting mainly right-wing leaders to power from Argentina to Bolivia.

    On the surface, the two candidates in this tense presidential runoff could not have been more different, fundamentally disagreeing on weighty matters of the economy, social issues, and the very purpose of government.

    A lifelong member of Chile’s Communist Party who pioneered significant social welfare measures in Boric’s government and hails from a working-class family that protested against the 1973-1990 military dictatorship, Jara was a dramatic foil to her rival.

    Kast, in contrast, is a devout Catholic and father of nine whose German-born father was a registered member of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party and whose brother served in the dictatorship. He had previously struggled to win over moderate voters in two failed presidential bids.

    His moral conservatism, including fierce opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion without exception, had been rejected by many in the increasingly socially liberal country. The admiration he has expressed for the bloody military dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet also sparked widespread condemnation in his campaign against President Boric four years ago.

    But in the past few years, fears about uncontrolled migration and organized crime have roiled the country. Enthusiasm for a hardline approach to crime spread, dominating the election and boosting Kast’s law-and-order platform.

    It remains uncertain whether Kast, an admirer of U.S. President Donald Trump, can implement his more grandiose promises.

    That includes slashing $6 billion in public spending over just 18 months without eliminating social benefits, deporting over 300,000 immigrants in Chile who don’t have legal status, and expanding the powers of the army to fight organized crime in a country still haunted by Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship from 1973 to 1990.

    For one, Kast’s far-right Republican Party lacks a majority in Congress, meaning that he’ll need to negotiate with moderate right-wing forces that could bristle at those proposals. Political compromises could temper Kast’s radicalism, but also jeopardize his position with voters who expect him to deliver quickly on his law-and-order promises.

    At each rally, Kast had taken to ticking off the number of days remaining until Chile’s March 11 presidential inauguration, warning immigrants without papers that they should get out before they “have to leave with just the clothes on their backs.”

    Jorge Rubio, 63, a Chilean banker in Santiago, said he and like-minded Chileans are “also counting down the days,” adding, “That’s why we’re voting for Kast.”

    Boric’s left-wing government was under fire

    As the pandemic shuttered borders, transnational criminal organizations like Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua took over migrant smuggling networks to gain a foothold in Chile, long considered among Latin America’s safest countries. Homicides hit a record high in 2022, the first year of President Gabriel Boric’s tenure.

    Boric’s approval rating plunged from 50% to 30% within just months of him taking office, and never fully recovered.

    Kast insisted that Boric’s government was too soft on immigration, which the far-right politician argues is the main cause of crime. The data does not necessarily support his narrative. But relentless tabloid and television coverage does, Chileans say.

    “Unlike this government, Kast understands that migration means insecurity,” said Manuel Troncoso, 54, after voting at a high school down the street from President Boric’s home. “You see in the news how the people committing the worst crimes come from other countries.”

    Others say that while Boric failed to fulfill his flagship promise to transform Chile’s market-led economy, the firebrand former student protest leader elected in 2021 succeed in refocusing his agenda to address the country’s security crisis. He sent the military to reinforce Chile’s northern border, stiffened penalties for organized crime, and created the first public security ministry.

    “I actually thought this government would be worse. I have to admit it has improved security,” said Mariano Jara, 55, emerging from a polling station.

    He said he voted for Kast because “there’s always more that can be done. There’s room to get tougher.”

    Chile’s homicide rate has actually fallen in the last two years, and is now on par with the rate in the United States. But that hasn’t changed citizens’ widespread feeling of insecurity.

    According to a recent Gallup survey, just 39% of people feel safe walking alone at night. That’s about the same as in Ecuador, which is now in the midst of a violent, drug-driven crime wave.

    Crime and migration overshadow concerns

    As Boric’s former minister of labor, Jara became popular as the architect of the administration’s most important welfare measures.

    As she voted in her family’s working-class neighborhood of Conchali, supporters shouted out her accomplishments, including shortening the workweek to 40 hours, increasing the minimum wage, and overhauling the pension system. “Forty hours!” they chanted.

    But those accomplishments didn’t win Jara new supporters. Many centrists were put off by her lifelong membership in Chile’s Communist Party.

    To woo security-minded voters, Jara vowed to reinforce borders, register undocumented migrants, and tackle money laundering.

    “To me, she represents continuity, and Kast represents Trump,” said María Rojo, 71, waving at Jara as she drove off from the polling station. “Of course, that’s why I support her. I know others feel the opposite.”

    Kast’s supporters now include many Chileans who previously spurned him over deeply conservative values. They say they’re willing to trade abstract human rights concerns for increased safety on the streets.

    “It’s not very nice to hear that he’s going to separate immigrant children from their parents, it’s sad,” said Natacha Feliz, a 27-year-old immigrant from the Dominican Republic, referring to a recent interview in which Kast warned that immigrant parents without legal status who didn’t self-deport would be obliged to hand their kids over to the state.

    “But this is happening everywhere, not just in Chile,” she said. “Let’s just hope that our security situation improves.”

