Americans should eat more beans, peas and lentils and cut back on red and processed meats and starchy vegetables, all while continuing to limit added sugars, sodium and saturated fat.

That’s the advice released Tuesday by a panel of nutrition experts charged with counseling the U.S. government about the 2025 edition of the dietary guidelines that will form the cornerstone of federal food programs and policy.

But the 20-member panel didn’t weigh in on the growing role of ultraprocessed foods that have been linked to health problems, saying there’s not enough evidence to tell people to avoid them. And the group steered clear of updating controversial guidance on alcohol consumption, leaving that analysis to two outside reports expected to be released soon.

Overall, the recommendations for the 2025-30 Dietary Guidelines for Americans sound familiar, said Marion Nestle, a food policy expert.

“This looks like every other set of dietary guidelines since 1980: eat your veggies and reduce consumption of foods high in salt, sugar and saturated fat,” Nestle said in an email. “This particular statement says nothing about balancing calories, when overconsumption of calories, especially from ultra-processed foods, is the biggest challenge to the health of Americans.”

What the scientific panel said about healthy diets

The nutrition panel concluded that a healthy diet for people aged 2 years and older is higher in vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, whole grains, fish and vegetable oils that are higher in unsaturated fat.

It is lower in red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened foods and beverages, refined grains and saturated fat. It may also include fat-free or low-fat dairy and foods lower in sodium and may include plant-based foods.

The panel, which met for nearly two years, was the first to focus on the dietary needs of Americans through what they called a “health equity lens,” said Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, a Massachusetts General Hospital obesity expert who was part of the group. That meant considering factors such as household income, race, ethnicity and culture when recommending healthy diets. It will help ensure that the guidance “reflects and includes various population groups,” she said in an email.

The panel didn’t come to conclusions on ultraprocessed foods or alcohol

Ultraprocessed foods include the snacks, sugary cereals and frozen meals that make up about 60% of the American diet.

The panel considered more than 40 studies, including several that showed links between ultraprocessed foods and becoming overweight or developing obesity. But the nutrition experts had concerns with the quality of the research, leaving them to conclude that the evidence was too limited to make recommendations.

That decision is likely to bump up against the views of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nominee to lead the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, who has questioned potential conflicts of interest among members of the dietary guidelines panel and vowed to crack down on ultraprocessed foods that contribute to chronic disease.

The panel also didn’t revise recommendations that suggest limiting alcohol intake to two drinks or less a day for men and one drink or less a day for women.

In 2020, the last time the guidance was updated, the government rejected the advice of scientific advisers to recommend less alcohol consumption.

Two groups — the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine and a committee of the government agency that oversees substance abuse — are expected to release reports in the coming months on the effects of moderate alcohol use to inform the guidelines.

Do Americans follow dietary guidelines?

The advisory panel acknowledged that the diets of most Americans don’t meet the current guidelines. More than half of all U.S. adults have one or more diet-related chronic health conditions and 18 million U.S. households have insecure sources of food, according to the report.

“Nutrition-related chronic health conditions and their precursors continue to threaten health through the lifespan,” the report concludes. “Which does not bode well for the future of health in the United States.”

What happens next?

The scientific report informs the dietary guidelines, which are updated every five years. Tuesday’s recommendations now go to HHS and the Agriculture Department, where officials will draft the final guidance set for release next year.

Starting Wednesday, the public will have 60 days to comment on the guidance. HHS and USDA officials will hold a public meeting January 16 to discuss the recommendations.

The new guidance, which will be finalized by the incoming Trump administration, is consistent with decades of federal efforts to reduce diet-related disease in the U.S., said Dr. Peter Lurie, president of the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest.

“Broadly, I think these are well-formulated recommendations that the incoming administration would do well to adopt,” Lurie said. 
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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Friday sued a New York doctor for allegedly providing a Texas woman with abortion pills by telemedicine.

The lawsuit by the Republican attorney general, which appeared to be the first of its kind, could offer a test of conservative states’ power to stop abortion pills from reaching their residents.

New York is among the Democratic-led states that have passed so-called shield laws aiming to protect doctors who provide abortion pills to patients in other states. The law says New York will not cooperate with another state’s effort to prosecute, sue or otherwise penalize a doctor for providing the pills, as long as the doctor complies with New York law.

