The Biden administration asked a federal appeals court on Tuesday to block a plea agreement for accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed that would spare him the risk of the death penalty.

The Justice Department argued in a brief filed with a federal appeals court in the District of Columbia that the government would be irreparably harmed if the guilty pleas were accepted for Mohammed and two co-defendants in the September 11, 2001, attacks.

It said the government would be denied a chance for a public trial and the opportunity to “seek capital punishment against three men charged with a heinous act of mass murder that caused the death of thousands of people and shocked the nation and the world.”

The Defense Department negotiated and approved the plea deal but later repudiated it. Attorneys for the defendants argue the deal is already legally in effect and that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who began the administration’s efforts to throw it out, acted too late.

When the appeal was filed Tuesday, family members of some the nearly 3,000 people killed in the a al Qaeda attacks already were gathered at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to hear Mohammed’s scheduled guilty plea Friday. The other two men, accused of lesser roles in 9/11, were due to enter them next week.

Family members have been split on the deal, with some calling it the best resolution possible for a prosecution mired for more than a decade in pretrial hearings and legal and logistical difficulties. Others demanded a trial and – they hoped – execution.

Some legal experts have warned that the legal challenges posed by the case, including the men’s torture under CIA custody after their capture, could keep the aging detainees from ever facing verdicts and any possible sentences.

Military prosecutors this summer notified families of the victims that the senior Pentagon official overseeing Guantanamo had approved a plea deal after more than two years of negotiations. The deal was “the best path to finality and justice,” military prosecutors said.

But some family members and Republican lawmakers condemned the deal and the Biden administration for reaching it.

Austin has fought unsuccessfully since August to throw out the agreement, saying that a decision on death penalties in an attack as grave as the September 11 plot should only be made by the defense secretary.

A military judge at Guantanamo and a military appeals panel rejected those efforts, saying he had no power to throw out the agreement after it had been approved by the senior Pentagon official for Guantanamo.

Defense attorneys say the plea agreement was approved by Austin’s own officials and military prosecutors and that his intervention was unlawful political interference in the justice system.

The Justice Department brief Tuesday said the defendants would not be harmed by a short delay, given that the prosecution has been ongoing since 2012 and the plea agreements would likely result in them serving long prison sentences, potentially for the rest of their lives.

“A short delay to allow this Court to weigh the merits of the government’s request in this momentous case will not materially harm the respondents,” the government argued.

The Justice Department criticized the military commission judge for a ruling that it said “improperly curtailed” the defense secretary’s authority in a “case of unique national importance.” Preserving that authority “is a matter of critical importance warranting the issuance of extraordinary relief,” the government’s filing said.

A 23-year-old hiker whose disappearance sparked a nearly two-week-long land and air search of dense Australian wilderness has been found alive, authorities said Wednesday.

Hadi Nazari was last seen by friends on December 26 as he walked down a trail to take photos in Kosciuszko National Park, south of Sydney in the state of New South Wales.

When he failed to return to their campsite, his friends notified police who began an intensive search involving 300 people from multiple rescue agencies, NSW Police said in a statement.

In the end, Nazari wasn’t found by searchers but by a group of hikers near a trail – about 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the search command post – at about 3:15 p.m. on Wednesday, January 8.

“My understanding is that there was a group of hikers in the area,” Riverina Police District Commander Superintendent Andrew Spliet told reporters. “He called out to them and disclosed who he was, and [said] that he’d been lost in the bush.”

Video released by the NSW Rural Fire Service showed Nazari with the hikers as he waited for rescuers to airlift him out.

He was later winched into a helicopter and transported to the command post, where he was examined by paramedics.

Spliet said Nazari seemed to be “in really good health.” Nazari told rescuers he had found two granola bars at an abandoned hut, but “that’s pretty much all that he’s had to consume over the last two weeks,” Spliet said.

“He’s been reunited with his family, who are very, very happy to have him back,” he said.

“We talked to him… He is ok… He is fine,” his family said, according to the network.

Signs of Nazari were found during the search last week, including garbage and his hiking poles. Then on Sunday, a campfire, lighter and a camera thought to belong to the missing hiker suggested he could be close by.

Kosciuszko National Park covers an area of 6 square kilometers (2.3 square miles) in New South Wales. It’s popular with hikers for its challenging trails and stunning scenery.

In the last two weeks, summer temperatures have created sweltering conditions, but searchers had been reassured by the presence of water in the area where Nazari vanished.

NSW Riverina Police District Inspector Josh Broadfoot thanked emergency services for their efforts.

