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Dec. 25 (UPI) — The remains of two Iowa National Guard soldiers killed in an ambush in Syria arrived at the Iowa National Guard base in Des Moines, with funeral services for both scheduled for this weekend.

The bodies of Staff Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard and Staff Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar were carried off a KC-135 on Wednesday afternoon at the base as Gov. Kim Reynolds, Sen. Joni Ernst, U.S. Rep. Zach Nunn, leaders from the Guard and their families looked on, Iowa Public Radio and KCCI Des Moines reported.

“Today’s honorable transfer of Sgt. Howard and Sgt. Torres-Tovar marks their return to Iowa,” Reynolds said in a post on X. “They can now be laid to rest after making the ultimate sacrifice in defense of our nation.”

Howard and Torres-Tovar, who were promoted to the rank of staff sergeant posthumously, and a civilian U.S. interpreter were killed in an attack in Palmyra, Syria, on Dec. 13, in a lone gunman attack.

Their flag-draped caskets were saluted by Ernst, Nunn and Guard leaders before their families had a moment alone with them.

Iowa state and Des Moines police officers then escorted processions to Marshalltown, where Howard’s visitation and funeral will be held on Saturday, and south Des Moines, where Torres-Tovar’s visitation will be held Sunday, ahead of his funeral and burial on Monday.

Three other Guard members were also injured in the attack, two of whom are receiving treatment in the United States, while the other was treated in Syria.

Reporting from Cleveland — A top police union official asked Ohio’s governor to temporarily ban guns outside the Republican National Convention in downtown Cleveland after the shooting of several police officers in Louisiana renewed fears about the safety of this week’s political gathering.

But a spokeswoman for Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, said Sunday that he did not have the power to suspend the state’s open-carry laws.

The city has banned a wide variety of potential weapons from the protest zone near the convention — including tennis balls, water pistols and bicycle locks — but cannot limit firearms.

The dispute over the open-carry law, which is similar to statutes in most other states, came as protesters from a long list of organizations began to gather here for demonstrations that are expected to last at least until Donald Trump accepts the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday.

Sunday afternoon, a man with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle, a handgun and ammunition stood in downtown’s Public Square saying he was there to exercise his rights and make a point.

“What are you going to do, ban everything that kills people?” Steve Thacker, a 57-year-old information technology engineer from Westlake, Ohio, asked when someone criticized his decision to walk through Cleveland with the rifle. “The point is to protect yourself. This world is not the world I grew up in.”

A local resident, Steve Roberts, 61, who was riding his bike through the square, stopped to acknowledge that Thacker was within his rights, but asked him to leave.

“You’ve shown it. Why don’t you take it back?” Roberts, who was wearing a “Stand for Love” T-shirt, told Thacker. “I find it offensive.”

The miniature drama between the men could be one of many that will play out as viewpoints collide in Cleveland this week — not just left versus right, but sometimes far left versus far right.

In preparation, metal security fencing stands around the convention site, which is protected by the U.S. Secret Service. The rest is the responsibility of a police force including thousands of officers from agencies from California to Florida who have been sworn in with arrest powers in the city. Police officers with dogs have begun patrolling the streets.

“It’s game time,” Cleveland Police Chief Calvin Williams said Sunday morning, “and we’re ready for it.”

Black nationalists drew an escort of bicycle officers in helmets and shorts as they marched through the city Saturday. Planes towing banners opposing abortion and supporting the imprisonment of Hillary Clinton circled the city Sunday while hundreds of activists marched through the streets to protest Trump and killings by police.

The names of Tamir Rice and Eric Garner, who were killed by police, were invoked as a small but raucous crowd began to chant outside the Cleveland Masonic and Performance Arts Center.

“No Trump. No KKK. No fascist USA,” the crowd chanted, with many holding signs that read “Stop Trump” or “Black Lives Matter.”

On Monday, one group of anti-Trump activists plan to hold an illegal march to the Quicken Loans Arena, the site of the convention, to have a “clash of ideas” with Trump supporters.

The city granted the activists use of a public park but denied them a permit for the route they desired, said organizer Tom Burke, who said they wanted to get “as close as they possibly can” to the Republican delegates shielded behind the metal fencing.

“We hope that they’ll hear us inside the convention,” Burke said. “We don’t expect any trouble.”

