January 8, 2025

MIDDLE EAST | Updates from regional conflicts:

• The Associated Press cites U.S. State Department documents as showing that the Biden administration is shifting more than $100 million in military aid from Israel and Egypt to Lebanon as part of efforts to help maintain a cease-fire between Israel and the Lebanon-based Hezbollah militant group. [more]
• Palestinian health officials say at least 17 people, mostly women and children, were killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike near the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis. Israeli authorities say the strike targeted Hamas militants who took part in the October 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war and said militants were responsible for the civilian casualties due to their practice of embedding themselves among civilians. [more]

UKRAINE | Today is day 1049 of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here is your update:

• U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin is expected to announce the Biden administration’s final military aid package for Ukraine tomorrow during a summit of some 50 partner nations who have provided aid to Ukraine in the nearly three years since Russia invaded. Reports note that the U.S. has provided about $66 billion in military aid to Ukraine and that the new package will be drawn from existing stockpiles with the aim of delivering most of the pledged weapons to Ukraine prior to the inauguration of President-elect Trump. [more]

CALIFORNIA | More than 30,000 residents are under evacuation orders and about 13,000 structures are considered to be under threat as firefighters battle multiple fast-moving wildfires in Southern California, including in the Los Angeles area and the coastal neighborhood of Pacific Palisades.  Gov. Gavin Newsom says some 1,400 firefighters have been deployed to combat the blazes, which are being driven by historically high winds. [more]

JIMMY CARTER | Late U.S. President Jimmy Carter was eulogized by Vice President Kamala Harris, House Speaker Mike Johnson, and others yesterday in the Capitol Rotunda. Carter's body will lie in state at the Capitol until Thursday, when a state funeral will be held at the nearby Washington National Cathedral. [more]

U.S. HOUSING | The Justice Department and multiple states filed an amended complaint yesterday accusing rental industry data company RealPage and six major landlords of participating in an unlawful scheme to decrease competition among landlords in apartment pricing. Department officials say the landlords, who control some 1.3 million housing units in 43 states and the District of Columbia, shared sensitive information about rental prices and used algorithms to coordinate to keep the prices of rent high. [press release] [more]

U.S. SOCIAL MEDIA | Ahead of the inauguration of incoming President Donald Trump, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced yesterday that the company’s Facebook and Instagram platforms would cease using third-party fact-checking to moderate content and would, instead, rely on user-written “community notes.” In his announcement, Zuckerberg said fact-checkers have become politically biased and that the policy change would prioritize “free expression.” [more]

TRUMP FOREIGN POLICY | In a wide-ranging press conference yesterday, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump refused to rule out the use of economic or military force to take control of Greenland and the Panama Canal, both of which he said are vital to U.S. national security. Trump also proposed renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.” [more]

SEPTEMBER 11 | The Justice Department asked a federal appeals court yesterday to block a plea agreement with accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and two others that would spare them the risk of the death penalty for the 2001 attacks. [more]

HAITI | According to U.N. Human Rights Office data released yesterday, at least 5,601 people were killed in Haiti in 2024 as a result of gang violence – an increase of more than 1,000 over the level seen in 2023. [press release] [more]

AUSTRIA | Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg has been appointed the interim leader of Austria, taking over the duties of outgoing Chancellor Karl Nehammer, who announced his resignation over the weekend following failed attempts to form a coalition government that did not include the country’s far-right Freedom Party. [more]

TIBET | Local authorities say the death toll from this week’s earthquake in Tibet has risen to at least 126, that thousands of houses were destroyed in the quake, and that the region recorded more than 500 aftershocks following the primary quake. [more]

SOUTH KOREA | A South Korean court re-issued an arrest warrant yesterday for President Yoon Suk Yeol, who has resisted detention attempts as he faces investigations and possible removal from office over his short-lived imposition of martial law last month. [more]

R.I.P. | Singer-songwriter Peter Yarrow, best known as a member of the iconic folk-music trio Peter, Paul and Mary and co-writer of the group's hit song "Puff, the Magic Dragon," died yesterday at the age of 86. [more]

TODAY IN HISTORY | On this date in 1815, the last major engagement of the War of 1812 came to an end as U.S. forces led by General Andrew Jackson defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans, not having received word of the signing of a peace treaty. [more history]