January 21, 2025

MIDDLE EAST | JANUARY 6 | U.S. PRESIDENCY | BIDEN PARDONS | U.S. FOREIGN POLICY | U.S. AND AFGHANISTAN | EUROPEAN DEFENSE SPENDING | AUSTRALIA | COLOMBIA | TURKEY | INDONESIA | MARBURG DISEASE | COLLEGE FOOTBALL | TODAY IN HISTORY

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MIDDLE EAST | Update from regional conflicts:

  • As a part of a series of executive actions following his inauguration yesterday, U.S. President Donald Trump rescinded sanctions imposed by the former Biden administration on Israeli individuals and entities accused of being involved in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. [more]

JANUARY 6 | Newly-installed U.S. President Donald Trump, in one of his first actions after taking office, issued “full, complete and unconditional” pardons yesterday to more than 1,500 people charged with crimes related to the January 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol, including to those convicted of assaulting police officers. Additionally, fourteen January 6 defendants, including several convicted of seditious conspiracy, had their sentences commuted by Trump. [more]

U.S. PRESIDENCY | Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States yesterday and set about implementing his policies through a series of executive actions, including:

  • revoking more than 70 executive actions taken by President Joe Biden, including several regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
  • issuing pardons for people charged in connection with the January 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol.
  • declaring a national emergency on the U.S. southern border and various other immigration actions.
  • declaring a national energy emergency, ordering increases in U.S. oil and gas production, and suspending new leasing and permitting for wind energy projects.
  • establishing a federal hiring freeze and ordering federal workers back to full-time in-office work.
  • designating Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
  • withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accords.
  • beginning the process of withdrawing from the World Health Organization.
  • protecting against "radical gender ideology" and ordering the federal government to recognize only two genders – male and female.
  • ordering a reinterpretation of the right to birthright citizenship in the 14th Amendment.
  • establishing a Department of Government Efficiency.
  • reestablishing the name of the highest mountain in North America as "Mount McKinley" and renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.
  • full text of Trump executive actions available at WhiteHouse.gov.

BIDEN PARDONS | Saying various members of his family had been “subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me,” now-former President Joe Biden, as one of the final acts of his presidency, issued preemptive pardons yesterday to his brother James and his wife, Sara; his sister, Valerie, and her husband, John Owens; and his brother Francis. [more]

U.S. FOREIGN POLICY | President Donald Trump suggested last night that tariffs of 25% on goods imported from Canada and Mexico could be implemented as early as February 1. [more]

U.S. AND AFGHANISTAN | Two Americans were freed by Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban yesterday in exchange for the U.S. release of Taliban official Khan Mohammed, who was sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment in 2008 on drug trafficking and terrorism charges. Reports say the Americans released were Ryan Corbett and William McKenty. [more]

EUROPEAN DEFENSE SPENDING | French President Emmanuel Macron called yesterday for European nations to significantly increased their defense spending in order to reduce reliance on the United States. [more]

AUSTRALIA | Authorities in the Australian state of New South Wales say more police will be committed to an investigation into a series of antisemitic crimes after a childcare center near a Sydney synagogue was spray-painted with anti-Jewish graffiti and set afire early today. [more]

COLOMBIA | President Gustavo Petro announced plans yesterday to declare a state of emergency in Colombia following a series of attacks by the National Liberation Army rebel group in the country’s northeastern Catatumbo region in which at least 80 people have been killed. [more]

TURKEY | At least 66 people were killed, and 51 others were injured, overnight when a fire broke out at a ski resort in Turkey's Bolu mountains. The cause of the fire remains under investigation. [more]

INDONESIA | Disaster management officials in Indonesia say at least 17 people were killed, and eight others remain missing, in a series of flash floods and landslides overnight in the Central Java province of the country’s main island of Java. [more]

MARBURG DISEASE | World Health Organization and Tanzanian officials have confirmed that a sample obtained in northern Tanzania has tested positive for Marburg disease – a highly infectious virus that is fatal in about 88% of untreated cases. [more]

COLLEGE FOOTBALL | Ohio State beat Notre Dame, 34-23, last night to win the college football national championship – the school’s first national title since 2014. [more]

TODAY IN HISTORY | On this date in 1793, Louis XVI, the last Bourbon king of France, was executed by guillotine in Paris during the French Revolution. [more history]

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