Chelsea Byers, 26, of Los Angeles was dressed in a pink Statue of Liberty costume and said she traveled to Cleveland to protest the Trump and Clinton candidacies. A member of the antiwar group Code Pink, she thought it was important to rail against “war hawks.”

“We felt like it was important to stand in solidarity to stop the hate,” she said.

Cleveland natives said they were more worried about how out-of-town demonstrators might act as the week goes on.

“It’s always a concern because it’s not their city. Whatever they do, they don’t care,” said David Allen, a biker and longtime city resident. “I’m just gonna try and stay away from downtown.”

Mike Deighan, a 28-year-old restaurant employee in the downtown area, seemed to be enjoying the fanfare near the Quicken Loans Arena as he purchased a hat from one of several pop-up stands that were selling shirts disparaging Trump and Clinton.

But his mood soured when the topic turned to the likely demonstrations later in the week.

“I’m not really excited about it at all,” he said. The only people who are going to destroy this city are the people who aren’t from here.”

Along East 55th Street, Brian Lange waved a 2nd Amendment flag proudly as he stood near a vendor hawking pro-Trump paraphernalia. Lange, who is affiliated with the right-wing Oath Keepers group, said he had traveled from Lima, Ohio, to report for his radio show.

Although he’d been in Cleveland for less than an hour, he said, someone had already driven by and hurled profanities at him for supporting Trump. Lange, an Air Force veteran, said he just smiled back.

“They got the freedom to say whatever they want, as long as they don’t trample on my rights,” Lange said. “I just consider them ill-informed.”

Steve Loomis, president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Assn., who called for the ban on guns outside the convention, said he was not “against the 2nd Amendment.”

But recent killings of police in Texas and Louisiana, combined with volatile confrontations that could occur outside the convention, will create situations that are too risky for city police, he said.

City officials canceled a security briefing for reporters Sunday night and issued a statement that extended condolences for the deaths of the three officers killed in Baton Rouge, La., but said nothing about whether the shooting would change the security plan.

Jeff Larson, chief executive of the Republican National Convention, told reporters in a briefing that “I feel good about the security plan.”

Cleveland police have had “a number of big events that have taken place with open carry without any issues,” Larson said.

He added: “It is the constitution in Ohio. The governor can’t simply say, I’m going to relax it for a day or tighten it up for a five-day period of time.”

Times staff writer Michael Finnegan contributed to this report.

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Dec. 21 (UPI) — Seven days after a mass shooting devastated Bondi Beach, Australians gathered on Sunday for a national day of reflection.

The commemorations come as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese faces intense public scrutiny and has ordered an urgent investigation into the nation’s intelligence and police frameworks.

The tragedy, which claimed 15 lives during a Hanukkah seaside event, is the deadliest mass shooting Australia has seen in nearly three decades.

Authorities have officially classified the massacre — which killed a 10-year-old girl, a British rabbi and a Holocaust survivor, among others — as a terrorist act aimed at the Jewish community.

As the clock struck 6:47 p.m., marking the exact moment the first shots rang out the previous Sunday, a minute of silence was observed. Mourners at Bondi Beach and across the country stood in unison to honor the fallen, according to the BBC.

The atmosphere in Sydney was one of high alert, NBC News reported, with a massive security detail involving rooftop snipers and water patrols.

The Sydney Opera House also paid tribute, illuminating its iconic sails with candle projections to mark the day of mourning.

Despite the somber occasion, Albanese met a hostile reception, NBC News reported. Sections of the crowd booed the prime minister upon his arrival, a sign of the growing friction between the government and the grieving Jewish community.

The BBC also reported that one protester shouted, “Blood on your hands,” while security personnel had to intercept an individual attempting to approach the prime minister.

In an acknowledgment of the criticism, Albanese said during the observation that he accepts his share of responsibility as the nation’s leader.

Addressing the crowd, David Ossip, president of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, delivered a eulogy.

“Like the grass here at Bondi was stained with blood, so, too, has our nation been stained,” Ossip said, per NBC News. “We have landed up in a dark place.”

Ossip also shared a message of resilience from Ahmed al-Ahmed, a Syrian-Australian shop owner who was injured while heroically disarming one of the gunmen.