“This is an incredible outcome – after 13 long days he has been located. We want to thank our emergency services partner agencies, volunteers and members of the public for their assistance,” he said.

“We never gave up hope of finding him.”

African governments have criticized a speech by French President Emmanuel Macron in which he said that some leaders showed “ingratitude” for the deployment of his nation’s troops in the Sahel region in battling Islamist extremism.

Macron told French ambassadors at a conference in Paris on Monday that Sahel nations – beset by civil conflicts and violent extremism – only remained sovereign because of the deployment of French forces.

Macron also dismissed the notion that French troops had been expelled from the Sahel, an area that sits just below the Sahara Desert, as Paris’ influence on its former colonies wanes.

“We had a security relationship. It was in two folds: One was our commitment against terrorism since 2013. I think someone forgot to say thank you. It does not matter, it will come with time,” Macron said at the conference.

“Ingratitude, I am well placed to know, is a disease not transmissible to man.”

Macron’s comments were denounced by Chad’s foreign affairs minister, Abderaman Koulamallah, who accused the French leader of showing “a contemptuous attitude towards Africa and Africans.”

The French leader blamed the exit of his country’s forces from the region on successive coups.

“We left because there were coups d’état. We were there at the request of sovereign states that had asked France to come. From the moment there were coups d’état, and when people said ‘our priority is no longer the fight against terrorism’… France no longer had a place there because we are not the auxiliaries of putschists. So, we left.”

In recent years, French troops have withdrawn from Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali following coups in the West African nations where anti-French sentiment has become rife. They are also preparing their exit from Chad, Ivory Coast and Senegal. French forces similarly left the Central African Republic in 2022 after deploying there in 2013 following a coup that sparked a civil war.

“None of them would be a sovereign country today if the French army had not deployed in the region,” Macron said, adding: “My heart goes out to all our soldiers who sometimes gave their lives and fought for years. We did well.”

Koulamallah said in a statement that, “France has never endowed the Chadian army in a significant way nor contributed to its structural development.” The Chadian minister added: “In 60 years of existence, marked by civil wars, rebellions and prolonged political instability, French contribution has often been limited to its own strategic interests, with no real lasting impact on the development of the Chadian people.”

Chad announced in November it was ending its defense cooperation with France to reassert its sovereignty.

Macron insisted in his address on Monday that France’s influence was not in decline in Africa but that the nation was only “reorganizing itself” on the continent.

His stance was rejected by Senegalese Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko who explained in a statement Monday that Senegal’s decision to close all foreign military bases, including those of the French, “stems from its sole will, as a free, independent and sovereign country,” adding there were “no discussions or negotiations” with the French.

“Let us note that France has neither the capacity nor the legitimacy to ensure Africa’s security and sovereignty,” Sonko stated.

Activists in Africa were also outraged over Macron’s comments.

“Macron’s statement that African leaders should be grateful for France’s military interventions, claiming that West Africa’s sovereignty owes its existence to the French army, reeks of revisionism and intellectual dishonesty and moral bankruptcy,” Togolese writer and social activist Farida Bemba Nabourema wrote in a lengthy post on X.

“This paternalistic rhetoric, which infantilizes African nations as incapable of self-governance, is deeply rooted in the racism that justified colonization in the first place and continues to nourish neo-colonialism today,” Nabourema added.

Sahel aligns with Russia

Russian military support has become an increasingly sought-after alternative by some Sahel nations who have moved on from their former Western partners.

Junta-led Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso have since signed military partnerships with Moscow, receiving contingents of Russian military instructors from the shadowy mercenary group, Wagner.

Wagner forces have also reportedly arrived in Equatorial Guinea where they are tasked with protecting its authoritarian leader President Teodoro Obiang, mirroring the activities of the Russian mercenaries in the neighboring Central African Republic where they have evolved into the dominant foreign force.

Donald Trump’s imperialist designs on Greenland, Canada and Panama often sound like the ramblings of a real estate shark who equates foreign and trade policy to a hunt for new deals.

But there’s method in his expansionist mindset. Trump, in his unique way, is grappling with national security questions the US must face in a new world shaped by China’s rise, the inequalities of globalization, melting polar ice and great power instability.

His attitude also embodies the “America First” principle of using US strength to relentlessly pursue narrow national interests, even by coercing smaller, allied powers.

