Parents of young children, or elementary school teachers, often run into difficulties when trying to explain complex, abstract terms or concepts to the children. Fortunately, the Trump administration offers many examples parents and teachers may use to demonstrate the meaning of the term “hypocrisy.”

Here is one of these many examples on offer:

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Under the sea’s surface, a potential battle is brewing. This battle, centered on sabotage and deception, involves energy and telecommunication infrastructure being held at risk by a mixture of adversarial, opportunistic geopolitical strategies for expansive influence and control of critical resources, trade, and core industries. The ability to observe this conflict is also more constrained. Operating below the ocean’s surface is not like operating in other domains: Maneuvering is complex, and the terrain is highly dynamic.

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Reporting Highlights

●  Corporate Firewall:The oil deal is designed to prevent future U.S. presidents and Venezuelan leaders from changing or dismantling the enterprise.

●  Hidden Investors:Some of the Trump administration’s partners could remain anonymous, hidden behind a parent company based in Barbados.

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In the day-to-day of the Iran war, it’s natural to feel a touch of whiplash. Are we on the verge of agreement or at the dawn of escalation? Is Iran on the edge of collapse, or is it expanding the conflict? Will the Strait of Hormuz return to the status quo ante, or will tolling and periodic attacks on shipping be the new normal? These are important issues but there are larger, more fundamental strategic shifts underway as well. Not since 9/11 and the U.S. invasion of Iraq has the Middle East been in this degree of strategic flux.

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The U.S. and China are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into artificial intelligence as political and business leaders frame the technology’s development as a race between world powers.

But Jason Furman, Aetna Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy jointly at Harvard Kennedy School and in the Department of Economics, doesn’t think the race has a finish line.

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Passive resistance to Beijing’s actions in the South China Sea is not working. If the United States wants to win in the region, it needs a grey-zone strategy of its own.

Beijing has spent a decade refining a playbook that stays deliberately below the threshold of armed conflict. Chinese coast guard ships ram Philippine vessels, maritime militia swarm disputed reefs, and drones shadow foreign ships. Washington’s response – patrols, joint statements and expressions of concern – has imposed few costs and changed little.

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Editor’s Note: In an important new book on Putin and Putinism, Andrei Kolesnikov writes that in order to support his international agenda, Putin has turned the clock back to the days of the Cold War and introduced a notion of continuity between the Great Patriotic War – the term Russia uses for its participation in World War II – and the ongoing ‘special military operation’. This also makes the U.S. Cold War policy of containment as relevant today as it was in 1946 when U.S.

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The quest for Quebec independence has never been a static movement; rather, it operates like a political pendulum, swinging violently between existential crisis and quiet accommodation. For over six decades, the province’s relationship with the rest of Canada has been defined by this rhythmic ebb and flow. From the radical violence of the Quiet Revolution to the razor-thin democratic cliffs of the late twentieth century, the desire for a sovereign Quebec has fundamentally shaped Canadian history.

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When supporters of the Trump administration say that oil shipping through the Gulf is “back to normal,” they are referring to a visible and easily quantifiable measure: the number of barrels moving through the Strait of Hormuz.

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Significant debates remain underway on some of the most essential aspects of the U.S. contest with China: the nature of the competitor, the main elements of the competition, a sense of what the competition is truly about, what success looks like, and a theory of success to bring about that end. What is clear is that the United States is dealing with a rival whose dynamism derives not from ideological expansion but from economic development, a growing influence in international institutions and processes, and an increasingly strong position in the fields of science and technology.

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Editor’s note: The is the second of a three-part series of articles examining the AfD. You can read the first article, analyzing the AfD’s approach to Russia, here. The third article, comparing the economic programs of the AfD, France’s RN, and Reform UK, will be published on Thursday.

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An AI model built by US tech company OpenAI has hacked into the Australian government healthcare portal, Medicare. The news, which emerged on September 23, follows a string of similar incidents reported over the summer by OpenAI and its main rival, Anthropic.

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Exxon Mobil’s offshore discovery transformed Guyana with a speed almost without parallel in modern development. A country of roughly one million people, long poor despite abundant natural resources, has become the world’s fastest-growing economy and now produces close to 1 percent of global oil output. Its crude has helped Europe reduce dependence on Russian supply and has found buyers in Asia as well.

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On 22 September, The New York Times reported, citing seventeen German and foreign officials, that Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government is preparing to restrict the access of Saxony-Anhalt’s next government to classified material, should the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) take power there. The AfD won 43.8 percent of the vote there on 6 September, three seats short of a majority, and is looking for the votes to put its candidate in office.

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There is a distinct possibility of an enormous war breaking out in the next few years over a Chinese attempt to seize Taiwan. To prevent such a catastrophe, the world’s leading democracies need to establish an alliance formidable enough to deter China from any such use of force.

The international situation at present bears some alarming similarities with the prelude to World War II. There has been a contest between democracy and autocracy, with autocracy advancing and democracy going slowly backwards for the past 20 years, according to Freedom House.

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Guyana has entered the second half of 2026 with two important developments unfolding at once: an economy still expanding at a pace almost without modern parallel, and a long-running territorial conflict with Venezuela approaching what Georgetown hopes will be a definitive legal resolution. The first reflects the transformative force of offshore oil. The second concerns the security, territorial integrity, and political stability of the country that oil wealth is remaking.

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On September 5, Guyana received six people expelled from the United States who were not Guyanese: four Cubans and two Afghans, according to Guyanese reporting. Guyana’s government says the arrivals were vetted, had no criminal backgrounds, and entered under a one-year arrangement administered with the International Organization for Migration. Officially, their placement is temporary.

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The State Department has renewed its strongest possible warning to Americans considering a trip to Libya: do not go.

The department’s current Libya advisory is Level 4, the highest of the four travel-advisory levels. It warns Americans not to travel to Libya “for any reason” because of crime, terrorism, unexploded landmines, civil unrest, kidnapping, and armed conflict. The advisory also warns of health risks and notes that violence between competing armed groups can erupt without warning.

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The Trump administration announced a major oil deal with Venezuela on Friday that would purportedly give the United States rights to 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan oil, or 20 percent of the country’s oil reserves. Much information and key details are still lacking, but everything we know about the deal is troubling:

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