  • Hamas confirms the death of a top commander in Gaza after Israeli strike

    Hamas confirms the death of a top commander in Gaza after Israeli strike

    JERUSALEM — Hamas on Sunday confirmed the death of a top commander in Gaza, a day after Israel said it had killed Raed Saad in a strike outside Gaza City.

    The Hamas statement described Saad as the commander of its military manufacturing unit. Israel had described him as an architect of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war in Gaza, and asserted that he had been “engaged in rebuilding the terrorist organization” in a violation of the ceasefire that took effect two months ago.

    Israel said it killed Saad after an explosive device detonated and wounded two soldiers in the territory’s south.

    Hamas also said it had named a new commander but did not give details, adding that it had the right to “respond to the occupation’s aggression.”

    The strike on Saturday west of Gaza City killed four people, according to an Associated Press journalist who saw their bodies arrive at Shifa Hospital. Another three were wounded, according to Al-Awda hospital. Hamas in its initial statement described the vehicle struck as a civilian one.

    Israel and Hamas have repeatedly accused each other of truce violations.

    Israeli airstrikes and shootings in Gaza have killed at least 391 Palestinians since the ceasefire took hold, according to Palestinian health officials.

    Israel has said recent strikes are in retaliation for militant attacks against its soldiers, and that troops have fired on Palestinians who approached the Yellow Line between the Israeli-controlled majority of Gaza and the rest of the territory.

    On Sunday, Israel’s military said it had killed a “terrorist” who crossed the line and approached troops in northern Gaza.

    Israel has demanded that Palestinian militants return the remains of the final hostage, Ran Gvili, from Gaza and called it a condition of moving to the second and more complicated phase of the ceasefire. That lays out a vision for ending Hamas’ rule and seeing the rebuilding of a demilitarized Gaza under international supervision.

    The initial Hamas-led 2023 attack on southern Israel killed around 1,200 people and took 251 hostages. Almost all hostages or their remains have been returned in ceasefires or other deals.

    Israel’s two-year campaign in Gaza has killed more than 70,660 Palestinians, roughly half of them women and children, according to the territory’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between militants and civilians in its count. The ministry, which operates under the Hamas-run government, is staffed by medical professionals and maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by the international community.

  • Father and son accused in attack that killed at least 15 people at Hanukkah celebration on Sydney’s Bondi Beach

    Father and son accused in attack that killed at least 15 people at Hanukkah celebration on Sydney’s Bondi Beach

    SYDNEY — Two gunmen opened fire during a Hanukkah celebration on Sydney’s Bondi beach, killing 15 people, including a child, officials said Monday, in what Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called an act of antisemitic terrorism that struck at the heart of the nation. The shooters were father and son, authorities said.

    The massacre at one of Australia’s most popular beaches followed a wave of antisemitic attacks that have roiled the country over the past year, although the authorities didn’t suggest those and the shooting Sunday were connected. It was the deadliest shooting in almost three decades in a country with strict gun control laws.

    One gunman, a 50-year-old man, was fatally shot by police. The other shooter, his 24-year-old son, was wounded and was being treated at a hospital, said Mal Lanyon, New South Wales police commissioner.

    Police said one gunman was known to security services, but Lanyon said authorities had no indication of a planned attack.

    Those killed were aged between 10 and 87 years old, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns told reporters. At least 42 others were being treated at hospitals on Monday morning, several of them in a critical condition.

    “What we saw yesterday was an act of pure evil, an act of antisemitism, an act of terrorism on our shores in an iconic Australian location, Bondi Beach, that is associated with joy, associated with families gathering, associated with celebrations,” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Monday.

    “It is forever tarnished by what has occurred.”

    Shooting targeted a Jewish celebration

    “This attack was designed to target Sydney’s Jewish community,” New South Wales Premier Chris Minns said.

    The violence erupted at the end of a summer day when thousands had flocked to Bondi Beach, including hundreds gathered for the Chanukah by the Sea event celebrating the start of the eight-day Hanukkah festival.

    Chabad, an Orthodox Jewish movement that runs outreach around the world and sponsors public events during major Jewish holidays, identified one of the dead as Rabbi Eli Schlanger, assistant rabbi at Chabad of Bondi and an organizer of the event.

    Israel’s Foreign Ministry confirmed the death of an Israeli citizen, but gave no further details.

    Police said emergency services were called to Campbell Parade in Bondi about 6:45 p.m. responding to reports of shots being fired. Video filmed by onlookers showed people in bathing suits running from the water as shots rang out. Separate footage showed two men in black shirts firing with long guns from a footbridge leading to the beach, as sirens wailed and people cried out in the background.

    One dramatic clip broadcast on Australian television showed a man appearing to tackle and disarm one of the gunmen, before pointing the man’s weapon at him, then setting the gun on the ground.

    Minns called the man, named by relatives to Australian media as fruit shop owner Ahmed al Ahmed, a “genuine hero.”

    Witnesses fled and hid as shots rang out

    Arsen Ostrovsky, a lawyer attending the Hanukkah ceremony with his wife and daughters, was grazed in the head by a bullet. Ostrovsky said he moved from Israel to Australia two weeks ago to work for a Jewish advocacy group.

