president

As a young lad growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area town of Pittsburg, my school uniform consisted of corduroys the color of Ash Wednesday, a white dress shirt and a maroon V-neck sweater. I walked west from my family’s apartment on 10th Street, turned left on Montezuma, and arrived about 15 minutes later at the campus of St. Peter Martyr.

My teachers were nuns, the parish priests were Dominicans, and Sunday mass was a celebration of faith, humility and grace.

I am not without sin. I’m an imperfect man and the church is an imperfect institution.

But I’ve been wondering lately what my favorite St. Peter Martyr teachers — Sisters Roberta, Eileen and Estelle — would make of today’s political discourse, in which claims of piety and Christian faith are not always backed by words and deeds, particularly from a certain world leader.

I think if they were teaching today, the nuns would tell everyone in class to get out their pencils and notebooks and write a letter to the president.

So here goes.

Dear President Trump:

Ever hear of St. Peter Martyr School?

Probably not, but I’m an alum. The school was named after St. Peter of Verona, who campaigned against heresy and paid the price when one of the Cathars sunk an ax into his skull (what a way to go). So I guess politics haven’t really changed much over the centuries.

By the way, nice job recently on your presentation at the National Bible Museum, where you launched the “America Prays” initiative to celebrate spirituality and restore “our identity as one nation under God.” And congratulations on your missionary work. I see that you raked in $1.3 million on your “God Bless the USA Bible.”

Love that you said: “To have a great nation, you have to have religion. I believe that so strongly. There has to be something after we go through all of this — and that something is God.”

Well put, Mr. President, and unsurprising, given that you once called the Bible your favorite book. But I know that in my own life, I need to flip back through the pages on occasion to ground myself in the teachings.

So here’s an idea:

I’ll share a Bible verse, and then I’ll follow it with a recent quote from you. Not that I’m judging, or anything. But we might all benefit spiritually by asking whether, in our own lives, God would approve of how we conduct ourselves.

Are you ready?

Corinthians 12: “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.”

Trump: “You know, Biden was always a mean guy, but he was never a smart guy. … You go back 30 years ago, 40 years ago, he was a stupid guy, but he was always a mean son of a bitch.”

Essay Topic: An obsessive need to demean and diminish others is explained by some behavioral therapists as a sign of insecurity, weakness, or an unhappy childhood. Write 500 words, in cursive, on how any of this might apply to you.

Genesis 2:15: “The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.”

Trump: “This climate change, it’s the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world in my opinion … all of these predictions made by the United Nations and many others, often for bad reasons, were wrong, they were made by stupid people. … If you don’t get away from this green scam, your country’s going to fail.”

Essay Topic: Despite the growing horror of melting icecaps, deadly storms, disappearing coasts and widespread famine, if the Garden of Eden were a national forest, would you lay off Adam or Eve, or both of them, and would anything prevent you from opening the property to drilling?

John 3:17: “But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him?”

Trump: “It’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders. You have to end it now. It’s — I can tell you. I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell.”

Essay Topic: Given that we probably shouldn’t, as mere mortals, assume divine powers, is condemning someone to hell — or entire countries, in this case — an act of blasphemy?

Leviticus 19: “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.”

Trump: “They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there, and this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”

Essay Topic: You once said immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and yet your late mother and two of your three wives were immigrants. Were you ever tempted to have any, or all three of them deported, and if so, in which order?

Psalm 103: “The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.”

Trump: “Happy Memorial Day to all, including the scum that spent the last four years trying to destroy our country.”

Essay Topic: Given that Jesus would not likely have called half the population of the United States scum, and that he probably would have protested ICE raids at Home Depots, would you say the son of God was a member of the extreme radical left?

Matthew 5: “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven.”

Trump: “I hate my opponent and I don’t want what’s best for them. … I can’t stand my opponent.”

Essay Topic: Which saying do you find the most offensive and probably created by the radical left — turn the other cheek, or treat others as you would have them treat you?

Bonus points: At what age did you begin pulling the wings off of butterflies, and which, if any, of the 10 Commandments have you not broken?

Matthew 23: “Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.”

Trump: “I was saved by God to make America great again.”

Mr. President, you recently said, “I want to try and get to heaven, if possible.”

Hallellujah and amen to that. And yes, it is possible.

But first you must write and recite, 1,000 times, the Act of Contrition. (It’s the prayer that ends with: “I firmly resolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin. Amen.”)

Sisters Roberta, Eileen and Estelle will be waiting for you at the Pearly Gates. And trust me — they will know if you’ve done your homework.

[email protected]

Daniel Chapo, Mozambique’s youngest and fifth president, joins Centre Stage for an in-depth conversation about leading a nation at a crossroads. Fifty years after independence, Mozambique is navigating the challenges of a young democracy—from conflict and displacement to the urgent need for inclusive development.

President Chapo shares how he’s tackling these issues while working to position Mozambique as a key player in Southern Africa. He talks about the country’s past, the importance of unity and his vision for a peaceful, prosperous future.

Bomb the United Nations headquarters. Or maybe gas it. Fox News host Jesse Watters had plenty of ideas about how to punish the U.N. after President Trump’s humiliating visit to the organization’s New York headquarters Tuesday.

Trump’s arrival at the General Assembly meeting with First Lady Melania Trump began with the pair stranded at the bottom of an escalator that stopped just as the couple stepped on. The hijinks continued when he stepped behind the lectern to speak and the teleprompter was not working. Trump decided to wing it, leaning into his impromptu-diatribe skills with threats, boasts, mentions of assorted global thingamabobs and something about ending seven wars.

The “from the heart” address did not appear to impress the gathering of world leaders, especially the part where he said, “Your countries are going to hell.” Here’s where I imagine Norway leaning over and whispering to Oman, “At least our escalators work.”

But one man’s technical glitch is another man’s conspiracy theory, as Watters showed Tuesday on Fox News’ talk show “The Five.” He asserted that Trump’s troubles were the result of sabotage and that those malfunctions were in fact “an insurrection.”

“What we need to do is either leave the U.N. or we need to bomb it,” Watters joked. Co-hosts Dana Perino and Greg Gutfeld groan-laughed, if there is such a thing.

Watters then said, “[The U.N. headquarters] is in New York, though, right? Could be some fallout there. Maybe gas it?”

“Let’s not do that,” Perino said.

Watters acquiesced, then said, “OK, but we need to destroy it. Maybe can we demolish the building? Have everybody leave and then we’ll demolish the building.”

He continued: “This is absolutely unacceptable, and I hope they get to the bottom of it, and I hope they really injure, emotionally, the people that did it.”

The comments did not come from a liberal late-night host, which probably explains why there were no Mafioso-style threats from FCC Chairman Brendan Carr calling for Fox and Watters to tone it down — or else.

Like Watters, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt smelled escalator sabotage and said as much in an X post: “If someone at the UN intentionally stopped the escalator as the President and First Lady were stepping on, they need to be fired and investigated immediately.” She shared a screenshot of a Sunday article from the Times of London with reporting that said U.N. staff members had “joked that they may turn off the escalators” and “tell him they ran out of money so he has to walk up the stairs.”