“As other states move to attack those who provide or obtain abortion care, New York is proud to be a safe haven for abortion access,” New York Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. “We will always protect our providers from unjust attempts to punish them for doing their job and we will never cower in the face of intimidation or threats.”

In the lawsuit, filed in the District Court of Collin County, Paxton said that New Paltz, New York, Dr. Margaret Carpenter prescribed and provided mifepristone and misoprostol, the two drugs used in medication abortion, to a Texas woman via telemedicine.

Medication abortion accounts for more than half of U.S. abortions. It has drawn increasing attention since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision allowing states to ban abortion, which more than 20 have done.

The woman went to the hospital after experiencing bleeding as a complication of taking the drugs, which were subsequently discovered by her partner, according to the lawsuit.

Paxton claimed that Carpenter violated Texas’s abortion law and its occupational licensing law by practicing medicine in the state despite not being licensed there. He is seeking an injunction barring her from further violations of Texas’s abortion ban and at least $100,000 in civil penalties for each past violation.

Carpenter is a member of the Abortion Coalition for Telemedicine, which supports nationwide access to abortion through telemedicine, and helped start Hey Jane, an online telehealth clinic offering abortion pills, according to the coalition’s website. She could not immediately be reached for comment. 
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washington — Less than 10 minutes was all it took for a large pile of toys donated by the White House staff to disappear as Jill Biden and children from military families sorted them into boxes as part of the annual Marine Corps Reserve Toys for Tots campaign for the less fortunate.

The White House is a longtime supporter of the program, which has been helping families for 77 years, said Lieutenant General Leonard Anderson IV, commander of the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve.

“We’re making a significant impact right here in the nation’s capital, where these toys will go to kids in need,” he said at a White House event hosted by the first lady.

Last year, the program delivered over 25 million toys to more than 10 million children nationwide, he said. “This year we think we’re going to set another record, so we’re really excited,” he said.

Jill Biden, whose father and late son served in the military, spoke with  several dozen military children who sat in front of her on the floor of the East Room facing two large glittering Christmas trees flanking the doorway.

“If you only remember one thing for the holidays, after all the wrapping paper is cleaned up, let it be this: You are loved,” she said. “There are so many people who care about you, from your family and your friends, from your teachers and your classmates, to the president and me.

“And the best thing that we can do with that love is to let it overflow, to share it with others who might really need it,” she added.

After her brief remarks, the first lady asked the children: “Are you guys ready to get sorting?” And off they went toward the large pile of dolls, stuffed animals, sports gear, vehicles, books, puzzles and other items, including a copy of “Delaware Opoly” — a Monopoly-style board game themed after President Joe Biden’s home state.
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The U.S. mid-Atlantic state of Maryland may seem like an odd place for hula dancing. Yet every weekend, dancers gather in downtown Silver Spring to practice the ancient form of storytelling, despite the thousands of miles between them and Hawaii, the tropical island state where hula was born. VOA’s Keith Lane has the story.
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ANKARA, TURKEY — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken began talks with Turkey’s top diplomat Friday after reassurances that Ankara would never allow any let-up in the fight against rebels in Syria following the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.

Blinken began meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan at 9:40 a.m., a U.S. official said.

He flew into the Turkish capital late Thursday and met with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for more than an hour at the VIP lounge inside Ankara airport, a U.S. official said.

During their talks, Erdogan said Turkey would never ease up in the fight against rebels from the Islamist State group in Syria, despite its efforts to target a U.S.-backed Kurdish group seen as key to containing the extremists.

“Turkey will never allow any weakness to arise in the fight against ISIS,” Erdogan told him, according to an overnight statement from his office.

Turkey, he said, would take “preventive measures against all terrorist organizations, primarily the PKK/PYD/YPG and ISIS (IS) terrorist organizations, operating in Syria and posing a threat to Turkey, primarily for its own national security.”

The YPG is a Kurdish force that makes up the bulk of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed group that spearheaded the offensive that defeated IS’s self-declared caliphate in Syria in 2019.

Ankara views the YPG and its political wing, the PYD, as an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that has led a decadeslong insurgency against the Turkish state, effectively blacklisting the SDF as a terror outfit.

‘Critical’ role against IS

U.S. backing for the SDF has put it sharply at odds with Ankara.

As the Islamist-led rebels marched on Damascus, the SNA, a Turkish proxy force, began its own offensive against the SDF, raising concerns about the two NATO allies’ competing interests in Syria.

