Today, January 9, 2024

News and highlights from America and around the world

As I and many others have repeatedly said, 2024 will be a pivotal year in world history. The past three years have witnessed the entire Western political and security landscape radically changed, and not for the better. The January 6, 2021 insurrection in America and the genocidal invasion of Ukraine by Russia being at the top of the list. Not since at least 1939 have so many world changing, catastrophic events seem poised to occur in the next 12 months. The Western democracies hold their collective breath as the U.S. election in November may return a pro-Kremlin dictator to the White House in 2025. Elections in India and Russia will also take place in 2024, with the farcical Russian election just a formality for assuring that Putin remains in office for as long as he likes. And the war in Ukraine is at an important inflection point, with Western support (mainly from America) an uncertainty as the year drags on. The world may look very different on December, 31 2024.

Here are some of the important stories on those and other issues: