The liberal world order, with its supposed commitment to the rule of law, human rights and equality for all, met its demise in Gaza.

There is more than enough evidence confirming the genocidal nature of Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Yet, political leaders in the West have been uncompromising in their support of Israel’s efforts. At the United Nations, the majority of the world has consistently passed resolutions condemning Israel’s actions in Gaza and called for an end to the occupation. Israel has responded by making UN agencies and personnel targets of war. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against Israeli leaders. The United States has rejected the court’s decision and Israel has continued to bombard Gaza. All of this has happened under a Democratic US leadership. With the return of US President-elect Donald Trump, we can expect a fast-track dismantling of whatever is left of this liberal order.

Smith on Monday dropped both the 2020 election subversion prosecution against Trump and the charges accusing Trump of mishandling classified documents.

The special counsel stressed his decision was not about the strength of his case against Trump, but his reasoning hung on the Justice Department’s long-held belief that the Constitution prohibits prosecutions against sitting presidents.

Even if prosecutors had believed that they could have kept the cases on life support into the second Trump presidency, the president-elect had already indicated that he planned to fire Smith and his team, a vow that breached the usual norms surrounding a special counsel investigation.

This time around, Trump will feel confident that he has the mandate to go further. From the first day in office, he has promised a return to the restrictive immigration policies of his first term. It’s important to remember that, in 2023, the administration of outgoing US President Joe Biden “outpaced Trump deportation totals for any single year”. But Trump and his allies have claimed that the Democratic administration’s immigration policy is too weak, “treasonous” and “national suicide”. The president-elect’s incoming border czar Tom Homan has promised a “shock and awe” approach with militarised raids, mass detention and mass deportation of undocumented migrants. Rights groups have argued that such actions would “tear apart families”, involve racial profiling, lead to xenophobic actions and increase the chances of abuse by “law enforcement during mass roundups”.

But the offensive wasn’t just rhetorical. As regular readers might recall, Trump also made clear that he hoped to use governmental power to crack down on journalism he dislikes. It’s why he invested so much time and energy talking about the FCC stripping TV networks of their broadcast licenses for airing coverage he disapproves of. We saw some abuses along these lines during his first term in the White House, and these tactics are almost certainly going to get worse in his second term.

The Danish Refugee Council (DRC) is warning that a lack of aid reaching Gaza is forcing Palestinians to search through destroyed buildings for basic necessities, putting them at risk of death or injury from unexploded bombs.Palestinians searching through rubble risk death

Seventy percent of people surveyed in Gaza said they had returned to areas that had seen active fighting, putting them at higher risk from unexploded bombs, a new DRC report found.Palestinians searching through rubble risk death

Twenty-three percent knew someone who had been injured or killed by unexploded bombs, including children who had played with them and people mistakenly picking them up when gathering firewood.

Lilu Thapa, DRC’s Executive Regional Director for the Middle East said people in Gaza face the “threat of starvation due to an almost total blockade of aid and goods” alongside the “ever-present danger of unexploded ordnance, a threat that will stay long after the fighting subsides.”

Inaction to reach a ceasefire in Gaza “looks more like absolute indifference by the day”, Thapa added, describing the continued lack of accountability for Israel as a “[stark illustration] of a global double standard”.

Kyiv has accused Moscow of firing an ICBM at Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region early Thursday. However, two Western officials later told CNN the weapon appears to have been a shorter-range ballistic missile — not an ICBM.

The main difference between an ICBM and other types of ballistic missile is only in their respective ranges. As the name suggests, ICBMs can travel thousands of miles — crossing continents — whereas ballistic missiles have shorter and intermediate ranges.

But rather than focusing on the range of the missile, what matters instead is the explosive power packed by the missile — known as its “payload” — Fabian Hoffmann, a doctoral research fellow at the Oslo Nuclear Project, told CNN.

Although Russia’s strike was non-nuclear, the missile appeared to carry a “MIRV” payload, meaning it used multiple warheads to strike separate targets.

MIRVS, or Multiple Independently-targetable Reentry Vehicles, were developed during the Cold War to permit a missile to deliver multiple nuclear warheads to different targets.

Although the nuclear payload appeared to have been replaced with a non-nuclear one in this case, the use of the MIRV technology was intended to send a message, Hoffmann said.

The likelihood of escalation in the Ukraine war could significantly increase in the next two months, as long as Biden remains in power, Russian TASS news agency has cited Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban as saying following a meeting of the Defense Council.

“The threat of escalation of hostilities in Ukraine has never been as high,” he said, adding that the government’s mission is to prevent Hungary from being dragged into the war.

“All of Hungary’s knowledge and diplomatic expertise would be essential to keeping us distanced from this war,” he said.

Orban added that Trump’s election has “brought us closer to peace, or at least a ceasefire”.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani has dismissed an Israeli complaint to the UN Security Council about strikes by Iraq’s Shia militias on Israel as a “pretext and argument to attack Iraq” and to “expand the war in the region”.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar earlier posted on X a letter to the Security Council saying: “Israel has the inherent right to self-defence … and to take all necessary measures to protect itself and its citizens against the ongoing acts of hostilities by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq.”

