Mr. Trump told reporters over the weekend that Iran wants to negotiate with the U.S. and that the administration is in talks to set up a meeting in Tehran. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also indicated Tehran is open to talks.

Still, Mr. Trump reiterated that he may authorize new strikes on Iran as casualties and arrests of anti-regime protesters in the Islamic republic mount.

The protests, fueled by anger over the country’s dire economic conditions and broader opposition to the nation’s strict Islamic regime, have spread to all 31 Iranian provinces. Mr. Trump said the U.S. “stands ready to help” the Iranian people in their quest for “freedom.”

The Times spoke to key dissident groups who say the protests pose an existential threat to the theocratic regime in Tehran.

Alireza Jafarzadeh, the U.S. deputy director for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said the demonstrations are not aimed at “small reform” but instead are about “ending dictatorship.”

With a corruption scandal still dogging his administration, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is aiming to reshape the political power structure in Kyiv. To do that, he recently tapped Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, former head of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine, to head his presidential office.

Special Correspondent Guillaume Ptak in Ukraine has a fresh dispatch from Kyiv that examines the thinking behind Mr. Zelenskyy’s move and what it means for the future of Kyiv’s political power center. The Ukrainian leader said Gen. Budanov’s experience and authority would enable the presidential office to focus more directly on security matters and ongoing peace negotiations. Mr. Zelenskyy argued that this alignment was necessary given the stage the conflict with Russia had reached.

Mr. Zelenskyy’s message appears to have been calibrated to both domestic and foreign audiences. As the war remains mired in bloody attritional warfare and Washington increases pressure for peace talks, Kyiv is signaling that its political center will now be run by someone steeped in the logic of security rather than political brokerage.

Military Correspondent Mike Glenn has been tracking Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s push for tougher fitness standards across military services. For the Air Force, new physical fitness tests will take effect in July, with troops having the option to perform the standard 2-mile run or a timed 20-meter shuttle run to gauge their cardiovascular fitness.

The High Aerobic Multi-shuttle Run requires personnel to run between lines placed 20 meters apart for time periods, with the exercise steadily increasing in intensity. The new test also gives airmen the ability to choose between 1 minute of standard pushups or 2 minutes of hand-release pushups to measure upper body strength; and 1 minute of sit-ups, 2 minutes of cross-leg reverse crunches or a timed forearm plank to determine their core strength.

Mr. Hegseth has made fitness standards a top priority. In September, he publicly lambasted “fat troops” and “fat generals and admirals” during a major speech to hundreds of officers gathered at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia.

The Jan. 3 U.S. raid that captured Mr. Maduro was a phenomenal military achievement and perhaps the start of a new relationship between Washington and Caracas.

But for communist China, the mission represented the rare opportunity to collect valuable intelligence and observe how the U.S. armed forces fought in live conditions, under operational stress, with real command authorities, real data links and real tactical decision-making.

L.J. Eads, a senior fellow of the Prague Security Studies Institute and former U.S. Air Force SIGINT space network warfare officer, explains in a new op-ed for The Times that China surely used its intelligence-gathering sites in Cuba and elsewhere in the region to gather invaluable information from its leading adversary.

“Why does this matter? Because modern warfare is no longer defined solely by platforms or weapons systems. It is defined by networks, data links, command processes and communication protocols,” he writes. “The Venezuela operation presented China with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to observe how U.S. forces integrate satellite communications, airborne assets, maritime elements, cyber coordination and coalition interfaces in real time.”

Edward Haugland, an award-winning CIA analyst and retired Defense Department intelligence executive, lays out the case for why he believes Democrats share a troubling alignment with dictators — and how the U.S. raid that captured Mr. Maduro exposed that alignment.

“The alignment of values, intent and objectives between Democrats and dictators is clear: It’s a quest for absolute power. It’s the reason we see a majority of Democrats objecting to the arrest of Mr. Maduro,” he writes in a Times op-ed. “Americans must understand that the path Democrats are taking this country down is the very same path Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro took a once-prosperous country, destroying economic and independent freedom nearly three decades ago.”

Mr. Haugland argues that Democrats have a clear recent history of taking direct actions benefiting the world’s most repressive regimes. He cites as examples the Biden administration’s temporary lifting of some sanctions on Venezuela in 2023, the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal and Democrat-backed energy policies that funneled money to China for solar panels and wind farms.

• Jan. 13-15 — Surface Navy Association National Symposium, Surface Navy Association

• Jan. 14 — A New Direction for Artificial Intelligence and Students: Findings from the Brookings Global Task Force on AI and Education, Brookings Institution

• Jan. 15 — The Future of U.S. Foreign Assistance, Center for a New American Security

• Jan. 15 — 10 Conflicts to Watch in 2026, Chatham House

• Jan. 20 — The Future of Biosafety: Confronting Gain-of-Function Research, The Heritage Foundation

• Jan. 20 — A Conversation with Former METI Minister Nishimura on the Takaichi Government’s Economic Strategy, Hudson Institute 

• Jan. 21 — Artificial General Intelligence: America’s Next National Security Frontier, Institute of World Politics

• Jan. 21 — What Happens in Geostationary Orbit Doesn’t Stay There, Royal United Services Institute