From his hospital bed, al-Ahmed’s message to the mourners was, “The Lord is close to the broken-hearted. Today I stand with you, my brothers and sisters.”

Unlike Albanese, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns was met with applause, the BBC reported.

Minns offered a blunt apology for the state’s inability to prevent the shooting, stating, “The government’s highest duty is to protect its citizens. And we did not do that one week ago.”

He further warned that the tragedy exposed a “deep vein of antisemitic hate” that the country must now confront.

After the ceremony, the federal government pivoted toward legislative action.

Albanese announced a comprehensive review of federal intelligence and law enforcement to determine if current powers are sufficient for the modern security landscape. He characterized the “ISIS-inspired” attack as proof of a shifting threat environment.

Additionally, the government has committed to a massive national gun buyback initiative, the scale of which has not been seen since the 1996 Port Arthur massacre.

Authorities board vessel off Swedish coast after it suffered an engine failure.

Sweden’s customs service has said that authorities boarded a Russian freighter that anchored in Swedish waters on Friday after developing engine problems, and were conducting an inspection of the cargo.

The owners of the vessel, the Adler, are on the European Union’s sanctions list, Martin Hoglund, spokesman at the customs authority, said on Sunday.

“Shortly after 0100 (00:00 GMT) last night we boarded the ship with support from the Swedish Coast Guard and the police service in order to make a customs inspection,” Hoglund said. “The inspection is still ongoing.”

Hoglund declined to say what the customs service had found on board the ship.

According to ship-tracking service Marine Traffic, the Adler is a 126-metre-long, roll-on, roll-off container carrier. It is anchored off Hoganas in southwest Sweden.

EU and US sanctions

In addition to the Adler being on an EU sanctions list, the vessel and its owners, M Leasing LLC, are also both subject to US sanctions, suspected of involvement in weapons transport, according to OpenSanctions, a database of sanctioned companies and individuals, persons of interest and government watchlists.

Hoglund said the ship had left the Russian port of St Petersburg on December 15, but he said customs did not have any information about its destination.

The night-time operation was led by the Swedish Customs Administration along with the coastguard, National Task Force, Swedish Security Service and prosecutors.

In a previous incident, the Adler was boarded by Greek forces in the Mediterranean in January 2021. The operation was carried out under the auspices of the EU’s Operation Irini, which monitors the United Nations arms embargo on Libya.

In a national address, US President Donald Trump claimed the Gaza truce he helped broker brought peace to the Middle East “for the first time in 3,000 years.” Trump’s statement comes despite ongoing Israeli ceasefire violations and near-daily attacks on Gaza.

DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del. — President Trump on Wednesday paid his respects to two Iowa National Guard members and a U.S. civilian interpreter who were killed in an attack in the Syrian desert, joining their grieving families as their remains were brought back to the country they served.

Trump met privately with the families at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware before the dignified transfer, a solemn ritual conducted in honor of U.S. service members killed in action. The civilian was also included in the transfer.

Trump, who traveled to Dover several times in his first term, once described it as “the toughest thing I have to do” as president.

The two Iowa troops killed in Syria on Saturday were Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, according to the U.S. Army. Both were members of the 1st Squadron, 113th Cavalry Regiment, and have been hailed as heroes by the Iowa National Guard.

Torres-Tovar’s and Howard’s families were at Dover for the return of their remains, alongside Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, members of Iowa’s congressional delegation and leaders of the Iowa National Guard. Their remains will be taken to Iowa after the transfer.

A U.S. civilian working as an interpreter, identified Tuesday as Ayad Mansoor Sakat, of Macomb, Mich., was also killed. Three other members of the Iowa National Guard were injured in the attack. The Pentagon has not identified them.

They were among hundreds of U.S. troops deployed in eastern Syria as part of a coalition fighting the Islamic State group.

The process of returning service member remains

There is no formal role for a president at a dignified transfer other than to watch in silence, with all thoughts about what happened in the past and what is happening at Dover kept to himself for the moment. There is no speaking by any of the dignitaries who attend, with the only words coming from the military officials who direct the highly choreographed transfers.

Trump arrived without First Lady Melania Trump, who had been scheduled to accompany him, according to the president’s public schedule. Her office declined to elaborate, with spokesperson Nick Clemens saying the first lady “was not able to attend today.”

