Flagship

Trump’s foreign policy shift

US President Donald Trump sharpened his broadside against Ukraine, accusing its leader of being a “dictator” in an about-face that analysts said marked a geopolitical rupture. Republicans were largely silent in the face of Trump’s attacks, while few domestic hackles have been raised over Trump’s calls to take control of Gaza, Greenland, and the Panama Canal. “No one expected Trump to handle global affairs like his predecessors,” The Wall Street Journal said. “But few expected him to move so rapidly to reorient US foreign policy.” As a British author wrote in The London Review of Books, the world is grappling with “quite how much of an enemy to its friends America has suddenly become.”

Europe readies Ukraine force

France and Britain are reportedly drawing up plans for a 30,000-strong “reassurance force” to protect Ukrainian cities and critical infrastructure if the US and Russia agree a peace deal. The proposal is part of wide-ranging efforts by European powers to retain some influence in the negotiations after being sidelined by Washington and Moscow. The scramble, just days ahead of the three-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, may be too little, too late, however: “Ukraine has lost. It’s as simple as that,” the European political analyst Wolfgang Münchau wrote. “A Ukrainian victory would have required the US and Europe to have taken different policy decisions early on… Ukraine needed brave supporters. It got cheerleaders instead.”

Western pivot to defense tech

US defense startup Saronic raised $600 million to mass-produce autonomous warships, part of a growing Western emphasis on advancing military technology. Autonomous ships have been effective in Ukraine, essentially “driv[ing] the Russian Navy out of Crimea” despite Kyiv’s lack of a traditional navy, TechCrunch reported. Elsewhere, the US is testing “Loyal Wingman” programs — unmanned planes that accompany piloted jets. Defense tech is hot property: US startup Anduril is valued at $28 billion, and Europe’s sector has grown rapidly. The “coming swarms of autonomous robots” will change the battlefield, Palantir’s CEO warned in a new book: Perhaps unsurprisingly, he said the US must keep investing or face losing its military edge to rivals.

Trump softens China talk

US President Donald Trump indicated openness to a trade deal with China and said he expected the country’s leader Xi Jinping to visit. Though the remarks were light on details, The New York Times cited current and former advisers who said the president wanted a wide-ranging agreement with Beijing that would also include investments and nuclear security. The stance contrasts with Trump’s hardline position on China during his first presidency, as well as his threats of across-the-board tariffs made in recent weeks. The strategy is a sound one, two self-described China hawks wrote: Decoupling from Beijing “might prompt China to lash out,” they argued in Foreign Affairs, “and it may fail to achieve its purpose.”

Germany votes as its economy slumps

Germany goes to the polls this weekend against a backdrop of economic malaise. The country has lost almost 250,000 manufacturing jobs since the start of the pandemic: The main opposition leader said Germany risks deindustrialization. Reliance on Russian gas and the closure of nuclear plants has created an energy crisis. Even the country’s famously punctual trains are collapsing: Chancellor Olaf Scholz warned against privatization of the rail network, saying it could “end as badly as England,” but The Times of London noted that German trains are already less reliable than British ones and are often banned from Switzerland because they mess up timetables. The rising economic anxiety has boosted the anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party, now second in the polls.

Hamas returns hostages’ bodies

Hamas returned the bodies of the youngest hostages it took in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. The militant group said four-year-old Ariel Bibas and his nine-month-old brother Kfir were killed along with their mother Shiri by an Israeli airstrike while in captivity, although it provided no evidence. A BBC correspondent called the image of the terrified Shiri cradling the boys in her arms as they were taken was “one of the most searing to emerge” from the attacks, which triggered Israel’s invasion of the enclave and reshaped the balance of power in the Middle East. The return of the bodies is part of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which has wavered in recent days.

