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HARD NUMBERS: Trump declassifies JFK docs, Saudis pledge huge US investment, Nepal hikes Everest fees, Taiwan tackles lizards, Trump releases activists, Oscars make transgender history

January 24, 2025
Alex Kliment
John F Kennedy and his wife Jackie Kennedy in the Lincoln Continental in Dallas on November 22, 1963, just moments before he was assassinated.
Reuters

3: Donald Trump on Thursday ordered the government to declassify documents pertaining to three of the biggest, and most controversial, assassinations in American history: President John F. Kennedy in 1963, his brother Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, and civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., also in 1968. Will this finally put to rest the question of whether there was a second shooter on the grassy knoll? Back and to the left … back and to the left.

600 billion: Saudi Arabia has pledged to invest some $600 billion in the United States, part of a charm offensive with the kingdom’s most important Western ally. Trump suggested Thursday in his address to the World Economic Forum in Davos that the Saudis should top that up closer to $1 trillion. He suggested earlier this week that such investments could mean he’d consider making the kingdom his first foreign trip as America’s 47th president. Saudi Arabia has invested heavily in companies linked to Trump and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

15,000: For the first time in nearly a decade, Nepal has hiked the permit fee for climbing Mount Everest. If you want to summit the highest peak on Earth, you’ll need to pony up $15,000, an increase of 36%. Each year, several hundred people attempt the ascent, which was first completed in 1953 by Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay.

120,000: If you love lizards, you’re ’guana cry about this one. Taiwan has announced plans to cull up to 120,000 green iguanas, an invasive species that is native to Central America and the Caribbean. Stretching to 2 feet in length, the sharp-toothed green iguanas pose no threat to humans, but they eat and destroy crops, wreaking havoc on the agriculture sector.

23: President Donald Trumpsigned pardons on Thursday for 23 anti-abortion activists who were convicted of illegally blocking access to abortion clinics. Among them was 31-year-old Lauren Hardy, who was serving a five-year term for leading a blockade on a clinic that resulted in the protesters forcing their way into the facility and injuring a nurse. The release came just in time for the annual March for Life, set for today in Washington, DC.

13: The musical film “Emila Pérez,” a Spanish-language French production about a drug kingpin who undergoes a gender transition, has garnered 13 Oscar nominations, the most of any film this year. Its star, Karla Sofía Gascón, became the first openly transgender actress to be nominated for an Oscar. Coming just three days after the new Trump administration moved to roll back recognition and protections for transgender people, the nominations carry a distinct political significance. The Academy Awards will take place on March 2.

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Palestinians mourn medics, who came under Israeli fire while on a rescue mission, after their bodies were recovered, according to the Red Crescent, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip March 31, 2025.
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Can France’s Marine Le Pen run again?

National Rally leader Marine Le Pen poses prior to an interview on the evening news broadcast of French TV channel TF1, in Boulogne-Billancourt, outside Paris, France, on March 31, 2025.
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National Rally leader Marine Le Pen was found guilty by a French court on Monday for embezzling European Parliament funds, and faces a five-year ban from running for public office. While it may seem like Le Pen’s political career is dead, “This isn’t the end of the story,” says Mujtaba Rahman, Eurasia Group’s managing director of Europe.

Viewpoint: What to expect from Trump’s tariff “Liberation Day”

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Donald Trump argues that any short-term pain from his global tariffs will translate into long-term gain as businesses move their operations to the US. He plans to announce a sweeping new round of tariffs on April 2. We asked Eurasia Group expert Nancy Wei what to expect from what Trump is billing as a “Liberation Day” from an unfair global trading system.

Le Pen barred from running from office after embezzlement conviction

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, member of parliament of the Rassemblement National party, leaves the courthouse on the day of the verdict of her trial alongside 24 other defendants over accusations of misappropriation of European Union funds, in Paris, France, on March 31, 2025.

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Oh là là! A French court on Monday found National Rally leader Marine Le Pen guilty of misappropriating European funds to her far-right party, and barred the three-time presidential candidate barred from running for office for the next five years. Le Pen has denied wrongdoing and said last November, “It’s my political death that’s being demanded.”

The rise of Elon Musk's DOGE under Trump

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In a few short weeks, Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has rapidly reshaped the federal government, firing thousands of workers, slashing spending, and shutting entire agencies. DOGE’s actions have faced some pushback from the courts, but Musk says he’s just getting started. On GZERO World, Ian Bremmer sits down with WIRED Global Editorial Director Katie Drummond for a look at President Trump’s increasingly symbiotic relationship with the tech billionaire, Musk’s impact on politics and policy, and what happens when Silicon Valley’s ‘disrupt-or-die’ ethos collides with the machinery of the US government.

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