Trump’s musings about terminating the Panama Canal Treaty especially show the preoccupation of the new administration with the encroachment of foreign powers into the Western Hemisphere. This isn’t a new concern — it’s been a constant thread in American history, dating back to the Monroe Doctrine in the 1820s when European colonialists were the threat. The issue endured through the communist scares of the Cold War. Today’s usurpers are China, Russia and Iran.

Trump’s belief, meanwhile, that the United States should rule supreme in its own sphere of influence is also an important hint about how he might manage key global hotspots, including the war in Ukraine and potentially even Taiwan.

But his 21st century neocolonialism is a huge risk and appears certain to run headlong into international law. And Trump could compromise America’s power by trashing alliances built up over generations and alienating its friends.

Trump keeps military force on the table

Trump poured fuel on a tense world waiting with trepidation for his second term on Tuesday when a reporter asked him if he could rule out force to seize back the Panama Canal or to take over strategically important Greenland.

“I’m not going to commit to that, no,” Trump said at Mar-a-Lago. “It might be that you’ll have to do something.”

Canadians were relieved to learn that the president-elect won’t be sending the 82nd Airborne across the 49th parallel. He said he’d only use economic force to annex the proud sovereign democracy to the north and make it the 51st state.

As often with Trump, his threats came with a mixture of malice and mischief. And there was a characteristic element of farce as the president-elect’s son, Donald Jr., flew the family’s Boeing to Greenland, with a bobblehead of his father perched on the cockpit control panel. “Make Greenland Great Again!” the president-elect posted on his Truth Social network shortly before his son landed.

It’s unlikely Trump will get what he wants with Canada, Panama or Greenland. So his strategy might be aimed at getting better deals for the US — perhaps a discount for American vessels transiting the key waterway between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, greater American access to rare earth minerals in Greenland and sea routes revealed by melting polar ice, as well as a new trade deal with Canada that might advantage US manufacturers. Trump would be sure to portray any of these as a massive win only he could have achieved, even if they end up being rather cosmetic like his first-term US-Mexico-Canada pact.

But Trump’s threats flesh out one of his foreign policy rationales: that each country should aggressively pursue their goals unilaterally in a manner that will inevitably profit strong, rich nations like the United States.

“As president, I have rejected the failed approaches of the past, and I am proudly putting America first, just as you should be putting your countries first. That’s okay — that’s what you should be doing,” Trump told the United Nations General Assembly in 2020.

This is a doctrine distilled from a life in which Trump has tried to always be the most aggressive person in every room in pursuit of “wins” over weaker opponents. This explains his remark that Denmark should hand over Greenland, a self-governing entity inside its kingdom, because it’s important to US security. If not, Trump said, “I would tariff Denmark at a very high level.”

The president-elect also characterized the US decision to hand over the Panama Canal in 1999 under a treaty signed by Jimmy Carter as folly that squandered the advantages of US power. He claimed falsely that American ships were discriminated against in transit fees and that China, not Panama, was operating the waterway. (Beijing-owned firms do run some ports in Panama). “We gave the Panama Canal to Panama. We didn’t give it to China, and they’ve abused it,” Trump said just before Carter’s body arrived in Washington before Thursday’s state funeral.

Trump’s tough-guy approach also explains why he sees little distinction between US allies and adversaries. He, for example, complained Tuesday that Canada, America’s closest geographical friend, was freeloading off the US defense umbrella and therefore should be a state rather than a nation. Such a view repudiates the US-led liberal order that sees alliances as investments that multiply American power and protect democracy and freedom.

The US may be retreating from the world, but it’s doubling down in its backyard

Sending troops to grab the Panama Canal or Greenland might contradict Trump’s campaign trail warnings that the US should avoid new foreign entanglements. But it exemplifies the “America First” ideology. A retreat from the old world in a Trump second term could be be replaced by “continentalism” that might “displace globalism,” argued Hal Brands, a professor of global affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, in Foreign Affairs last May.

This would update the doctrine unveiled by President James Monroe in 1823, to which President Theodore Roosevelt later added a corollary — that the United States should protect life and property in Latin American countries.

While Trump has set off global consternation with his new Panama Canal rhetoric, he first broached a tougher line in America’s backyard in his first term. “Here in the Western Hemisphere, we are committed to maintaining our independence from the encroachment of expansionist foreign powers,” Trump told the UN General Assembly in 2018. “It has been the formal policy of our country since President Monroe that we reject the interference of foreign nations in this hemisphere and in our own affairs.”

His policy represented a split with the Obama administration that is consistent with Trump’s backlash politics. In 2013, then-Secretary of State John Kerry told the Organization of American States, “The era of the Monroe Doctrine is over.”

