President Donald Trump tells American Jews to "celebrate proudly" after deadly Bondi Beach attack on "Hanukkah by the Sea" event kills 11, injures dozens in Australia.

The president announces non-existent emergencies to invoke extraordinary powers – and neutralizes the opposition

This month, we learned that, in the course of bombing a boat of suspected drug smugglers, the US military intentionally killed two survivors clinging to the wreckage after its initial air assault. In addition, Donald Trump said it was seditious for Democratic members of Congress to inform members of the military that they can, and indeed, must, resist patently illegal orders, and the FBI and Pentagon are reportedly investigating the members’ speech. Those related developments – the murder of civilians and an attack on free speech – exemplify two of Trump’s principal tactics in his second term. The first involves the assertion of extraordinary emergency powers in the absence of any actual emergency. The second seeks to suppress dissent by punishing those who dare to raise their voices. Both moves have been replicated time and time again since January 2025. How courts and the public respond will determine the future of constitutional democracy in the United States.

Nothing is more essential to a liberal democracy than the rule of law – that is, the notion that a democratic government is guided by laws, not discretionary whims; that the laws respect basic liberties for all; and that independent courts have the authority to hold political officials accountable when they violate those laws. These principles, forged in the United Kingdom, adopted and revised by the United States, are the bedrock of constitutional democracy. But they depend on courts being willing and able to check government abuse, and citizens exercising their rights to speak out in defense of the fundamental values when those values are under attack.

David Cole is the Honorable George J Mitchell professor in law and public policy at Georgetown University and former national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. This essay is adapted from his international rule of law lecture sponsored by the Bar Council.

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© Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

© Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

© Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

The potential demand that visitors to the US hand over their social media records, or even their phones, opens up a world of embarrassment

As someone with a child in the US, this new Trump threat to scrutinise tourists’ social media is concerning. Providing my user name would be OK – the authorities would get sick of scrolling through chicken pics before they found anything critical of their Glorious Leader – but what if I have to hand over my phone at the border, as has happened to some travellers already? I would rather get deported.

There’s nothing criminal or egregiously immoral on there; I don’t foment revolution or indulge in Trump trolling, tempting as that would be. But my phone does not paint a flattering picture of me. Does anyone’s? Those shiny black rectangles have become contemporary confessionals, and we would like to believe they abide by the same kind of confidentiality rules.

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© Photograph: Posed by model; Drazen Zigic/Getty Images

© Photograph: Posed by model; Drazen Zigic/Getty Images

© Photograph: Posed by model; Drazen Zigic/Getty Images

Israeli hostage Omer Shem Tov spent 505 days in Hamas captivity after the Oct. 7 attack and witnessed terrorists' reaction to Trump's presidential election win.

From athletes such as Tristan Thompson to artists such as Iggy Azalea, celebrities have returned to hawking crypto

Following the numbers suggests Tristan Thompson is nearing the end of his basketball career. While the 6ft 9in center once regularly played more than 80 games in a regular season, he’s hit new career lows, appearing just 40 times on court during the 2024-2025 season. Following the money, however, suggests Thompson is pivoting into a new career. He’s rebranded as a crypto investor, consultant and brand ambassador, bringing his relative cultural cache to the blockchain. Now the host of his own podcast, Courtside Crypto, he has made frequent appearances with other crypto celebrities, such as at the Nasdaq in September, when he celebrated the IPO of an explicitly nationalist Bitcoin mining operation alongside Eric Trump; Thompson has also developed a crypto startup slated to launch in 2026.

In 2025, crypto is back in style in Washington and among a growing set in Hollywood, where Thompson lives adjacent to the Kardashian clan, some of whom have been crypto spokespeople. Donald Trump has reversed Joe Biden’s legal offensive against crypto, debuting his own token, $Trump, before his inauguration, and rolling back government actions against the industry, which heavily supported him during his bid for the presidency. Celebrities have likewise returned to hawking cryptocurrency projects or launching tokens of their own.

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© Photograph: Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch

© Photograph: Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch

© Photograph: Kimberly White/Getty Images for TechCrunch

The first rule of dark money is to quit blabbing about it. Did they think people would thank them for it?

© Illustration by Rebecca Chew/The New York Times

The Treasury Department unveiled new coins celebrating America’s 250th anniversary. They failed to include planned designs featuring abolition, women’s suffrage and the civil rights movement.

The New York Times set out to understand — and quantify — just how much things had changed within the agency after President Trump resumed office.

© Alyssa Schukar for The New York Times

An investigation by The Times found the administration’s change in enforcement benefited the industry, including companies that had ties to the president.

© Mark Harris

For more than a century, this Black soldier from Virginia was remembered by nearly no one. Then this year, someone at the Pentagon found a use for him.

© National Museum of African American History and Culture

While the decision did not remove the National Guard troops from the president’s control, it blocked him from using them in the nation’s second-largest city.

© Alex Welsh for The New York Times

European officials are growing concerned that an emerging U.S.-brokered peace deal in Ukraine could be exploited by Russia, paving the way for a re-invasion of territory in the war-battered nation’s eastern Donbas region. Read More

The release of the prisoners, including a Nobel laureate and two opposition leaders, was part of a monthslong rapprochement between Washington and Minsk.

© Ints Kalnins/Reuters

The U.S. government has paused a tech-focused trade pledge with Britain over broader disagreements about Britain’s digital regulations and food safety rules.

© Doug Mills/The New York Times

Le président américain donne son feu vert à Nvidia pour vendre ses puces H200 à la Chine, tout en prélevant 25 % au passage. Les modèles les plus avancés restent interdits d’exportation, mais l’accord offre à Nvidia une porte d’entrée bienvenue sur le deuxième marché mondial, sous la supervision musclée de la Maison-Blanche.