Turkey sees armed Kurdish forces so close to its southern border as a threat.

And while Washington has acknowledged its security concerns, Blinken said Thursday that the SDF was “critical” to preventing an IS resurgence.

“At a time when we want to see this transition … to a better way forward for Syria, part of that also has to be ensuring that ISIS doesn’t rear its ugly head again,” he said.

“Critical to making sure that doesn’t happen are the so-called SDF — the Syrian Democratic Forces,” he added. 
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DAMASCUS, SYRIA — An American who disappeared seven months ago into former Syrian President Bashar Assad’s notorious prison system said early Friday he was released by the “liberators” who arrived in Damascus a day after the longtime ruler fled the capital.

Travis Timmerman called his release a “blessing” when he spoke to The Associated Press from a hotel room in Damascus, where he arrived late Thursday. He was among the thousands of people released from Syria’s sprawling military prisons this week after rebels reached Damascus, overthrowing Assad and ending his family’s 54-year rule.

Timmerman, 29, said he had gone to Syria on a Christian pilgrimage and was not ill-treated while in Palestine Branch, a notorious detention facility operated by Syrian intelligence. He said he was freed by “the liberators who came into the prison and knocked the door down (of his cell) with a hammer.”

The political affairs office of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel group that led the lightning offensive to topple Assad’s government, said the group had secured his release.

“We affirm our readiness to cooperate directly with the U.S. administration to complete the search for American citizens disappeared by the former Assad regime,” the group said, adding that a search was under way for Austin Tice, an American journalist who went missing in Syria 12 years ago. An official with the group later said it was arranging for Timmerman to leave Syria, but gave no details.

Timmerman said he was released Monday morning alongside a young Syrian man and 70 female prisoners, some of whom had their children with them.

He had been held separately from Syrian and other Arab prisoners and said he didn’t know of any other Americans held in the facility.

“I was there seven months. There were women there up above me,” Timmerman said. He heard the women singing and teaching their children and could hear some of the men being beaten regularly. “I was never beaten,” he said.

He was detained after he crossed into Syria from a mountain along the eastern Lebanese town of Zahle in June. He was questioned for three and half hours by interrogators who thought he must be a spy. In a brief second interview, they searched his mobile phone, and in the last interview, he started discussing his dreams with his captors.

He said their threat of using violence against him was “implicit” because he could hear daily beatings next door. But his captors let him use his mobile to call his family three weeks ago. At the time, Timmerman didn’t tell his family he was in Damascus, only that he was fine.

He said later in his detention, he could hear explosions — at a time when Israel was intensifying its strikes in Syria. Israel’s war with the Hezbollah militant group had intensified in September, before a ceasefire was reached last month.

“I heard some explosives that shook the building,” he said.

In his prison cell, Timmerman said he had a mattress, a plastic drinking container and two others for waste. He had three bathroom breaks and had exercise breaks in the first half of his stay.

He said the Friday calls to prayers helped keep track of days.

He said he gained weight at first because he ate unleavened bread, rice and oats. Sometimes he would get a potato or a tomato — a treatment clearly reserved for non-Syrian prisoners, who often ended up emaciated or sick.

“It is a time of solace and you can meditate on your life,” he told AP. “It was good for me.”

Timmerman was disheveled, with a scraggly beard and long hair and nails. He said he had a good sleep and a meal on Thursday.

He said he planned to return to Damascus.

Timmerman is from Urbana, Missouri, about 80 kilometers north of Springfield in the southwestern part of the state. He earned a finance degree from Missouri State University in 2017.

Timmerman’s mother, Stacey Gardiner, told the AP that as of Thursday evening, she hadn’t spoken to her son. She said he told her he was visiting Prague and Budapest, Hungary, to “write about different churches.” She said she last heard from him in May, when he said he was going somewhere without internet and that he would call when he had access again. Then he stopped replying to calls and texts and she didn’t know whether he was alive or dead.

“I couldn’t help him, and that broke my heart more and more each day,” Gardiner said. “I just want my baby (to) come home.”

The family reported him missing, and the Missouri State Highway Patrol issued a bulletin saying “Pete Timmerman” had gone missing in Hungary in early June. In late August, Hungarian police put out a missing persons announcement for “Travis Pete Timmerman,” saying he was last seen at a church in Budapest. Timmerman goes by Travis.