The 21st century Monroe reboot targets China, Russia, Iran and their business, military and intelligence partnerships in nations like Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Cuba.

Marco Rubio — a surprising pick for Trump’s secretary of state given his traditionalist foreign policy leanings — is on the same page as his new boss on hemispheric affairs. The Florida senator said at a Foreign Relations Committee hearing in 2022 that China was wielding economic influence in a way that hurt regional economies and boosted cartels that export fentanyl and violence across US borders. “They do this because they know that chaos in Latin America and the Caribbean would severely hurt us, destabilize us, who they view as their primary and central rival,” Rubio said. “We simply can’t afford to let the Chinese Communist Party expand its influence and absorb Latin America and the Caribbean into its private political-economic bloc.”

How Trump’s tough talk could backfire

Trump’s expansionist vision reflects supreme confidence heading into his second term, which he’s determined to use to leave an era-defining mark on America’s global role.

And his personification of the principle of the strong triumphing over the weak might also inform his approach to other global issues — most notably the war in Ukraine. In a striking moment Tuesday, Trump said he understood Russian President Vladimir Putin’s fear that the nation he invaded could join NATO. “Russia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I could understand their feeling about that,” the president-elect said.

The possibility that Trump could accept Russia’s terms was already a concern. His former national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, recorded one moment when Putin drew an analogy between his illegal claims to Ukraine and historic US concerns about its hemisphere. “Putin used his time with Trump to launch a sophisticated and sustained campaign to manipulate him,” McMaster wrote in his book “At War with Ourselves.” He added: “to suggest moral equivalence between U.S. interventions in Latin America and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Putin cited the ‘Roosevelt Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.”

Trump’s bombast may delight his supporters. But many foreigners think it’s arrogant. An attempt to seize the Panama Canal would be regarded as geopolitical piracy. Invading Greenland would make a mockery of international law.

And Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — whose already doomed career suffered a final blow because of Trump’s tariff threats — lampooned Trump’s designs on the Great White North on Tuesday. “There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States,” he wrote on X.

This reaction shows the downside of Trump’s approach. His bullying of America’s friends may alienate whole populations. Some foreign policy experts fear American threats and pressure in Latin America may actually push nations closer to China.

And insults about Canada being better off as the 51st state are likely to harden public opinion there against the incoming US president and make it harder for the next prime minister to clinch deals with him.

“Greenland is not MAGA. Greenland is not going to be MAGA.”

After nearly a decade in power, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau finally bowed to a chorus of criticism that had become too loud to ignore, announcing his resignation on Monday. Among the loudest critics was one of his most loyal and longest-serving deputies.

In December, then-Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland had sharply rebuked what she described as Trudeau’s pursuit of “costly political gimmicks,” referring to recent policy proposals including a two-month sales tax holiday and 250 Canadian dollar ($175) rebates for most workers.

She and Trudeau had “found ourselves at odds about the best path forward,” she wrote in a resignation letter, adding a jab at her boss’s waning popularity: Canadians “know when we are working for them, and they equally know when we are focused on ourselves,” Freeland said.

Just a few weeks later, Trudeau would announce his own resignation.

“Removing me from the equation as the leader who will fight the next election for the Liberal Party should also decrease the level of polarization that we’re seeing right now in the House and Canadian politics,” he said on Monday as he stepped down.

While Trudeau had already faced heat from a disenchanted public and rising opposition movement, Freeland’s public letter was a stunning turn for a once-steadfast ally of Trudeau.

Was it also her campaign manifesto? Members of Trudeau’s ruling Liberal Party are now preparing to vie for the top seat, and the 56-year-old Freeland is already widely seen as one of the top possible contenders.

A poll conducted last week by prominent Ottawa-based pollster Nik Nanos for CTV gave Freeland an edge when Canadians were asked to pick which of nine possible candidates for the leadership of the Liberal Party they found most appealing.

Canada’s opposition politicians also appear to see Freeland as a possible successor; a video shared by Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre last week heavily focused on Freeland alongside Trudeau in its depiction of the “wackos” in the government.

Who is Chrystia Freeland? The ‘minister of everything’

Freeland, a longstanding figure of the Liberal Party, has held a range of positions in the Canadian government, emerging as a magnet for international attention and earning the occasional moniker in local press as “minister of everything.”

During the first Trump administration, Freeland – then foreign minister – engaged in high-profile clashes with the United States over Trump’s decision to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Canada.

