Happy Wednesday! Here’s a dose of good news to start your morning: Two months after the pair were separated by the Los Angeles wildfires, 82-year-old Katherine Kiefer was reunited with her beloved Maine Coon Aggie over the weekend. “I never thought I’d see you again,” a tearful Kiefer said in a video capturing the moment.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- Ukraine on Tuesday agreed to a U.S. plan for an immediate 30-day ceasefire with Russia following meetings between U.S. and Ukrainian officials in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. “The ball is now in their court,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, addressing Russia, which has not yet responded to the proposed deal. The U.S., meanwhile, moved to lift holds on intelligence and military aid to Ukraine—reversing its decision to halt the support in the wake of the combative White House meeting between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on February 28.
- U.S. Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Doha, Qatar, on Tuesday to participate in new talks aimed at reaching the next stage of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire and hostage release deal. The latest diplomatic outreach follows failed efforts by Adam Boehler, the U.S. presidential envoy for hostage affairs, to negotiate with Hamas to reach a deal separate from Israel last week—a move that broke from Washington’s prohibition on engaging directly with terrorists and reportedly “surprised” Israeli officials. According to Israeli media, Jerusalem is pushing for an agreement in which Hamas would release half of its remaining living hostages, or 12 people, up front in exchange for a two-month ceasefire.
- Filipino authorities on Tuesday arrested former President Rodrigo Duterte and transferred him to the Netherlands to face charges of crimes against humanity at The Hague. The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for the 79-year-old populist leader, who led the Philippines from 2016 to 2022, following an investigation into his “war on drugs”—a campaign marked by extrajudicial killings and vigilante violence. “Interpol asked for help and we obliged,” the Philippines’ current president, Ferdinand Marcos, said during a Tuesday press conference. Yet the arrest raised questions about the court’s jurisdiction—the Philippines withdrew from the ICC in March 2019, a year after the inquiry into Duterte was first announced.
- The Department of Education on Tuesday announced plans to fire nearly half of its staff, an estimated 4,100 people. The move, part of the administration’s efforts to significantly reduce the federal workforce, followed President Donald Trump’s previous calls to disband the agency. Speaking to Fox News on Tuesday, Education Secretary Linda McMahon confirmed that the move was the first step toward “shutting down” the department. The affected workers will be placed on administrative leave starting Friday.
- The House of Representatives voted 217-213 on Tuesday to pass a Republican-backed bill to continue funding the government into the fall, with GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky breaking from his party to oppose the measure. The funding plan—which House Speaker Mike Johnson hopes will allow the government to avert a shutdown ahead of the Friday deadline—will now go to the Senate, where it will need at least eight Democratic votes to pass.
- Former Rep. Katie Porter, a Democrat, on Tuesday announced plans to run for governor of California, joining a crowded field of candidates competing to replace term-limited Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2026. Porter served three terms in the House before launching an unsuccessful run for Senate last year. Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and California state Sen. Toni Atkins have also announced gubernatorial bids. Former Vice President Kamala Harris is reportedly also considering joining the race.
The future we dreamed of is waiting. Let’s go!
Ukraine Agrees to U.S. Ceasefire Proposal
After weeks of U.S. pressure on Ukraine to reach a deal, the ball is now in Russia’s court. So said Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday, as he announced that Kyiv had agreed to an American proposal for a 30-day ceasefire between the two warring parties. The onus is now on the Kremlin to either accept the deal, which appears to fall short of its maximalist demands, or sink it and risk provoking the ire of the Trump administration.
As the U.S. announced that Ukraine had agreed to its terms, it also outlined plans to resume weapons transfers and intelligence sharing with the embattled country—reversing a weeklong cut-off in the aftermath of the contentious White House meeting between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky late last month.
The apparent breakthroughs followed meetings between Ukrainian and U.S. officials in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday. “Today, we’ve made an offer that the Ukrainians have accepted, which is to enter into a ceasefire and into immediate negotiations to end this conflict in a way that’s enduring and sustainable,” Rubio said. “We’ll take this offer now to the Russians. And we hope that they’ll say yes, that they’ll say yes to peace.” Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, is expected to travel to Moscow later this week and discuss the proposal with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
U.S. officials said the proposal would entail ...