Then guess what everyone is now posting about? That would be former VP hopeful and current Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s response to Leavitt’s post: “Not only do they need to be fired, they need to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. It’s a miracle the President ever made it up the stairs.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who on X has been mocking Trump’s social media approach for months, zeroed in on the 79-year-old president’s careful climb up the stationary set of stairs Tuesday. “DOZY DON WAS DEFEATED BY THE ESCALATOR, POOR GUY! THE ENTIRE WORLD IS LAUGHING AT THE LOW IQ ‘PRESIDENT.’ NEXT STOP: THE BEST ROOM AT MEMORY MEADOWS RETIREMENT RESORT. TYLENOL INCLUDED. ENJOY YOUR STAY, DON! — GCN.”

Leavitt said the U.S. Secret Service is among the agencies deployed to investigate the escalator whodunit.

But the escalator perpetrator may be closer to home than Trump’s inner circle and his supporters in the media imagined. According to a spokesperson for U.N. Secretary General António Guterres, Trump’s videographer may have been responsible for jamming the escalator when he ran ahead of the president, potentially triggering a safety mechanism.

As for the teleprompter, the Associated Press reported that the White House was responsible for operating the teleprompter for the president. And a person with knowledge of the situation revealed to the Daily Beast that delegations are allowed to bring their own laptops and teleprompter operators, and the U.N. was not running it for Trump’s speech. The source said that the White House had its own laptop and U.N. technicians were not in the booth for the president’s address. A separate anonymous source also told ABC News that the teleprompter was being operated by someone from the White House, not a member of the U.N. staff.

Watters’ “blow up the U.N.” joke was not funny, especially in our current climate of deadly attacks on political figures by troubled men with guns. But his dangerous strain of humor was soon overshadowed by what another TV personality had to say that evening.

In Jimmy Kimmel’s first opening monologue since his show was pulled last week by ABC, he asked that Americans fight censorship, not each other. The host’s long-running show was indefinitely pulled by the network a week ago after conservative outcry over his remark that “the MAGA gang [was] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

On Tuesday, Kimmel teared up when he spoke of Kirk’s death and said he never meant to make light of a young man’s killing. The host also reiterated that liking him or his show was not the point. “This show is not important. What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this,” he said, emphasizing the value of free speech.

The ousting of Kimmel, a longtime critic and target of the president, was the most high-profile test yet of protecting the 1st Amendment right to free speech in the face of an administration that has weaponized the FCC against its detractors. Upon his return Tuesday, the host was greeted with a standing ovation by his studio audience. Kimmel’s monologue then amassed 11 million YouTube views in its first 12 hours online and is now poised to set a record for being the host’s most-watched opening monologue ever.

Kimmel’s comeback was yet another unfortunate turn for Trump on the Worst Tuesday Ever, and it can’t be explained away as the act of a teleprompter terrorist. But the MAGA-verse is doing its best to make the case, or when it comes to Watters, joking about blowing up places that offend their leader, proving there’s more broken in America than just a U.N. escalator.

Teresa Sánchez-Gordon was just a girl when federal immigration agents came for her.

She and her mother had been on their way to drop off a jacket at the dry cleaners when they spotted a group of suspicious-looking men, watching intently from down the street.

Sánchez-Gordon remembers her heart pounding with dread that the men were there to haul them away for being in the country without papers. Her mother grabbed her and they beelined back to their house. From their hiding place in a closet, they could hear loud knocks on their front door, Sánchez-Gordon recalled.

The agents’ demeanor turned “cordial,” Sánchez-Gordon suspects, only after her light-skinned father let them in.

“Dad could pass — he had blond hair, blue eyes,” she said in an interview earlier this year. “So when he opened the door and these agents are there, they just assumed he was an American citizen.”

Looking back decades later, Sánchez-Gordon, 74, said that that experience would shape her views and career. In her new role as president of the Los Angeles Police Commission, she will help guide a Los Angeles Police Department that faces questions about how to handle the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement campaign.

Sánchez-Gordon said she recognizes the fear and desperation felt by the immigrants even while living in so-called sanctuary cities such as Los Angeles, which try to shield immigrants from deportation unless they have committed serious crimes.

“Even my housekeeper today said, ‘I’m a U.S. citizen, but I’m even afraid to go outside and go to the market, because I’ve got the ‘nopal en la frente,’” she said, pointing to her forehead while using a popular expression for someone who appears to be of Mexican descent. “So my perspective, as an East L.A. girl: I’m horrified, I’m angry.”

After her close brush with deportation as a child, Sánchez-Gordon eventually gained citizenship. An early adulthood steeped in Latino activism led to a career in law, first as a federal public defender and later a Los Angeles County judge. She retired in 2017 after two decades on the bench and was appointed last October by Mayor Karen Bass to lead the Police Commission.

Much like a corporate board of directors, the commission sets LAPD policies, approves its multibillion-dollar annual budget and scrutinizes shootings and other serious uses of force to determine whether the officers acted appropriately.

Sánchez-Gordon was born in the western Mexico state of Jalisco. Her father, a butcher by trade, emigrated and found work as a bracero picking crops in fields up and down the West Coast. He sent for his family when Sánchez-Gordon was 3. She recalled how her mother bundled her and her siblings into a bus that took them to the border, where they hired a “coyote,” or human smuggler, to get the rest of the way. They eventually settled in East L.A.

The government granted a path to legal status to laborers like Sánchez-Gordon’s father that no longer exists. In recent months, she said she has been troubled by “the way that people are being treated and the separation of families in our community … and this level of hatred toward the immigrants, the people that sustain this city.”

Of particular concern for Sánchez-Gordon is the perception that LAPD officers are working closely with federal immigration agents.

“The optics of the military being here, the optics of the National Guard being in our city, the optics of our community seeing the LAPD in some of these raids is troubling,” she said.

Sánchez-Gordon said she is open to revisiting “certain language” in Special Order 40, the policy that bars officers from stopping people for the sole purpose of asking them about their citizenship status. But she doesn’t think it necessarily needs to be overhauled in order to add more protections.

At commission meetings, she has pushed harder than her colleagues to get answers from LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell about the department’s response to the immigration raids and the protests that ensued — but stopped short of openly challenging the chief.

Sánchez-Gordon replaces Erroll Southers, a former FBI agent who is now a security official at USC, as president of the commission. Southers may still remain on the body, pending a decision by the City Council.

The commission has been down a member for months, since former member Maria “Lou” Calanche resigned so she could run for City Council. A lack of quorum has led to the cancellation of roughly a third of its meetings this year. To fill Calanche’s seat, the mayor has nominated Jeff Skobin, vice president at Galpin Motors Inc. and the son of a former longtime police commissioner.

Activists have long denounced commissioners as being puppets of the Police Department who are disconnected from the everyday struggles of Angelenos. Week in and week out, some of the board’s most vocal critics show up to its meetings to blast commissioners for ignoring the threat of mass surveillance, hiding their affiliations with special interest groups and failing to curb police shootings, which have risen to 34 from 21 at this time last year.

Sánchez-Gordon said she was surprised at first by the intensity of the meetings, but that she also understands the desire for change. Early in her career, she organized to improve conditions for people who had moved to the U.S. from other countries as part of the AFL-CIO’s Labor Immigrant Assistance Project.

