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Top 5 US news stories

December 16 2025

Greg Loving

16 Dec 2025 • 9 min read

Front row from left, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz hosted Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and other European officials on Monday in Berlin. KAY NIETFELD/PRESS POOL

U.S. Security Pledge Prompts Ukraine to Signal Readiness for Elections

ISIS Ideology Drove Father and Son to Attack Jewish Celebration in Sydney

Trump’s Attack on Deceased Director Reiner Sparks Backlash from Friends and Foes

Sinking EV Demand Forces Ford to Take $19.5 Billion Charge and Pivot Strategy

U.S. Military Expands Strikes to Drug-Running Boats in Eastern Pacific, Killing Eight

U.S. Security Pledge Prompts Ukraine to Signal Readiness for Elections

A. The U.S. pledged to protect Ukraine from any future Russian attack, U.S. officials said, offering to support European security guarantees and seek Senate backing for Washington’s promised role, which it hasn’t yet publicly detailed. The American pledge, which Russian officials are likely to dispute, came on the second day of talks in Berlin among the U.S., Ukraine and European leaders and top officials. It remains unclear to what extent Washington would militarily intervene. The shift could lift one of the biggest obstacles to Kyiv signing up to a peace deal with Russia, but a bigger hurdle remains, over territory. Still unresolved is the issue of which contested territories Kyiv would keep and whether Ukraine would withdraw unilaterally from an area of the Donetsk region that it currently controls. European officials have for months offered Ukraine security guarantees to deter a future Russian attack but they have stressed the need to have some form of U.S. help to backstop those plans. European officials have advised Ukraine to tread carefully in agreeing to other major concessions until they had locked in clear U.S. military support. The U.S. officials said they had secured consensus with Ukraine on 90% of the issues being discussed after eight hours of face-to-face talks since Sunday between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Trump’s Russia envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. Trump told reporters at the White House that the talks were “very good,” noting he has had numerous conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump allies, including Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), have been encouraging the White House to send the package of security guarantees to the Senate for a vote. Their approval would send a strong message that the U.S. stands with Kyiv regardless of who sits in the Oval Office. Resolving differences over territories still looks very complex. The U.S. is pushing to create a demilitarized economic zone in a swath of the Donetsk province that Ukraine still controls. Ukraine has pushed hard against withdrawing its troops from the zone, but Russia has vowed to win complete control of the whole Donbas region. Washington proposed last month that Russia would have sovereignty over the area held by Ukraine. European and Ukrainian officials fear there would be little to stop the Kremlin from occupying the area with troops and taking over some of Ukraine’s most critical defensive fortifications.

WSJ

B. Ukraine is ready to hold elections in the next 60 to 90 days if its allies can guarantee security for the vote, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday, following criticism from his American counterpart Donald Trump.

CNN

ISIS Ideology Drove Father and Son to Attack Jewish Celebration in Sydney

The gunmen behind the mass shooting at a Jewish celebration in Sydney on Sunday were motivated by “Islamic State ideology,” Australia’s prime minister said on Tuesday. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the suspects appeared to have been radicalized by beliefs associated with the Islamic State militant group. “Radical perversion of Islam is absolutely a problem,” Mr. Albanese said at a news conference. Investigators said that the police had found two homemade Islamic State flags in the car that the suspects, a 50-year-old man and his 24-year-old son, drove to the site of Sunday’s massacre. Police also recovered improvised explosive devices in the car, the authorities said. At the news conference, officials named the older gunman, who was shot and killed at the scene, as Sajid Akram. Police had not released the suspects’ identities even though the identities of Mr. Akram and his son, Naveed, had been widely reported by Australian media. Australian officials said Tuesday morning that both men had traveled to the Philippines last month, and that the reasons for that trip were being investigated. The Philippine Bureau of Immigration said Sajid and Naveed Akram arrived in the country together on Nov. 1, reporting their final destination as Davao, a city considered the gateway to the south of the country. The southern Philippines, in particular, remains a center for Islamic State militant activity. They left the country on Nov. 28.