During the process at Dover, transfer cases draped with the American flag that hold the soldiers’ remains are carried from the belly of a hulking C-17 military aircraft to a waiting vehicle under the watchful eyes of grieving family members. The vehicle then transports the remains to the mortuary facility at the base, where the fallen are prepared for burial.

Iowa National Guard members hailed as heroes

Howard’s stepfather, Jeffrey Bunn, has said Howard “loved what he was doing and would be the first in and last out.” He said Howard had wanted to be a soldier since he was a boy.

In a social media post, Bunn, who is chief of the Tama, Iowa, police department, said Howard was a loving husband and an “amazing man of faith.” He said Howard’s brother, a staff sergeant in the Iowa National Guard, would escort “Nate” back to Iowa.

Torres-Tovar was remembered as a “very positive” family-oriented person who always put others first, according to fellow Guard members who were deployed with him and issued a statement to the local TV broadcast station WOI.

Dina Qiryaqoz, the daughter of the civilian interpreter who was killed, said Wednesday in a statement that her father worked for the U.S. Army during the invasion of Iraq from 2003 to 2007. Sakat is survived by his wife and four adult children.

The interpreter was from Bakhdida, Iraq, a small Catholic village southeast of Mosul, and the family immigrated to the U.S. in 2007 on a special visa, Qiryaqoz said. At the time of his death, Sakat was employed as an independent contractor for Virginia-based Valiant Integrated Services.

Sakat’s family was still struggling to believe that he is gone. “He was a devoted father and husband, a courageous interpreter and a man who believed deeply in the mission he served,” Qiryaqoz said.

Trump’s reaction to the attack in Syria

Trump told reporters over the weekend that he was mourning the deaths. He vowed retaliation. The most recent instance of U.S. service members killed in action was in January 2024, when three American troops died in a drone attack in Jordan.

Saturday’s deadly attack followed a rapprochement between the U.S. and Syria, bringing the former pariah state into a U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group.

Trump has forged a relationship with interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the onetime leader of an Islamic insurgent group who led the ouster of former President Bashar Assad.

Trump, who met with al-Sharaa last month at the White House, said Monday that the attack had nothing to do with the Syrian leader, who Trump said was “devastated by what happened.”

During his first term, Trump visited Dover in 2017 to honor a U.S. Navy SEAL killed during a raid in Yemen, in 2019 for two Army officers whose helicopter crashed in Afghanistan, and in 2020 for two Army soldiers killed in Afghanistan when a person dressed in an Afghan army uniform opened fire.

Price writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Konstantin Toropin and Darlene Superville in Washington, Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Mich., and Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.

Dec. 17 (UPI) — There are no legal or national security justifications for the Trump administration’s attacks on ships in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea, Sen. Chris Murphy said following a bipartisan classified briefing on the strikes.

At least 95 people have been killed in 25 military strikes on ships the Trump administration accuses of being used by drug cartels and gangs designated as terrorist organizations since Sept. 2.

The strikes have drawn mounting domestic and international condemnation and questions over their legality by both Democratic and Republican lawmakers.

The administration defends the strikes as legal under both U.S. and international law, arguing the United States is at war with the drug cartels who are flooding the country with deadly substances.

State Secretary Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held a classified briefing on the strikes with members of Congress on Tuesday, with many Democrats, including Murphy, D-Conn., calling foul.

“While I obviously can’t tell you any classified information I learned, I can tell you this: that the administration had no legal justification for these strikes, and no national justification for these strikes,” Murphy said in a video posted to his X account.

On the national security front, the administration admitted to the lawmakers that there is no fentanyl coming to the United States from Venezuela and the cocaine that is coming from Venezuela is mostly going to Europe, he said.

“And so we are spending billions of your taxpayer dollars to wage a war in the Caribbean to stop cocaine from going from Venezuela to Europe,” he said. “That is a massive waste of national security resources and of your taxpayer dollars.”

On the legal front, the administration is justifying the strikes by stating they are targeting gangs and cartels that the Trump administration has designated as terrorist organizations.

Since February, President Donald Trump has designated 10 cartels and gangs as terrorist organizations, with Clan de Golfo blacklisted on Tuesday.

Murphy said that while the president has the power to designate groups as terrorist organizations, it does not give him the ability to carry out military strikes targeting them.