She got her first taste of politics volunteering for the City Council campaign of Edward R. Roybal, who would go on to serve 15 terms in Congress. She later enrolled at the People’s College of Law, an unaccredited law school in downtown, where she rubbed shoulders with other Latino political luminaries such as Gil Cedillo and future L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

She credits conversations around the breakfast table with her husband and father-in-law, both prominent civil rights lawyers, with inspiring her to pursue a law career. After working for several years as a federal public defender, she decided to run for judge at the prodding of a mentor. Like many activists of her generation, she thought that the best way to effect change was from the inside.

Since retiring from the bench, she has continued to work as an arbitrator and is a partner at a local injury law firm.

Sánchez-Gordon said her to-do list on the commission includes understanding the department’s ongoing struggles with recruiting new officers, and getting the department ready for the upcoming World Cup and Olympic Games. Once she gets settled, she said she intends to spend more time outside the commission’s meetings attending community events.

Given the recent rise in police shootings, she said it’s also important that officers have the right training and less-lethal options so they don’t immediately resort to using their guns.

She sees her new role as an extension of the work she’s been doing her whole career: “I just see it as what I’ve always done as a judge: You ask questions.”

Kenyan President William Ruto told the UN General Assembly that Africa’s exclusion from permanent membership on the Security Council is unfair and undermines the UN’s credibility, arguing the continent bears the “heaviest cost of instability”.

“I agree with President Donald Trump.” Polish President Karol Nawrocki told the UN General Assembly that an “ideological madness” had taken over Europe in recent years, leading to “bad decisions on migration” and a “green craziness.”

Taking the stage at a political forum in New York City for an interview, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa and retired four-star United States General David Petraeus have acknowledged the peculiarity of the situation.

Al-Sharaa, who overthrew former President Bashar al-Assad and ended his family’s 50-year rule of Syria in a blazing military offensive late last year, has been president since January.

Petraeus commanded US forces during their invasion of Iraq – forces who captured and imprisoned al-Sharaa from 2006 to 2011 for fighting against the invasion. Petraeus later served as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

After his release, al-Sharaa established the al-Nusra Front in Syria in 2012 to fight al-Assad. Four years later, it severed its ties with al-Qaeda. A year later, al-Nusra merged with other groups to form Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led by al-Sharaa.

HTS was designated a “terrorist organisation” by the US in 2018, citing past ties to al-Qaeda, a designation the US revoked in July as Washington softened its approach to post-Assad Syria.

The US had placed a $10m bounty on al-Sharaa’s head, lifting it only in late December.

Significance of timing and venue

Al-Sharaa arrived in New York on Sunday to attend the United Nations General Assembly, the first Syrian head of state to do so in almost six decades.

The president and his large delegation held meetings, including with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the leader addressed events on the sidelines of the General Assembly on Monday.

With Petraeus, he then participated in the 2025 Concordia Annual Summit, a global affairs forum held alongside the General Assembly that brings together world leaders, business executives and NGO figures to foster public-private partnerships and dialogue.

Last year, Concordia said it had more than 300 speakers, including nine heads of state, and more than 3,600 attendees from 112 countries. Past participants include UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, US business titan Warren Buffett and former US President Joe Biden.

Why is Petraeus a ‘fan’ of al-Sharaa?

The former US general not only acknowledged the odd pairing but used it to praise al-Sharaa, who has set an October date for parliamentary elections in Syria.

“His trajectory from insurgent leader to head of state has been one of the most dramatic political transformations in recent Middle Eastern history,” Petraeus told the audience.

Later in the interview, he showed concern for the Syrian leader’s personal wellbeing, asking whether he is getting enough sleep. Petraeus said al-Sharaa has “many fans” and that he is one of them.

“At a time, we were in combat and now we move to discourse,” al-Sharaa said with a smile when asked about their history, adding that people who have gone through war know the importance of peace.

“We cannot judge the past based on the rules of today and cannot judge today based on the rules of the past,” the Syrian president said.

Talking about his time as an al-Qaeda commander, al-Sharaa said “maybe there were mistakes” before but what matters now is defending the Syrian people and the region from instability.

“Our commitment to that line is what brought us here today to [New York], sitting here among allies and friends.”

Al-Sharaa said he believed he was fighting for a “noble” cause that deserves support.

Asked about deadly sectarian violence in Syria this year, he said the al-Assad regime had left Syria in chaos and “all parties made mistakes, including parts of the government”, during the violence.

He added that a newly formed council is investigating and would prosecute all violators.

He said the Syrian people have rallied around the new government and the economic development and unification of Syria are the priorities now.

In this vein, he reiterated his request for the US Congress to revoke the Caesar Syria Civil Protection Act of 2019, which sanctions Syria.

The president reiterated his stance on protecting Syria’s minorities, including the Kurdish population in the north, whose rights must be protected in the constitution. However, he added, Kurdish armed forces must not operate outside the state’s auspices as the government and its army must be the only entity with guns.

The Syrian leader talked about Israel as well, pointing out that Israel has attacked Syria more than 1,000 times since al-Assad fell and continues to occupy the Golan Heights.

However, al-Sharaa said Syria is focused on rebuilding and avoiding another war, so security talks are under way with Israel to reach an agreement based on a 1974 disengagement deal that was mediated by the US.

Yoweri Museveni urges supporters to back his vision for the future as he seeks to run for a record seventh term.

Uganda’s long-time President Yoweri Museveni has been confirmed to stand in the January 2026 elections, as he seeks to extend his nearly 40-year rule in the African country.

Museveni, who has been in power since 1986, on Tuesday urged supporters to back his vision for the future after electoral officials near the capital, Kampala, announced that the 81-year-old leader would be on the ballot.

The governing National Resistance Movement (NRM) party officially confirmed him in June as its presidential candidate.

In a post on X, Museveni thanked his supporters for entrusting him to run again for the 2026-2031 term.

“In this economy, the GDP of Uganda has doubled currently in the recent Kisanja from $34 billion to $66 billion,” he wrote. He has promised to make Uganda a $500bn economy in the next five years.

“You have everything today that you lacked in the past: electricity, roads, telephones, manpower, the educated people, and peace. That’s why we are being flooded by many investors because they are looking for a peaceful and profitable area where to invest,” he added.

In a list of pledges for the next term, Museveni said the party’s priorities would focus on wealth creation, education, infrastructure, crime, corruption, health and water.

Our priorities for this term include:

1. Wealth creation: Everybody should be involved in the money economy.
2. Education: All children in government primary and secondary schools should study for free.
3. Infrastructure: Roads should be tarmaced on time and maintain the… pic.twitter.com/KhDcNeyJaH

— Yoweri K Museveni (@KagutaMuseveni) September 23, 2025

Museveni came to power in 1986 after his NRM party waged a rebellion to depose the military regime of General Tito Okello.

After the NRM won the war, Museveni, the then-leader of the movement’s armed group, declared himself president. Since then, the president has been elected in subsequent elections.

In 2017, an amendment to the constitution removed the age limit for presidential candidates, which had been set at 75, allowing Museveni to continue ruling the country.

But the leader’s main political opponent, Bobi Wine, a former musician, is expected to be announced as a candidate in the upcoming election later this week.

