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Happy Tuesday! We were shocked to find out that the bald eagle isn’t already the national bird of the United States, but thankfully a bill is now headed to President Joe Biden’s desk to rectify this grave error 🦅🇺🇸🦅.
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
- Ukrainian officials said Monday that North Korean troops fighting for Russia had taken heavy losses in the region of Kursk, the first reported casualties for the Russian ally. Both Ukraine and the Pentagon believe that roughly 12,000 North Korean soldiers are present in Kursk after the Kremlin deployed them to help take back the Russian region partially occupied by Ukrainian forces during an August offensive. “As we’ve said all along, those forces are legitimate military targets for the Ukrainians given that they are engaged in active combat ops,” said Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder.
- The United States launched airstrikes Monday targeting Islamic State camps in Syria as part of the ongoing mission to degrade the terror group’s capabilities. The strikes killed 12 ISIS operatives in territory formerly controlled by the Assad regime and Russia, according to U.S. Central Command. “CENTCOM, working with allies and partners in the region, will not allow ISIS to reconstitute and take advantage of the current situation in Syria,” CENTCOM commander Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla said in a statement.
- German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s minority government lost a confidence vote Monday, forcing an early election for the parliament in February. Scholz, the leader of center-left Social Democrats, had led a three-party coalition with the centrist Free Democrats and the progressive Greens until its collapse in November when he fired Free Democrat Finance Minister Christian Lindner. The parties agreed on February 23 for an early election, leading to Monday’s vote, which now allows President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to dissolve parliament.
- A 15-year-old female student shot a teacher and another student Monday at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin. The shooter also died, according to police. Another six people were injured, including two students who are currently in critical condition. The shooter’s motives are currently unknown.
- The White House said Monday that a rash of drone sightings over New York and New Jersey in recent weeks was caused by the ordinary operations of commercial, hobbyist, and law enforcement drones. “Some of it’s manned, some of it’s unmanned. We absolutely acknowledge that a lot of these are probably drones, but they’re flying legally,” said White House adviser John Kirby. Officials reviewed more than 5,000 tips from civilians, and only 100 of which prompted further examination, they said.
- Justice Department officials said Monday that two men had been arrested under suspicion of exporting sensitive drone technology to Iran. An Iran-backed militia then used that technology in a January attack that killed three U.S. servicemembers in Jordan. Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi, a dual Iranian-American citizen who prosecutors say worked at a Massachusetts semiconductor plant, was arrested in that state on Monday. Prosecutors allege that he worked with Mohammad Abedininajafabadi, an Iranian national who owns a drone systems company with alleged ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, to bypass U.S. export laws and funnel drone technology through a Swiss front company into Iran.
- Tiktok’s CEO Shou Chew met Monday with President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago shortly after the company asked the Supreme Court to rule on the legislation that could ban the social media app in the United States. “I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok because I won youth by 34 points and there are those that say that TikTok has something to do with it,” Trump said during a press conference earlier on Monday. During this year’s presidential campaign, Trump also said he would save Tiktok even though he sought to ban the app during his first term.
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The Challenges Facing Syria’s New Leaders
In front of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus last week, the leader of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist group behind the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorial regime, hailed a new era for his country. “This victory, my brothers, is a victory for the entire Islamic nation,” said Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani. “This new triumph, my brothers, marks a new chapter in the history of the region, a history fraught with dangers (that left) Syria as a playground for Iranian ambitions, spreading sectarianism, stirring corruption.”
HTS has tried to portray itself as the legitimate and tolerant state authority in a religiously and ethnically diverse country that has been wrenched by war for more than a decade. But two key questions hang over the group. How committed is it to a non-sectarian, non-authoritarian, government? And can it actually stabilize Syria while other regional powers like Turkey jockey for influence?
Those questions are still very much open.
When Assad fled Syria on December 8, the geopolitical ground shifted underneath the country of ...
