The Free Press

January 8 will mark one year since I lost the footprint of my material life. The house I’d been renting in Altadena, California—a house which happened to contain the sum total of my life’s possessions—burned to the ground that morning, along with more than 9,000 other structures in the area and nearly 7,000 more in the Palisades fire across the city. I had evacuated the house around 8:30 p.m. on January 7, taking with me my dog, my laptop computer, a change of clothes, and a half-eaten salmon-and-avocado poke bowl that I figured I’d eat later for dinner. At the last minute, I decided to grab a beloved handbag custom-made by a friend and a pair of two-toned Mavette pointy-toe loafers I happened to know had been discontinued by the designer.

By the next morning, those items, along with my car, would be the sum total of my life’s possessions.

What haunts me is how much time I would have had to take more things, had I known what was about to happen. Something like nine hours elapsed between the moment I pulled out of the driveway and the moment those Leviathan flames began to devour every square inch of the house. In that time, I could have removed valuable artwork and placed it carefully in the car. I could have padded that artwork with bundles of clothing and layers of bedding. I could have taken family photo albums, favorite books, old laptop computers, and even the years’ worth of early drafts of book manuscripts (drafts upon drafts, edited by hand) and shoved them on the floor of the back seat.

I could have thrown in the better part of my shoe collection for good measure. I could have stuffed every piece of jewelry into a pillowcase and tucked it in my suitcase along with the nicer items of clothing. The two pieces that were most beloved of all—purchased at the same time, more than 20 years ago, at a boutique in Omaha, Nebraska—were delicate enough to be tucked into a decent-sized purse. One was a fitted brocade jacket with a dark chinoiserie pattern. The other was a burnt orange satin dress with a beaded mesh overlay that I’d worn to countless weddings and events. It was such a great dress that women routinely ran across the room to tell me how much they admired it.

A little over three weeks ago, my father, Reuven Morrison, was murdered in cold blood for being a Jew.

My father was celebrating Hanukkah with his Chabad community on Bondi Beach, an event he’d been to every year since 1996. Every year, this Hanukkah event took place on one of the most famous beaches in the world. Holding a Jewish event at a place that every Australian knows meant something to him, to all of us.

That night, Bondi Beach was turned into the scene of a massacre. Blood stained the ground where just moments before people were standing, celebrating the Jewish people’s triumph over oppression. Prams were scattered across the grass. White sheets covered the bodies.

Along with 14 others, my father was gunned down. He faced the terrorists and bought others time to get away. He took over 10 bullets while shielding others. He saved the lives of innocent people.

In the last few weeks, time has stopped making sense. The days blur into one other and the world without my father feels wrong. Our grief is all-encompassing, an ache so strong it is hard to breathe. I feel as though I have been thrown into an alternate reality. In his final moments, my father was exactly who he had always been. When the shooting began, he did not freeze; he did not run. He stood his ground, throwing bricks at the terrorists, furious that they would dare attack Jews celebrating Hanukkah on his favorite beach. He protected his community until the very end.

The words “. . . any person . . . any study” form the founding principle of Cornell University. The idea is that people from “all walks of life,” regardless of race, religion, income, or gender, are welcome at Cornell—and free to follow their academic interests wherever they might lead.

But last spring, longtime Cornell professor Eric Cheyfitz invoked a very different interpretation of this principle to justify kicking an Israeli Jew out of his “Gaza, Indigeneity, Resistance” seminar.

During the third meeting of the class, computer science PhD student Oren Renard raised his hand for the first time. It would also turn out to be the last.

When he was called on by Cheyfitz, Renard spoke briefly about the Gaza war. The student said that when Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant said, “We are fighting human animals” two days after the October 7, 2023, attacks, he was talking about Hamas. Cheyfitz had claimed that Gallant was talking about all Gazans.

The next week, the professor asked Renard to talk to him after class. Renard was suspicious. He secretly pressed the record button on his cell phone. It was a fateful, freighted decision. Had he not done so, there would be no record of what happened next.

Cheyfitz told Renard that he was “necessarily suspicious, unfairly no doubt, of your presence in this course,” according to the recording. The professor added that Renard’s “conduct in the course has been fine so far, so I’m not complaining about you.”

“Just please, I’m asking you, take another course. This is not your course.” —Cornell professor Eric Cheyfitz

This piece was originally published in Dispatch, a British magazine for long-form storytelling.

The first thing you notice, before the blackened palm stumps and fenced-off lots, before the empty quiet of a neighborhood that still hasn’t quite returned to itself, is the bunny.

Or rather, what used to be a bunny.

It stands defiantly over the ruins of The Bunny Museum, as if to attention. This strange local wonder once held the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of rabbit-related items in one location, a labyrinthine warren containing more than 40,000 specimens. Today, its scorched remains are ringed by temporary fencing. Its sole survivor is charred down one flank; an American flag pokes forlornly out of the other.