During the 2021 elections, Wine secured 35 percent of the vote, with Museveni taking 58 percent in his worst-ever result.

While Wine accused Museveni of alleged voter fraud and ballot stuffing, his performance during the election placed him as the strongest challenger to Museveni’s rule.

Wine also has a large following among working-class communities in urban areas, with his National Unity Platform party holding the most seats of any opposition party in the national assembly.

So Jimmy Kimmel is coming back, fast enough that there are still folks out there who didn’t know he was gone.

Hallelujah? Praise be to ABC? Free speech triumphs?

It all depends on Tuesday night, when we see if Kimmel returns undaunted, or if he has been subdued. Of all the consequential, crazy, frightening events that have taken place in recent days, Kimmel’s return should be a moment we all watch — a real-time, late-night look at how successful our president is at forcing us to censor ourselves through fear.

Please, Jimmy, don’t back down.

If Kimmel tempers his comedy now, pulls his punches on making fun of power, he sends the message that we should all be afraid, that we should all bend. Maybe he didn’t sign up for this, but here he is — a person in a position of influence being forced to make a risky choice between safety and country.

That sounds terribly dramatic, I know, but self-censorship is the heart of authoritarianism. When people of power are too scared to even crack a joke, what does that mean for the average person?

If Kimmel, with his celebrity, clout and wealth, cannot stand up to this president, what chance do the rest of us have?

Patriotism used to be a simple thing. A bit of apple pie, a flag on the Fourth of July, maybe even a twinge of pride when the national anthem plays and all the words pop into your mind even though you can’t find your car keys or remember what day it is.

It’s just something there, running in the background — an unspoken acknowledgment that being American is a pretty terrific thing to be.

Now, of course, patriotism is the most loaded of words. It’s been masticated and barfed out by the MAGA movement into a specific gruel — a white, Western-centric dogma that demands a narrow and angry Christianity dominate civic life.

There have been a deluge of examples of this subversion in recent days. The Pentagon is threatening to punish journalists who report information it doesn’t explicitly provide. The president used social media to demand U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi go after his perceived enemies.

The one that put a knot in my stomach was the speech by Stephen Miller, Trump’s immigration czar, speaking, without humor, at the memorial for Charlie Kirk.

“We are the storm,” Miller said, hinting back at a QAnon conspiracy theory about a violent reordering of society.

That’s disturbing, but actually mild compared with what he said next, a now-familiar Christian nationalist rant.

“Our lineage and our legacy hails back to Athens, to Rome, to Philadelphia, to Monticello,” Miller said. “Our ancestors built the cities they produced, the art and architecture they built. The industry.”

Who’s going to tell him about Sally Hemings? But he continued with an attack on the “yous” who don’t agree with this worldview, the “yous,” like Kimmel, one presumes (though Kimmel’s name did not come up) who oppose this cruel version of America.

“You are wickedness, you are jealousy, you are envy, you are hatred, you are nothing,” Miller said. “You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing.”

Humor, of course, ain’t nothing, which is why this administration can’t stand it.

Humor builds camaraderie. It produces dopamine and serotonin, the glue of human bonding. It drains away fear, and creates hope.

Which is why autocrats always go after comedians pretty early on. It’s not thin skin, though Trump seems to have that. It’s effective management of dissent.

Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels knew it. In 1939, after his party had set up a Chamber of Culture that required all performers to adhere to certain rules, he banned five German comedians — Werner Finck, Peter Sachse, Helmuth Buth, Wilhelm Meissner and Manfred Dlugi — for making political jokes that didn’t support the regime. He basically ended their careers for daring satire against Nazi leaders, claiming people didn’t find it funny.

“(I)n their public appearances they displayed a lack of any positive attitude toward National Socialism and therewith caused grave annoyance in public and especially to party comrades,” the New York Times reported the German government claiming at the time.

Sounds familiar.

Kimmel, of course, is not the only comedian speaking out. Jon Stewart has hit back on “The Daily Show,” pretending to be scared into submission, perhaps a hat tip to Finck, who famously joked, “I am not saying anything. And even that I am not saying.”

Stephen Colbert roasted Disney with a very funny parody video. Political cartoonists are having a field day.

And there are plenty of others pushing back. Gov. Gavin Newsom has taken to all-caps rebuttals. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, whom Trump called “nothing,” is also vocal in his opposition, especially of National Guard troops in Chicago.

The collective power of the powerful is no joke. It means something.

But all the sober talk in the world can’t rival one spot-on dig when it comes to kicking the clay feet of would-be dictators. Mark Twain said it best: Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand. Which is what makes Kimmel so relevant in this moment.

Can he come back with a laugh — proving we have nothing to fear but fear itself — or are we seriously in trouble?

Rodrigo Duterte is accused of being an ‘indirect co-perpetrator’ in the murders of dozens of alleged criminals.

Former President of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte has been charged with three counts of crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC), which alleges that he played a role in the murders of at least 76 people during his so-called “war on drugs”.

The charges against the 80-year-old, who has been held in a detention facility in the Netherlands since March, are set out in a document that was published by the ICC on Monday.

They relate in part to the anti-drug crackdown Duterte led when he was president, which resulted in the deaths of thousands of alleged narcotics dealers and users.

The heavily redacted ICC charge sheet, which is dated from early July and is signed by the court’s deputy prosecutor, Mame Mandiaye Niang, sets out what prosecutors see as Duterte’s individual criminal responsibility for dozens of deaths that occurred between 2013 and 2018.

The first count dates to his time as mayor of Davao City, when he is alleged to have been an “indirect co-perpetrator” in 19 murders between 2013 and 2016.

The second and third ICC charges concern his years as president. The former relates to the murders of 14 so-called “high-value” targets in 2016 and 2017, while the latter refers to 43 murders committed during “clearance” operations against lower-level alleged criminals between 2016 and 2018.

The 76 murders were carried out by police as well as non-state actors, such as hitmen, according to the ICC document.

The publication of the charges came several weeks after a court delayed Duterte’s appearance scheduled for later this month at the ICC to hear the accusations against him.

The court must first consider whether the former president is fit to stand trial, following his lawyer Nicholas Kaufman’s suggestion that the case should be indefinitely postponed because of Duterte’s poor health.

Kaufman has said that Duterte is suffering “cognitive impairment in multiple domains”.

Duterte was arrested in the Philippines’ capital, Manila, on March 11, and was swiftly flown to the Netherlands, where he has been held in ICC custody. The 80-year-old insists his arrest was unlawful.

Duterte’s supporters in the Philippines allege that his detention is political and the result of his family’s falling out with the current president of the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

WASHINGTON — President Trump has harnessed the weight of his office in recent days to accelerate a campaign of retribution against his perceived political enemies and attacks on 1st Amendment protections.

In the last week alone, Trump replaced a U.S. attorney investigating two of his political adversaries with a loyalist and openly directed the attorney general to find charges to file against them.

His Federal Communications Commission chairman hinted at punitive actions against networks whose journalists and comedians run afoul of the president.

Trump filed a $15-billion lawsuit against the New York Times, only to have it thrown out by a judge.

The acting U.S. attorney in Los Angeles asked the Secret Service to investigate a social media post by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s press office.