    “What I saw today was pure evil, just an absolute bloodbath. Bodies strewn everywhere,” he told the Associated Press in an email from the hospital. “It was like reliving Oct. 7 all over.”

    “I never thought would be possible here in Australia.”

    Lachlan Moran, 32, from Melbourne, told the AP he was waiting for his family when he heard shots. He dropped the beer he was carrying and ran.

    “I sprinted as quickly as I could,” Moran said. He said he heard shooting off and on for about five minutes. “Everyone just dropped all their possessions and everything and were running and people were crying and it was just horrible.”

    Australian leader expresses shock and grief

    Albanese told reporters in the capital, Canberra, that he was “devastated” by the massacre.

    “This is a targeted attack on Jewish Australians on the first day of Hanukkah, which should be a day of joy, a celebration of faith. An act of evil, antisemitism, terrorism that has struck the heart of our nation,” Albanese said.

    He vowed the violence would be met with “a moment of national unity where Australians across the board will embrace their fellow Australians of Jewish faith.”

    King Charles III said he and Queen Camilla were “appalled and saddened by the most dreadful antisemitic terrorist attack.” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on X he was horrified, and his “heart is with the Jewish community worldwide.”

    U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post on X: “The United States strongly condemns the terrorist attack in Australia targeting a Jewish celebration. Antisemitism has no place in this world.”

    Police in cities around the world, including London, said they would step up security at Jewish sites.

    Antisemitic attacks have roiled Australia

    Australia, a country of 28 million people, is home to about 117,000 Jews, according to official figures. Antisemitic incidents, including assaults, vandalism, threats, and intimidation, surged more than threefold in the country during the year after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and Israel launched a war on Hamas in Gaza in response, the government’s Special Envoy to Combat Antisemitism Jillian Segal reported in July.

    Last year, the country was rocked by antisemitic attacks in Sydney and Melbourne. Synagogues and cars were torched, businesses and homes graffitied, and Jews attacked in those cities, where 85% of the nation’s Jewish population lives.

    Albanese in August blamed Iran for two of the attacks and cut diplomatic ties to Tehran.

    Pastor Matt Graham was conducting a service at Bondi Anglican Church when panicked people began entering for shelter. He said antisemitism has been brewing in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, including Bondi, where the Jewish community is centered.

    “I’m surrounded by antisemitic graffiti constantly. I think for our community in the east (of Sydney), and as a Christian, I just want to declare I stand with the people of Israel,” Graham told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

    Israel urged Australia’s government to address crimes targeting Jews. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he warned Australia’s leaders months ago about the dangers of failing to take action against antisemitism. He claimed Australia’s decision — in line with scores of other countries — to recognize a Palestinian state “pours fuel on the antisemitic fire.”

    “Your government did nothing to stop the spread of antisemitism in Australia … and the result is the horrific attacks on Jews we saw today,” Netanyahu said.

    His office on Monday released safety recommendations for Israelis traveling abroad. It recommends they avoid large gatherings that don’t have security, especially events at synagogues and Hanukkah gatherings. It also calls for heightened awareness at Jewish and Israeli sites.

    Shooting deaths in Australia are rare

    Mass shootings in Australia are extremely rare. A 1996 massacre in the Tasmanian town of Port Arthur, where a lone gunman killed 35 people, prompted the government to drastically tighten gun laws, making it much more difficult to acquire firearms.

    Significant mass shootings this century included two murder-suicides with death tolls of five people in 2014 and seven in 2018, in which gunmen killed their own families and themselves.

    In 2022, six people were killed in a shootout between police and Christian extremists at a rural property in Queensland state.

  • As gerrymandering battles sweep country, supporters say partisan dominance is ‘fair’

    As gerrymandering battles sweep country, supporters say partisan dominance is ‘fair’

    When Indiana adopted new U.S. House districts four years ago, Republican legislative leaders lauded them as “fair maps” that reflected the state’s communities.

    But when Gov. Mike Braun recently tried to redraw the lines to help Republicans gain more power, he implored lawmakers to “vote for fair maps.”

    What changed? The definition of “fair.”

    As states undertake mid-decade redistricting instigated by President Donald Trump, Republicans and Democrats are using a tit-for-tat definition of fairness to justify districts that split communities in an attempt to send politically lopsided delegations to Congress. It is fair, they argue, because other states have done the same. And it is necessary, they claim, to maintain a partisan balance in the House of Representatives that resembles the national political divide.

    This new vision for drawing congressional maps is creating a winner-take-all scenario that treats the House, traditionally a more diverse patchwork of politicians, like the Senate, where members reflect a state’s majority party. The result could be reduced power for minority communities, less attention to certain issues, and fewer distinct voices heard in Washington.

    Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky fears that unconstrained gerrymandering would put the United States on a perilous path, if Democrats in states such as Texas and Republicans in states like California feel shut out of electoral politics. “I think that it’s going to lead to more civil tension and possibly more violence in our country,” he said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press.

    Although Indiana state senators rejected a new map backed by Trump and Braun that could have helped Republicans win all nine of the state’s congressional seats, districts have already been redrawn in Texas, California, Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio. Other states could consider changes before the 2026 midterms that will determine control of Congress.

