Signup to receive the Early Edition in your inbox here.
A curated weekday guide to major news and developments over the last 24 hours. Here’s today’s news:
GLOBAL AFFAIRS
Nepal’s Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli resigned today, a day after 19 people were killed after Nepalese police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at people protesting a social media ban and alleged government corruption. It is unclear who will replace him. While a government minister said the social media ban was lifted late yesterday to “address the demands of Gen Z,” the New York Times reports that arson cases in Nepal are reportedly increasing, and armed men have started to roam the streets of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu. Gopal Sharma and Navesh Chitrakar report for Reuters; Kelly Ng reports for BBC News; Bhadra Sharma reports.
The French Prime Minister, François Bayrou, is set to present his resignation to President Emmanuel Macron today, after losing a National Assembly confidence vote yesterday. Macron’s office said it would decide how to replace Bayrou “in the coming days.” Hugh Schofield reports for BBC News.
Norway’s ruling Labour party has won a second term in power in yesterday’s general election, according to the official results tally. The populist right-wing Progress Party made its best-ever showing in the election, nearly doubling its vote share from four years ago. Terje Solsvik, Nora Buli, and Nerijus Adomaitis report for Reuters.
Israel has carried out air strikes on central and western parts of Syria, Syrian state news agency SANA reported late yesterday. It did not provide further details. Damascus’ foreign ministry condemned the strikes as “a blatant infringement” of Syria’s sovereignty and regional stability. Chris Graham reports for BBC News; Reuters reports.
TECH DEVELOPMENTS
Nvidia has launched a “lobbying blitz” in response to Congressional attempts to impose limits on the sales of AI chips to China, branding the proposed rules a “product of left-wing paranoia” peddled by “AI doomers,” the New York Times reports, citing sources. Nvidia and White House AI Czar David Sacks have been particularly critical of RAND Corporation, a federally funded national security think tank, the sources add. The Senate is expected to vote on its version of the rules as early as today. Tripp Mickle and Cade Metz report.
U.S. tech companies have played a more considerable role in designing and building China’s surveillance state than previously known, selling billions of dollars of technology “to the Chinese police government and surveillance companies,” according to an AP News investigation. Dake Kang and Yael Grauer report.
Meta suppressed internal research that might have illuminated potential safety risks to children and teens present on the company’s virtual reality devices and apps, according to two current and two former employees who recently disclosed the tech giant’s internal documents to Congress. According to the employees, after leaks of Meta studies sparked congressional hearings in 2021, the company’s lawyers started to screen, edit, and sometimes veto internal research about youth safety in virtual reality spaces, seeking to establish “plausible deniability” about the negative effects of its products. Jon Swaine and Naomi Nix report for the Washington Post.
OpenAI executives have discussed moving the company out of California amid increasing concerns about public pushback to the start-up’s restructuring plan that would turn it into a for-profit company, sources say. The Attorneys General of California and Delaware have both opened investigations into the conversion plan. Berber Jin reports for the Wall Street Journal.
Dutch chip-equipment giant ASML is investing $1.5 billion into Europe’s most prominent AI developer, France’s Mistral AI. ASML today said that under the deal, it is set to use Mistral’s models in its research, operations, and products and would get a seat on Mistral’s strategic committee. Sam Schechner reports for the Wall Street Journal.
China’s push to sell batteries, solar panels, and wind turbine technologies is “creating the conditions for a decline in fossil fuel use” globally, according to a report published yesterday by Ember, a group researching the prospects for clean-energy technologies. Max Bearak reports for the New York Times.
U.S. DOMESTIC DEVELOPMENTS
The House Oversight Committee yesterday released a note and a sexually suggestive drawing from a “birthday book” for disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein that appears to bear Trump’s signature. Trump has denied writing the letter and drawing the picture. Michael Gold reports for the New York Times; Khadeeja Safdar, Joe Palazzolo, and Kara Dapena report for the Wall Street Journal.
Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune (R-SD) yesterday introduced a resolution that would bundle 48 of Trump’s nominees together to allow them to be considered and voted on as a group. Thune’s move aims to speed up the appointees’ confirmations. If adopted, the resolution would reduce the Senate minority’s ability to register opposition to executive branch nominees below the cabinet level. Michael Gold reports for the New York Times.
A federal appeals court yesterday rejected Trump’s argument that presidential immunity protects him from an $83.3 million civil judgment for defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll. The appeals court also opined that the jury award in the case was “fair and reasonable.” Erica Orden reports for POLITICO.
Paramount Skydance, the new owners of CBS News, yesterday selected Kenneth R. Weinstein to be the new ombudsman at the network. Weinstein is a former chief executive of the Hudson Institute, a right-leaning think tank, and has no prior experience in overseeing news coverage. Skydance committed to creating a CBS News ombudsman when it sought the Trump administration’s approval to merge with Paramount earlier this year. Benjamin Mullin and Michael M. Grynbaum report for the New York Times.
House Intelligence Committee Democrats yesterday launched a probe into National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard’s recent decision to revoke 37 officials’ security clearances , asking Gabbard to provide “specific evidence” backing her claims that the officials politicized or leaked intelligence or committed “intentional egregious violations of tradecraft standards.” Rebecca Beitsch reports for the Hill.
