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Happy Monday! We have an abridged newsletter for you today given the holiday; we’ll be back with a full edition of TMD tomorrow. Enjoy the long weekend!
Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories
DHS Shuts Down
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) entered a government shutdown on Saturday after federal lawmakers failed to reach a deal to fund the agency. The government partially shut down on January 31, but Congress quickly passed a bill to provide funding for all federal agencies through September 30, except for DHS, which received only a two-week funding extension. Congressional Democrats have shared a list of 10 proposed reforms for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) that they demand be included in any DHS funding bill, which the White House has opposed. The DHS shutdown is expected to affect more than 13 percent of the federal workforce, with workers receiving reduced pay on March 3 and starting to miss paychecks on March 17. Most federal employees at the agency, including those at the Transportation Security Administration, are expected to continue working without pay. Affected employees will receive back pay for missed paychecks after lawmakers pass a DHS funding deal.
- ICE and CBP operations will continue amid the shutdown, as the agencies remain funded through congressional appropriations under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed last year.
- Senate Democrats blocked a bill on Thursday to fund DHS with no additional restrictions and a separate push to provide a two-week funding extension for DHS. After the upper chamber adjourned for a weeklong recess, Senate leaders from both parties said senators would return early if the House passes a deal.
- The House also went out of session on Thursday and is currently scheduled to return on February 23, but Speaker Mike Johnson instructed members not to take government-funded congressional delegation trips during the work period amid the ongoing shutdown threat.
BLS Inflation Report
A new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released on Friday found that the consumer price index (CPI), a common metric of inflation, increased 2.4 percent year-over-year in January, a 0.3 percentage point decrease from the month before. Before Friday’s report, annual inflation had remained above 2.4 percent every month since May 2025. The BLS singled out price increases in its shelter index as “the largest factor” in the monthly inflation uptick, while noting that the indices for airline fares, personal care, recreation, medical care, and communication also saw increases in January. Meanwhile, energy costs decreased 1.5 percent from December to January, and core CPI—which excludes the more volatile food and energy prices—increased 2.5 percent year-over-year in January, its lowest mark since March 2021.
- In response, White House spokesman Kush Desai said on Friday that inflation was now “low and stable,” while critiquing the Federal Reserve for not enacting further interest rate cuts, a move he described as “long-overdue.”
- The CPI reading still remains above the central bank’s 2 percent target.
- U.S.-based stock indices showed little change on Friday after the report was published earlier that morning.
European Leaders: Navalny Was Murdered
The foreign ministers of five European countries—including the U.K., France, Germany, Sweden, and the Netherlands—said in a joint statement on Saturday that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who died in February 2024 while in Russian custody, was killed as a result of a “lethal toxin” found in his system. Specifically, European investigators discovered the presence of epibatidine in samples collected from Navalny, a poison excreted in poison dart frogs. While Russian authorities have claimed that Navalny died from natural causes, the European leaders said in their statement that “Russia had the means, motive and opportunity to administer this poison to him” and accused the Kremlin of violating international law’s prohibition on the use of chemical weapons.
- Russia’s Foreign Ministry dismissed the European leaders’ findings as “an information throw aimed at diverting attention from the pressing problems of the West.” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters during a press conference in Slovakia on Sunday that the joint statement was “a troubling report,” adding that U.S. officials “don’t have any reason to question” its legitimacy.
- On Sunday, British Foreign Minister Yvette Cooper said that European nations were considering taking “coordinated action, including increasing sanctions on the Russian regime.”
- U.S, Ukrainian, and Russian officials are set to hold trilateral peace talks in Geneva on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Iran-U.S Meeting Scheduled
News outlets first reported on Friday that U.S. and Iranian officials are expected to meet in Geneva on Tuesday to discuss a potential diplomatic off-ramp to the continued rising tensions between the two countries. White House special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law and foreign policy adviser Jared Kushner will lead the U.S. delegation in Geneva for talks with both Iran and Ukraine. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi will lead Iran’s delegation. Rubio said on Saturday that, while Trump’s preference was to strike a deal with Iran, it would be “very hard to do.” During an interview with the BBC, Araghchi said that the ball was “in America’s court to prove that they want to do a deal,” and pointed to the Iranian regime’s offer to reduce nuclear enrichment to a 60 percent maximum threshold. On Saturday, two U.S. officials told Reuters that the U.S. military is preparing for a potential weekslong military campaign against Iran in the event that President Donald Trump orders an attack.
- That same day, CBS News reported that Trump, during his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in December, gave the Israeli leader approval to launch targeted attacks against Iran’s ballistic missile program if the U.S. were unable to reach an agreement with the Iranian regime.
- On Friday, Trump said that regime change in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen.”
Claude Used During Venezuela Operation
The Wall Street Journal reported Friday that U.S. officials used Anthropic’s artificial intelligence tool, Claude, to assist in the military operation to capture former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The government does not have an official partnership with Anthropic, but reportedly used the AI through data firm Palantir and its platforms, which U.S. agencies and the military use. A senior administration official told Axios that Anthropic reached out afterward, asking whether the military used Claude in the Venezuela operation, sparking concerns within the Defense Department (DOD) that the AI company “might not approve” of such use. The Journal reported that an Anthropic employee had also reached out to Palantir to inquire in what capacity Claude was used in the military operation. Anthropic denied these claims, stating that the company did not reach out to the DOD or Palantir about any “specific operations,” and had only communicated “routine discussions on strictly technical matters.”