    “It’s a fundamental undermining of a key democratic condition,” said Wayne Fields, a retired English professor from Washington University in St. Louis who is an expert on political rhetoric.

    “The House is supposed to represent the people,” Fields added. “We gain an awful lot by having particular parts of the population heard.”

    Redistricting is diluting community representation

    Under the Constitution, the Senate has two members from each state. The House has 435 seats divided among states based on population, with each state guaranteed at least one representative. In the current Congress, California has the most at 52, followed by Texas with 38.

    Because senators are elected statewide, they are almost always political pairs of one party or another. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are the only states now with both a Democrat and a Republican in the Senate. Maine and Vermont each have one independent and one senator affiliated with a political party.

    By contrast, most states elect a mixture of Democrats and Republicans to the House. That is because House districts, with an average of 761,000 residents, based on the 2020 census, are more likely to reflect the varying partisan preferences of urban or rural voters, as well as different racial, ethnic, and economic groups.

    This year’s redistricting is diminishing those locally unique districts.

    In California, voters in several rural counties that backed Trump were separated from similar rural areas and attached to a reshaped congressional district containing liberal coastal communities. In Missouri, Democratic-leaning voters in Kansas City were split from one main congressional district into three, with each revised district stretching deep into rural Republican areas.

    Some residents complained their voices are getting drowned out. But Govs. Gavin Newsom (D., Calif.) and Mike Kehoe (R., Mo.) defended the gerrymandering as a means of countering other states and amplifying the voices of those aligned with the state’s majority.

    All is “fair” in redistricting

    Indiana’s delegation in the U.S. House consists of seven Republicans and two Democrats — one representing Indianapolis and the other a suburban Chicago district in the state’s northwestern corner.

    Dueling definitions of fairness were on display at the Indiana Capitol as lawmakers considered a Trump-backed redistricting plan that would have split Indianapolis among four Republican-leaning districts and merged the Chicago suburbs with rural Republican areas. Opponents walked the halls in protest, carrying signs such as “I stand for fair maps!”

    Ethan Hatcher, a talk radio host who said he votes for Republicans and Libertarians, denounced the redistricting plan as “a blatant power grab” that “compromises the principles of our Founding Fathers” by fracturing Democratic strongholds to dilute the voices of urban voters.

    “It’s a calculated assault on fair representation,” Hatcher told a state Senate committee.

    But others asserted it would be fair for Indiana Republicans to hold all of those House seats, because Trump won the “solidly Republican state” by nearly three-fifths of the vote.

    “Our current 7-2 congressional delegation doesn’t fully capture that strength,” resident Tracy Kissel said at a committee hearing. “We can create fairer, more competitive districts that align with how Hoosiers vote.”

    When senators defeated a map designed to deliver a 9-0 congressional delegation for Republicans, Braun bemoaned that they had missed an “opportunity to protect Hoosiers with fair maps.”

    Disrupting an equilibrium

    By some national measurements, the U.S. House already is politically fair. The 220-215 majority that Republicans won over Democrats in the 2024 elections almost perfectly aligns with the share of the vote the two parties received in districts across the country, according to an Associated Press analysis.

    But that overall balance belies an imbalance that exists in many states. Even before this year’s redistricting, the number of states with congressional districts tilted toward one party or another was higher than at any point in at least a decade, the AP analysis found.

    The partisan divisions have contributed to a “cutthroat political environment” that “drives the parties to extreme measures,” said Kent Syler, a political-science professor at Middle Tennessee State University. He noted that Republicans hold 88% of congressional seats in Tennessee, and Democrats have an equivalent in Maryland.

    “Fairer redistricting would give people more of a feeling that they have a voice,” Syler said.

    Rebekah Caruthers, who leads the Fair Elections Center, a nonprofit voting rights group, said there should be compact districts that allow communities of interest to elect the representatives of their choice, regardless of how that affects the national political balance. Gerrymandering districts to be dominated by a single party results in “an unfair disenfranchisement” of some voters, she said.

    “Ultimately, this isn’t going to be good for democracy,” Caruthers said. ”We need some type of détente.”

  • Attacker who killed U.S. troops in Syria was a recent recruit to security forces, official says

    Attacker who killed U.S. troops in Syria was a recent recruit to security forces, official says

    BEIRUT — A man who carried out an attack in Syria that killed three U.S. citizens had joined Syria’s internal security forces as a base security guard two months earlier and was recently reassigned amid suspicions that he might be affiliated with the Islamic State group, a Syrian official told the Associated Press Sunday.

    The attack Saturday in the Syrian desert near the historic city of Palmyra killed two U.S. service members and one American civilian and wounded three others. It also wounded three members of the Syrian security forces who clashed with the gunman, interior ministry spokesperson Nour al-Din al-Baba said.

    Al-Baba said that Syria’s new authorities had faced shortages in security personnel and had to recruit rapidly after the unexpected success of a rebel offensive last year that intended to capture the northern city of Aleppo but ended up overthrowing the government of former President Bashar Assad.

    “We were shocked that in 11 days we took all of Syria and that put a huge responsibility in front of us from the security and administration sides,” he said.