U.S. FOREIGN DEVELOPMENTS
Venezuela is not seeking a military confrontation with the United States or any other actor, the country’s Foreign Minister Yván Gil told CNN, stating that although Venezuela is “prepared to deter any deployment”, Caracas is not “betting on conflict, nor do we want conflict.” Stefano Pozzebon and Rocio Muñoz report.
Dozens of South Korean women who worked as “comfort women” yesterday announced they have filed a lawsuit in a Seoul court seeking an apology and damages from the U.S. military over what they allege was its role in managing a vast network of prostitution around its bases in South Korea. Choe Sang-Hun reports for the New York Times.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION ACTIONS
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has threatened to punch Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte “in the f—ing face” during a private club dinner attended by dozens of administration officials and Trump’s aides last week, a witness and sources say. Bessent also accused Pulte of badmouthing him to Trump, the sources suggest. Rachael Bade reports for POLITICO.
The White House Council of Economic Advisers is drawing up a report laying out alleged shortcomings of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ jobs data, sources say. Trump has alleged the Bureau is manipulating the jobs figures to hurt him politically and fired the Bureau’s head after the release of the July jobs data. Brian Schwartz and Matt Grossmann report for the Wall Street Journal.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine yesterday visited Puerto Rico, according to a social media post by Puerto Rico Gov. Jenniffer González-Colón (R). According to U.S. officials, the Pentagon is considering making Puerto Rico part of its counternarcotics operations in the Caribbean, possibly using the territory as a base for military flights. Dan Lamothe, Noah Robertson and Tara Copp report for the Washington Post.
The Education Department will soon institute new guidelines on the right to prayer in public schools, Trump announced yesterday, claiming that there are “grave threats to religious liberty in American schools.” Cheyanne M. Daniels reports for POLITICO.
FEDERALIZATION OF DOMESTIC POLICING
At least 11 people charged with federal crimes by the U.S. attorney’s office in the D.C. during Trump’s Washington crackdown have been detained for more than the 48-hour legal maximum without an initial appearance before a judge, according to court records reviewed by the New York Times. In the instances reviewed by the Times, “prosecutors repeatedly failed to bring defendants to their initial court appearance in time,” for unknown reasons. Minho Kim reports.
U.S. IMMIGRATION DEVELOPMENTS
The Homeland Security Department yesterday announced it is moving forward with an operation to “target the criminal illegal aliens who flocked to Chicago and Illinois because they knew Governor Pritzker and his sanctuary policies would protect them.” Tara Molina and Sabrina Franza report for CBS News.
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
The Israeli military early today issued an order for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians sheltering in Gaza City to “evacuate immediately,” stating that remaining in the area would be “extremely dangerous.” Gaza City is currently home to nearly half of the territory’s population. Many displaced Palestinians sheltering in the city say they do not know where to go in order to escape the strikes. According to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, Israeli attacks killed 83 people in the territory in the last 24 hours. Anat Peled and Feliz Solomon report for the Wall Street Journal; Nidal Al-Mughrabi and Nayera Abdallah report for Reuters; BBC News reports.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani yesterday pressed Hamas to “respond positively” to a new U.S. proposal for a Gaza ceasefire, according to an official familiar with Al-Thani’s meeting with Hamas’ chief negotiator Khalil Al-Hayya. Becky Anderson, Jeremy Diamond, and Oren Liebermann report for CNN.
An international activist group seeking to deliver aid to Gaza yesterday said that one of its vessels was “struck by a drone” while docked in Tunisia, but no one aboard was hurt. The Tunisian Interior Ministry said that reports about a drone attack were unfounded. The activist group is expected to hold a conference on the incident later today. Bouazza Ben Bouazza and Giada Zampano report for AP News.
RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR — U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL RESPONSE
EU Sanctions Envoy David O’Sullivan yesterday met with a team of experts to discuss a joint imposition of further sanctions against Russia with U.S. counterparts, the European Commission said. Kevin Liptak reports for CNN; Reuters reports.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION LITIGATION
In a brief, unsigned order, the Supreme Court yesterday lifted a lower court order prohibiting federal agents from making indiscriminate immigration-related stops in the Los Angeles area. The Court’s three liberal Justices dissented. Adam Liptak reports for the New York Times.
U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts yesterday temporarily greenlit Trump’s firing of Federal Trade Commission Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, pending a fuller Supreme Court hearing in the case. Zach Schonfeld reports for the Hill.
The Trump administration yesterday again filed an emergency application asking the Supreme Court to allow the federal government to freeze $4 billion in foreign aid spending appropriated by Congress. Adam Liptak reports for the New York Times.
Did you miss this? Stay up-to-date with our Litigation Tracker: Legal Challenges to Trump Administration Actions
If you enjoy listening, Just Security’s analytic articles are also available in audio form on the justsecurity.org website.
ICYMI: yesterday on Just Security
By Rebecca Ingber, Brian Finucane and Tess Bridgeman
A Strategic Bet to Advance America’s Quantum Leadership
By
By
