—The U.S. decided not to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding that Israel end its settlements in Palestinian territories. More here
—The manhunt to find the suspect in the Berlin Christmas market attack ended Friday, after the Tunisian man was killed in a shootout with Milan police. More here
—We’re live-blogging the news stories of the day below. All updates are in Eastern Standard Time (GMT -5).
U.S. Allows UN Resolution Criticizing Israeli Settlements
Baz Ratner / Reuters
The U.S. decided not to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution demanding that Israel end its settlements in Palestinian territories. The measure passed with 14 of 15 members voting yes. The abstention from the U.S. is a rare occasion where the U.S. did not protect Israel from criticism on the international stage. The U.S. has previously vetoed 30 resolutions regarding Israel and Palestinians. The resolution was co-sponsored by New Zealand, Malaysia, Senegal, and Venezuela. A similar resolution was withdrawn from Egypt earlier this week following pressure from Israel and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump. Israel has accused the Obama administration of being “shameful” and not supporting Israel on this issue. Secretary of State John Kerry has spoken strongly on this issue in the past. The resolution by the 15-member panel says that Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are a violation of international law. While it is highly unlikely that the Israeli government would abide by the resolution, the vote on Friday was a damning rebuke of the country’s actions. The vote could have major repercussions in the U.S., as Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican, threatened the UN Friday afternoon if the resolution passed.
If UN moves forward with ill-conceived #Israel resolution, I'll work to form a bipartisan coalition to suspend/reduce US assistance to UN.
While criticizing what she called the UN’s bias against Israel, Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the UN, quoted from Ronald Reagan's 1982 proposal for Israeli-Palestinian peace to say that “Further settlement activity is in no way necessary for the security of Israel and only diminishes the confidence of the Arabs that a final outcome can be freely and fairly negotiated.” Though Reagan’s proposal was never adopted, Power said the vote Friday was “fully in line with the bipartisan history” how the U.S. approaches the Israeli settlement issue.
Deutsche Bank Agrees to Pay $7.2 Billion Settlement
Deutsche Bank headquarters pictured in Frankfurt, Germany, on June 9, 2015. (Ralph Orlowski / Reuters)
Germany’s Deutsche Bank agreed Friday to a $7.2 billion settlement over an investigation into its sale of toxic mortgage securities leading up to the 2008 financial crisis. Under the agreement, the bank will pay a $3.1 billion penalty and provide $4.1 billion in consumer relief—such as loan modifications and loan forgiveness—over at least the next five years. The agreement is not final until it is approved by the Justice Department. If the sum is approved, it will be considerably lower than the $14 billion the U.S. originally asked for in September. Deutsche Bank is one of several institutions under investigation by the U.S. over allegations of selling and pooling toxic mortgage securities in the run-up to the financial crisis. The Justice Department announced Thursday that it will sue Barclay’s Bank over similar allegations.
West African Nations Will Send in Troops if Gambian President Refuses to Concede
Jerome Delay / AP
If Gambian President Yahya Jammeh does not step down by the end of his term, West African nations will send in troops to intervene. The Economic Community of West African States said Friday that Senegal would lead the coalition if Jammeh, the long-time ruler who lost reelection on December 1, does not leave office by January 19. Except for a thin coastline, Senegal surrounds Gambia entirely. West African leaders have tried in vain to convince Jammeh to end his 22-year tenure and allow his rival Adama Barrow to take office. Jammeh and his ruling party have called for fresh elections, after first saying he would accept the results. In the weeks that followed the election, Jammeh has mobilized troops and seized national election headquarters. Jammeh recently said that only “Allah” can deprive him of his victory.
Record Number of Migrants Drown in the Mediterranean Sea in 2016
Yara Nardi / Reuters
More than 5,000 migrants have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea this year, a record level during this crisis. According to the International Organization for Migration, two oversized inflatable dinghies capsized off the coast of Libya en route to Italy on Thursday. Authorities believe 100 passengers, mostly from West Africa, died, bringing the 2016 death toll up to record levels. This is a significant rise from 2015, where around 3,800 migrants died at sea. United Nations officials blame the rise in death on bad weather and the drastic measures used by smugglers to get migrants into Europe, including the use of fragile boats. Most migrants traveling by sea arrived in Europe through Italy and Greece. More than 358,000 migrants and refugees have gone to Europe by sea this year. Several European countries have closed their borders to new arrivals, forcing migrants to take the dangerous journey across the Mediterranean.
Hostages Released After Libyan Plane Hijacked in Malta
Afriqiyah Airways planes at Tripoli International Airport in Libya on December 23, 2016 (Hani Amara / Reuters)
Everyone on board the hijacked Afriqiyah Airways flight has been released and the hijackers taken into custody, Malta Prime Minister Joseph Muscat announced Friday. The 118-passenger flight A320, traveling from the southwestern Libyan city of Subha to Tripoli, the capital, was diverted to the Mediterranean island of Malta Friday morning local time after two hijackers threatened to blow the plane up with a hand grenade. Muscat said the passengers included 82 men, 28 women, and one infant, as well as seven crew members. Officials of the UN-brokered Libyan government told the Associated Press that the two men are in their early twenties and are seeking political asylum in Europe, though the hijackers’ demands were not made public. Muscat said in a press conference that the hijackers were armed with at least one hand grenade and a pistol, and that no demands for political asylum have been made.
