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Documents cast doubt on the viability of Trump’s Gaza peace initiative

Documents cast doubt on the viability of Trump’s Gaza peace initiative

Politico reports: Some Trump administration officials are deeply concerned that the Gaza peace deal between Israel and Hamas could break down because of the difficulty implementing many of its core provisions, as private documents obtained by POLITICO and circulating among U.S. officials underscore the lack of a clear path forward. The compendium of documents was presented last month during a two-day symposium of a few hundred people for U.S. Central Command and members of the newly created Civil-Military Coordination Center,…

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Governments and billionaires are still failing to meet the challenge of climate change

Governments and billionaires are still failing to meet the challenge of climate change

Elizabeth Kolbert writes: In the lead-up to this year’s COP, every country was supposed to announce an emissions target for itself, extending through 2035. The U.S.submitted such a target in the last month of the Biden Administration; it is now considered largely meaningless. Last week, China submitted its target, which was widely described as inadequate. Brazil’s target, too, has been criticized as insufficient. And, just a few weeks ago, the Brazilian government decided, for the first time, to allow oil…

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Newsom and Mamdani are showing Democrats how to fight again

Newsom and Mamdani are showing Democrats how to fight again

Politico reports: Gavin Newsom said he hadn’t heard of Zohran Mamdani until a few months ago. They communicated for the first time on Election Day. But that night’s results have suddenly bound the California governor and the New York City mayor-elect together as two of the most prominent figures on the left — two geographic and ideological poles in a party that for months has had no clear national leader. “Voters are looking for people who represent the exact opposite…

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We need courage and clarity from our leaders. Schumer doesn’t have the backbone for the job

We need courage and clarity from our leaders. Schumer doesn’t have the backbone for the job

David Rothkopf writes: It would be a mistake to overreact to the decision by eight Senate Democrats to vote to end the government shutdown without real guarantees that Americans will be able to afford health care and maintain health insurance coverage. Do not, for example, make plans to immediately move to Canada or any other country with a sane, stable healthcare system just because those Democrats were spineless, visionless, out of touch with the rank and file of the Democratic…

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Scott Galloway warns of ‘nowhere to hide’ in markets if the OpenAI story unravels

Scott Galloway warns of ‘nowhere to hide’ in markets if the OpenAI story unravels

  Fortune reports: Tech analyst and professor Scott Galloway has issued a stark warning regarding the highly inflated valuations of the Magnificent 10 mega-cap companies, asserting a financial collapse at generative AI leader OpenAI would trigger a systemic shock leaving “nowhere to hide” for investors across the global markets. Galloway, speaking on his Prof G Markets podcast, characterized the current market reliance on AI as precarious, noting AI has been responsible for 80% of the stock market returns since the…

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Trump takes on BBC with $1bn lawsuit threat after bosses quit

Trump takes on BBC with $1bn lawsuit threat after bosses quit

  The Guardian reports: A BBC board member with links to the Conservative party “led the charge” in pressuring the corporation’s leadership over claims of systemic bias in coverage of Donald Trump, Gaza and transgender rights, the Guardian has been told. Sources said Robbie Gibb, Theresa May’s former communications chief who was appointed to the BBC’s board during Boris Johnson’s time as prime minister, amplified the criticisms in key board meetings that preceded the shock resignation of the director general,…

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Ahmed al-Sharaa becomes first Syrian leader to visit the White House

Ahmed al-Sharaa becomes first Syrian leader to visit the White House

Middle East Eye reports: Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former member of al-Qaeda, on Monday became the first-ever Syrian president to visit the White House, in a reflection of Damascus’s stunning shift from a US-designated sponsor of terror to partner. Sharaa, whose Islamist rebel forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad late last year, is the first Syrian leader to visit the White House since the country’s 1946 independence from France. The Assad family had courted Russia and Iran as partners. “We have…

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Israeli soldiers speak out on killings of Gaza civilians

Israeli soldiers speak out on killings of Gaza civilians

The Guardian reports: Israeli soldiers have described a free-for-all in Gaza and a breakdown in norms and legal constraints, with civilians killed at the whim of individual officers, according to testimony in a TV documentary. “If you want to shoot without restraint, you can,” Daniel, the commander of an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tank unit, says in Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s War, due to be broadcast in the UK on ITV on Monday evening. Some of the IDF soldiers who…

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James Watson: Titan of science with tragic flaws

James Watson: Titan of science with tragic flaws

Jon Cohen writes: “It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.” That famous understatement concludes the 1953 Nature article in which James Watson, then just 25, and Francis Crick announced their discovery of the double helical structure of DNA. In his later life, Watson, who died on 6 November at 97, was anything but understated. The son of a Chicago bill collector, Watson shared a…

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Zohran Mamdani’s message resonates far beyond New York City

Zohran Mamdani’s message resonates far beyond New York City

Mara Gay writes: The instinct to treat Zohran Mamdani as a local New York City phenomenon ignores the reality of the American voters behind his historic win. Most of the people who voted for Mr. Mamdani for mayor are at the heart of the Democratic Party coalition, not at its fringes. Black voters in particular swung hard toward Mr. Mamdani in the general election. In precincts where Black residents make up a majority of the population, Mr. Mamdani outperformed Mr….

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Trump is pushing us toward a financial crash. It could be 1929 all over again

Trump is pushing us toward a financial crash. It could be 1929 all over again

William A. Birdthistle writes: President Trump’s Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago, set to the theme of “The Great Gatsby,” re-enacted the decadence of that story’s licentious era: befeathered flappers shimmying in the crowd; gilded and onyx décor; scantily clad women posing in an enormous champagne coupe. The revelatory moment says so much about where we stand today — and what we could be lurching into next. Published a century ago, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby” captured the culture of an…

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Why a federal judge just resigned from his lifetime appointment

Why a federal judge just resigned from his lifetime appointment

Judge Mark L. Wolf was appointed as a federal judge by Ronald Reagan in 1985. On Friday he resigned. He writes: I decided all of my cases based on the facts and the law, without regard to politics, popularity, or my personal preferences. That is how justice is supposed to be administered—equally for everyone, without fear or favor. This is the opposite of what is happening now. As I watched in dismay and disgust from my position on the bench,…

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Hearings that can last less than two minutes for hundreds of thousands of anonymous deportees

Hearings that can last less than two minutes for hundreds of thousands of anonymous deportees

Caitlin Dickerson writes: One morning in March, as ICE was building momentum in carrying out President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation campaign, dozens of people who had recently been detained throughout Virginia were being rushed through preliminary hearings. The government was using Zoom to save time, so Judge Karen Donoso Stevens sat in a mostly empty courtroom, adjourning some proceedings in less than two minutes each. Donoso Stevens yelled at a man to “stop talking!” while his own case was being heard…

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‘Mega detention centers’: ICE considers buying large warehouses to hold immigrants

‘Mega detention centers’: ICE considers buying large warehouses to hold immigrants

NBC News reports: The Trump administration is exploring buying warehouses that were designed for clients like Amazon and retrofitting them as detention facilities for immigrants before they are deported, a move that would vastly expand the government’s detention capacity, according to a Homeland Security Department official and a White House official. The precise warehouses that Immigration and Customs Enforcement may buy have not yet been determined, but the agency is looking at locations in the southern U.S. near airports where…

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