Donald Trump, newly elected president, has a bucket of legal problems – and a Justice Department soon at his disposal. He may reshape American justice.

• Fed cuts key rate: The Federal Reserve cuts its key interest rate by a quarter point in response to the steady decline in the once-high inflation that had angered Americans and helped drive Donald Trump’s presidential election victory this week.
• Israel enacts deportation: Its parliament passes a law that would allow it to deport family members of Palestinian attackers to the Gaza Strip or other locations for a period of seven to 20 years.
• German coalition collapses: Chancellor Olaf Scholz is expected to lead the country with a minority government after the governing party loses its parliamentary majority.
• Hurricane hits Cuba: Rafael pushes into the Gulf of Mexico after churning across western Cuba as a Category 3 storm with winds so powerful they knocked out the country’s power grid.
• Australia targets social media: Its government announces legislation that would set a minimum age limit of 16 for children to start using social media, and would hold platforms responsible for ensuring compliance.

Read these news briefs.

President-elect Donald Trump revealed himself in his first term to be an unpredictable, go-it-alone foreign policymaker. He is showing no signs of having changed his spots as he prepares to return to the White House.

Sudan’s civil war has forced more than 11 million people to flee their homes. In a refugee camp in Uganda, one restaurant owner is trying to resurrect his homeland with food. (Find a series of stories on the war’s humanitarian fallout, and resilience in the face of it, here.)

The solar industry is facing increasing criticism for taking up too much agricultural land. Massachusetts farmers are testing solutions that grow both food and power.

“Emilia Pérez” is a feminist musical crime thriller about a transgender cartel boss. Part operetta, part telenovela, it shimmies between the archetypal and the intensely personal, writes Monitor film critic Peter Rainer.

On Tuesday night, American voters handed Republicans the White House, the Senate, and – it looks likely – the House. That tilt toward one-party rule in Washington hides another political realignment that may be just as consequential. According to Edison Research, the share of Independent voters in this election equaled Republicans and – in a first – surpassed Democrats. The electorate’s changing composition may be why, despite the rancor of campaigning, many people in the country are bending more toward unity and reconciliation.

Pause for a moment in Michigan. The state flipped from blue in 2020 to red in 2024, but for local officials in Manistee County, something else seemed to matter more. “We don’t need to hyphenate being American; we’re all Americans,” a Republican member of the County Board of Commissioners told the Manistee News Advocate. “That’s the vision I wish to see realized – a united America rather than a qualified or divided one.”

Judy Cunningham, treasurer of the local Democratic Party, struck a similar note. “In the end, I was relieved that democracy won last night,” she told the newspaper. “We have the opportunity to put our country together and heal the wounds. It’s not about what party wins. It’s about continuing our democracy.”

In Alaska, the election reshuffled what may be one of the United States’ most novel approaches to state government. Bipartisan majorities will control both chambers of the state legislature. In both the House and the Senate, Republicans, Democrats, and independents will share leadership jobs and set rules together for passing bills. “Alaskans have spoken clearly and we will work together, representing residents of all regions,” incoming Speaker Bryce Edgmon, an independent, vowed in a statement.

A similar experiment in shared governing is underway in Oregon. During the campaign season, Gov. Tina Kotek went on a “listening tour” across all 36 counties and nine sovereign tribal nations. Several lawmakers made similar voyages, including all members of a joint legislative committee on transportation – seven Democrats and five Republicans.

“The next step is for members of the committee... to pull together all the information they learned on the tour and create a series of consensus recommendations” for the next legislative session in the new year,” wrote Senate President Rob Wagner in a newsletter.

One place to look for a reset of consensus-based governing in Washington, D.C., is the Senate. The chamber flipped. For the first time in two decades, the incoming Republican majority will choose a new leader. Yet its outgoing boss, Mitch McConnell, marked that transition with a nod to the chamber’s long-standing norm of protecting the minority’s right to be heard. “The filibuster will stand,” he said. 

In his first comments after the election, President Joe Biden said from the White House Garden Thursday that “You can’t love your country only when you win. You can’t love your neighbor only when you agree.” Halfway across the country in South Dakota, that message found an echo. “As we move away from campaign season and back toward government,” said Dusty Johnson, a Republican member of Congress, “let us never forget that this country was not built on anger and fear, it was built on imagination, courage, optimism and freedom.”

In a national reset, the opportunity for reconciliation hangs in the air.