    The attacker was among 5,000 members who recently joined a new division in the internal security forces formed in the desert region known as the Badiya, one of the places where remnants of the Islamic State extremist group have remained active.

    Attacker had raised suspicions

    Al-Baba said the internal security forces’ leadership had recently become suspicious that there was an infiltrator leaking information to IS and began evaluating all members in the Badiya area.

    The probe raised suspicions last week about the man who later carried out the attack, but officials decided to continue monitoring him for a few days to try to determine if he was an active member of IS and to identify the network he was communicating with if so, al-Baba said. He did not name the attacker.

    At the same time, as a “precautionary measure,” he said, the man was reassigned to guard equipment at the base at a location where he would be farther from the leadership and from any patrols by U.S.-led coalition forces.

    On Saturday, the man stormed a meeting between U.S. and Syrian security officials who were having lunch together and opened fire after clashing with Syrian guards, al-Baba said. The attacker was shot and killed at the scene.

    Al-Baba acknowledged that the incident was “a major security breach” but said that in the year since Assad’s fall “there have been many more successes than failures” by security forces.

    In the wake of the shooting, he said, the Syrian army and internal security forces “launched wide-ranging sweeps of the Badiya region” and broke up a number of alleged IS cells.

    A delicate partnership

    The incident comes at a delicate time as the U.S. military is expanding its cooperation with Syrian security forces.

    The U.S. has had forces on the ground in Syria for over a decade, with a stated mission of fighting IS, with about 900 troops present there today.

    Before Assad’s ouster, Washington had no diplomatic relations with Damascus and the U.S. military did not work directly with the Syrian army. Its main partner at the time was the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in the country’s northeast.

    That has changed over the past year. Ties have warmed between the administrations of U.S. President Donald Trump and Syrian interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa, the former leader of an Islamist insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham that used to be listed by Washington as a terrorist organization.

    In November, al-Sharaa became the first Syrian president to visit Washington since the country’s independence in 1946. During his visit, Syria announced its entry into the global coalition against the Islamic State, joining 89 other countries that have committed to combating the group.

    U.S. officials have vowed retaliation against IS for the attack but have not publicly commented on the fact that the shooter was a member of the Syrian security forces.

    Critics of the new Syrian authorities have pointed to Saturday’s attack as evidence that the security forces are deeply infiltrated by IS and are an unreliable partner.

    Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, an advocacy group that seeks to build closer relations between Washington and Damascus, said that is unfair.

    Despite both having Islamist roots, HTS and IS were enemies and often clashed over the past decade.

    Among former members of HTS and allied groups, Moustafa, said, “It’s a fact that even those who carry the most fundamentalist of beliefs, the most conservative within the fighters, have a vehement hatred of ISIS.”

    “The coalition between the United States and Syria is the most important partnership in the global fight against ISIS because only Syria has the expertise and experience to deal with this,” he said.

    Later Sunday, Syria’s state-run news agency SANA reported that four members of the internal security forces were killed and a fifth was wounded after gunmen opened fire on them in the city of Maarat al-Numan in Idlib province.

    It was not immediately clear who the gunmen were or whether the attack was linked to the Saturday’s shooting.

  • Trump’s library plan: An iconic building in Miami and a ‘fake news wing’

    Trump’s library plan: An iconic building in Miami and a ‘fake news wing’

    Eric Trump sounded triumphant after Florida officials recently approved giving away a prized piece of Miami real estate for his father’s presidential library. “I got the library approved yesterday,” Trump said on a podcast, adding that “we just got the greatest site in Florida and I’m going to be building that.”

    Then, speaking on another program, Trump said he would take the host’s suggestion to create a “fake news wing” — paid for with money from lawsuit settlements with ABC, CBS, and other sources. It would run clips from 60 Minutes and other programs that he said were evidence of the media organizations’ animus against his father.

    These little-noticed statements by the president’s son provide a revealing look into the zeal of President Donald Trump and his family to build a likely high-rise with a museum that they say will be unlike any other presidential library — and which could tell the story of his presidency only as he wants it to be told.

    Much about the process is secretive, with no federal rules requiring disclosure of the donors — some of whom may have interests affected by White House policy — who are expected to provide hundreds of millions of dollars. A recent filing, for example, says the Donald J. Trump Library Foundation raised $50 million this year but doesn’t provide any donor names. It says $6 million has been spent for “program services” but doesn’t provide specifics.

    The White House referred questions to the foundation, which did not respond to an emailed list of queries and has not said whether Trump might use some of the site for a hotel or other development.

    It is also unclear whether the Trump library will function as the name implies — providing a center for research of presidential papers — or whether museum exhibits would be reviewed by government historians. Trump might follow the example of former President Barack Obama, who created a private foundation that is building his Chicago center where the museum exhibits will not be subject to government review.

    Running a center under the Obama model would require huge sums of money, which might be why Trump’s strategy of using money from lawsuits against media companies and many other sources has become a crucial component.

    Trump hasn’t said whether he will follow Obama’s example, but if he does, experts said, he would be free to tell his own version of his presidencies — including his false assertion that the 2020 election was stolen. That would be in contrast, for example, to the library of former President Richard M. Nixon, where the National Archives created an exhibit on Watergate that was vetted by nonpartisan government historians but is decried by some Nixon supporters.

