On today's podcast:
1) Officials have found the dead body of the suspected shooter in a Brown University rampage and the murder of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor in his Boston-area home. The suspected shooter — Claudio Manuel Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national who was a former student at Brown — took his own life, Providence Chief of Police Oscar Perez said at a press briefing on Thursday night. Meantime, the Trump administration halted the US green card lottery program, which it said was used by the suspect. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on X that she’s asking US Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the lottery, officially known as the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program.
2) A trove of Justice Department records tied to Jeffrey Epstein is set for release Friday, part of a long-awaited public reckoning over the convicted sex offender’s ties to elites and years of alleged abuse. The documents could shed new light on government investigations dating back nearly two decades. President Trump, who had previously resisted efforts to unseal the files, signed legislation last month mandating their release, while the Justice Department has yet to specify a time for publication.
3) European Union leaders have agreed to loan Ukraine €90 billion ($106 billion) for the next two years in a bid to strengthen Kyiv’s hand at the negotiating table and keep the war-torn country afloat. The EU will fund the loan through joint debt raised on the capital markets and backed by the bloc’s budget, a significant pivot from the preferred plan to use Russian assets frozen on European soil. The decision came early Friday morning after marathon talks at a summit in Brussels. Ukraine won’t need to repay the loan until Moscow compensates Kyiv with reparations — and in the meantime, the Russian assets will remain immobilized in the EU.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On today's podcast:
1) President Trump looked to reassure Americans concerned about the rising cost of living by announcing plans to award a special holiday payment to military service members and roll out new housing reforms in the new year. Trump announced the plans Wednesday during a prime-time address from the White House, which he used to extol his accomplishments from his first year back in the White House and convince voters they should still blame his predecessor for persistent economic anxieties. Trump’s biggest announcement was a move to award service members $1,776 payments, a decision that should provide a holiday boost to 1.45 million Americans.
2) The US has approved a package of arms sales to Taiwan worth up to $11 billion — one of its biggest ever — a move that drew criticism from Beijing. The approvals announced late Wednesday by the State Department cover a broad range of equipment, including missiles, drones and artillery systems aimed at strengthening the democracy’s defenses. The package includes the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, valued at up to $4.05 billion and howitzer guns worth about $4 billion. The total value of the weaponry is up to $11.154 billion, according to a statement from Taiwan’s Defense Ministry. The State Department said that the final amount would be lower depending on factors such as budget authority and military needs. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun later said his nation “strongly opposes and condemns” the US arms sale.
3) European Union leaders will try to overcome staunch resistance to both a funding plan for Ukraine and a massive trade deal with South America during a summit in Brussels starting Thursday — insisting that the bloc’s reputation is on the line. The gathering has taken on unusually high stakes as the EU is up against deadlines on both fronts. Officials say the EU’s Ukraine funding plans could fall apart if no agreement is found at the summit, forcing everyone back to the drawing board. And the trade pact with the Mercosur bloc — Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay — may enter a prolonged freeze if the EU can’t approve it before a tentative signing ceremony on Saturday

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On today's podcast:
1) President Trump ordered a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers going into and leaving Venezuela, ratcheting up pressure on Caracas as the US builds up its military presence in the region. The move threatens to choke off the economic lifeblood of a country that was already under severe financial pressure. But it will have a less profound impact on global markets due to the diminished status of Venezuela’s oil industry. The OPEC member’s crude output has slumped about 70% through more than 25 years of socialist rule to less than 1 million barrels a day. It could potentially rebound if the governing regime were to change.
2) The US is preparing a fresh round of sanctions on Russia’s energy sector to increase the pressure on Moscow should President Vladimir Putin reject a peace agreement with Ukraine, according to people familiar with the matter. The US is considering options, such as targeting vessels in Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of tankers used to transport Moscow’s oil, as well as traders who facilitate the transactions, said the people who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations. The new measures could be unveiled as early as this week.
3) OpenAI is in initial discussions to raise at least $10 billion from Amazon.com Inc. and use its chips, a potential win for the online retailer’s effort to broaden its AI industry presence and compete with Nvidia Corp. The deal under discussion could value OpenAI north of $500 billion and see it adopt Amazon’s Trainium chip, a person with knowledge of the matter said, asking to remain anonymous to describe private negotiations. Talks, however, are at a preliminary stage and terms could change, the person added. A deal would mark a win for Amazon’s fledgling semiconductor division. While Nvidia dominates the market for the powerful chips required to create AI platforms, developers such as Meta Platforms Inc. are starting to explore rival offerings from the likes of Alphabet Inc.’s Google.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.