A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah has begun. Under the deal, Israel will withdraw troops from south Lebanon over a 60-day period, while Hezbollah will move its fighters and weapons to north of the Litani River. Lebanese troops plan to deploy to the south, which has been largely destroyed by 14 months of Israeli attacks.

In a joint statement, the U.S. and France said, “This announcement will create the conditions to restore lasting calm and allow residents in both countries to return safely to their homes.” Thousands of displaced residents of south Lebanon are returning home to find scenes of destruction. On Tuesday, Israel kept bombing the region, as well as Beirut, until just before the ceasefire took effect. Over the past 14 months, Israel has killed over 3,800 people in Lebanon and displaced more than a million. Israel has not yet urged residents displaced in northern Israel to return to their homes. Many question how long the cessation of hostilities will last. On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to keep attacking Lebanon if Hezbollah violates the deal.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “The length of the ceasefire depends on what happens in Lebanon. In full cooperation with the United States, we retain complete military freedom of action. Should Hezbollah violate the agreement or attempt to rearm, we will strike.”

In Gaza, Israel struck a school in Gaza City, killing at least 13 displaced Palestinians who had sought shelter in the Zeitoun neighborhood. Dozens were wounded in the attack. An Israeli airstrike on a home in the same neighborhood killed another seven people. Meanwhile, the United Nations reports this year is already the deadliest on record for aid workers, largely due to Israel’s war on Gaza. This is Lisa Doughten of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Lisa Doughten: “Since 7 October, more than 330 humanitarian workers have lost their lives. Most of them were UNRWA staff. Some were with their families in their homes. Others were at work in UNRWA offices and shelters. These numbers signal a disturbing lack of regard for the lives of civilians and humanitarian and U.N. workers. There’s no situation in recent history that compares.”

President-elect Trump has tapped his former chief economist Kevin Hassett to lead the National Economic Council. Hassett helped craft the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which massively redistributed wealth to the richest 1% of Americans — including Trump’s family and members of his administration. In 2020, Hassett argued COVID lockdowns should be lifted, predicting zero deaths from the disease by May 15 of that year. In fact, the CDC reported more than 350,000 U.S. COVID deaths in 2020. 

Trump has tapped Stanford University health economist Jay Bhattacharya to lead the National Institutes of Health. In 2020, Bhattacharya was a main author of the Great Barrington Declaration, which argued against COVID lockdowns at a time when no vaccines were available. Instead, Bhattacharya said COVID should be allowed to spread without mitigation in order to create so-called herd immunity. The World Health Organization called the unprecedented plan “scientifically and ethically problematic,” saying it would result in far more unnecessary infections, suffering and death. 

Trump has nominated Jamieson Greer to serve as the next U.S. trade representative. During Trump’s first term, Greer played a key role in imposing tariffs on China and other nations; he also helped with negotiations over the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which replaced NAFTA.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has blasted Donald Trump’s pledge to impose a 25% tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico, threatening retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods. On Tuesday, President Sheinbaum read publicly from her letter to Trump, warning of dire economic consequences of a U.S. trade war, including massive job losses and higher prices on everything from food to electronics to automobiles. Sheinbaum also took aim at Trump’s claims of a so-called invasion of asylum seekers at the U.S.-Mexico border, whom Trump claims are bringing drugs like fentanyl into the United States.

President Claudia Sheinbaum: “Seventy percent of the illegal weapons seized from criminals in Mexico come from your country. We do not produce these weapons, nor do we consume synthetic drugs. Tragically, it is in our country that people are being killed by crimes resulting from demand in your country.”

In Texas, Republican Governor Greg Abbott on Tuesday signaled strong cooperation between state and federal law enforcement during a Thanksgiving dinner event in the border town of Edinburg. Abbott was joined by incoming U.S. border czar Tom Homan, who helped serve meals to Texas state troopers and National Guard members. Separately, Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham on Tuesday offered the incoming Trump administration the use of up to 13 million acres of Texas land to stage mass deportations. Buckingham spoke from a Starr County ranch in the Rio Grande Valley, where Texas is currently constructing a section of border wall.

Dawn Buckingham: “I have extended an offer to President Trump and incoming border czar Tom Homan to use this 1,400-acre property to construct a facility for the processing, detention and coordination efforts of what will be the largest deportation of violent criminals in our nation’s history.”

Meanwhile, U.S. agricultural industry groups are calling on the incoming Trump administration to exempt farmworkers from mass deportations, arguing Trump’s promise to expel millions of undocumented immigrants from the U.S. would devastate their sector. An estimated 1 million farm, dairy and meatpacking workers are undocumented.

In business news, Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, has announced plans to roll back its diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives and close its Center for Racial Equity, which was created after the police killing of George Floyd. In addition, Walmart plans to block third parties from selling certain LGBTQ-themed items on its website. Walmart will also no longer use the terms ”DEI” and “Latinx” in official communications. The move comes just weeks after Donald Trump was elected after campaigning against DEI initiatives.

In news from Pakistan, security forces in Islamabad arrested over 1,000 protesters in a massive crackdown targeting supporters of jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan who had marched on the capital city. At least six people died in the protests that began Sunday. Khan’s supporters had vowed to stage a sit-in until he was released, but they ended the protest following the security crackdown.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says a California child has become the first U.S. minor to become infected with H5N1 bird flu. The source of the infection is not yet known, but investigators do not believe the child had contact with an infected animal. This follows the weekslong hospitalization of a Canadian teenager in British Columbia, who remains critically ill with an H5N1 infection. Viral genome sequences from the teen revealed mutations that might improve the virus’s ability to spread among human hosts. H5N1 has spread rapidly through U.S. factory farms, mostly affecting poultry before it was discovered in cattle in March. It has since spread to at least 600 herds and has caused infections in dairy and poultry workers. The California Department of Public Health recently detected H5N1 in a sample of raw milk sold in California. President-elect Trump’s nominee for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has promised to lift restrictions on unpasteurized milk and has claimed there are no vaccines that are safe and effective. Infectious disease expert Dr. Michael Mina recently wrote that bird flu could become the next pandemic, warning, “If H5N1 bird flu continues to expand to human transmission … the history books will not look kindly upon the U.S. early efforts to contain it when we absolutely could have take much more aggressive and clear action.”

Lawmakers in the United Kingdom have advanced legislation to create a “smoke-free generation.” Under the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, anyone born after January 1, 2009, would not be legally allowed to purchase cigarettes. The bill would also ban advertisements promoting vapes and would restrict vapes with flavors that appeal to young people. A recent study predicts tobacco use will cause 300,000 cases of cancer over the next five years in the U.K. alone. On Tuesday, British Health Secretary Wes Streeting argued in favor of the bill during debate in the House of Commons.

Wes Streeting: “Smoking takes 80,000 lives a year, causes one in four deaths from cancer in England, a hospital admission almost every minute, a hundred GP appointments an hour. It is the leading cause of sickness, disability and death in our country. And today, members in this House can consign it to the history books.”