The Pentagon announced it was imposing new restrictions on reporters who cover the U.S. military.

The White House officially labeled “antifa,” a loose affiliation of far-left extremists, as “domestic terrorists” — a designation with no basis in U.S. law — posing a direct challenge to free speech protections. And it said lawmakers concerned with the legal predicate for strikes on boats in the Caribbean should simply get over it.

An active investigation into the president’s border advisor over an alleged bribery scheme involving a $50,000 payout was quashed by the White House itself.

Trump emphasized his partisan-fueled dislike of his political opponents during a Sunday memorial service for conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who he said “did not hate his opponents.”

“That’s where I disagreed with Charlie,” Trump said. “I hate my opponents and I don’t want the best for them.”

It has been an extraordinary run of attacks using levers of power that have been seen as sacred arbiters of the public trust for decades, scholars and historians say.

The assault is exclusively targeting Democrats, liberal groups and establishment institutions, just as the administration moves to shield its allies.

Erik Siebert, the U.S. attorney in Virginia, resigned Friday after facing pressure from the Trump administration to bring criminal charges against New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James over alleged mortgage fraud. In a social media post later that day, Trump claimed he had “fired” Siebert.

A few hours later, on Saturday, Trump said he nominated White House aide Lindsey Halligan to take over Siebert’s top prosecutorial role in Virginia, saying she was “tough” and “loyal.”

Later that day, Trump demanded in a social media post addressed to “Pam” — in reference to Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi — that she prosecute James, former FBI Director James Comey and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” Trump wrote. “They impeached me twice, and indicted me (5 times!), OVER NOTHING. JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended Trump’s remarks, saying Monday that the president is “rightfully frustrated” and that he “wants accountability for these corrupt fraudsters who abuse their power, who abuse their oath of office, to target the former president and then candidate for the highest office in the land.”

“It is not weaponizing the Department of Justice to demand accountability for those who weaponize the Department of Justice, and nobody knows what that looks like more than President Trump,” Leavitt told reporters.

As the president called for prosecution of his political opponents, it was reported that Tom Homan, the White House border advisor, was the subject of an undercover FBI case that was later shut down by Trump administration officials. Homan, according to MSNBC, accepted $50,000 in cash from undercover agents after he indicated to them he could get them government contracts.

At Monday’s news briefing, Leavitt said that Homan did not take the money and that the investigation was “another example of the weaponization of the Biden Department of Justice against one of President Trump’s strongest and most vocal supporters.”

“The White House and the president stand by Tom Homan 100% because he did absolutely nothing wrong,” she said.

Some see the recent actions as an erosion of an expected firewall between the Department of Justice and the White House, as well as a shift in the idea of how criminal investigation should be launched.

“If the Department of Justice and any prosecution entity is functioning properly, then that entity is investigating crimes and not people,” said John Hasnas, a law professor at Georgetown University.

The Trump administration has also begun a military campaign against vessels crossing the Caribbean Sea departing from Venezuela that it says are carrying narcotics and drug traffickers. But the targeted killing of individuals at sea is raising concern among legal scholars that the administration’s operation is extrajudicial, and Democratic lawmakers, including Schiff, have introduced a bill in recent days asserting the ongoing campaign violates the War Powers Resolution.

Political influence has long played a role with federal prosecutors who are political appointees, Hasnas said, but under “the current situation it’s magnified greatly.”

“The interesting thing about the current situation is that the Trump administration is not even trying to hide it,” he said.

Schiff said he sees it as an effort to “try to silence and intimidate.” In July, Trump accused Schiff — who led the first impeachment inquiry into Trump — of committing mortgage fraud, which Schiff has denied.

“What he wants to try to do is not just go after me and Letitia James or Lisa Cook, but rather send a message that anyone who stands up to him on anything, anyone who has the audacity to call out his corruption will be a target, and they will go after you,” Schiff said in an interview Sunday.

Trump campaigned in part on protecting free speech, especially that of conservatives, who he claimed had been broadly censored by the Biden administration and “woke” leftist culture in the U.S. Many of his most ardent supporters — including billionaire Elon Musk and now-Vice President JD Vance — praised Trump as a champion of free speech.

However, since Trump took office, his administration has repeatedly sought to silence his critics, including in the media, and crack down on speech that does not align with his politics.

And in the wake of Kirk’s killing on Sept. 10, those efforts have escalated into an unprecedented attack on free speech and expression, according to constitutional scholars and media experts.

“The administration is showing a stunning ignorance and disregard of the 1st Amendment,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley Law School.

“We are at an unprecedented place in American history in terms of the targeting of free press and the exercise of free speech,” said Ken Paulson, former editor in chief of USA Today and now director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University.

“We’ve had periods in American history like the Red Scare, in which Americans were to turn in neighbors who they thought leaned left, but this is a nonstop, multifaceted, multiplatform attack on all of our free speech rights,” Paulson said. “I’m actually quite stunned at the velocity of this and the boldness of it.”

Bondi recently railed against “hate speech” — which the Supreme Court has previously defended — in an online post, suggesting the Justice Department will investigate those who speak out against conservatives.

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened ABC and its parent company, Disney, with repercussions if they did not yank Jimmy Kimmel off the air after Kimmel made comments about Kirk’s alleged killer that Carr found distasteful. ABC swiftly suspended Kimmel’s show, though Disney announced Monday that it would return Tuesday.

The Pentagon, meanwhile, said it will require news organizations to agree not to disclose any information the government has not approved for release and revoke the press credentials of those who publish sensitive material without approval.

Critics of the administration, free speech organizations and even some conservative pundits who have long criticized the “cancel culture” of the progressive left have spoken out against some of those policies. Scholars have too, saying the amalgam of actions by the administration represent a dangerous departure from U.S. law and tradition.

“What unites all of this is how blatantly inconsistent it is with the 1st Amendment,” Chemerinsky said.

Chemerinsky said lower courts have consistently pushed back against the administration’s overreaches when it comes to protected speech, and he expects they will continue to do so.

He also said that, although the Supreme Court has frequently sided with the president in disputes over his policy decisions, it has also consistently defended freedom of speech, and he hopes it will continue to do so if some of the free speech policies above reach the high court.

“If there’s anything this court has said repeatedly, it’s that the government can’t prevent or stop speech based on the viewpoint expressed,” Chemerinsky said.

Paulson said that American media companies must refuse to obey and continue to cover the Trump administration and the Pentagon as aggressively as ever, and that average Americans must recognize the severity of the threat posed by such censorship and speak out against it, no matter their political persuasion.

“This is real — a full-throttle assault on free speech in America,” Paulson said. “And it’s going to be up to the citizenry to do something about it.”

Chemerinsky said defending free speech should be an issue that unites all Americans, not least because political power changes hands.

“It’s understandable that those in power want to silence the speech that they don’t like, but the whole point of the 1st Amendment is to protect speech we don’t like,” he said. “We don’t need the 1st Amendment to protect the speech we like.”

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Monday it will decide on reversing a 90-year precedent that has protected independent agencies from direct control by the president.

The court’s conservative majority has already upheld President Trump’s firing of Democratic appointees at the National Labor Relations Board and Merit Systems Protection Board. And in a separate order on Monday, it upheld Trump’s removal of a Democratic appointee at the Federal Trade Commission.