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Today’s Must-Read
If you’re going to ask the public to support you in a matter as dodgy as “disappearing” an undesirable immigrant, you’ll want to find one of the most undesirable immigrants possible. That’s Mahmoud Khalil. The movement with which he’s associated is rancid with cultural pathologies that most Americans despise—campus radicalism, Hamas hagiography, antisemitic slop. He’s exactly the sort of figure you’d target if you were a nationalist demagogue keen to earn a free hand from Americans in removing foreign-born troublemakers with dispatch.
Toeing the Company Line
Amy Coney Barrett Is Doing Her Job
Critics misunderstand what role judges play.
The Real Reason Trump Loves Tariffs
They generate chaos that allows him to ‘save’ individual businesses from the very chaos he creates.
Viral List of Proposed Legislation Is Actually From 2017
Some measures have been reintroduced after Congress took no action in the 115th Congress.
Reciprocal Deficit Deficiency
The Wegmans trade deficit.
Worth Your Time
- Ronald W. Dworkin, an anesthesiologist, took to the pages of Aeon magazine to describe the strange phenomenon of professional intuition—and what it’s like to suddenly lose it. “Within the secular world, intuition is the sole survivor from those primitive days when people credited human behaviour to mystical and spiritual forces, and science was inseparable from divine doctrine. Most of those forces were elbowed out of existence in modern life, and consigned to the religious sphere. But intuitive thinking was too useful a professional tool to simply be tossed aside. ... Thus, while given its due, intuition had to be contained within a well-ordered system that downplayed its connection with mystical thinking,” he wrote. “Yet, it is when professionals lose their intuition that its mystical value shines through. For, in tough cases, when facts are lacking and the path forward is unclear, intuition arrives like a revelation. Intuition is an article of faith we assent to when reason has reached its limits. Belief in that revelation is what puts intuition on an altogether different plane of cognitive experience.”
- Writing for the New York Times, W.J. Hennigan looked into how President Donald Trump’s foreign policy is threatening to upend longtime nuclear norms. “In recent days, emergency meetings have been convened in foreign capitals, and alarming public statements have been delivered by Poland, Germany and South Korea about their consideration of acquiring nuclear weapons. It’s a remarkable turn of events that portends a new nuclear landscape. America’s European and Asian allies haven’t contemplated their nuclear futures this earnestly — and openly — since the dawn of the atomic age. For decades, they have relied on Washington’s policy of extended deterrence, which, by dint of treaties, promises more than 30 allies safety under America’s nuclear umbrella in exchange for forgoing the development of their own arsenals. The nations don’t need nuclear weapons to deter adversaries from a nuclear attack, according to the policy, because the United States guarantees to strike back on its allies’ behalf,” he wrote. “But confidence in that longstanding arrangement began to break down after allies watched Mr. Trump pull weapons and intelligence support from Ukraine last week in its war with Russia.”
Presented Without Comment
NBC News: Trump Turns the White House Lawn Into a Tesla Showroom
President Donald Trump turned the South Lawn of the White House into a temporary Tesla showroom Tuesday in a conspicuous favor to his adviser Elon Musk, the car company’s billionaire CEO.
Tesla delivered five of its vehicles to the White House and parked them on a driveway for Trump to personally inspect, hours after he said on Truth Social that he planned to buy a Tesla to demonstrate his support for Musk and for the slumping company.
With Musk beside him, Trump declared the vehicles “beautiful” and in particular praised the company’s unusually designed Cybertruck.
Also Presented Without Comment
Variety: Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy Says Trump White House Reached Out About Hiring Him for Commerce Department Job
In the Zeitgeist
Long Bright River, an eight-episode series based on a best-selling book by Liz Moore, premiers on Peacock tomorrow. The show stars Amanda Seyfried as Mickey, a police officer investigating a series of murders in Philadelphia in the throes of the opioid crisis.