“A designated ‘terrorist organization’ allows the president to impose sanctions on those organizations and individuals,” he said. “Only Congress, only the American public, can authorize war. And there’s just no question that these are acts of war.”

Dozens of California National Guard troops under President Trump’s command apparently slipped out of Los Angeles under cover of darkness early Sunday morning, ahead of an appellate court’s order to be gone by noon Monday.

Administration officials would not immediately confirm whether the troops had decamped. But video taken outside the Roybal Federal Building downtown just after midnight on Sunday and reviewed by The Times shows a large tactical truck and four white passenger vans leaving the facility, which has been patrolled by armed soldiers since June.

About 300 California troops remain under federal control, some 100 of whom were still active in Los Angeles as of last week, court records show.

“There were more than usual, and all of them left — there was not a single one that stayed,” said protester Rosa Martinez, who has demonstrated outside the federal building for months and was there Sunday.

Troops were spotted briefly later that day, but had not been seen again as of Monday afternoon, Martinez said.

The development that forced the troops to leave was part of a sprawling legal fight for control of federalized soldiers nationwide that remains ongoing.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued the order late Friday but softened an even more stringent edict from a lower court judge last week that would have forced the president to relinquish command of the state’s forces. Trump federalized thousands of California National Guard troops in June troops to quell unrest over immigration enforcement in Los Angeles.

“For the first time in six months, there will be no military deployed on the streets of Los Angeles,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said in a statement. “While this decision is not final, it is a gratifying and hard-fought step in the right direction.”

The ruling Friday came from the same three-judge panel that handed the president one of his most sweeping second-term victories this summer, after it found that the California deployment could go forward under an obscure and virtually untested subsection of the law.

That precedent set a “great level of deference” as the standard of review for deployments that have since mushroomed across the country, circumscribing debate even in courts where it is not legally binding.

But the so-called Newsom standard — California Gov. Gavin Newsom was the lead plaintiff on the lawsuit — has drawn intense scrutiny and increasingly public rebuke in recent weeks, even as the Trump administration argues it affords the administration new and greater powers.

In October, the 7th Circuit — the appellate court that covers Illinois — found the president’s claims had “insufficient evidence,” upholding a block on a troop deployment in and around Chicago.

“Even applying great deference to the administration’s view of the facts … there is insufficient evidence that protest activity in Illinois has significantly impeded the ability of federal officers to execute federal immigration laws,” the panel wrote.

That ruling is now under review at the Supreme Court.

In November, the 9th Circuit vacated its earlier decision allowing Trump’s Oregon federalization to go forward amid claims the Justice Department misrepresented important facts in its filings. That case is under review by a larger panel of the appellate division, with a decision expected early next year.

Despite mounting pressure, Justice Department lawyers have doubled down on their claims of near-total power, arguing that federalized troops remain under the president’s command in perpetuity, and that courts have no role in reviewing their deployment.

When Judge Mark J. Bennett asked the Department of Justice whether federalized troops could “stay called up forever” under the government’s reading of the statute at a hearing in October, the answer was an unequivocal yes.

“There’s not a word in the statute that talks about how long they can remain in federal service,” Deputy Assistant Atty. Gen. Eric McArthur said.

For now, the fate of 300 federalized California soldiers remains in limbo, though troops are currently barred by court orders from deployment in California and Oregon.

Times staff writers David Zahniser and Kevin Rector contributed to this report.

Dec. 14 (UPI) — A Hong Kong court is scheduled to deliver its verdict Monday in the national security case against media founder and former publisher Jimmy Lai, one of the city’s most prominent pro-democracy figures and the founder of the now-defunct newspaper Apple Daily.

Lai, 78, whose Chinese name is Lai Chee-ying, is charged alongside several companies linked to Apple Daily, including Apple Daily Limited, Apple Daily Printing Limited and AD Internet Limited, according to the court’s docket.

Prosecutors allege that Lai conspired to collude with foreign forces, an offense punishable by as much as a life sentence in prison under Hong Kong’s national security law.

Court records show the case is listed for verdict at 10 a.m. local time in the Court of First Instance at the West Kowloon Law Courts Building.

The Hong Kong Judiciary issued special public seating and ticketing arrangements for the hearing, citing high demand. According to court notices, admission tickets will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis beginning 45 minutes before the hearing, with overflow seating and live broadcasts provided in multiple courtrooms.