    Tim Naftali, who helped create that Watergate exhibit in his former role as the National Archives-appointed director of the Nixon library, said he is concerned that Trump could create a museum that tells a misleading story about his presidency without oversight.

    “If they are going to have a ‘fake news wing,’ it would be awfully hard for nonpartisan library professionals at the National Archives to swallow,” said Naftali, now a senior research fellow at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

    But if Trump follows the Obama model, the National Archives would be powerless to object, he said. The archives would still control the presidential papers, which belong to the federal government and would gradually be made available online after undergoing review for classified material.

    That model will become clearer once the Obama Presidential Center, as it is called, opens in June. Asked how Obama’s center will tell his story, a spokesperson said in a statement that Obama and his foundation consulted with leading independent historians and “take the study of history and the U.S. Constitution seriously, and these values are reflected in the work at the center — and in particular, the Museum.”

    But Curt Smith, a former speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush who wrote a book on presidential libraries, said in an interview that the Obama model “is a terrible example to follow” because it allows a former president to write whatever script they choose. “I would be truly alarmed if the Trump library followed that model,” he said.

    There is no law requiring the construction of a presidential library; with or without it, presidential papers and artifacts are the property of the federal government and controlled by the National Archives. Indeed, after Trump’s first term, he did not establish such a center. When Trump took some classified presidential papers to Mar-a-Largo in Palm Beach, Fla., he was charged with willful retention of national defense secrets. The case was dismissed.

    From the earliest days of his second administration, however, Trump has focused on raising millions of dollars for his center, while Eric Trump focused on gaining land for the project. Once President Trump decided to build his center, he had no choice other than to raise private funds because Congress does not provide taxpayer money for construction.

    The rules say not only that the construction funds be privately raised, but also that an additional 60% of that cost be provided as an endowment if the government maintains the facility. That requirement was enacted because the National Archives is spending $91 million annually to cover expenses of most earlier presidential libraries, almost one-fourth of its congressional budget. As a result, the Archives has been negotiating deals that would transfer much of that cost to foundations.

    “Today, preserving the presidential library system requires acknowledging these facts and addressing mounting expenditures across the system,” Jim Byron, senior adviser to the archivist of the National Archives, said in a statement to the Washington Post.

    If Trump keeps his center private, as is widely expected, his foundation would be responsible for maintenance and would not cede control of the museum to the National Archives — saving taxpayer money while enabling him to write his own story.

    That has led to the current situation in which Trump is raising funds from the settlement of lawsuits against the media and other sources.

    “We gave away very valuable land”

    On Sept. 16, a vague ad appeared in the Miami Herald announcing that Miami Dade College would hold a public hearing to “discuss potential real estate transactions.” There was no indication that a 2.6-acre property in downtown Miami — which is appraised at about $60 million but which real estate brokers have said could be worth $300 million or more — was about to be donated to Trump’s library foundation.

    Seven days later, at 8 a.m. Sept. 23, the meeting of the college board of trustees convened. Chairman Michael Bileca called for approval of Agenda Item A, a proposal to convey an unnamed piece of property to an entity known as the “Internal Trust Fund of the State of Florida.” Again, there was no mention of land being given for a Trump library. Bileca opened the floor for discussion; there was none. The motion was passed unanimously by the seven members. Bileca did not respond to a request for comment.

    At exactly 8:03 a.m., according to board minutes, the meeting adjourned and the deal was done.

    Gov. Ron DeSantis and his cabinet then announced they had agreed to give the land to the Trump library foundation. The only requirement is that construction begins within five years and that it “contains components of a Presidential library, museum, and/or center.”

    The secretive deal took many people by surprise — including at least some members of the college board of trustees — and caused an uproar among critics.

    Roberto Alonso, vice chair of the Miami Dade College board of trustees, said the governor’s office sent a letter to the college asking for the land transfer to the state, without explaining why.

    “When I found out that this was exactly what the state wanted was literally right after we voted,” Alonso said.

    Alonso said because Miami Dade is a state college, the land is owned by the state, so his board had little choice but to do what DeSantis wanted and convey the deed.

    He called the library an “incredible opportunity for our students and our community.” The college did not respond to a request for comment.

    The property is a parking lot on the downtown campus of the college. It’s next to the Freedom Tower, an iconic and recently restored landmark on Biscayne Boulevard often referred to as the “Ellis Island of the South.”

    The plan drew immediate backlash from many in the Cuban community who said Trump’s immigration policies contrast with the treatment their families received under previous administrations.

    The college board’s approval also became the target of a lawsuit filed by Miami historian Marvin Dunn, who said the vague notice about the action violated state government Sunshine Laws. The judge in the case set a trial date for next year, but the trustees held a second vote Dec. 2, this time with input from the public, that ended in the same result — a unanimous vote.

    Dunn’s lawyer, Richard E. Brodsky, said in an interview the lawsuit has succeeded in gaining a temporary injunction that prevents the conveyance of the land pending a further order of the court.

    “It’s not over yet,” Brodsky said.