NYT

Trump’s Attack on Deceased Director Reiner Sparks Backlash from Friends and Foes

President Trump seized on the stabbing death of Rob Reiner and his wife to make a baseless attack on the Hollywood director less than a day after reports of his killing, suggesting that Mr. Reiner’s criticism of Mr. Trump may have led to his murder. The attack on Mr. Reiner, so soon after his death, prompted a rare backlash against the president from some MAGA-aligned Republicans, some of whom urged the president to retract his comments. Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday that Mr. Reiner’s death was “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” Asked by reporters later in the day whether he stood by those comments, Mr. Trump was unapologetic: “Well, I wasn’t a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person.” He added, “I thought he was very bad for our country.” The Reiners’ 32-year-old son has been booked on suspicion of murder, the police said. There was no indication from the authorities that the couple’s political beliefs had anything to do with their deaths. Mr. Reiner was found dead on Sunday alongside his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, at their home in Los Angeles. Mr. Trump’s attack brought immediate outrage, including from close allies who said the attack undercut Republicans’ calls for civility after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Prominent conservatives called for public shaming, firings and the threat of prosecution for those who spoke ill of Mr. Kirk.

NYT

Sinking EV Demand Forces Ford to Take $19.5 Billion Charge and Pivot Strategy

Ford Motor said Monday it expected to take about $19.5 billion in charges, mainly tied to its electric-vehicle business, a massive hit as the automaker retrenches in the face of sinking EV demand. The sum is among the largest impairments taken by a company and marks the U.S. auto industry’s biggest reckoning to date that it can’t realize its electric-vehicle ambitions anytime soon. Ford, which has lost $13 billion on its EV business since 2023, said it would bolster its lineup of gas-powered vehicles while shifting to hybrid and so-called extended-range electric vehicles that include onboard gasoline engines. The goal is to pull back from loss-making assets and redeploy capital designated for EVs to models with higher profitability. “Instead of plowing billions into the future knowing these large EVs will never make money, we are pivoting,” Ford Chief Executive Jim Farley said in an interview. The company said it remains on track to produce a $30,000 EV pickup for sale by 2027, which the company says will be the first in a new string of low-cost EVs. “Now this is the core of our EV strategy in America,” Farley said. “We’ve got to land the plane.” The company will stop making an EV version of its F-150 pickup truck, called the Lightning, and will instead make an extended-range version of the truck.

WSJ

U.S. Military Expands Strikes to Drug-Running Boats in Eastern Pacific, Killing Eight

WASHINGTON — The U.S. military struck three boats it said were engaged in drug trafficking along “known narco-trafficking routes” in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Monday, killing eight men, U.S. Southern Command said, releasing video of the blasts in international waters and describing the targets as vessels operated by “designated terrorist organizations.” The Dec. 15 incident is part of a broader campaign that began in early September and now operates in two theaters: the Caribbean Sea (closer to Venezuela) and the eastern Pacific. SOUTHCOM did not provide coordinates for Monday’s strikes, but a Reuters mapping of reported incidents shows the eastern Pacific strikes generally clustered farther south — off the Pacific coasts of countries like Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, underscoring that this Pacific-side action is geographically distinct from the Caribbean operations near Venezuela; U.S. officials have framed the effort as a counternarcotics mission aimed at maritime trafficking into the United States.

December 16, 1773: The Boston Tea Party

In Boston Harbor, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three tea ships and dump 342 chests of tea into the harbor.

The midnight raid, popularly known as the “Boston Tea Party,” was in protest of the British Parliament’s Tea Act of 1773, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade. The low tax allowed the East India Company to undercut even tea smuggled into America by Dutch traders, and many colonists viewed the act as another example of taxation tyranny.

Britain’s response to the colonial rebellion was shaped as much by European geopolitics as by events in North America. The American colonies were only one theater in a global empire that stretched from the Caribbean to India, and London remained preoccupied with the balance of power in Europe, particularly its rivalry with France and Spain. British leaders feared that a full commitment of troops and resources to crush the rebellion could leave the home islands or other imperial holdings exposed. As a result, the war in America was fought with constraints—limited manpower, reliance on hired Hessian forces, and a constant eye toward the possibility of a wider European war that ultimately materialized when France formally entered the conflict in 1778.

On the ground, the Revolutionary War was less a series of decisive battlefield victories than a prolonged campaign of endurance, defined by George Washington’s strategic retreats and survival. Rather than seeking to annihilate British forces head-on, Washington repeatedly withdrew in the face of superior British armies, preserving the Continental Army even as the British chased it across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. This strategy frustrated British commanders, who won cities but failed to destroy the rebel army or force a political settlement. Over several years, the war became a test of will: Britain pursued, occupied, and proclaimed victories, while Washington avoided catastrophic defeat—keeping the revolution alive long enough for foreign alliances, popular support, and imperial overstretch to tilt the balance against Britain.

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