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Israelis sit together as they light candles and hold posters with the images Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas, and her two children, Kfir and Ariel Bibas, seized during the deadly Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas, on the day the bodies of the deceased hostages were handed over under by Hamas on Feb. 20, 2025.
3 of 4: On Thursday, Hamas returned the bodies of what they said were four hostages, including two small children and their mother, Shiri Bibas, as well as an elderly activist. The bodies of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, and Oded Lifshitz, were returned to Israel in a grim spectacle involving black caskets and masked militants, but tests confirmed later that the fourth casket was holding anonymous remains, not the body of Shiri Bibas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a “cruel and malicious violation” of the ceasefire agreement and vowed revenge. Hamas said that the mother’s remains must have been mixed up with others after an Israeli strike. Meanwhile, following explosions on three empty buses in central Israel — nobody was injured in the apparent terror attack — on Thursday night, Netanyahu has ordered an intensive military operation in the West Bank.
53: How’s Donald Trump doing with the public? 53% of respondents in a new CNN poll said they feel either “pessimistic” or “afraid.” Nearly two-thirds said the president hasn’t gone “far enough” to address inflation, while just over half said he had so far gone “too far” in his use of executive power. The partisan split is as stark as ever, with nearly 9 in 10 Republicans saying they are “enthusiastic” or “optimistic” about Trump’s second presidency.
18: After 18 years in the Senate as both majority and minority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is officially retiring, he announced Thursday. The wily and cynical tactician drove Democrats nuts with his shrewd use of procedural rules to block their agenda, but he had a complicated relationship with Donald Trump: He enabled the president’s rise even while questioning his assault on establishment norms. McConnell leaves behind a Republican Party that has been reshaped in Trump’s image.
7: Canada on Thursday listed seven transnational crime outfits, including major Latin American drug cartels, as “terrorist” groups. The move, which comes on the heels of similar designations by the US, expands Ottawa’s tools to go after them. In February, PM Justin Trudeau promised this move as part of a deal to postpone US tariffs for 30 days.
103: Long live the king. No, not the US president but Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Thutmose II, whose tomb was discovered this week in Egypt’s famed Valley of the Kings. It is the first major discovery of its kind since archaeologists found the tomb of Thutmose’s descendant Tutankhamun 103 years ago.South Korea's impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol attends a hearing of his impeachment trial at the Constitutional Court in Seoul, South Korea, February 20, 2025.
Impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol appeared before two courts on Thursday. His first stop at the Seoul Central District Court made him the first sitting president — he’s not yet been formally removed from office — to face criminal prosecution. He is accused of insurrection for imposing martial law, albeit briefly, on Dec. 3. Korean presidents enjoy immunity from prosecution on most charges — but not insurrection or treason.
Yoon, whose conservative party suffered a stinging defeat in last April’s parliamentary elections, claimed at the time that the progressive-dominated National Assembly was infiltrated by North Korea. South Koreans took to the streets to protest the declaration of martial law. But South Korean politics is heavily polarized and, before long, Yoon’s conservative backers — a small but vocal minority — began to protest in support of the president.
Yoon then attended a hearing in front of the Constitutional Court, which will now decide whether his Dec. 14 impeachment will stand, which would officially remove him from power. That verdict is likely to drop by mid-March.
If he is also found guilty in his criminal trial, he could face life in prison or even (though unlikely) execution.
South Korea has already been through plenty since Yoon’s Dec. 3 decree, but there could be more unrest coming, given how mobilized the public is to protest, and how radicalized the right wing has become, according to Eurasia Group’s Jeremy Chan.
“It could take the form of a protest movement that metastasizes and gets a bit out of control. It could also manifest in acts of political violence,” says Chan. This might include “trying to assassinate judges, for example, or to intimidate lawmakers.” That kind of violence is not unprecedented: The president’s supporters broke into the Seoul Western District Court after he was detained last month, and, just a year ago, opposition leader Lee Jae-myung was stabbed at an event in Busan.