Beyond it are more empty lots, dozens of them, their foundations scraped clean. It looks less like a Californian suburb than the blank starting map of RollerCoaster Tycoon, a world waiting to be built.

Only here, the world was built. And then, overnight, it wasn’t.

A year ago today, a fire ripped through Altadena.

It’s probably not the fire you’re thinking of. Not the Palisades inferno that dominated the news cycle for weeks because it licked at the edges of multimillion-dollar cliff-top estates. Not the one that produced spectacular aerial footage for television editors and panicked quotes from residents with recognizable surnames.

This was the other fire, the Eaton fire, which despite killing more people and destroying more homes than the Palisades fire, feels like it’s playing second fiddle. The second-most destructive wildfire in California’s recorded history, it burned with such speed and strangeness that even lifelong Angelenos struggled to understand what they were seeing.

Welcome back to This Week in Canada, where Nicolás Maduro’s capture has consequences for Canadian oil exports, some of us are having Mark Carney flashbacks, and our largest museum labels ancient Jewish artifacts as Palestinian. Let’s get to it—and Happy New Year!

The capture of Nicolás Maduro raises an important question in Canada: What does it mean for Canadian oil exports to the United States?

Canada is the world’s fourth-largest oil producer and the largest foreign supplier of crude to the U.S., exporting roughly four million barrels a day south of the border. Much of that oil is heavy crude, and many of America’s most important refineries—especially in the Midwest and along the Gulf Coast—were built to run on it. Venezuela and, to a lesser extent, Mexico, once supplied that market, but both have collapsed as reliable sources, leaving Canada as the backbone of the U.S. heavy-oil system.

Richard Masson, an energy expert at the University of Calgary and former CEO of the Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission, told me that Venezuela’s turmoil will not unleash a flood of competing oil anytime soon. The immediate effect is likely to be a tighter heavy-oil supply and more price volatility—not a surge of new barrels.

Masson said the idea that Venezuela’s oil infrastructure can be quickly rebuilt “like Texas” is “a long range from reality.” Even in optimistic scenarios, Venezuela might add only a few hundred thousand barrels of output a day—not the million-barrel surge that some people imagine. Venezuela now produces 1.1 million barrels of crude a day, down from 3.5 million a day in the 1970s.

Venezuela’s oil sector has been hollowed out by decades of nationalization, U.S. sanctions, and political collapse. Its pipelines are corroded, its upgraders are broken, and much of the industry’s skilled workforce has fled. Today, Canada is the only producer still able to deliver large, steady volumes of heavy crude into the American refining system.

It’s Tuesday, January 6. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Today: Eli Lake on why Marco ain’t so “little” anymore. River Page on Grok’s AI porn problem. The scandal that finally sank Tim Walz. Matt Taibbi explains why he’s suing another journalist. And much more.

But first: General David Petraeus on America’s Venezuela raid.

In the days since U.S. forces captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, many observers—including those writing in these pages—have reacted with puzzlement at Trump’s decision to do business with Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez. Democracy and prosperity can come to Venezuela only with the ejection not just of Maduro, but everyone around him. Or so the argument goes.

David Petraeus sees things a little differently. In an interview with The Free Press, the famed former general and CIA director, a central figure in the U.S. campaign in Iraq, says that Trump’s approach is, for now, the least worst option. “I think the uncertainties of what might unfold lead you to agree that this is the way to go, until proven otherwise,” he tells Will Rahn. Read Petraeus’s perspective on the operation to grab Maduro, what the president means when he says the U.S. will “run” Venezuela, and what Trump should do next:

The decision to take action in Venezuela was Donald Trump’s. But, as Eli Lake reports, the move also marks a new high point for Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Not so long ago, writes Eli, Rubio looked like he was at odds with the Trump administration’s foreign policy. Just think of the famous image of Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance berating Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office while Rubio sat awkwardly on the couch.

Since then, however, Rubio has amassed power and influence and used it to great effect. In other words, Marco doesn’t seem so little any more. How did he do it? Eli has the story:

In our third offering on Venezuela today, Tanya Lukyanova talks to an American with firsthand experience of the Venezuelan regime. Matthew Heath, a Marine veteran, was detained by Maduro’s goons in 2020, tortured, and kept behind bars until his release in a prisoner swap two years later. He told Tanya why he was held, and what the Venezuelan regime did to him:

—Oliver Wiseman

Oncologist and bioethicist Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel joins Rafaela Siewert in a wide-ranging conversation on the health hacks that inspired his book Eat Your Ice Cream: Six Simple Rules for a Long and Healthy Life. From ultra-processed foods to vitamin supplements, he sorts health facts from wellness myths—and argues that health is a means, not an end, worth pursuing only when it helps us live better lives.