In describing his release from prison, Timmerman said the action outside his cell woke him up. Those who came to release him spoke to him in Arabic. “It was an excited scene. It was not clear if the guards who were there were still there,” Timmerman said. “I didn’t know if they were taking us out in the midst of a war zone … in hindsight, this shooting was not actual clashes.”

He said he was panicked for a moment. But he realized some of the gunfire was celebratory from blanks. One man was shooting from an AK-47. At one point, he went running back into the prison with two other prisoners. A fellow prisoner helped him out, holding his arm, and speaking Arabic to those around. They both accompanied a female prisoner to her home.

He spent two nights in Damascus, one in abandoned apartment in the old town and another at a new friend’s house.

He then started walking toward Jordan, when a Syrian family found him barefoot on a main road in the countryside of Damascus early Thursday.

At first some mistook him for Tice.

The Syrian family told AP that Timmerman appeared cold and hungry so they brought him back to their home.

“I fed him and called a doctor,” said Mosaed al-Rifai, the 68-year-old waste collector who first found Timmerman.

A few hours after al-Rifai discovered him, rebels arrived at the family’s house to pick him up, he said.

Mouaz Mostafa, the executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a U.S.-based nonprofit group, who was in Damascus learned of Timmerman’s location, reached him and contacted US authorities about him.

Timmerman is now recovering until the rebels can figure out how to hand him to U.S. authorities, Moustafa said.

From Aqaba, Jordan, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters that the White House was “working to bring him home, to bring him out of Syria” but declined further comment for privacy reasons.

Washington’s top hostage negotiator, Roger Carstens, travelled to Lebanon this week in hopes of collecting information on the whereabouts of Tice.

President Joe Biden has said his administration believed Tice was alive and was committed to bringing him home, though he also acknowledged on Sunday that “we have no direct evidence” of his status. The case has frustrated U.S. intelligence officials for years.

“This is a priority for the United States,” Blinken said.

Tice, who has had his work published by The Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and others, disappeared at a checkpoint in a contested area west of Damascus in August 2012 as the Syrian civil war intensified.

A video released weeks after Tice went missing showed him blindfolded and held by armed men. He hasn’t been heard from since. Assad’s government had denied that it was holding him. 
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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday he plans to have Kari Lake, a politician and former Arizona journalist, appointed head of the international government-funded broadcaster Voice of America.

Trump announced on his social media platform Truth Social that Lake would be appointed director of VOA. Lake is a close political ally of the president-elect and a former anchor for a Fox News television station in Phoenix, Arizona.

She worked in journalism for 27 years before leaving the profession in 2021 to run for Arizona governor.

During an unsuccessful run for Senate in 2024, Lake said Arizona should be a “standard bearer for America First policies.”

Trump also wrote Wednesday that he would soon announce his pick to head the U.S. Agency for Global Media, known as USAGM, which oversees VOA along with other U.S.-funded broadcasters. That position is presidentially nominated and requires Senate approval. Trump said his pick for CEO would appoint and work closely with Lake.

The chief executive of the publicly funded USAGM ensures that the broadcasters are meeting their missions to produce credible and accurate journalism to countries with limited free media.

VOA’s current director, Mike Abramowitz, sent an email to staff Thursday morning saying that he read the announcement about Lake Wednesday night and had not been given additional information beyond the social media post.

“I welcome a smooth transition of power for both USAGM and VOA. I intend to cooperate with the new administration and follow the process” for the appointment of the director of VOA, he wrote.

2020 law restructured agency management

The USAGM CEO has the power to hire or dismiss network heads, but under a bipartisan bill passed in December 2020, network head changes require a majority vote of the International Broadcasting Advisory Board.

The board consists of six presidentially appointed members who serve staggered terms, plus the secretary of state. Its function is to advise the CEO to ensure that he or she respects the editorial independence and integrity of the networks and grantees, and that the highest standards of journalism are upheld.

In a post on the social media platform X, Lake said she is honored to be considered for the VOA role. She said that VOA is a “vital international media outlet” that promotes “democracy and truth.”

“Under my leadership, the VOA will excel in its mission: chronicling America’s achievements worldwide.” VOA attempted to reach Lake for comment via the media section of her campaign website, but as of publication had not received a response.