The case has also drawn international attention, with governments and press freedom groups warning that the prosecution reflects a broader erosion of civil liberties and press freedom in Hong Kong since the national security law was imposed in 2020.

Lai has pleaded not guilty to two counts of “conspiracy to collude with foreign forces” and a separate count of conspiracy to publish seditious material in Apple Daily, The New York Times reported. He has been jailed since his arrest five years ago.

The first National Security Strategy of the United States of America was released in 1950 under President Truman. It set firm strategic goals based on the containment doctrine to limit the influence of communist ideology in the global order. This first national security strategy marked the beginning of limited global policing in US geopolitics, but it was less pragmatic and more principled realism.  American interests became specific to liberal internationalism and focused only on areas facing the spread of the communist threat.

The Core Security Thinking of the US

The core security thinking of Americans was to preserve their sphere of influence from any adversarial influence or intervention, echoing the Monroe Doctrine. The initial period had this core, and the first national security strategy laid the groundwork for this security thinking. In 1988, the scope of core security thinking expanded, and elements of realism advanced further, with the US beginning to engage in deterrence calculations and global outreach to build collective military alliances against the Soviets. Most importantly, the strategy also focused on strengthening the economy. The core security thinking in the US’s national security strategy by the late 1980s began to realize that, while the Monroe Doctrine is important, US strategic interests must also require adopting flexibility in its confrontational approach, guided by liberal internationalism and the containment of communism.

Pragmatism and Realism

After the Soviet disintegration, US National Security Strategy focused on navigating a multipolar world by reinforcing the idea of collective security under the H.W. Bush Administration. The 1991 and 1993 US National Security strategies expanded on the concepts that started to emerge in the late 1980s—deterrence and engagement. In the 1990s, this strategy was continued through Powell’s four pillars: strong defense, forward presence, alliances, and coalition-building. The national security strategy designs suggest that elements of pragmatism and distinctions of pure realism gradually began to take center stage in the US national security approach.

Strategy in Crises

The National Security Strategy changed after 9/11, possibly in response to shifted security priorities. The previous approach of principled realism, which involved pragmatic and defensive tactics, now showed a slight shift, with the US’s national security strategy emphasizing more openly offensive realism and dogmatism. By the mid-2000s, the US had reactionary national security strategies, moving away from the approach that began to develop in the late 1980s. Key shifts in security strategies after 2001 included the doctrine of preemption and unilateral actions, but another significant change was a major shift in the collective engagement perspective, differing from earlier ideas of shared strategic responsibilities among allies.

After 9/11, the US called on allies, particularly in NATO, to bear a greater share of the burden for collective defense efforts, shifting away from reliance solely on the US. The core security thinking, rooted in peace through engagement, shifted during the 1990s toward peace through strength. Another aspect, after the Monroe Doctrine, peace through strength, gained a label of permanence in the US National Security Strategy, though its effectiveness and emphasis varied over time.

Trump’s National Security Strategy: Rebooting and Readjustments

Trump’s 2025 national security strategy resembles his 2017 National Security Strategy. The nationalist ideals of America First and the focus on economic engagement—which is the main security approach this time—are a mix of realizations and reactions. The first reaction to the current global situation is reasserting the Monroe Doctrine, dubbed “Trump Corollary,” and the second is showing the will for peace through strength by deterrence. Even if conflicts occur, the strategy emphasizes engaging in conflict with strategic skill to quickly win wars with little to no casualties. The realization part of the strategy is the US increasing its understanding of collective efforts and economic strength. The strategy highlights stronger partnerships with countries like India for the Indo-Pacific.