She was closely involved in the arduous negotiations to revise the longstanding North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, which Trump has indicated he wants to renegotiate yet again.

Freeland has since become a personal target for Trump, who recently criticized her as “totally toxic and not at all conducive to making deals.”

Freeland has said Trump acted as a “bully” during negotiations after Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner criticized her own negotiating tactics in his memoir.

Born to a Ukrainian mother in the western province of Alberta, Freeland studied at Harvard University before going on to work as a journalist covering Russia and Ukraine for several years.

She then worked in Canada before successfully running a campaign for a place in Parliament within Trudeau’s Liberal Party in 2013. After Trudeau was elected prime minister, Freeland’s career also ascended. First to the position of minister of international trade, followed by minister of foreign affairs before finally filling the role of deputy prime minister.

After Canada’s finance minister resigned after an ethics scandal in August 2020, Freeland was appointed to that position and handed a struggling economy crippled by the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In this role, she was tasked with overseeing an overhaul of the government’s finances and slashing a deepening deficit. Those responsibilities and the challenges associated with them contributed to the unraveling of her relationship with Trudeau as he introduced economic policies she disagreed with.

“There’s a huge Ukrainian diaspora community in Canada and the fact that she’s able to speak to them in their language and identify with them has actually been a strength for her,” said Turnbull.

Freeland played a key role in positioning Canada as a staunch supporter of Ukraine by pushing to freeze billions of dollars worth of Russian assets and provide expansive financial aid packages to Ukraine.

“I really think we cannot understate the extent to which that Ukrainian battlefield is the battlefield of democracy and dictatorship,” Freeland said in an interview at the Council on Foreign Relations last November. “I think it is absolutely possible for them to win. And we just need to give them a little more support.”

In the same interview, Freeland voiced her support for Ukraine to join NATO.

Her hardline stance on Russia has led her to run afoul of Moscow. In 2014, Freeland was among 13 Canadian officials hit with Russian sanctions. In response, she expressed her love for the Russian language and culture, while also noting that “it’s an honor to be on Putin’s sanction list.”

A Freeland government?

Among Canadians, Freeland is viewed as a capable politician but one closely associated with a government many have soured on amid a pained economy.

No matter who takes Trudeau’s mantle within the Liberal Party, their mandate could be short-lived.

As he resigned, Trudeau suspended Parliament until March 24. Once Parliament reconvenes, whoever ends up leading the Liberals could face a confidence vote. That’s one reason Canada’s next prime minister is likely to try to keep parliament in a state of suspended animation for as long as possible.

The Liberal Party’s path to holding onto power is already fraught, with polls showing Conservatives with an assertive lead in the coming general election this fall, according to Nanos.

“It’s going to be massively difficult for the Liberals. They’re more than 20 points behind the Conservatives and the Conservatives have had a double-digit lead for almost 18 months,” Nanos said. “Because they’ve been in power since 2015 there’s a wave of change in the country right now that is being ridden and led by Pierre Poilievre, the Conservative leader.”

Pain in the Canadian economy, already under strain from inflation and high living costs, has been compounded by Donald Trump’s threat of a looming tariff on goods from Canada and Mexico, unless they take stiffer action on immigration.

Canada has seen continual population growth, fueled partially by record immigration. But Freeland has hinted at potentially cutting back on immigration; in an interview with the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) in the wake of Trump’s reelection, Freeland said that new migrants must arrive in Canada in an “organized, systematic way.”

Whoever wins the leadership of the Liberal Party faces an uphill battle and will likely need to lead the charge to remake the party, suggest polls and analysts. “I don’t think anybody expects that the Liberals are going to come first the next election. So the question is really about who’s going to rebuild the party,” Turnbull said.

At around 7:30 p.m., authorities responded to JetBlue flight 161 after a passenger “who wanted to deplane opened an aircraft door suddenly and without warning,” police said in a statement.

Other passengers quickly restrained the individual until troopers arrived to detain them for further questioning. The arrested passenger is expected to face charges and will be arraigned in East Boston District Court on Wednesday morning, police said.

The incident comes hours after two people were found dead in the wheel well of a JetBlue plane at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after it had completed a flight from New York, adding to a troubling string of recent stowaway cases raising concerns about airline security. A body was also recently discovered in the wheel well of a United Airlines plane that flew from Chicago to Maui on Christmas Eve.

The identity of the person on the Boston flight has not been released pending the finalization of charges. Preliminary information suggests this was an “isolated incident” and there is no belief it “poses a threat to public safety,” authorities said.