VOA broadcasts to a weekly audience of 354 million people in 49 languages. Its current director, Abramowitz, is the former president of Freedom House and was a reporter and editor for The Washington Post for 24 years.
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How much U.S. foreign assistance is allocated and where it goes are two key questions as the Trump administration prepares to take office in January. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias looks at some sectors where cuts are expected and others that may be a priority.
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Fewer grandparents were living with and taking care of grandchildren, there was a decline in young children going to preschool and more people stayed put in their homes in the first part of the 2020s compared to the last part of the 2010s, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released Thursday, reflecting some of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The latest figures from the most comprehensive survey of American life compares the years of 2014-18 and 2019-23, timeframes before the COVID-19 pandemic and during the virus’ spread. The American Community Survey data show how lives were changed and family relationships altered by the pandemic and other occurrences like the opioid crisis.

The survey of 3.5 million households covers more than 40 topics, including ancestry, fertility, marital status, commutes, veterans status, disability and housing.

The decrease in grandparents’ taking care of their grandchildren is most likely the result of a decline in opioid-related deaths during the more recent timeframe since substance abuse is a leading reason that grandparents find themselves raising grandchildren. A reduction in the number of incarcerated women also likely played a role, said Susan Kelley, a professor emerita of nursing at Georgia State University.

“It’s very rarely for positive reasons that grandparents find themselves in this situation. Usually, it’s a tragic situation in an adult child’s life, either a death, incarceration or mental health issues which correlate with substance abuse,” Kelly said. “Many grandparents thrive in that role, but there are still socioeconomic and emotional burdens on the grandparents.”

A stronger economy in the most recent period also may be a reason that the number of grandparents living with their grandchildren declined from 7.2 million to 6.8 million by making it less likely that adult children with their own children were seeking housing help from their parents, she said.

The decline in the number of young children enrolled in preschool stemmed from an unwillingness to send young children to school and the closure of many schools at the height of the pandemic, according to the Census Bureau.

“These data show how the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on patterns of early childhood education,” the bureau said in a separate report. “Future research will show if this was the start of a long-term trend or if enrollment will bounce back to prior levels.”

Americans continued to get older, with the median age rising to 38.7 from 37.9 and the nation’s share of senior citizens up from 16.8% from 15.2%. The share of households with a computer jumped to almost 95% from almost 89%, as did the share of households with a broadband connection to almost 90% from 80%.

Additionally, fewer people moved and more people stayed put in the most recent time period compared to the earlier one, in many cases because of rising home values and the limited availability of homes to buy.

Home values increased by 21.7% and the percentage of vacant homes dropped from 12.2% to 10.4%. The median home value jumped from $249,400 to $303,400 nationwide.

In some vacation communities popular with the wealthy, the bump was even more dramatic, such as in the county that is home to Aspen, Colorado, where it went from $758,800 to $1.1 million, and in the county which is home to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, where it jumped from $812,400 to $1.1 million. 
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WASHINGTON — Following the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, the Biden administration said it would fully support a transparent and inclusive transition process toward a nonsectarian government accountable to the Syrian people.

“The transition process and new government must also uphold clear commitments to fully respect the rights of minorities, facilitate the flow of humanitarian assistance to all in need, prevent Syria from being used as a base for terrorism or posing a threat to its neighbors, and ensure that any chemical or biological weapons stockpiles are secured and safely destroyed,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement on Tuesday.

U.S. recognition of a new government in Damascus could lead to the lifting of sanctions that have crippled the Syrian economy. It’s an incentive the Biden administration can leverage at a moment when the country’s future is deeply uncertain.

“What we want to see in terms of governance in Syria is governance that is seen as credible and legitimate, that is sustainable, that meets the aspirations of the Syrian people,” White House national security communications adviser John Kirby said in an interview Tuesday with VOA. It has to be “the product of a Syrian-led process.”

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebels who toppled Assad, is a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist group. Its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, has a $10 million bounty on his head.

“This victory, my brothers, is a new chapter in the history of the entire Islamic nation,” he said in his first speech since his fighters rapidly took control of the country.

“It is a turning point for the region,” he said, singling out Iran — a message he knows will be received well in Israel and the U.S. “He [Assad] handed Syria over to Iranian ambitions, spreading sectarianism and corruption throughout the country.”