• The Department of Health and Human Services will revamp its childhood vaccination schedule and reduce the number of shots recommended for most children. Core immunizations will remain, but guidance for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), meningococcal disease, hepatitis B, and hepatitis A will be limited to children at higher risk.

• A U.S. attack on Greenland would mean the end of NATO, Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen warned on Monday. Frederiksen said she believes Trump “means it seriously” when he said he has his eye on Greenland following the U.S. military raid on Venezuela over the weekend.

• The Pentagon will cut Arizona senator Mark Kelly’s military retirement pay as part of disciplinary action over a video in which he told service members that they have the right to refuse illegal orders. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also issued a formal letter of censure and called Kelly’s remarks “seditious.”

• A man was taken into custody early Monday morning after allegedly vandalizing Vice President J.D. Vance’s home in Cincinnati while the Vance family was out of town. William Defoor, the 26-year-old suspect, has a history of mental illness and criminal vandalism charges, according to court records.

• As white-collar hiring cools off and corporate DEI priorities retreat, elite college degrees are regaining importance in an increasingly competitive job market. A 2025 survey found that 26 percent of companies recruit exclusively from a short list of schools, up from 17 percent in 2022.

• A French court found 10 people guilty of cyberbullying for spreading false claims that Brigitte Macron, wife of President Emmanuel Macron, is transgender and was born male. One defendant was sentenced to six months in jail, while others received eight-month suspended sentences on the condition that they complete court-ordered cyberbullying training.

• Russian air strikes on Kyiv and the surrounding region killed two people over the weekend. The deaths appeared to be the first of the year from attacks on the Ukrainian capital. One body was found at a medical facility.

• New Seattle mayor Katie Wilson denied claims from the city’s police union that city leaders told officers to stop making arrests for open drug use. The union said that steering offenders to diversion programs “is horrifically dangerous and will create more death and societal decay.”

The Free Press earns a commission from any purchases made through all book links in this article.

In the first months of President Donald Trump’s second administration, Marco Rubio looked like the odd man out. Now, after U.S. forces snatched Venezuelan tyrant Nicolás Maduro and brought him to New York, Rubio might be the second most powerful man in Washington.

Over the past year the former senator from Florida has accumulated a portfolio that would have worn out the late Henry Kissinger. Like the old grand master, Rubio now serves as the president’s secretary of state and national security adviser. He is also the federal government’s acting chief archivist and was acting administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) until he put it out of business in July. As of last weekend, Rubio appears to be something like the proconsul for Venezuela. The man has more jobs than a temp agency.

The most remarkable thing about Rubio’s rise, though, is that less than a year ago, in the early days of the administration, it looked like he had been neutered. Rubio was bullied by Elon Musk for failing to fire more USAID staff. And it seemed he was out of the inner circle, with the most consequential foreign policy decisions in those first 100 days falling to the president’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff. The Atlantic even ran a profile of Witkoff, who was setting the agenda for Iran, Gaza, and Ukraine, that called him “the real secretary of state.”

The ideological momentum in those days was with Vice President J.D. Vance. Vance’s isolationist-leaning former Senate staffers and other allies were getting the crucial senior subcabinet posts, while more traditional Republicans loyal to Rubio were largely locked out. This dynamic was captured in a famous photo of the Oval Office meeting with Trump, Vance, and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. As Trump and Vance berate Zelensky, Rubio is seated uncomfortably on a couch, looking like “Little Marco,” the cruel moniker Trump gave him during the bruising 2016 presidential primary.

Marco doesn’t seem so little anymore. Last week he was a constant presence at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s home in Palm Beach, Florida, that has become a second White House. And while there is no doubt that Trump is the decider on foreign policy, the dramatic operation to abduct Maduro reflected Rubio’s hawkish realism—and contradicted the advice of MAGA’s restrainer wing, which Vance represents. The same could be said of Trump’s warning to Iran’s rulers last week not to attack protesters. Indeed, the photos from Mar-a-Lago show Vance on a video call as Trump, Rubio, and other cabinet members sit together in a secure conference area to watch the Venezuela operation unfold.

Matthew Heath knows better than most Americans what Nicolás Maduro’s regime looked like from the inside. An honorably discharged U.S. Marine veteran, Heath was wrongfully detained by Venezuelan authorities while traveling through the country in September 2020. He spent over two years in Casa de los Sueños, an infamous detention facility and torture center run by the country’s military counterintelligence. He was ultimately released in October 2022 as part of a high-profile prisoner swap that saw the return of Maduro’s relatives, who had been convicted of narcotics trafficking charges in the United States.