Reaction and Challenge

The realistic approach in this strategy is flexible realism, aiming not at domination but at maintaining a balance of power, while not fully adopting defensive realism. The United States has embraced both offensive and defensive realism. Over the past ten years, the US National Security Strategy under Obama, Trump 1.0, and Biden has incorporated elements of defensive realism along with principled realism, with the US gradually increasing its efforts to balance power through the promotion of liberal and pro-democratic values—examples include its Middle East policy and the revival of QUAD in 2017. However, a notable development in the 2025 strategy is the US’s willingness to undertake offensive actions to maximize security, such as Operation Midnight Hammer against Iran and expanding operations in Latin America against Venezuela. Another prominent aspect of this strategy is the US’s focus on Europe’s burden-sharing, attempting to lighten its responsibilities and emphasizing that Europe should stand on its own, while the US remains a facilitator in Europe’s development. However, it is no longer willing to assume a broader role—similar to sentiments after 9/11. This strategy likely reflects the challenges posed by a rising China, Russia’s multipolar approach, and increasing strategic competition in multilateral arenas. The Trump approach—as mentioned in the strategy—is not just a reboot of the US National Security strategy after the 2000s but with some realizations.

Realization

There is a growing realization, as highlighted earlier, that the US can no longer sustain a confrontational approach and aggressive, offensive realism. The Trump strategy for 2025 recognizes the need to incorporate elements from both the late Cold War and post-Cold War periods. The latter was characterized by defensive realism and principal realism features—approaches that the US emphasized during the Clinton years, when embracing multilateralism, economic diplomacy, and regional collective engagements became central to US national security strategy, paving the way for more pragmatic interventions. A similar recognition of Clinton’s policy of enlargement through engagement is reflected in Trump 2.0 National Security Strategy—Shifting from Aid to Trade with Africa, which exemplifies this focus on promoting economic diplomacy and broadening engagement.

The US National Security Strategy 2025 reflects the nation’s understanding of how to adapt its engagement with the global order while maintaining realism. This time, US security thinking appears to find a balance between engagement and deterrence, which in previous years often seemed to conflict.

As if Simi Valley coach Jim Benkert doesn’t have enough things to do, he’s taken on the task of putting on the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame high school all-star games Dec. 20 at Simi Valley High.

At 4 p.m. there will be a flag football game featuring players from the San Gabriel Chapter against the Coastal Valley Chapter. At 7, players from Ventura County will take on Los Angeles County in an 11-man game.

Agoura’s Dustin Croick is coaching the West team that includes his outstanding quarterback, Gavin Gray. Taft’s Thomas Randolph is coaching the East team that has a strong group of quarterbacks, including Michael Wynn Jr. of St. Genevieve.

Simi Valley High will be the site for all-star football games on Dec. 20.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

Tickets are $10 and will help pay for the growing costs of all-star games, from uniforms to insurance.

Benkert, one of the winningest coaches in state history with more than 300 victories, said he’s determined to make it work.

“We’re trying to keep all-star games alive,” he said. “If we don’t do it, there’s nothing.”

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

Dec. 12 (UPI) — The National Trust for Historic Preservation has filed a lawsuit against the President Donald Trump administration to block construction of a ballroom on White House grounds.

The suit claims the ballroom construction is unlawful and asks the court to stop further construction until the plans go through a review process, as required by law.

Former White House attorney under presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, Greg Craig, is representing the Trust. Defendants in the suit include the president, the National Park Service, the Department of the Interior, the General Services Administration and their leaders. The lawsuit was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

“No president is legally allowed to tear down portions of the White House without any review whatsoever — not President Trump, not President Biden, not anyone else,” the filing said. “And no president is legally allowed to construct a ballroom on public property without giving the public the opportunity to weigh in. President Trump’s efforts to do so should be immediately halted, and work on the ballroom project should be paused until the defendants complete the required reviews — reviews that should have taken place before the defendants demolished the East Wing, and before they began construction of the ballroom — and secure the necessary approvals.”

Trump initially said the project wouldn’t interfere with the building and would be “near it but not touching it.” But then the East Wing was demolished to make way for the ballroom project. The now-$300 million project is being funded by donors, Trump has said.

The National Trust said it sent a letter to the Park Service, the National Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts in October asking them to stop the demolition and begin review procedures. But it didn’t get a response.

“Yet it appears the site preparation and preliminary construction of the proposed new ballroom is proceeding without any review by either commission or by Congress, and without the necessary approvals,” the suit said. “By evading this required review, the defendants are depriving the public of its right to be informed and its opportunity to comment on the defendants’ proposed plans for the ballroom project.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in October that the president doesn’t need approval for demolition but only needs it for “vertical construction.”

White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said in a statement Friday: “President Trump has full legal authority to modernize, renovate, and beautify the White House — just like all of his predecessors did.”