Jolani pledged in a statement Tuesday to “hold accountable” members of Assad’s regime who were “involved in torturing the Syrian people.”

In recent years, he has espoused sectarian tolerance and distanced himself from extremist ideology. He has sought to reassure Syria’s ethnic and religious minorities, which include Christians, Kurds, Druze and the Alawite community, a sect from which the Assad family originates.

But by delivering his victory speech not from the presidential palace but from the Great Mosque of Umayyad in Damascus — built in the eighth century by a Sunni caliphate —Jolani is sending a message to the region about his majoritarian movement.

His speech mirrors that of Islamic State’s first caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, at the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul in 2014, Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told VOA.

“On the rebels’ own Telegram channel, there were statements saying, ‘We’ve taken the Umayyad Mosque. Next, we’re going to go for Al-Aqsa,’ which is in Jerusalem, of course. ‘Then, we’re going to go for the Kaaba,’ which is in Saudi Arabia,” Rubin said.

US involvement

President Joe Biden has moved quickly, sending Blinken to Turkey and Jordan Wednesday to consult with leaders after ordering more than 70 airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Syria on Sunday.

“The United States will work with our partners and stakeholders in Syria to help them seize an opportunity to manage the risks,” Biden said.

But on January 20, 2025, Biden will be replaced by President-elect Donald Trump, who is signaling that he wants the U.S. to stay out of the Syrian conflict.

“This is not our fight,” Trump said on social media. “Let it play out. Do not get involved!”

But the U.S. is already involved. It has about 900 troops deployed in Syria and backs a Syrian Kurdish rebel group. Washington also has close ties with all of Syria’s neighbors — Iraq, Lebanon, as well as allies Israel and Jordan, and NATO ally Turkey.

“They are directly impacted by what happens in Syria, and they are also in a position to influence what happens in Syria, for better or for worse,” said Ryan Crocker, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.

“Don’t disengage completely, certainly not,” he told VOA. “But if you don’t want to be overly engaged yourself, the United States of America, this is the time to work very closely with partners around the region.”

Under Trump’s “America First” doctrine, it’s unclear whether the U.S. would aim its diplomatic efforts toward what Biden wants — a future Syrian government that’s inclusive and nonsectarian.

Stakeholders make moves

Meanwhile, aside from the U.S., Israel and Turkey have bombed Syrian targets to protect their interests.

Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on military targets to further weaken what remains of the military of Tehran’s once-stalwart ally and keep weapons from falling into extremists’ hands.

In northern Syria, rebel groups supported by Turkey attacked U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters, who Ankara sees as allies of a separatist movement and displacing Syrian Kurds.

For now, Assad’s ally, Tehran, has lost much of its leverage. Weakened by the defeat of its proxies in Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, it may employ pragmatism in dealing with Damascus.

“The Iranian foreign minister has talked about the new Syrians as the victory of the opposition, whereas in the past, they wouldn’t legitimize them as opposition. They spoke of them instead as terrorists,” Rubin said, a signal that Tehran is weighing whether it can work with the incoming government.

Russia, another Assad backer who has provided asylum for the embattled leader and his family, is lobbying to keep its two military bases in Syria. On Monday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would enter talks with incoming authorities about Russia’s future military presence.

Mohammed al-Bashir, Syria’s newly appointed caretaker prime minister who previously led the rebels’ civilian government, will run a transitional government until March 1, 2025, he said in remarks on Tuesday.
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ALEXANDRIA, Virginia — A CIA analyst charged with leaking top-secret details ahead of a planned Israeli attack on Iran earlier this year will remain jailed pending trial, a judge ordered Wednesday. 

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles overruled a magistrate who said last week that Asif Rahman, 34, of Vienna, Virginia, could be free on restrictions while he awaited trial on charges of disclosing national defense information. 

The fight over Rahman’s detention revealed additional details about the government’s investigation of the leak and the analyst who allegedly disclosed the classified documents in October on the Telegram messaging app. 

At Wednesday’s detention hearing, prosecutor Troy Edwards said Rahman was motivated by ideology, though he did not discuss what that ideology might be. 

In fact, he said the conclusion that Rahman’s motive was ideological was essentially the result of the process of elimination, noting that Rahman comes from a wealthy family and has access to a multimillion-dollar family trust, and therefore wouldn’t have a financial incentive. 