- The DOD said on Sunday that the U.S. military boarded a Panamanian-flagged oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the vessel from the Caribbean Sea since last month. The ship was sanctioned for helping ship oil to Iran.
- On Saturday, the U.S. reduced sanctions on Venezuela to allow energy companies to operate and invest in oil and gas projects based in the country.
- Multiple Venezuelan-based groups reported on Saturday that the ruling Venezuelan regime had released 17 more political prisoners.
Today’s Must-Read
According to the Pew Research Center, 2 percent of the country was actively, openly nonreligious in 2011. That number rose to 4 percent by 2021—but has remained constant since. America’s oft-discussed “decline in religion,” therefore, is actually a story about a decline in church attendance, Nick Pompella, a science writer, editor, and reporter at Purdue University, writes in this week’s Monday Essay. A solid majority of “nones”—so named because they respond “nothing in particular” when asked about their beliefs—still believe in a “higher power,” and even 23 percent of declared atheists proclaim belief in some kind of spiritual force. The ranks of the truly irreligious, then, appear to have flatlined. And that might come as a surprise to those of us who followed New Atheism, an explosive social trend in the 2000s and early 2010s that was defined by its most popular intellectuals. So where did all that momentum go, and will the atheist faction in the U.S. ever make a comeback?
In Other News
- U.S. Southern Command said on Friday that U.S. forces conducted another air strike on a suspected drug trafficking boat in the Caribbean Sea, killing three people aboard.
- The U.S. reached a trade deal with Taiwan last week, with the office of the U.S. Trade Representative announcing that Taiwan agreed to eliminate or lower tariff rates on 99 percent of goods imported from the U.S. while the U.S. agreed to charge Taiwan a tariff rate of 15 percent.
- Deputy Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Jim O’Neill, who also served as acting director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is reportedly leaving both positions. HHS general counsel Mike Stuart is also departing the agency.
- DHS Secretary Kristi Noem moved to end Temporary Protected Status for more than 1,000 Yemeni nationals residing in the U.S., describing their continued presence in the country as “contrary to our national interest.”
- The Trump administration secretly deported nine people to Cameroon in January. None of the nine were Cameroonian, and most had court protections against being returned to their home countries. The U.S. has no public agreement with Cameroon to accept foreign nationals.
- The U.S. has so far won 17 medals at the Winter Olympics: five gold for alpine skiing, freestyle skiing, figure skating, and speed skating; eight silver for alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, freestyle skiing, snowboarding, figure skating, and curling; and four bronze for alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, freestyle skiing, and luge.
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his ruling Cabinet approved a new land registration process in the West Bank, allowing the potential registration of land under the domain of the Palestinian Authority on lots that aren’t listed or documented as privately owned.
- At least 32 people were killed in separate attacks in three communities in north-central Nigeria, while local law enforcement said that an unspecified number of other people were also abducted.
- The Chinese Foreign Ministry’s office in Hong Kong summoned diplomats from the U.S., U.K., European Union, and Australia for what Chinese officials described as “irresponsible” remarks following Western nations’ criticism of the sentencing of pro-democracy activist Jimmy Lai.
- Tunisian authorities arrested Olfa Hamdi, an opposition figure and critic of Tunisian President Kais Saied, after she arrived at the country’s airport.
- Hungary requested that the Croatian government allow the country to receive crude oil shipments of Russian oil via the Adriatic pipeline.
- Warner Bros. board members are reportedly considering reopening sale talks with Paramount after Paramount offered to cover a $2.8 billion termination fee should Warner Bros. cancel its existing acquisition deal with Netflix.
- The fast-food chain Wendy’s announced plans to close between 298 and 358 stores in the U.S. after facing declining sales in the fourth quarter of 2025.
- Australia announced it would be investing $2.76 billion to expedite a shipyard construction project intended to assemble nuclear submarines for the trilateral defense agreement between the U.S., U.K., and Australia.
- “A Pilot Fired Over Kristi Noem’s Missing Blanket and the Constant Chaos Inside DHS” (Wall Street Journal)
- John Rapley on whether Trump’s tariff policy is losing him support with America’s working class. (UnHerd)
- Chris Pomorski reports on Georgia pastor Rony Denis, and allegations that he and other co-conspirators defrauded the Veterans Affairs agency out of nearly $24 million. (Bloomberg)
- Noah Millman shares what he observed after traveling for two weeks in Israel and Jordan. (Gideon’s Substack)
- Dhruv Khullar on whether Ozempic and similar GLP-1 medications could help curb addictions to alcohol and recreational drugs. (The New Yorker)
- Todd Richmond reports on a team of shipwreck hunters, led by Paul Ehorn, who have located Lac La Belle, a luxury steamer that sank in a Lake Michigan gale in the late 19th century. Ehorn started looking for Lac La Belle in 1965. (Associated Press)
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