“Unfortunately, it’s a sort of tinderbox environment in Korea in normal times,” Chan says. “And when you add in all these additional elements, including the radicalization of the far right since December, I think you have a lot of the raw materials for a pretty combustible situation.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy, General Keith Kellogg, meet in Kyiv, Ukraine, on February 20, 2025.
Ahead of the third anniversary on Monday of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and Donald Trump’sUkraine envoy, Keith Kellogg,met in Kyiv on Thursday to discuss bringing the fighting to an end as Washington’s allegiances appear to be shifting toward Moscow. After the meeting, a scheduled joint press conference was canceled on the orders of the US envoy, a sign that the two had not seen eye to eye.
Kellogg’s Kyiv visit comes amid growing tensions between Trump and Zelensky — whom the US president called a dictator this week — raising grave concerns about continued US support for Ukraine. Washington also opposed naming Russia as the aggressor in a G-7 statement set to be released on the war’s third anniversary, further fracturing the group's once-united front against Russia.
The Trump administration is increasing pressure on Ukraine to accept a deal to give the US access to critical minerals in Ukraine as repayment for its past support. “They need to tone it down and take a hard look and sign that deal,” Mike Waltz, the White House national security advisor, said in an interview with Fox News this week. Ukraine has criticized the US for engaging Russia in talks about ending the war without having Ukrainian representatives at the table earlier this week, with Zelensky saying Trump is living in a “disinformation bubble.”
Meanwhile, Polish PM Donald Tuskproposed using frozen Russian assets to aid Ukraine, enhancing NATO air defense and border security, and adopting new EU fiscal rules for defense funding as the continent scrambles to shore up Ukraine’s — and its own — security in the absence of American support.
South African president Cyril Ramaphosa takes the national salute below a statue of former president Nelson Mandela at the Cape Town City Hall, ahead of his State Of The Nation (SONA) address in Cape Town, South Africa February 6, 2025.
South Africa’s ruling coalition, made up primarily of the African National Congress and the Democratic Alliance, is showing signs of a possible crack in its government of national unity.
The two parties have been rivals in the past but agreed to work together following elections last May. They have exceeded expectations for how long the coalition could last, but challenges remain, and the DA has proven the weaker partner, with its policy proposals often ignored.
A fight flared between the parties on Wednesday over the ANC’s budgetary proposal to boost the value-added tax, or VAT, by 2%. If it passed, it would take VAT up to 17% on a broad variety of goods, services, and transactions, with exceptions for necessities like basic foodstuffs. The VAT increase was supposed to help fund improvements in security services, infrastructure, health care, and education programs.
But Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana delayed the budget presentation on Wednesday as a result of the squabble, making this year the first time the government won’t present its budget to parliament in February. Coalition leaders must now discuss adjustments before the rescheduled presentation on March 12 — and before the country’s fiscal year starts on April 1. But the delay does mark a win for the DA, showing it can hold its own against the more dominant ANC, even if it doesn’t yet have a viable alternative budget proposal.
While this may be a strong showing for the DA, Eurasia Group’s Amaka Anku says that none of the parties actually want the VAT.
“The ANC is really committed to projecting a sense of unity in the coalition and national government, of national unity, and not making this about ANC and the DA,” she says. Still, a tax increase in some form is likely to come since there’s no clear alternative for raising revenue.
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) speaks to the media, on the day of a Senate Republicans' weekly policy lunch on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 19, 2025.
Last year, before Donald Trump won the 2024 election, nearly two dozen Republican senators ignored his publicly stated opposition and voted to send tens of billions of dollars in military and other aid to Ukraine.
President Trump now says that Ukraine started the war with Russia and that Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky, not Russia’s Vladimir Putin, is a “dictator.” He has launched negotiations over Ukraine’s future with Putin’s government — and without a Ukrainian counterpart present.
How have Republican lawmakers responded? Some, like Iowa Sen. Jodi Ernst, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, and Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, who serves as chairman of the Armed Services Committee — all of whom strongly supported the defense of Ukraine in the past — have criticized Putin but are careful not to say anything that sounds like criticism of Trump. Other GOP lawmakers have refused to comment.