Berlin Suspect Killed in Shoot-Out With Italian Police
Reuters
The manhunt to find the suspect in the Berlin Christmas market attack ended Friday after the Tunisian man was killed in a shoot-out with Milan police. In a press conference following the standoff, Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti confirmed that the deceased person was Anis Amri, who authorities believe killed 12 people and injured 56 more when he drove a truck through a crowd in Germany on Monday. Police found Amri’s fingerprints in the truck. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack, and said Friday the attacker pledged allegiance to the group in a video. The standoff ensued when two officers stopped Amri in a routine police check. After the officers asked for identification, Amri pulled a gun from his bag. One officer was shot in the right shoulder and is in good condition. Amri died from a gunshot wound to the chest. Amri arrived in Milan by train around 1 a.m. Friday, and was confronted by police two hours later. Police must now determine whether the gun Amri used in Milan was the same gun used in the death of the Polish truck driver killed in the attack in Berlin.
The economist Adam Posen on the effect of the war in Iran on the world’s economy and the darkening economic outlook for the United States. Plus: A shifting partisan balance of power and Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed, by Maureen Callahan.
In this episode of The David Frum Show, The Atlantic’s David Frum opens with a discussion of the likelihood that the partisan balance of power will shift from Republicans to Democrats at state-government level.
Then, David is joined by the president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, Adam Posen, for a conversation about the state of the world’s economy. Frum and Posen discuss the economic effect of the war in Iran, the United States’ reputational hit caused by Trump’s tariffs, and the chance of global recession.
Finally, David ends the episode with a discussion of Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed, by Maureen Callahan, and reflects on why reactions to the abuse of women by men in power seem to have become a partisan issue.
When President Trump last summer implored Republicans to launch a nationwide gerrymandering blitz to pad their narrow House majority, the fight he started did not seem fair. GOP lawmakers had both the will and the power to draw their party new seats, while Democrats were hamstrung by limits of their own making. The question was not whether Republicans could expand their edge in Congress, but by how much.
This morning the landscape looks a lot different, after Virginia voters yesterday approved a lopsided new House map that could hand Democrats an additional four seats that Republicans currently hold. The Democratic redistricting victory is the party’s second in a statewide referendum. When combined with new lines that California voters endorsed in November, Democrats have now succeeded in drawing districts that will likely yield them nine more seats this fall, at least matching what Republicans have been able to achieve in states that they control. By some measures, Democrats have jumped into the redistricting lead, bolstering their chances of winning back the House majority in the midterm elections.
For the richest men on Earth, everything is free and nothing matters.
At the end of Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 movie, There Will Be Blood, Daniel Day-Lewis’s oil-baron character, old now and richer than Croesus, beats Paul Dano’s preacher to death with a bowling pin. Dano’s Eli Sunday, a nemesis of Day-Lewis’s Daniel Plainview during his seminal, wealth-building years, has come to sell Plainview the oil-rich land that he once coveted. But Plainview doesn’t need the land anymore, because—as he explains in one of the most famous monologues in modern cinema—he has sucked out all the oil hidden beneath it from an adjoining property, like a milkshake.
Desperate for money, Eli begs for a loan. Instead, Plainview chases him around a bowling alley and murders him with great enthusiasm. Once it’s over, a butler comes to see what all the noise was about. “I’m finished,” Plainview yells.
Patients are getting stuck in the emergency department for days while waiting for a spot in an inpatient ward.
In the last months, weeks, and days of his life, “I will not go to the emergency room” became my husband’s mantra. Andrej had esophageal cancer that had spread throughout his body (but not to his ever-willful brain), and, having trained as a doctor, I had jury-rigged a hospital at home, aided by specialists who got me pills to boost blood pressure; to dampen the effects of liver failure; to stem his cough; to help him swallow, wake up, fall asleep.
“I will not go to the emergency room”—emphasis on not—were his first words after passing out, having a seizure, or regurgitating the protein smoothies I made to pass his narrowed esophagus. He said it again and again, even as fluid built up in his lungs, rendering him short of breath and prone to agonizing coughing spells. He had been a big, athletic guy, but now, in the ugly process of dying, he was looking gaunt. Ours was a precarious existence, but I understood his adamant rejection of the emergency department. Most prior visits had morphed into extended trips into a terrifying medical underworld—to a purgatory known as emergency-department boarding.
Republicans seem to have expected that Democrats would continue to follow rules they had long since enthusiastically abandoned.
Voters in Virginia approved a lopsided congressional map on Tuesday, reducing the expected number of Republican-leaning districts in the Democratic-controlled state from five to one. Republicans have reacted by complaining that conservative-leaning voters in the state have been disenfranchised by gerrymandered maps that reduce the influence of their vote.
And they’re right. That is exactly what the new Virginia map does.
Gerrymandering is an attempt to thwart the will of the voters. It circumvents the vital process of democratic feedback by insulating politicians from political backlash. It should not happen, and yet this latest chapter of the redistricting wars did not begin in Virginia. It did not even begin last year, when Donald Trump openly urged red states to gerrymander their congressional maps so Republicans might retain possession of the House during the midterms. He did so despite the fact that the maps had been drawn after the 2020 census and would normally be expected to last until 2030.
Kash Patel has alarmed colleagues with episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences.
This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here.
On Friday, April 10, as FBI Director Kash Patel was preparing to leave work for the weekend, he struggled to log on to an internal computer system. He quickly became convinced that he had been locked out, and he panicked, frantically calling aides and allies to announce that he had been fired by the White House, according to nine people familiar with his outreach. Two of these people described his behavior as a “freak-out.”
Patel oversees an agency that employs roughly 38,000 people, including many who are trained to investigate and verify information that can be presented under oath in a court of law. News of his emotional outburst ricocheted through the bureau, prompting chatter among officials and, in some corners of the building, expressions of relief. The White House fielded calls from the bureau and from members of Congress asking who was now in charge of the FBI.
This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here.
The mystery of the missing scientists began with a Silver Alert. In late February, a retired Air Force major general named Neil McCasland left his house in New Mexico for a walk and never returned. Rumors spread on social media that the elderly former astronautical engineer had been abducted or killed. Forget Nancy Guthrie, they said. Here was a guy who used to run a “UFO-linked” lab. Here was a guy with knowledge of “America’s deepest, darkest secrets.” So where was this guy?
McCasland’s wife did her best with a post on Facebook to address what she called the “misinformation circulating about Neil and his disappearance,” but wild notions only multiplied. Dots were added, then connected: Another scientist—an advanced-materials researcher at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) named Monica Reza—had disappeared while hiking near Los Angeles in June 2025. A physicist at MIT had been murdered in December. “What is going on seems to be an enemy action,” Walter Kirn, the novelist and podcast contrarian, said last month.
Politicians who think health-conscious women could swing the midterms are fooling themselves.
Earlier this month, MAHA moms went to the White House. Several key figures in the “Make America Healthy Again” movement gathered around a table in the Roosevelt Room to speak with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other top administration officials. The invitees—who included the health activist Kelly Ryerson, the wellness podcaster Alex Clark, and the nutritionist Courtney Swan—were all women. They’re influential among the loose coalition of Kennedy supporters known as MAHA moms, many of whom are worried about their children’s health. This was a chance for them to air their grievances with the Trump administration—which have grown in recent months. Afterward, they were ushered into the Oval Office to see President Trump, who, according to Ryerson, welcomed them as “my MAHA leaders.”
The people we were died at the exact moment our child did.
This article was featured in the One Story to Read Today newsletter. Sign up for it here.
My husband, David, hates Valentine’s Day. He once called it “New Year’s Eve with nuclear weapons.” I pretend not to care. Still, when the day passes entirely unremarked on, a woman can’t help but feel overlooked.
On Valentine’s Day 2024, David found a way out. He booked a speech on February 14 that required traveling from our home in Washington, D.C., to Toronto. I couldn’t object—he was getting paid. Anyway, I had my own plans: an “anti–Valentine’s Day” dinner hosted by one of the foreign embassies.
As I got ready, I called our oldest daughter, Miranda. She answered from her Brooklyn bathroom, getting ready for her own party. She propped her phone up beside her sink and laughed when I told her about her father’s strategic Valentine’s Day escape.
Fifteen years after Steve Jobs’s death, the company is a successful, if unexciting, powerhouse.
Tim Cook’s job was to make Apple boring—and he did. Cook, Apple’s chief executive officer, is stepping down after 15 years in the role. He had succeeded Steve Jobs after the visionary co-founder of Apple Computer Company left only months before dying of pancreatic cancer in 2011. Since then, Apple has grown in market value by 2,000 percent. It has also transformed into a staid, if immensely effective, firm that sells people glass rectangles, wireless earbuds, and, sometimes, computers. This legacy is not tragic, but it is somber. The crucible in which the personal computer and the smartphone were forged is just a big company now.
Jobs and Steve “Woz” Wozniak started Apple Computer in 1976 to bring Woz’s design for an early personal computer to market, but Jobs did not serve as CEO until 1997, when he returned after years away. Before then, a series of more ordinary businesspeople had run the company—mostly former semiconductor executives including Michael Scott, Mike Markkula, and Gil Amelio, along with the former PepsiCo CEO John Sculley. But by the mid-2000s, after the iMac, iPod, and iPhone had appeared, Jobs had become the apotheosized Visionary CEO—a model for the technology industry and beyond. His exacting and sometimes unreasonable demands, which dated back to the design of the Macintosh in the early 1980s, had made him a singular and irreplaceable presence: a figure who could bend an organization, an industry, and the public who would be transformed by its products to his will.
