Tuesday’s meeting at the White House will be Trump’s first with a foreign leader since returning to office.

https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-hamas-war-news-ceasefire-hostages-02-02-2025-90db60e88f955a8bb57cb05e99d574d6

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he will discuss “victory over Hamas,” countering Iran and expanding diplomatic relations with Arab countries in his meeting with President Donald Trump.

Hamas, which has reasserted control over Gaza since the ceasefire began last month, has said it will not release hostages in the second phase without an end to the war and Israeli forces’ full withdrawal.

Netanyahu is under mounting pressure from far-right governing partners to resume the war after the first phase ends in early March. He has said Israel is committed to victory over Hamas and the return of all hostages captured in the militants’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the war

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/04/ukraine-war-briefing-trump-demands-rare-earths-from-kyiv-in-exchange-for-aid

Europe is pre-kneeling
>we were gonna d-do that anyway!


"we were gonna d-do that anyway!" bros... i got nothing... when is the next democrat party narrative update dropping? We need it and fast.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-wants-early-us-talks-avert-trump-tariffs-2025-02-04/

https://fortune.com/2025/02/02/musk-doge-treasury-payments-system-halt-us-govenment-contractors-lutheran-charity/
Elon Musk said his “DOGE team” of government efficiency enforcers is shutting down payments to federal contractors, suggesting that the world’s richest man may have access to sensitive systems used at the US Treasury Department.

“The corruption and waste is being rooted out in real-time,” Musk posted on X on Sunday, saying officials reporting to his so-called Department of Government Efficiency are “rapidly shutting down” payments to a Lutheran charity.

The Treasury Department did not immediately respond to questions about the extent of Musk’s access. President Donald Trump has put the Tesla CEO — and largest donor to his election effort — in charge of an effort to modernize federal information technology.

Musk’s weekend statements follow last week’s departure of David Lebryk, the Treasury Department’s most senior career official, who had been in charge of payment systems at the Bureau of the Fiscal Service.

Those systems are tightly controlled, and could contain sensitive information on taxpayers, contractors and beneficiaries. Treasury officials have long maintained that its role is to serve as the federal government’s checkbook — and that the decision about whether to approve or deny payment belongs to individual agencies based on funds appropriated by Congress.

“The @DOGE team discovered, among other things, that payment approval officers at Treasury were instructed always to approve payments, even to known fraudulent or terrorist groups. They literally never denied a payment in their entire career. Not even once,” Musk wrote on X, the social platform he owns.

Musk said DOGE was shutting down payments by the US Department of Health and Human Services to Lutheran Family Services, a faith-based charity that has been providing social services to refugees.

Hockey fans in Ottawa – Canada’s capital – expressed their apparent discontent at Trump’s decision by booing as “The Star-Spangled Banner” played ahead of the Ottawa Senators game against the Minnesota Wild on Saturday night.

In footage captured by a local sports journalist Bruce Garrioch, loud booing can be heard as Ottawa musician Mandia sang the final bars of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa. The jeering became louder as she finished

https://thehill.com/homenews/5121556-watch-fans-boo-us-national-anthem-nhl-game-canada/

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u3ce_bOFmds&pp=ygUzQ2FuYWRpYW4gRmFucyBib28gVVMgYW50aGVtIGF0IE5ITCBnYW1lIG92ZXIgdHJhZGUg

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/san-franciscos-republican-party-swell-of-registrations-from-asian-community/

>Along with a new year comes a new political direction for the country and a warning to the city's Democratic old guard that "the times, they are changin'."
>Toy has lived in San Francisco's Chinatown for 45 years and she was happy to see so many people visiting her neighborhood. But she was also happy to see so many of her neighbors coming out to vote in the November presidential election.
>"They were in their 80's, 90's–old ladies, old men–they all came out to vote," she said. "Because the way it is happening in America, it is going downhill. For example, with the crime rate going up."
>Toy is a proud supporter of President Trump and it looks like she has a lot of company in the Asian community. The city's Republican Party is reporting a huge swell in GOP registrations of people from Asian countries since the pandemic.
>"What I see is that regular citizens, such as I, we are all fed up with the corruption here in San Francisco and also in California. We are all fed up," she said. "I'm not surprised that they're doing that," said Nancy Yu Law, about the voting shift. "All my friends have changed this year, so I'm not surprised."
>As progressives, Democrats like to see themselves as the party of change. This is one change they may not have seen coming.