In the days following Maduro’s capture by U.S. forces, I spoke to Heath about his experience in Venezuelan detention and his perspective about what will happen next in the country. The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

Tanya Lukyanova: You were arrested by Venezuelan authorities in September 2020 and charged with treason, terrorism, and arms trafficking. Can you briefly walk me through what led to your arrest and how it unfolded?

Matthew Heath: While traveling through Venezuela, I was stopped by the Venezuela military and arrested once I identified myself as an American. Like a lot of Americans, I was ignorant of the ramifications of the conflict between governments. I didn’t realize that you don’t have to be interested in politics; politics can be interested in you.

I was in a taxi with absolutely no weapons of any kind, not even a fork and knife. At a military checkpoint, they asked me to show them my passport. I said, of course, here you go. Here’s my American passport. And they said, that’s very good. You’re under arrest.

I was taken to the DGCIM [Dirección General de Contrainteligencia Militar] military intelligence, where I was brutally tortured and interrogated. I found out later that they planted rockets, missiles, and machine guns—weapons that could not have even fit inside my taxi. I was detained simply for being an American.

TL: Venezuelan officials publicly portrayed you as a spy and mercenary. From your vantage point, what was most distorted—or deliberately false—about the case they made against you?

Coach Tim Walz won’t return for another season at the Minnesota state house, after a brutal autumn stretch put the kibosh on his once high-flying career. The former Democratic vice-presidential nominee will remain governor until his term ends in January 2027, but he won’t seek reelection this fall, having been knocked out of contention by news of an awe-inspiring fraud that took place on his watch.

In a defiant Monday morning press conference announcing his decision, Walz defended his administration’s anti-fraud record. He also thanked the U.S. Attorney’s office and the FBI, which have handled nearly every investigation, charge, and conviction in dozens of cases against criminal rings, mostly Somali American, that stole as much as $9 billion in federal aid. Walz then attacked Republicans, in Minnesota and nationwide, for supposedly exaggerating the fraud problem instead of trying to fix it. He departed the podium swiftly and took no questions.

It’s been quite a fall. In 2024, Kamala Harris and her team liked Walz’s Midwestern common sense and believed he would add a touch of masculinity to the ticket. After all, he had served 24 years in the National Guard, first in Nebraska and then in Minnesota. Moreover, he was a hunter and had even been an assistant high school football coach. Some doubters criticized him for embellishing his military service, such as when he referred to “weapons of war that I carried in war,” despite never having deployed in an active conflict. Yet most Democrats were sold on Walz as a progressive fighter who could also appeal to cultural conservatives.

In practice, the hunter-soldier-coach seemed anything but in his national appearances. In the vice presidential debate, he came across as more Minnesota Nice than as the guy who had promised to skewer fellow veteran J.D. Vance. Even Saturday Night Live spoofed his performance, with comedian Jim Gaffigan portraying Walz as a lovable heartland rube.

Walz had also drifted toward his party’s left wing during his years in office. He was first elected to the House of Representatives in 2006 as a moderate, flipping a longtime GOP seat with a campaign focused on veterans affairs. He claimed the governorship in 2018 on a similar platform, but he slowly revealed deep progressive convictions, such as when he called the 2020 George Floyd protests in his state an expression of “legitimate rage and anger,” and hesitated for days to send in the National Guard. In his second term he pursued progressive policies that torched any appeal he had among conservatives, such as a 100 percent green energy mandate by 2040 and legal protections for transgender surgeries.

General David Petraeus (Retired) knows a thing or two about sticky military situations. The U.S. Army’s leading expert on counterinsurgency, Petraeus oversaw the largely successful “surge” of forces into Iraq in 2007, when many Americans had given up on the war. In the process, he became a celebrity of sorts and was promoted to lead all U.S. forces in the Middle East. Petraeus held that job until 2011, when he was tapped by President Barack Obama to lead the CIA.

On Monday, I asked Petraeus for his thoughts about the capture of Nicolás Maduro, the Trump administration’s policy toward Venezuela, and whether Americans should brace themselves for another long war.

This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Will Rahn: So Nicolás Maduro has been arrested by the United States. President Trump seems keen, at the moment, on keeping Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, in charge of Venezuela. This is despite the fact that she is a militant socialist and a very close Maduro ally. We’re not sure how keen she is on working with the U.S., but she is releasing statements signaling that she might be.

Is there a way to do this, working with the current government of Venezuela—to the extent that it exists—so that we can avoid American boots on the ground?

David Petraeus: Well, we’ll have to see. Frankly, first of all, I’m pleased to see Nicolás Maduro brought to justice. He was obviously a brutal, murderous dictator who did enormous damage to his country—and to the world, really—through his narcotrafficante activities and so forth. It’s just also an extraordinary demonstration of U.S. military capabilities.