Edwards also highlighted eight pages of notes found on Rahman when he was arrested last month in Cambodia, where he worked at the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh. Those notes included two separate “to-do” lists, one of which was largely blocks of apparently encrypted text along with an unencrypted sentence pertaining to U.S. missile capabilities. Edwards said investigators have not yet been able to decipher the encryption. 

A separate, unencrypted to-do list included categories labeled “contingencies” and “run,” Edwards said. 

Official court documents are vague about what was leaked, but details discussed in open court made clear that the material references an October disclosure of documents from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, noting that Israel was moving military assets into place to conduct a military strike on Iran after Iran launched its own missile attack on Israel on October 1. 

Israel ended up carrying out an attack on Iran’s air defense systems and missile manufacturing facilities in late October. 

In court papers, the government said the leak caused Israel to delay its attack plans. Edwards said the volatile nature of the Middle East made the leak exceptionally dangerous. 

“It is hard to overstate what other circumstances present graver risks of danger to human life than unilaterally deciding” to transmit information related to plans for “kinetic military action between two countries,” prosecutors wrote in court papers. 

Rahman’s attorney, Amy Jeffress, cited anonymous sources in news articles who have downplayed the leak’s significance. 

Jeffress said the to-do list included the word “run” because Rahman is an avid jogger. She also said it’s rare for defendants facing similar charges to be detained pending trial. 

Rahman was born in California and moved with his family when he was a child to Cincinnati, where he was a high school valedictorian, according to court papers submitted by his lawyer. He went to Yale University and graduated in three years. He and his wife now live in the D.C. metro area, along with his parents. 

His father, Muhit Rahman, who was prepared to serve as his son’s custodian pretrial if he had been released, attended Wednesday’s hearing along with numerous family members and friends in support. 

Rahman made his initial court appearance last month in Guam. 

Jeffress said after Wednesday’s hearing that she intended to appeal the detention order.
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U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials in New Jersey huddled with state and local lawmakers Wednesday to discuss the recent spate of drone sightings throughout the state.

Dozens of mysterious nighttime flights started last month and have raised growing concern among residents and officials. Part of the worry stems from the flying objects initially being spotted near the Picatinny Arsenal, a U.S. military research and manufacturing facility, and over President-elect Donald Trump’s golf course in Bedminster.

Drones are legal in New Jersey for recreational and commercial use, but they are subject to local and Federal Aviation Administration regulations and flight restrictions. Operators must be FAA certified.

Most, but not all, of the drones spotted in New Jersey were larger than those typically used by hobbyists.

The number of sightings has increased in recent days, although officials say many of the objects seen may have been planes rather than drones. It’s also possible that a single drone has been reported more than once.

Governor Phil Murphy and law enforcement officials have stressed that the drones don’t appear to threaten public safety. The FBI has been investigating and has asked residents to share any videos, photos or other information they may have.

Many municipal lawmakers have called for more restrictions on who is entitled to fly the unmanned devices. At least one state lawmaker proposed a temporary ban on drone flights in the state.

“This is something we’re taking deadly seriously. I don’t blame people for being frustrated,” Murphy said earlier this week.

Details about Wednesday’s meeting were not immediately disclosed. A spokesperson for the Democratic governor said he was not attending.

Republican Assemblyman Erik Peterson, whose district includes parts of the state where the drones have been reported, said he and other legislators met with Homeland Security and state police officials for about 90 minutes at a state police facility in West Trenton.

Peterson said DHS officials were generous with their time but appeared dismissive of some concerns, saying not all the sightings reported have been confirmed to involve drones.

Who or what is behind the flying objects? Where are they coming from? What are they doing? “My understanding is they have no clue,” Peterson said.

A message seeking comment on Peterson’s remarks was left with the Department of Homeland Security.

Most of the drones have been spotted along coastal areas and some were recently reported flying over a large reservoir in Clinton. Sightings also have been reported in neighboring states, including the New York City area, and over Pennsylvania’s Delaware County and Philadelphia.

James Edwards of Succasunna, New Jersey, said he has seen a few drones flying over his neighborhood since last month.

“It raises concern mainly because there’s so much that’s unknown,” Edwards said Wednesday. “There are lots of people spouting off about various conspiracies that they believe are in play here, but that only adds fuel to the fire unnecessarily. We need to wait and see what is really happening here, not let fear of the unknown overtake us.”
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