Perhaps these and other Republicans are simply taking a patient approach to a complex negotiation process, allowing their president maximum room to maneuver. Or maybe Trump’s hold on the GOP is now strong enough to push his party to renounce one of its core foreign-policy convictions of the past 80 years.
The shocking US pivot to Russia has sent the world through the political looking glass and into the upside-down era of Trumpland. Is the US abandoning its historic allies in NATO, Europe, and Canada in favor of … Russia?
The short answer is yes. For now.
Let’s start with exhibit A: the inversion of facts to justify the abandonment of Ukraine.
President Donald Trump has, to steal a Lewis Carroll phrase by the QAnon movement, followed the white rabbit down the disinformation hole. According to him, Ukraine started the war, not Russia. “You should’ve never started it,” Trump said this week about Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “You could’ve made a deal.”
Wait, what?
Didn’t the war start when Vladimir Putin invaded Crimea in 2014? Didn’t it escalate when he invaded the country — three years ago this Saturday — in February 2022, bombing cities and trying to assassinate Zelensky?
Those are the facts that NATO nations have long accepted … because they are true. Putin was the dictator who started the war, and Zelensky the defender of democracy.
Not for Trump.
He now calls Zelensky “a Dictator without Elections,” not Putin. Parroting Russian propaganda, Trump claims that Zelensky has only 4% support in his country and so has no standing to be part of the peace negotiations.
“Curiouser and curiouser,” as Alice said, gazing around the new world of Wonderland. This just doesn’t make much sense.
Once you go through the political looking glass, the flow of disinformation threatens to overwhelm reality. Fact-checking is suddenly seen as a radical form of partisanship, but it shouldn’t be. Facts are facts. The truth is, in the last presidential election, Zelensky won 73% of the vote. It is also true that, since then, the war and martial law in Ukraine delayed the elections that were scheduled for last May, and concerns about that are legitimate. But as the UK prime minister pointed out, during World War II, Britain also suspended elections.
Zelensky responded in fury, saying that Trump “lives in this disinformation space.”
Europe is reeling at the pivot — suddenly aware that their closest ally and friend has shifted toward Russia. European leaders, who have been holding a series of emergency meetings, are now realizing that if they want to defend themselves from Russia, they have to do it themselves. It’s not so much a wake-up call as a lifesaving shock from a political defibrillator. But it will be expensive and fraught with internal obstacles.
The sense of betrayal in the EU is overwhelming. Kaja Kallas, vice president of the European Commission, described this as “appeasement,” while Friedrich Merz, the man most likely to lead Germany after Sunday’s election, called it “a classic reversal of the role of perpetrator and victim.”
Even former British Prime Minster Boris Johnson, who supports the idea of helping Trump end the war, couldn’t defend the absurdity of Trump’s view. “Of course Ukraine didn’t start the war. You might as well say that America attacked Japan at Pearl Harbor,” he wrote.
The truth is that European leaders are in full panic, watching the postwar multilateral world they worked so hard to build on the foundation of US support collapse.
Meanwhile, the Russians aren’t just throwing a Lewis Carroll-like tea party but a Kremlin-sponsored vodka chug-a-thon. The Russians have long courted far-right MAGA types like Tucker Carlson through their common interest in fighting “woke” culture and promoting Christian nationalism — all while maintaining their focus on weakening NATO and breaking up the alliance. Even they can’t believe their success.
“If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US president, I would have laughed out loud,” Dmitry Medvedev, the former Russian president wrote, not bothering to hide his gloating. “Trump is 200 percent right.”
“He is the first, and so far, in my opinion, the only Western leader who has publicly and loudly said that one of the root causes of the Ukrainian situation was the impudent line of the previous administration to draw Ukraine into NATO,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, cementing Russian propaganda as a Trumpian truth.