An umbrella group of Iraqi militias, known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, has regularly launched drone strikes on targets in Israel in recent months in support of its Hamas and Hezbollah allies in the ongoing wars in the Middle East.

Saar said some of the militias are part of the Popular Mobilization Forces, a coalition of mostly Shia armed groups, and urged the Iraqi government to “take immediate action to halt and prevent these attacks”.

Al-Sudani’s office said in a statement that Iraq has refused to enter into the regional conflict while “seeking to provide relief to the Palestinian and Lebanese people”.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told the Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee that Hamas only wants a ceasefire deal so that Israeli forces must leave the Gaza Strip and it can return to power, Israeli media reported.

Netanyahu says Hamas only wants ceasefire to continue ruling

According to the reports, Netanyahu told the committee that Hamas “sees the pressure on Israel” and believes that it can hold out for a better deal.

“We’ve struck Hamas militarily, but we haven’t harmed their ruling capabilities enough,” says Netanyahu, according to Channel 12.

According to Israel National News, Netanyahu says he gave instructions for a plan to replace Hamas in the distribution of humanitarian aid to Gaza by Thursday.

Members of the committee also told Channel 12 that the prime minister does not believe that a ceasefire agreement in Lebanon will be effective, which is why Israel is demanding freedom of action against Hezbollah.

No. 15 Texas A&M made its Saturday night matchup with New Mexico State a one-sided affair as it cruised to a 38-3 win at Kyle Field. A&M picked up its eighth victory of the season for the first time since 2021 in front of a Senior Night crowd of 105,815.

“I think I came out strong,” Reed said. “You know, we executed what we were supposed to do with the game plan. Then, [we] kind of got a little sloppy in the second quarter, which is not good. Obviously, I threw that pick right before the half. Really should have thrown it out of bounds, but it is what it is. Got to live with it. … But overall, I think I did alright. Obviously, I have places where I can improve and do better.”

Redshirt sophomore QB Conner Weigman made his return to the field with two drives, finishing with 37 yards and an interception on 2-of-5 passing. Even freshman QB Miles O’Neill made an appearance, completing five of six passes for 51 yards and a touchdown in his first action of his career. The quarterbacks’ 356 passing yards was the most this season

A man was arrested after he tried to carjack at least three times on Saturday in Lincoln Heights and Boyle Heights, the Los Angeles Police Department said Thursday.

Maurice Latorre is accused of approaching a woman at a gas pump and trying to force his way into her car at around 10:40 a.m. Saturday in the 3200 block of North Broadway. Then he made similar attempts at around 2 p.m. and 5 p.m., targeting two other women, police said.

The 49-year-old had been hospitalized at Los Angeles General Medical Center. But after police circulated the video footage of the attempted carjackings, a nurse at the hospital recognized him and called the authorities.

Trump’s picks are coming faster now. Forbes ran a roundup story yesterday headlined, “Trump’s Cabinet: Here Are His Picks For Key Roles—Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Pete Hegseth And More.”

Apart from the ones I’ve already told you about, here are the latest lists of announced (not rumored) selections through sometime last night:

A new “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE): Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, no introductions needed.

Secretary of Defense: Pete Hegseth, Fox News host, Army veteran, author of “The War on Warriors,” who was banned from Biden’s inauguration as an “extremist”.

Department of Homeland Security: Kristi Noem, South Dakota’s anti-lockdown Governor who once put down a training-resistant puppy and a misbehaving goat in the same day.

CIA Director: John Ratcliffe, who triggered dems by declassifying and releasing Hillary’s Russian Hooker Pee-Pee Binder.

White House Counsel: William McGinley, GOP elections lawyer and former Trump White House outside counsel for election integrity. Ahem.

Special Envoy to the Middle East: Steven Witkoff, real estate entrepreneur and Trump loyalist who testified at the President’s New York Trial, where dim-bulb Letitia James ironically called Steven “not an expert” in real estate values.

Envoy to Israel: Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor and former evangelical pastor, who’s been on GLAAD’s ‘three minutes of hate’ list for decades.

National Security Advisor: Mike Waltz (R-Fl.), former Green Beret and four-time Bronze Star winner, who once triggered Gen. Mark Milley, causing the general to accidentally smear his lipstick in barely contained rage.

Corporate media is badly freaking out about that list of deplorables, white supremacists, garbage people, and phobics of various kinds. But it sounds good to me so far! Who’s next?

David Sanger, the New York Times’s “National Security Correspondent” and the voice of the deep-state, ran a thoughtful, cautious story about Trump’s growing list of picks yesterday, headlined “Once They Were Neocons. Now Trump’s Foreign Policy Picks Are All ‘America First.’” It was good news for all sane people who yearn for peace, though oddly, Sanger seemed slightly alarmed at an expected shift from Biden’s aggressive military intervention and regime change tactics to Trump’s style of ‘transactional diplomacy.’