Today’s Big Story

Trump’s Plan to ‘Take Over’ Gaza

The president campaigned on ending foreign entanglements, now he wants to own the Gaza Strip

President Trump proposed on Tuesday that the United States take over Gaza and that all Palestinians there—some two million people—leave, describing a permanent relocation to one or more sites funded by “countries of interest with humanitarian hearts.”

As he hosted Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for a joint news conference in the White House, Trump said that “Gaza is a hellhole,” and that the U.S. can “take over the Gaza Strip,” and “we’ll own it.” He added that he has studied the conditions in Gaza and his idea to seize and develop it has gotten “tremendous” support from the “highest of leadership” as a viable plan to bring peace to the Middle East. Netanyahu said Trump “sees a different future for Gaza", adding: "I think it's something that could change history.”

Taking control of the hotly contested territory would put the U.S. at the center of the world’s most complicated diplomatic and national-security conflicts, raising the prospect that Trump is signing the country up for exactly the kind of foreign entanglement he told voters he would avoid. Trump didn’t rule out sending American troops to Gaza to accomplish his goals.

The former New York real estate developer later suggested that Gaza eventually could be “the Riviera of the Middle East,” where “the world’s people” could make their homes. While the U.S. develops the territory, Trump said that Palestinians be placed in Jordan and Egypt—despite the fact that ministers of those and other Arab countries several days ago flatly rejected the idea of accepting Gaza residents.

Hamas, which has ruled in Gaza for most of the past two decades and is re-establishing control there now, immediately rejected mass relocation on Tuesday. And the plan flies in the face of the aspirations of Palestinians, who have long advocated for statehood and roundly dismissed Trump’s relocation proposal when he first floated it two weeks ago. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle aren’t thrilled with the idea—at least for now. South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham called it an “interesting proposal” but also “problematic.” New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democratic on the Foreign Relations Committee, said the idea “fails to recognize the need to have a Palestinian state, and the fact that until we address the concerns of the Palestinians, there will continue to be conflict in the region.”

What’s Happening With Eggs?

It’s getting wild out there

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, egg prices in December 2024 were 36.8 percent higher than in December 2023 (though still below the prices in January 2023). They’re only expected to increase: The USDA predicts egg prices will go up by 20.3% in 2025. That’s the result of another major bird flu outbreak that’s disrupted the poultry industry nationwide, led to a record number of chicken deaths, and caused egg prices to skyrocket as the supply struggles to keep pace with demand.

They’re so expensive, that Waffle House (which claims to sell 272 million eggs per year) announced this week it will be adding a 50-cent surcharge to all egg items sold at its more than 2,000 locations across the country to offset costs. They’re also so valuable that thieves poached about 100,000 eggs from the back of a distribution trailer, authorities in Pennsylvania said.

According to Eater, restaurants and bakeries nationwide are now facing the difficult decision to either rethink their menus to drop egg-rich items, absorb the rising costs to buy eggs or pass that cost onto customers by raising prices. However, some chefs have found a silver lining: they’re switching from their corporate suppliers and opting to buy from smaller, local farms. Jesse Wendel, of Milwaukee’s Uncle Wolfie’s Breakfast Tavern, switched to a local farm two years ago and says the prices he’d get through food distributor Sysco right now would be “substantially over” what he’s currently buying. “We’re actually still getting [eggs] for about 50 cents less than what’s current market price.”

Children’s Reading Skills Reach New Lows

Some are blaming ‘woke’ education while others blame tech

In the latest release of federal test scores, educators had hoped to see widespread recovery from the learning loss incurred during the pandemic. Instead, the results, from last year’s National Assessment of Educational Progress, shined light on a grim fact: Some 33% of eighth graders in the U.S. have “below basic” reading levels. And fourth graders at “below basic” was the largest in 20 years, at 40%.

With 51.5 million students enrolled in public school across America, that represents potentially tens of millions of kids failing to make the grade. Of course, when reading scores go down, blame is inevitably pointed at teachers. Twenty-four years ago, then-President George W. Bush effectively tied schools’ Title I funding to their ability to show testing progress. But the smartphone era has brought us dwindling attention spans and plummeting reading levels. The issue isn’t the teachers, says Fast Company. It’s the tech.

But Republicans say it’s the result of policies of the Biden administration that has bogged down teachers with “woke” lesson plans, instead of focusing on reading, writing and arithmetic. Though that might not be fair to say, considering the decline in reading has continued steadily since scores peaked around 2013. Parents also points to tech, saying that it’s wise to swap out videos and social media for a book during times when screens usually come out. “Always have a book in your bag for subway rides, waits in line and downtimes.”

Are You Suddenly Afraid of Flying?

Travelers look to counter anxiety after several aviation accidents

Personally, I love getting on a plane. But you don’t have to be a nervous flier to be suddenly anxious about airline safety. The American Airlines-Black Hawk helicopter crash in Washington, D.C.—which killed 67 people—was the worst aviation incident on U.S. soil in a generation. That was followed by a deadly medical jet crash in Philadelphia and then on Sunday, a United Airlines flight was evacuated on the runway after an engine caught fire during takeoff in Houston.

However, Nathan Feiles, a licensed therapist and fear-of-flying specialist in New York City, tells the Wall Street Journal that major airline accidents tend to put a spotlight on all types of airline incidents that follow—no matter how routine, like a flight returning to an airport. “It creates a sense of reverse normalization,” he says. “It starts to make people think that there’s a lot more danger happening.” Yes, that crash was awful. But flying is still the safest form of transportation.

That’s because the aviation industry is exceptionally good at learning from past incidents. The International Air Transport Association has not released the data for global travel safety in 2024 yet, but the 2023 statistics on air travel show last year was one of the safest years for flying ever. And while there has also been more attention to near misses between U.S. airliners recently, in some ways, a near miss is still a sign that the safety system is working. Any time an accident comes close to happening, it is investigated, but the fact that it didn't happen means the safeguards ultimately worked as intended.

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