As I argued last week, this is part of Trump’s empire state of mind, his neo-imperialist goal of dividing the world into spheres of influence controlled by strongman leaders in countries like Russia and China. China is seeing all this through the lens of invading Taiwan, something that must look far more palatable to the current US administration as it retreats from its role as a global police officer and looks increasingly likely to join the mob looting weaker sovereign territories. Small countries who get in the way — Ukraine in this case, the Panamanians in another, and maybe Taiwan — have little or no say in the outcomes.
Other countries that have been threatened by Trump, like Canada, are watching nervously. After all, the propaganda Putin uses to talk about Ukraine — there is an artificial border where one never should have existed, that Ukrainians actually want Russia to come and protect them — sounds eerily familiar to the language Trump has used about Canada. He has called the US-Canada border an “artificially drawn line” and claimed, without proof, that most Canadians would welcome the US taking over the country to offer protection.
Earlier today, just hours before the 4 Nations hockey final between the US and Canada, Trump made it political. The event has been supercharged by the political climate to the point where Canadian fans booed the US national anthem during a round-robin matchup last weekend in Montreal. Expect the Canadian anthem to receive a similar treatment tonight in Boston. “I’ll be calling our GREAT American Hockey Team this morning to spur them on towards victory tonight against Canada, which with FAR LOWER TAXES AND MUCH STRONGER SECURITY, will someday, maybe soon, become our cherished, and very important, Fifty First State,” Trump posted.
The threats are by now familiar, but the pivot toward Russia adds a more concerning element. Once he went through the looking glass and accepted the lie that Ukraine started the war, Trump implicitly accepted the idea that a manufactured threat can be a justifiable pretext for the most radical action.
Trump 1.0 already used the pretext of national security to slap tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, and his Trump 2.0 tariff wars and threats are no different. What happens when Canada responds in kind with reciprocal tariffs designed to hurt the US economically? Will it be long before Canada is accused of starting the tariff war? Does that quickly evolve into a pretext for more drastic US action to make Canada the 51st state? After all, it is just … self-defense.
All this sounds like phantasmagorical, political hyperventilating, and frankly paranoid. The rhetoric about the US taking over Canada the way Russia invaded Ukraine must be a joke, a trick to gain the upper hand in good old-fashioned trade negotiations. Right? Right?
Let’s hope.
But then, Trump has a Napoleonic view of his powers and the rule of law. “He who saves his Country does not violate any Law,” he posted on social media last weekend. If he does not see himself bound by US constitutional law, why would he feel bound by international law?
This US pivot toward Russia marks the most dangerous threat to the multilateral world’s adherence to the rule of law and the NATO alliance in general. It is not a bug of the Trump presidency; it is a feature. Everything has changed. “I can’t go back to yesterday because I was a different person then,” Alice says as she absorbs what has happened to her.
The Western world can’t go back either. There is malice in Wonderland now, and it is no longer just Russia; it’s the United States itself.
Hard Numbers: US vs. Canada, Canadians see US as “enemy,” Steel tariffs could hit food prices, Florida’s sewers go WILD
Brady Tkachuk, right, and Charlie McAvoy, left, during the training of Team USA in Montreal on Feb. 11, 2025.
27: Tensions on the ice are reinforced by a new Leger poll, which shows that more than a quarter of Canadians – 27% – see the US as an “enemy,” a sign of the stunning transformation in what was one of the world’s most stable geopolitical relationships since Trump took office.
70: Trump’s plan to impose 25% tariffs on imported steel and aluminum on March 12 could impact prices at the grocery store by raising prices of manufacturing cans in the US. This could make everything from canned food to beer more expensive. The US annually produces 135 billion metal cans – 115 billion aluminum beverage cans and 20 billion steel cans. With 70% of steel can materials imported, manufacturers will likely face higher costs that would eventually be passed on to consumers.
3,800: University of Florida researchers installed 39 cameras in Gainesville's storm sewers, documenting a surprising diversity of wildlife over 60 days. They captured 3,800 sightings of 35 different species, including 50 alligator appearances and 1,800 raccoon visits. Alligators used the tunnels to travel between ponds and to hunt fish, while mischievous raccoons occasionally stole the cameras. The study also spotted bats, armadillos, and various bird species in the underground network.