Crypto scandal threatens Milei

A widening scandal in Argentina over a failed cryptocurrency backed by President Javier Milei could derail his ambitious economic plans. The $LIBRA coin tanked shortly after Milei said Argentinians should buy it last week, leaving many with huge losses. According to messages published by La Nación, the coin’s co-creator said he paid Milei’s sister, a key government figure, for the president’s endorsement. The creators reportedly made tens of millions of dollars from the “pump and dump” scheme to rapidly inflate prices then cash out. The revelations could jeopardize Milei’s hopes of securing a new loan from the International Monetary Fund as he travels to the US this week.

SAfrica postpones budget

South Africa abruptly canceled the presentation of its budget over a dispute that threatens to break up its governing coalition. The decision underscores the tensions within the 10-party coalition, which the African National Congress was forced into after failing to secure a majority for the first time since white-majority rule ended in 1994. The main sticking point in the budget was a 2% hike to the value-added tax proposed by the ANC, which the pro-business Democratic Alliance said “would have broken the back of our economy.” South Africa has been beset by decades of corruption and mismanagement that have led to one of the world’s highest youth unemployment rates.

World’s largest artificial reef

The SS United States, still the fastest ocean liner to ever cross the Atlantic, will be sunk off the coast of Florida to create the world’s largest artificial reef. The 1,000-foot-long ship was “a beacon of American engineering” in its mid-20th century heyday, The Associated Press reported, beating the RMS Queen Mary’s transatlantic time by 10 hours on its maiden voyage in 1952. After sitting unused on the Delaware River for decades amid a legal dispute, it has been sold and will be towed to its final destination. Sunken ships are ideal habitats for marine life, attracting smaller fish almost immediately, then coral, algae, and larger fish, and Florida officials hope the wreck could become a major attraction for scuba divers.

Pharaoh’s tomb discovered in Egypt

A pharaoh’s tomb was discovered in Egypt for the first time since Tutankhamun’s in 1922. King Thutmose II’s tomb was found by a British-Egyptian team of archaeologists in the Theban Necropolis near Luxor. A still-intact part of the ceiling was painted blue with yellow stars, indicating its occupant was a king. The mummy of Thutmose II was found 200 years ago, having been moved to a different tomb in ancient times, but his original burial site remained a mystery. He is best known as the husband of Queen Hatshepsut, a rare female pharaoh and one of ancient Egypt’s most prolific builders. Egypt’s antiquities minister called the discovery “an extraordinary moment for Egyptology and the broader understanding of our shared human story.”

• The criminal trial of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol opens.
• Ivory Coast holds a ceremony to mark the departure of French troops, the latest of several withdrawals.
• Operation Finale, a historical drama about an Israeli spy mission to capture the Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann, drops on Netflix.

The percentage by which Europe’s glaciers have shrunk since 2000, marking an alarming acceleration in global ice loss. The world’s glaciers are losing the equivalent of three Olympic-sized pools every second, new research shows, with those in the Alps and the Pyrenees the worst affected. With temperatures forecast to keep rising worldwide — 2024 was the hottest year on record — experts fear glacier melting could accelerate further.

Lattanzi, 46th Street, New York. As Saturday Night Live celebrated its 50th anniversary last weekend, The New York Times noted that every Tuesday before a recording, its creator and some of its staff and cast appear at this old Italian joint not far from 30 Rockefeller Plaza. It was founded in 1984 — so is somewhat younger than SNL itself — and serves “Roman classics, like fried artichokes and cacio e pepe.” A former SNL writer says it is “just very New York-y… a pretty simple restaurant where the service is nice and they know you.” Reserve a table here.

Beneficiaries of a $20 billion clean-energy program that the Trump administration wants to claw back might sue to keep the money, a leader of one such group told Semafor’s Tim McDonnell.

“The days of irresponsibly shoveling boatloads of cash to far-left activist groups in the name of climate justice … are over,” EPA head Lee Zeldin wrote on X. But ending the program could also undermine the administration’s promise to cut household energy bills, wrote McDonnell.