Those orders signal the court is likely to rule for the president and that he has the full authority to fire officials at independent agencies, if Congress said they had fixed terms.

The only hint of doubt has focused on the Federal Reserve Board. In May, when the court upheld the firing of an NLRB official, it said it decision does not threaten the independence of Federal Reserve.

The court described it as “a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity that follows in the distinct historical tradition of the First and Second Banks of the United States.” Trump did not share that view. He threatened to fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell during the summer because he had not lowered interest rates.

And he is now seeking to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, a Biden appointee, based on the allegation she may have committed mortgage fraud when she took out two home loans in 2021.

Trump’s lawyers sent an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court last week seeking to have Cook removed now.

Long before Trump’s presidency, Chief Justice John G. Roberts had argued that the president has the constitutional power to control federal agencies and to hire or fire all officials who exercise significant executive authority.

But that view stands in conflict with what the court has said for more than a century. Since 1887, when Congress created the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate railroad rates, lawmakers on Capitol Hill believed they had the authority to create independent boards and commissions.

Typically, the president would be authorized appoint officials who would serve a fixed term set by law. At times, Congress also required the boards have a mix of both Republican and Democratic appointees.

The Supreme Court unanimously upheld that understanding in a 1935 case called Humphrey’s Executor. The justices said then these officials made judicial-type decisions, and they should be shielded from direct control by the president.

That decision was a defeat for President Franklin Roosevelt who tried to fire a Republican appointee on the Federal Trade Commission.

In recent years, the chief justice and his conservative colleagues have questioned the idea that Congress can shield officials from direct control by the president.

In Monday’s order, the court said it will hear arguments in December on “whether the statutory removal protections for members of the Federal Trade Commission violate the separation of powers and, if so, whether Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, 295 U. S. 602 (1935), should be overruled.”

Justice Elena Kagan has repeatedly dissented in these cases and argued that Congress has the power to make the law and structure the government, not the president.

Joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, she objected on Monday that the court has continued to fire independent officials at Trump’s request.

“Our emergency docket should never be used, as it has been this year, to permit what our own precedent bars,” she wrote. “Still more, it should not be used, as it also has been, to transfer government authority from Congress to the President, and thus to reshape the Nation’s separation of powers.”

Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi has pardoned the prominent British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel Fattah, who has been imprisoned for six years, state media and his family say.

Abdel Fattah was one of six people whose sentences were commuted following a request from the National Council for Human Rights, according to Al-Qahera News. His sister Mona Seif wrote on X: “My heart will explode.”

The 43-year-old blogger and pro-democracy activist is one of Egypt’s best known political prisoners.

He was arrested in 2019 during a crackdown on dissent and sentenced to five years in prison in 2021 after being convicted of “spreading false news” for sharing a post about a prisoner dying after torture.

His family said he should have been released in September 2024. However, Egyptian authorities refused to count the two years he spent in pre-trial detention as time served.

Abdel Fattah’s lawyer, Khaled Ali, confirmed in a Facebook post on Monday afternoon that he had been pardoned and that he would be released from Wadi al-Natrun prison, north-west of Cairo, once the pardon was published in the official gazette.

Abdel Fattah’s other sister Sanaa Seif later wrote on X: “President Sisi has pardoned my brother!”

“Mum & I are heading to the prison now to inquire from where Alaa will be released and when… OMG I can’t believe we get our lives back!”

The National Council for Human Rights welcomed the pardons, saying the decision was “a step that underscores a growing commitment to reinforcing the principles of swift justice and upholding fundamental rights and freedoms”.

US-based campaign group Human Rights Watch said it hoped Abdel Fattah’s pardon act would “act as a watershed moment and provide an opportunity for Sisi’s government to end the wrongful detention of thousands of peaceful critics”.

Two weeks ago, Sisi ordered the authorities to study the NCHR’s petitions for the release of Abdel Fattah and six others, which the institution said it had submitted “in light of the humanitarian and health conditions experienced by [their] families”.

Abdel Fattah’s 68-year-old mother, Leila Soueif, who is also a British citizen, ended a nine-month-long hunger strike in July after receiving assurances from the UK government that it was doing everything it could to secure his release.

She lost more than 40% of her original body weight and was twice admitted to hospital in London during the strike, which saw her consume only tea, coffee and rehydration salts.

Abdel Fattah has also staged a number of hunger strikes himself. One in 2022, as Egypt hosted the UN climate conference, led to international pressure for his release and an improvement in his conditions in jail.

The activist first rose to prominence during the 2011 uprising in Egypt that forced long-time President Hosni Mubarak to resign.

He has spent most of his time in prison since 2014, the year after Sisi led the military’s overthrow of Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi.

Sisi has overseen what human rights groups say is an unprecedented crackdown on dissent that has led to the detention of tens of thousands of people.

In 2015, a court sentenced Abdel Fattah to five years in prison for participating in an unauthorised protest.

In September 2019, only six months after he had been released on probation, he was arrested again and held in pre-trial detention for more than two years.

He was convicted of “spreading false news” and handed another five-year sentence in December 2021 following a trial that human rights groups said was grossly unfair.

Although he acquired British citizenship in 2021, Egypt has never allowed him a consular visit by British diplomats.

In May, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention – a panel of independent human rights experts – found that Abdel Fattah was arbitrarily arrested for exercising his right to freedom of expression, was not given a fair trial, and continued to be detained for his political opinions.

According to the panel, the Egyptian government said he was afforded “all fair trial rights” and that his sentence would be completed in January 2027.

Eight months into his second term, President Trump’s long-standing pledge to take on those he perceives as his political enemies has prompted debates over free speech, media censorship and political prosecutions.

Trump has escalated moves to consolidate power in his second administration and target those who have spoken out against him, including the suspension of late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s show, Pentagon restrictions on reporters and an apparent public appeal to Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi to pursue legal cases against his adversaries.

In a post on social media over the weekend addressed to Bondi, Trump said that “nothing is being done” on investigations into some of his foes.

“We can’t delay any longer, it’s killing our reputation and credibility,” he said. Referencing his impeachment and criminal indictments, he said, “JUSTICE MUST BE SERVED, NOW!!!”

Criticizing investigations into Trump’s dealings under Democratic President Biden’s Justice Department, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Sunday that “it is not right for the Trump administration to do the same thing.”

Directive to Bondi

Trump has ratcheted up his discussion of pursuing legal cases against some of his political opponents, part of a vow for retribution that has been a theme of his return to the White House. He publicly pressed Bondi over the weekend to move forward with such investigations.

Trump posted somewhat of an open letter on social media Saturday to his top prosecutor to advance such inquiries, including a mortgage fraud investigation of New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James and a possible case against former FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump accuses of threatening him.

The president posted that he had “reviewed over 30 statements and posts” that he characterized as criticizing his administration for a lack of action on investigations.

“We have to act fast — one way or the other,” Trump told reporters later that night at the White House. “They’re guilty, they’re not guilty — we have to act fast. If they’re not guilty, that’s fine. If they are guilty or if they should be charged, they should be charged. And we have to do it now.”

Trump later wrote in a follow-up post that Bondi was “doing a GREAT job.”

