AP Top U.S. News at 2:36 p.m. EDT
The House passes billions in aid for Ukraine and Israel after months of struggle. Next is the Senate
Latest stories
The HillOpinion - President Biden is leaving Trump a shocking mess to clean up
The Biden years have planted land mines on many fronts for the incoming Trump team. Shamefully, rather than trying to repair the damage they’ve caused, they are racing to do more.
- HuffPost
Barron Trump Introduces Himself In Video With Donald Trump And People Have Same Reaction
Many viewers said the same thing when a clip emerged of Trump's youngest son talking to Dana White and others.
- The Telegraph
Assad’s family ‘flees’ to Russia – but Kremlin ‘won’t come’ to Syrian leader’s rescue
Bashar al-Assad’s family fled to Russia in the days after rebel forces launched a shock offensive that captured swathes of territory across northern Syria, it has been revealed.
- HuffPost
'He Knows That He F**ked Up': James Carville Calls Biden 'Most Tragic Figure' In U.S. Politics
The Democratic strategist slammed Biden for not exiting the presidential race sooner and lamented that his otherwise "stunning" legacy is now overshadowed.
- BBC
S Korea president ordered arrest of own party leader
The head of President Yoon's party called for his suspension in a sign it may back moves to impeach him.
- CNN
South Korean politician who grabbed soldier’s gun says she was the ‘last line’ in protecting parliament during martial law
A South Korean politician who grappled with an armed soldier in a show of defiance outside the country’s National Assembly on Tuesday night said she felt like the “last line” of defense in preventing security forces from entering parliament.
- Associated Press
China's ban on key high-tech materials could have broad impact on industries, economy
China has banned exports of key materials used to make a wide range of products, including smartphones, electric vehicles, radar systems and CT scanners, swiping back at Washington after it expanded export controls to include dozens of Chinese companies that make equipment used to produce advanced computer chips. Both sides say their controls are justified by national security concerns and both accuse the other of “weaponizing” trade. Here’s why this could be a tipping point in trade conflict between the two biggest economies, coming at a time when antagonisms already were expected to heat up once President-elect Donald Trump takes office, given his vows to hike tariffs on imports of Chinese-made products. WHAT DID CHINA DO AND WHY?
- INSIDER
With the US caught off guard, Kim Jong Un may be about to capitalize on South Korea's turmoil
North Korea has long sought to exploit domestic chaos in South Korea.
- CBC
In Syria, a ruthless dictator is under siege. Will anyone step up to save him?
Across northern and central Syria this week, families who've been torn apart by more than a decade of civil war have been holding joyous reunions."I didn't believe it, it was very emotional," said Ismail Alabullah, a volunteer with the Syrian NGO the White Helmets, as he described returning to the city of Aleppo for the first time since 2013 and reuniting with his sister."I couldn't believe I was seeing her again," he told CBC News from northern Syria. "I lost my brother, my mother and father ov
- INSIDER
Ukraine just gave a first look at its new homemade Hell 'drone-missile' with more than twice the range of ATACMS
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the weapon, called "Peklo," has already been used in combat.
- Associated Press
Mexico president will ask Trump to deport non-Mexican migrants directly to their home countries
Mexico’s president said Thursday she will ask President-elect Donald Trump to deport non-Mexican migrants directly to their home countries, rather than dumping them at the Mexican border. President Claudia Sheinbaum said she hopes to reach an agreement with Trump so that “they send people who come from other countries to their countries of origin.” Mexico, like any other country, is not obligated to accept non-Mexican migrants, but it has agreed to do so in the recent past, especially from countries like Cuba and Venezuela, which often refuse deportation flights from the United States, but may accept them from Mexico.
- Associated Press
Melania Trump says heading to the White House for the second term is much different than the first
Soon-to-be first lady Melania Trump said Friday that preparing to enter the White House for the second time looks a lot different from the first go-around. “You know what you need to establish, you know what kind of people you need to hire for your office,” she said on “Fox & Friends” in a rare television appearance, where she showed off holiday ornaments she's selling and her memoir as Christmas approaches.
- HuffPost
Pete Hegseth Torched For Defiant Comment About Who He Answers To
Critics were not impressed with the secretary of defense nominee’s remark to reporters.
- The Telegraph
The tiny island where China ‘is fast breeding nuclear weapons’
Changbiao in the eastern China Sea was, until recently, an unremarkable and largely uninhabited island.
- The Independent
Ukraine-Russia war latest: Russian strikes kill 12 as Zelensky hopes to meet Trump in Paris
US committed to delivering hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, thousands of rockets, and hundreds of armoured vehicles by mid-January
- Reuters
Hezbollah sent 'supervising' forces to Syria's Homs, sources say
Lebanese armed group Hezbollah sent a small number of "supervising forces" from Lebanon to Syria overnight to help prevent anti-government fighters from seizing the strategic city of Homs, two senior Lebanese security sources said on Friday. "Homs must not fall," one of the sources told Reuters, adding that senior officers deployed overnight to oversee some Hezbollah fighters who had been in Syria near the border with Lebanon for years.
- INSIDER
Satellite images show Iran's new drone carrier has set sail, leaving its home port for the first time
A recent image captured by BlackSky shows the Shahid Bagheri missing from its berth at an Iranian shipyard.
- AFP News
'Do your freaking job': S. Korean protesters frustrated by failing impeachment vote
Gasps of frustration.A gasp of disappointment rippled through the crowd when a special probe bill to investigate suspicions surrounding First Lady Kim Keon Hee was struck down.
- CNN
How Syria’s rebel leader went from radical jihadist to a blazer-wearing ‘revolutionary’
Jolani replaced his jihadist camo attire for a Western-style blazer, established a semi-technocratic government in Idlib and promoted himself as a viable partner in Western efforts to curb Iran’s influence in the Middle East.
- CNN
Undercover Israeli forces raid West Bank hospital, seize alleged militant from ICU
Israeli forces dressed in civilian clothes raided a hospital in the northern occupied West Bank on Wednesday night and detained an alleged Palestinian militant who had days earlier been injured in an Israeli airstrike that killed two Hamas militants.