As a non-paying reader, you are receiving a truncated version of The Morning Dispatch. Our 1,599-word item on the regional powers seeking a foothold in post-Assad Syria is available in the members-only version of TMD.
Worth Your Time
- Nicholas Carr, an author who’s chronicled how the internet affects our thinking, has an interesting new theory for why modern technological progress feels so small-scale. Writing for his Substack New Cartographies, Carr argued that innovation feels less radical than in previous decades because our goals have changed. “Innovation’s focus moves up through five stages, propelled by shifts in the needs we seek to fulfill. In the beginning come Technologies of Survival (think bow-and-arrow), then Technologies of Social Organization (think cathedral), then Technologies of Prosperity (think assembly line), then technologies of leisure (think TV), and finally Technologies of the Self (think Facebook, or Prozac),” Carr wrote. “We’re no longer changing the shape of the physical world or even of society, as it manifests itself in the physical world. We’re altering internal states, transforming the invisible self. Not surprisingly, when you step back and take a broad view, it looks like stagnation —it looks like nothing is changing very much.”
- Sen. Mitch McConnell, recently retired from his role as one of the modern Senate’s most effective majority leaders, penned an essay in Foreign Affairs arguing against the isolationist turn in his party’s foreign policy. “The right has retrenched in the face of Russian aggression in Europe, while the left has demonstrated a chronic allergy to deterring Iran and supporting Israel,” McConnell wrote. “Neither camp has committed to maintaining the military superiority or sustaining the alliances needed to contest revisionist powers. If the United States continues to retreat, its enemies will be only too happy to fill the void. Trump would be wise to build his foreign policy on the enduring cornerstone of U.S. leadership: hard power. To reverse the neglect of military strength, his administration must commit to a significant and sustained increase in defense spending, generational investments in the defense industrial base, and urgent reforms to speed the United States’ development of new capabilities and to expand allies’ and partners’ access to them.”
Presented Without Comment
New York City Mayor Eric Adams in an interview Sunday: “I am not not communicating with the president[-elect] about a pardon.”
President-elect Donald Trump during a press briefing on Monday on whether he’d consider a pardon for Adams: “Yeah, I would. I think that he was treated pretty unfairly.”
Also Presented Without Comment
Politico: Steve Bannon Floats an Unconstitutional Candidate: Trump in 2028
In the Zeitgeist
If you’re a fan of sibling duets, you’ll love this mesmerizing Tiny Desk Concert by Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas.
Toeing the Company Line
- In the newsletters: Kevin D. Williamson reflected on (🔒) political violence and Salman Rushdie, and Nick Catoggio explored (🔒) why Trump is backing down from some of his campaign pledges.
- On the podcasts: Sarah Isgur and David French discuss the latest drama on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s abortion pill lawsuit on the latest episode of Advisory Opinions.
- On the site: Mike Warren breaks down the policy debate the left wants to have in reaction to the UnitedHealthcare CEO’s murder, David Drucker details how the MAGA movement has now become the Republican establishment, Kevin D. Williamson examines the growing unrest in China, and Chris Stirewalt unpacks Trump’s first post-election press conference.
James P. Sutton is a Morning Dispatch Reporter, based in Washington D.C. Prior to joining the company in 2024, he most recently graduated from University of Oxford with a Master's degree in history. He has also taught high school history in suburban Philadelphia, and interned at National Review and the Foreign Policy Research Institute. When not writing for The Morning Dispatch, he is probably playing racquet sports, reading a history book, or rooting for Bay Area sports teams.
Grayson Logue is a staff writer for The Dispatch and is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Prior to joining the company in 2023, he worked in political risk consulting, helping advise Fortune 50 companies. He was also an assistant editor at Providence Magazine and is a graduate student at the University of Edinburgh, pursuing a Master’s degree in history. When Grayson is not writing pieces for the website, he is probably working hard to reduce the number of balls he loses on the golf course.