    Miami mayor-elect Eileen Higgins — the first Democrat to win the office in almost 30 years — said before Tuesday’s election that she had questions about the deal.

    “We gave away very valuable land to a billionaire for free. That doesn’t make sense to me,” she said during a televised debate this month.

    Dunn said Eric Trump’s statement that the library will be an “iconic building” raises the alarming prospect of “a 47-story condominium hotel banquet hall” or other oversize structure.

    “If the argument is that this library is going to bring tourism and economic development to the wider region, that may well be true,” Dunn said in an interview. “Then why doesn’t the foundation pay for the land? Why give that to them for free?”

    DeSantis said in September that “we had worked and negotiated” other possible locations for the library, including at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, which is in Palm Beach County about 30 miles from Mar-a-Lago.

    “But their preference was for this land, next to the Freedom Tower. So you’re going to have a presidential library in the state of Florida, which I think is good for the state of Florida. I think it’s good for the city of Miami,” he said.

    “A possible tool for corruption and bribery”

    While the state filing by Trump’s library foundation doesn’t disclose funding sources, President Trump has spoken often about some of them. The largest projected donation is a gift of a Boeing 747-8 aircraft valued at $400 million from the Qatari royal family — which has many interests in Washington policy — that would replace Air Force One and then be given to his library. It is not clear how or whether the plane could be exhibited at the Trump library as Ronald Reagan’s Air Force One is exhibited at his library in California.

    Other funds for the library stem from payments from media companies — some of which have interests before the government — to settle lawsuits filed against them by Trump. These include: $22 million from Meta Platforms, Facebook’s parent company, part of a settlement to resolve a lawsuit over the company’s suspension of Trump from the platform in the wake of the events of Jan. 6; $16 million from CBS; $15 million from ABC; and an unspecified part of a $10 million settlement with X, formerly known as Twitter, which had banned him from the platform. In addition, millions of dollars raised from private interests left from Trump’s inauguration may be transferred to the library foundation.

    These gifts and payments, and the potential of hundreds of millions more from unknown donors, have led Democrats to introduce the Presidential Library Anti-Corruption Act, which would ban fundraising until after a president leaves office, except from nonprofits. It would require a two-year delay after a president leaves before donations can be accepted from foreign nationals or foreign government, lobbyists, individuals seeking pardons, and federal contractors.

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) issued a report in support of the legislation that said Trump “may be using his future presidential library as a possible tool for corruption and bribery while still in office.” The report then listed donations intended for Trump’s library. Warren was unavailable for an interview, an aide said.

    Presidential libraries are seen as a crucial pillar for portraying the history of White House occupants and making their materials widely available. They have proven invaluable to historians and others seeking to piece together the strands of a presidency that often become clearer in hindsight; author Robert Caro used materials at Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidential library in Texas for his prizewinning multivolume biography.

    But in recent years, historians have raised concerns that presidential libraries have focused more on hagiography than clear-eyed biography — particularly as increasingly large sums have come from private donors, including those who have interests before the federal government and who favor a particular storyline about a president.

    Obama’s center, backed by a $1.6 billion fundraising effort, is being built on a 19-acre site that will be run by his foundation. It is not designed to include on-site research materials, which are being digitized with the help of a $5 million payment from the foundation and will be retained by the National Archives, a foundation spokesperson said.

    Former President Joe Biden, meanwhile, is at the beginning of his effort. While he said the library would be in Delaware, he has not provided specifics and has not announced any donation of land. A tax filing says $4 million was raised for Biden’s library in 2024. A Biden spokesperson, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters, said a board has been named and that a foundation is focused on creating a planning study and a budget for the facility. Biden plans to attend a holiday gathering today at which he will lay out his vision for his library, but it will not be a fundraiser, an associate said.

    Trump and his family, meanwhile, have been aggressive in gathering land and money for his center while he is in office. After the state authorized the land transfer, Eric Trump went on conservative commentator Glenn Beck’s show to say that he was responsible for the approval and would build his father’s facility, while ridiculing the Obama center, which he said looked like a “jailhouse.”

    Then, appearing on a podcast called The Benny Show, Eric Trump said he would take host Benny Johnson’s suggestion to create a “fake news wing of the library” — paid for with money from settlements with ABC, CBS, and other media — which would run clips that he said were evidence of the media’s animus against his father.

    “What we’ll do is, we’ll just roll the 60 Minutes clip over and over of how they doctored Kamala’s interview,” Trump said, referring to his father’s assertion that the newsmagazine show deceptively edited its interview of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Trump said creating such a wing “is a phenomenal freaking idea” and vowed, “I will do an entire floor dedicated to the fake news.”

    CBS said in October 2024 that the Harris interview was edited for time but stood by its accuracy. Paramount, the parent company of CBS, which produces 60 Minutes, settled the suit for $16 million in July; that agreement did not include an apology, according to a story posted on the CBS website. The payment was designated for Donald Trump’s library foundation. It came as Paramount was attempting to complete an $8 billion sale to Skydance Media, a deal that required FCC approval.

    Shortly afterward, in July, the agency assented to the deal. A Paramount spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.