Paul, a frequent Trump foil from the right, was asked during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about the propriety of a president directing his attorney general to investigate political opponents. The senator decried “lawfare in all forms.”

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said it was “unconstitutional and deeply immoral for the president to jail or to silence his political enemies.” He warned that it could set a worrisome precedent for both parties.

“It will come back and boomerang on conservatives and Republicans at some point if this becomes the norm,” Murphy said on ABC’s “This Week.”

The Senate’s Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Trump is turning the Justice Department “into an instrument that goes after his enemies, whether they’re guilty or not, and most of them are not guilty at all, and that helps his friends. This is the path to a dictatorship. That’s what dictatorships do.”

The Justice Department did not respond Sunday to a message seeking comment.

Letitia James investigation

Each new president nominates his own U.S. attorneys in jurisdictions across the country. Trump has already worked to install people close to him in some of those jobs, including former Fox News host Jeanine Pirro in the District of Columbia and Alina Habba, his former attorney, in New Jersey.

Trump has largely stocked his second administration with loyalists, continuing Saturday with the nomination of a White House aide as top federal prosecutor for the office investigating James, a longtime foe of Trump.

The president announced Lindsey Halligan to be the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia on Saturday, just a day after Erik Siebert resigned from the post and Trump said he wanted him “out.”

Trump said he was bothered that Siebert had been supported by the state’s two Democratic senators.

“There are just two standards of justice now in this country. If you are a friend of the president, a loyalist of the president, you can get away with nearly anything, including beating the hell out of police officers,” Murphy said, mentioning those convicted in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot and insurrection at the U.S. Capitol pardoned by Trump as he returned to office. “But if you are an opponent of the president, you may find yourself in jail.”

New restrictions on Pentagon reporters

Trump has styled himself as an opponent of censorship, pledging in his January inaugural address to “bring free speech back to America” and signing an executive order that no federal officer, employee or agent may unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.

Under a 17-page memo distributed Friday, the Pentagon stepped up restrictions on the media, saying it will require credentialed journalists to sign a pledge to refrain from reporting information that has not been authorized for release, including unclassified information. Journalists who don’t abide by the policy risk losing credentials that provide access to the Pentagon.

Asked Sunday whether the Pentagon should play a role in determining what journalists can report, Trump said, “No, I don’t think so.”

“Nothing stops reporters. You know that,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House for slain activist Charlie Kirk’s memorial service.

Trump has sued numerous media organizations over negative coverage, with several settling with the president for millions of dollars. A federal judge in Florida tossed out Trump’s $15-billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times on Friday.

Jimmy Kimmel ouster and FCC warning

Perhaps the most headline-grabbing situation involves ABC’s indefinite suspension Wednesday of veteran comic Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show. What Kimmel said about Kirk’s killing had led a group of ABC-affiliated stations to say it would not air the show and provoked some ominous comments from a top federal regulator.

Trump celebrated on his social media site: “Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done.”

Earlier in the day, the Federal Communications Commission chairman, Brendan Carr, who has launched investigations of outlets that have angered Trump, said Kimmel’s comments were “truly sick” and that his agency has a strong case for holding Kimmel, ABC and network parent Walt Disney Co. accountable for spreading misinformation.

“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) argued that Kimmel’s ouster wasn’t a chilling of free speech but a corporate decision.

“I really don’t believe ABC would have decided to fire Jimmy Kimmel over a threat,” he said Sunday on CNN. “ABC has been a long-standing critic of President Trump. They did it because they felt like it didn’t meet their brand anymore.”

Not all Republicans have applauded the move. On his podcast Friday, GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, a former Trump foe turned staunch ally, called it “unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying we’re going to decide what speech we like and what we don’t, and we’re going to threaten to take you off air if we don’t like what you’re saying.”

Trump called Carr “a great American patriot” and said Friday that he disagreed with Cruz.

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press.

The last Syrian president to address the UN General Assembly spoke at the gathering in 1967.

Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa has arrived in New York for the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), becoming the first Syrian head of state to attend the annual gathering in almost six decades.

The last Syrian leader to attend the UNGA was President Nureddin al-Atassi, who ruled before the al-Assad family came to power in 1971 and maintained its rule until al-Sharaa toppled Bashar al-Assad’s government in December.

Al-Sharaa arrived in New York on Sunday, leading a large delegation of Syrian officials, in what state media described as a “landmark trip”.

The symbolism of the visit was also significant because it is the latest milestone in the normalisation of al-Sharaa and his government, who seized power in the country in a lightning offensive after spending more than a decade as a rebel fighter in northern Syria.

Al-Sharaa had a meeting with United States President Donald Trump in May, the first such encounter between a Syrian president and a US president in 25 years, at a summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council, alongside Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. At the meeting, Trump said the US would drop all sanctions on Syria, which he subsequently did, and added that Washington was “exploring normalising relations with Syria’s new government”.

Al-Sharaa’s fledgling government has been contending with internal strife, notably an eruption of violence in the southern area of Suwayda in June, as well repeated Israeli attacks and military incursions into Syrian territory despite talks between the two nations.

Syria has accused Israel of violating the 1974 Disengagement Agreement that followed their 1973 war, by establishing intelligence facilities and military posts in demilitarised areas to advance its “expansionist and partition plans”.

In an interview with CBS’s Face the Nation, al-Sharaa said “President Trump took a big step towards Syria by lifting the sanctions with a quick, courageous and historic decision.

“He recognized that Syria should be safe, stable and unified. This is in the greatest interest of all the countries in the world, not just Syria,” he added, saying he hoped to have another meeting with Trump while in the US.

“We need to discuss a great many issues and mutual interests between Syria and the USA. We must restore relations in a good and direct way.”

At the end of June, Trump signed an executive order “terminating” most remaining sanctions on Syria, which was welcomed in Damascus as unlocking “long-awaited reconstruction and development” funds.

After arriving in the US, al-Sharaa met members of the Syrian community.

Syria’s Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani also raised the country’s new flag over the Washington embassy.

في لحظة تاريخية، وزير الخارجية والمغتربين السيد أسعد حسن الشيباني يرفع علم الجمهورية العربية السورية فوق مبنى السفارة السورية في العاصمة الأميركية واشنطن. pic.twitter.com/PWyUEGSIBK

— وزارة الخارجية والمغتربين السورية (@syrianmofaex) September 19, 2025

Translation: In a historic moment, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Mr Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani, raises the flag of the Syrian Arab Republic above the building of the Syrian embassy in the US capital, Washington.

Christopher Nolan was elected president of the Directors Guild of America on Saturday, taking over leadership of the union that represents more than 19,500 members.

Nolan, 55, is among the most successful directors of his generation. His previous film, 2024’s “Oppenheimer,” made more than $975 million worldwide and won seven Academy Awards, including best director and best picture for Nolan. His next film, a star-studded adaptation of Homer’s “The Odyssey,” opens July 16, 2026, and sold out shows a year in advance.

In a statement, Nolan said, “To be elected President of the Directors Guild of America is one of the greatest honors of my career. Our industry is experiencing tremendous change, and I thank the Guild’s membership for entrusting me with this responsibility.”

Nolan takes over leadership of the guild from Lesli Linka Glatter, who has served two terms since 2021.