  • Zelensky offers to drop NATO bid for security guarantees but rejects US push to cede territory

    Zelensky offers to drop NATO bid for security guarantees but rejects US push to cede territory

    BERLIN — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday voiced readiness to drop his country’s bid to join NATO in exchange for Western security guarantees, but rejected the U.S. push for ceding territory to Russia as he held talks with U.S. envoys on ending the war.

    Zelensky sat down with U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. The Ukrainian leader posted pictures of the negotiating table with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz sitting next to him facing the U.S. delegation.

    Responding to journalists’ questions in audio clips on a WhatsApp group chat before the talks, Zelensky said that since the U.S. and some European nations had rejected Ukraine’s push to join NATO, Kyiv expects the West to offer a set of guarantees similar to those offered to the alliance members.

    “These security guarantees are an opportunity to prevent another wave of Russian aggression,” he said. “And this is already a compromise on our part.”

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has cast Ukraine’s bid to join NATO as a major threat to Moscow’s security and a reason for launching the full-scale invasion in February 2022. The Kremlin has demanded that Ukraine renounce the bid for the alliance membership as part of any prospective peace settlement.

    Zelensky emphasized that any security assurances would need to be legally binding and supported by the U.S. Congress, adding that he expected an update from his team following a meeting between Ukrainian and U.S. military officials in Stuttgart, Germany.

    Washington has tried for months to navigate the demands of each side as Trump presses for a swift end to Russia’s war and grows increasingly exasperated by delays. The search for possible compromises has run into major obstacles, including control of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, which is mostly occupied by Russian forces.

    Tough obstacles remain

    Putin wants Ukraine to withdraw its forces from the part of the Donetsk region still under its control among the key conditions for peace, a demand rejected by Kyiv.

    Zelensky said that the U.S. had floated an idea for Ukraine to withdraw from the Donetsk and create a demilitarized free economic zone there, a proposal he rejected as unworkable.

    “I do not consider this fair, because who will manage this economic zone?” he said. “If we are talking about some buffer zone along the line of contact, if we are talking about some economic zone and we believe that only a police mission should be there and troops should withdraw, then the question is very simple. If Ukrainian troops withdraw 5–10 kilometers, for example, then why do Russian troops not withdraw deeper into the occupied territories by the same distance?”

    Zelensky described the issue as “very sensitive” and insisted on a freeze along the line of contact, saying that “today a fair possible option is we stand where we stand.”

    Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov told the business daily Kommersant that Russian police and national guard would stay in parts of the Donetsk region even if they become a demilitarized zone under a prospective peace plan.

    Ushakov warned that a search for compromise could take a long time, noting that the U.S. proposals that took into account Russian demands had been “worsened” by alterations proposed by Ukraine and its European allies.

    Speaking to Russian state TV in remarks broadcast Sunday, Ushakov said that “the contribution of Ukrainians and Europeans to these documents is unlikely to be constructive,” warning that Moscow will “have very strong objections.”

    Ushakov added that the territorial issue was actively discussed in Moscow when Witkoff and Kushner met with Putin earlier this month. “The Americans know and understand our position,” he said.

    Zelensky said he spoke with French President Emmanuel Macron on Sunday just before the talks with Trump’s envoys, thanking him on X for his support and adding that “we are coordinating closely and working together for the sake of our shared security.”

    Macron vowed on X that “France is, and will remain, at Ukraine’s side to build a robust and lasting peace — one that can guarantee Ukraine’s security and sovereignty, and that of Europe, over the long term.”

    Merz, who has spearheaded European efforts to support Ukraine alongside Macron and U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said Saturday that “the decades of the ‘Pax Americana’ are largely over for us in Europe and for us in Germany as well.”

    He warned that Putin’s aim is “a fundamental change to the borders in Europe, the restoration of the old Soviet Union within its borders.”

    “If Ukraine falls, he won’t stop,” Merz warned on Saturday during a party conference in Munich.

    Putin has denied plans to restore the Soviet Union or attack any European allies.

    Russia, Ukraine exchange aerial attacks

    Ukraine’s air force said that Russia overnight launched ballistic missiles and 138 attack drones at Ukraine. The air force said 110 had been intercepted or downed, but missile and drone hits were recorded at six locations.

    Zelensky said Sunday that hundreds of thousands of families were still without power in the south, east, and northeast regions and work was continuing to restore electricity, heat, and water to multiple regions following a large-scale attack the previous night.

    The Ukrainian president said that in the past week, Russia had launched over 1,500 strike drones, nearly 900 guided aerial bombs, and 46 missiles of various types at Ukraine.

    Russia’s Defense Ministry said that air defenses downed 235 Ukrainian drones late Saturday and early Sunday.

    In the Belgorod region, a drone injured a man and set his house ablaze in the village of Yasnye Zori, regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

    Ukrainian drones struck an oil depot in Uryupinsk in the Volgograd region, triggering a fire, according to regional Gov. Andrei Bocharov.

    In the Krasnodar region, the Ukrainian drones attacked the town of Afipsky, where an oil refinery is located. Authorities said that explosions shattered windows in residential buildings, but didn’t report any damage to the refinery.