Nolan added in a statement, “I also want to thank President Glatter for her leadership over the past four years. I look forward to collaborating with her and the newly elected Board to achieve important creative and economic protections for our members.”

Also announced on Saturday were Laura Belsey as national vice-president and Paris Barclay, a former president of the DGA, as secretary-treasurer. Additional vice-presidents include Todd Holland, Ron Howard, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Seith Mann, Millicent Shelton and Lily Olszewski.

Nolan has been a member of the DGA since 2001 and served as a member of the national board since 2015. He is chair of the guild’s theatrical creative rights committee and its artificial intelligence committee.

He won the DGA award for outstanding directorial achievement in theatrical feature film for “Oppenheimer” and was previously nominated for his films “Dunkirk,” “Inception,” “The Dark Knight” and “Memento.”

Next year the DGA is expected to enter into new negotiations with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, who represent the studios and streaming services, over its basic agreement.

In a statement, the AMPTP said, “We look forward to partnering with President Nolan to address the issues most important to DGA members while ensuring our member companies remain competitive in a rapidly changing industry.”

Without a doubt, it is important to capture the reflections of a vice president who found herself in an unprecedented situation after the president was pressured to withdraw from the 2024 election. And “107 Days,” a taut, often eye-opening account — written with the help of Geraldine Brooks — takes you inside the rooms where it happened, as well as what led up to Kamala Harris’ remarkable run.

For one, apparently MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell first gave Harris the idea she should seek the presidency in 2020. Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, were having breakfast at a restaurant near their Brentwood home when O’Donnell “wandered up to our table to talk about the dire consequences of a second Trump term.” Harris, then in her first term as a U.S. senator, recounts that O’Donnell bluntly suggested: “‘You should run for president.’ I honestly had not thought about it until that moment,” she writes in “107 Days.”

Later, Harris also reveals that Tim Walz was not her first choice for running mate: Pete Buttigieg was, though she ultimately concluded the country wasn’t ready for a gay man in the role.

“We were already asking a lot of America: to accept a woman, a Black woman, a Black woman married to a Jewish man,” she writes. She assumes Buttigieg felt similarly, but they never discussed it.

We do not glean much more than we already knew or assumed about President Biden’s life-changing 2024 phone call that set Harris on this path. Pleas for Biden to step aside had been building following his disastrous debate performance less than five months before the election, but by that time Harris had given up on the idea that he would withdraw from the race. But on Sunday, July 21, Harris had just finished making pancakes for her grandnieces at the vice president’s residence and was settling in to watch a cooking show with them when “No Caller ID” came up on her secure phone.

“I need to talk to you,” Biden rasps, then battling COVID-19. Without fanfare, he told her: “I’ve decided I’m dropping out.” “Are you sure?” Harris replies, to which Biden responds: “I’m sure. I’m going to announce in a few minutes.” In italics, we are made privy to what Harris is thinking during their brief phone call: “Really?” Give me a bit more time. The whole world is about to change. I’m here in sweatpants.”

If we wanted in on the powerful feelings that must have been swirling within each of them during such an exchange, or a nod to the momentousness of the moment — no dice. The conversation shifted to the timing of Biden’s endorsement of Harris, which Biden’s staff wanted to delay and which she wanted immediately. Politics, not sentiment, reigned.

The Atlantic book excerpt published earlier this month, it turns out, accurately represents the overall tone of “107 Days.” A thread running throughout is one of bitterness toward Biden’s inner circle, whom Harris felt had been poisoning the well since she first took office: “The public statements, the whispering campaigns, and the speculation had done a world of damage,” she recounts, and perhaps laid the groundwork for her defeat. While she had a warm relationship with the president himself, Harris believes she was never trusted by the first lady or the president’s closest advisors, nor did they throw their full weight behind her as the Democratic nominee.

At the same time, she never doubted that she was the right person for the job. She writes, “I knew I was the candidate in the strongest position to win. … The most qualified and ready. The highest name recognition.” She also calculates that the president and his team thought she was the least bad option to replace him because “I was the only person who would preserve his legacy.” “At this point,” she adds, “anyone else was bound to throw him — and all the good he had achieved — right under the bus.”

For those who are cynical about politics, “107 Days” will not alter your view. After Biden announces his withdrawal, First Lady Jill Biden welcomes Second Gentleman Emhoff into the fray, advising: “Be careful what you wish for. You’re about to see how horrible the world is.” Her senior adviser David Plouffe encourages Harris to distance herself from the president on the campaign trail, because “People hate Joe Biden.” Again and again, Harris provides examples of being left out of the loop or not robustly supported by his inner circle. She writes that her feelings for the president “were grounded in warmth and loyalty” but had become “more complicated over time.” She claims never to have doubted Biden’s competence, even while she worried about how he appeared to the public.

“On his worst day,” she writes, “he was more deeply knowledgeable, more capable of exercising judgment, and far more compassionate than Donald Trump at his best.” Still, his decision about seeking a second term shouldn’t “have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition,” she concludes in an observation that grabbed headlines upon its publication in the Atlantic excerpt.

The exhilaration that Harris’ campaign frequently exuded in those early rallies is summarized here, but those accounts don’t capture the joy. Some of the details she chooses to highlight tamp down the excitement. For example, at their first rally together after picking Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate, Walz, Harris and their families greet an audience of 10,000 people in Philadelphia. Though Harris writes, “We rode the high of the crowd that night,” she also notes, “When Tim clasped my hand to thrust it high in an enthusiastic victory gesture, he was so tall that the entire front of my jacket rose up.” She makes “a mental note to tell him: From now on, when we do that, you gotta bend your elbow.”

The Kamala Harris I saw on the campaign trail and enthusiastically voted for is often in evidence on the page. She is smart, savvy, funny and tough. As in many of her stump speeches and media interviews, she tends to recite her accomplishments as if reading from a resume, which sometimes reads as defensive. But she is also indefatigable: She believes that she must win to save democracy, yet she seems to shoulder that formidable burden without breaking a sweat.

“107 Days” does an excellent job of conveying the difficulty of seeking — and occupying — high office, and suggests that if she’d won, Harris’ resilience and ambition would have served her well as the leader of the free world. Many of her insights are astute, though occasionally tinged with rancor. She does accept responsibility for certain missteps, such as when she was asked on “The View” if she would have done anything differently than Biden had she been in charge. She reflects that her response — “There is nothing that comes to mind” — landed as if she’d “pulled the pin on a hand grenade.” But she doesn’t attribute her eventual loss to that or any other miscalculation: She simply needed more time to make her case.

I craved a soaring moment, a rallying cry. I didn’t find hope or inspiration within these pages — the book felt more like an obligatory postmortem with an already established conclusion. If an aim of this memoir was to rally the troops for a Harris run in 2028, “107 Days” falls short of lighting a fire. The brilliant, charismatic woman who came close to breaking the ultimate glass ceiling has given us an essential portrait of an unforgettable turning point in her journey, but “107 Days” is mainly absent the perspective and blueprint for going forward that so many of us hunger for. A few years out, that wisdom may come.

Haber is a writer, editor and publishing strategist. She was director of Oprah’s Book Club and books editor for O, the Oprah Magazine.