Christmas in the Gulag. Trudeau in Trouble. How the Drone Theories Stack Up. Plus. . .

It’s Tuesday, December 17. This is The Front Page, your daily window into the world of The Free Press—and our take on the world at large. Coming up: Trudeau’s government is on the brink of collapse, further reporting on the drones mystery, and much more.

But first: A Christmas behind bars for the Americans wrongfully detained abroad.

This past Thanksgiving, a nightmare came to an end for the families of three Americans who had been imprisoned by China. John Leung, an FBI informant who was detained in 2021; Kai Li, a New Yorker detained since 2016; and Mark Swidan, a businessman held for more than a decade on charges no one believes, were all released in a prisoner swap. They are home for the holidays.

The same cannot be said for dozens of U.S. citizens wrongfully detained overseas. People like Marc Fogel, a then–60-year-old husband and father of two who used medical marijuana to alleviate back pain, and was arrested in 2021 when he landed at an airport in Russia. For this crime, Fogel has been sentenced to fourteen years in a maximum security penal colony. “It’s a death sentence,” Fogel’s family’s lawyer tells The Free Press’s Madeleine Kearns.

Fogel is just one name on a long list of the Americans behind bars overseas when they should be at home—and free. It’s harder than you might think to know exactly how long that list is. The U.S. government doesn’t publish one themselves, and some families do not make the detention of their loved one public. But Maddy has compiled the closest thing possible to a full list of publicly identified wrongfully detained Americans. Today, we publish that list of names, and Maddy’s accompanying story.

Read both of them here: “Detained Americans Face Another Christmas in the Gulag.”

Is Trudeau About to Topple?

Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau is hanging on by a thread. His finance minister—and until recently, his closest ally—Chrystia Freeland resigned yesterday. In her resignation letter, Freeland cited differences over how to handle the “grave challenge” posed by Trump’s threat to impose a tariff of 25 percent on Canadian goods. It’s the latest and biggest blow to Trudeau’s premiership. Why is Trudeau in so much trouble—and for how much longer can he hang on? Rupa Subramanya looks at whether Trudeau can tough it out. Read her full report here.

Mass Hysteria. Iran. China. The U.S. Military. How the Leading Drone Theories Stack Up.

Last week we reported on the sudden spike in the number of drone sightings above New Jersey—and spoke to lawmakers who speculated that they might belong to hostile foreign governments, such as Iran and China. Since our report, the drones haven’t abated, public interest in the mystery has grown, and we are no closer to understanding what is going on. On Sunday, DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas insisted that the government has not seen “anything unusual.” But New Jersey lawmaker Chris Smith calls that an “insult to our intelligence.”

So what the hell is going on? Mass hysteria? Foreign government? The work of our own government? Madeleine Kearns digs into the possible explanations, and weighs their strengths and weaknesses. Read the latest on the various theories here.

They Tortured Him for Years. Now They Rule Syria.

With the rebels in control of Syria, the world is wondering whether the dominant rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, and its leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, means it when they say their days of hard-line Islamism are behind them. Al-Jolani is a former al-Qaeda fighter, and HTS began as an al-Qaeda offshoot.

Few people in the West are better placed to judge whether al-Jolani and HTS are telling the truth than the American journalist Theo Padnos. He was kidnapped by HTS (then known as Jabhat al-Nusra) in 2012. In almost two years as their prisoner, Padnos was tortured with beatings and electric shocks. Today, he discusses this harrowing experience on Honestly.

Padnos talks to Michael Moynihan about the psychology of jihadists, and what the future holds for Syria now that it is run by his former captors. Watch their conversation by clicking the play button below, or catch it on the Honestly feed wherever you get your podcasts. And for an edited transcript of the episode, click here.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. (Maja Hitij via Getty Images)

• It’s not just Canada’s government that is on the ropes. On Monday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a parliamentary confidence vote, mirroring the fall of France’s government earlier this month. As Europe’s largest economy heads for a snap election in February, Friedrich Merz, leader of Angela Merkel’s centrist Christian Democratic Union, is leading polls and will likely be the next chancellor. “You are leaving the country in one of the greatest economic crises in postwar history,” Merz said to Scholz. For more on the bleak backdrop to Germany’s political crisis, read Yascha Mounk’s recent Free Press essay, “The Not-So-Marvelous Mrs. Merkel.”

• Last week, CNN ran a jaw-dropping package from Damascus in which journalist Clarissa Ward appeared to discover a terrified prisoner under a blanket. In what Ward called “one of the most extraordinary moments I have witnessed” in twenty years of reporting, the Syrian man claimed he did not know the Assad regime had fallen and that he had not seen sunlight for three months. However, according to Syrian fact-checking organization Verify-Sy, there’s a problem with the story. The man featured in the report wasn’t an imprisoned opposition fighter, but a first lieutenant in Syrian air force intelligence accused of multiple war crimes. “We have subsequently been investigating his background and are aware that he may have given a false identity,” said CNN.

WATCH: We sent our own cameras into Assad’s notorious Sednaya prison. Here’s what we saw.

• Chinese President Xi Jinping is planning to purge corrupt officials from his inner circle, imploring party officials to “turn the knife inward,” in a newly disclosed exhortation. On Monday, the CCP’s flagship policy journal Qiushi published Xi’s call to action nearly a year after he gave the directive in a January meeting. Just last month, a top Chinese military official and former Xi loyalist was suspended and placed under investigation for corruption.

• For the first time since he entered politics, Donald Trump has a positive net approval rating, according to the RealClearPolitics average. Though Trump’s approval ratings ticked up after the 2016 election, he never made it into the black. As the former president returns to office, he does so with the confidence of just over half of the American people. For the first time. And after two impeachments, four indictments, a conviction, and two assassination attempts. But how long will it last?

• Columbia University professor Lawrence Rosenblatt announced his resignation after learning that Joseph Massad, a professor at the college who called Hamas’s October 7 massacre “awesome,” will be allowed to teach a class on the “history of the Jewish Enlightenment in 19th century Europe and the development of Zionism through the current peace process.” Democratic congressman Ritchie Torres compared the situation to getting former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke to teach a course on antiracism.
  

• TikTok has asked the Supreme Court to intervene and delay the forced sale or ban on the app, which is due to come into effect on January 19. Trump, who takes office the next day, supported a TikTok ban in his first term but then changed his tune during the presidential race. He was noncommittal Monday. “We’ll take a look at TikTok,” he said during a press conference.
  

• Trump’s pick for Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, is slated to become America’s highest-ranking gay official. But his nomination has been met with a curious silence from the gay advocacy organizations whose fanfare welcomed Pete Buttigieg’s historic cabinet nomination in 2020. Why the radio silence from GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign? We feel for you, Mr. Bessent. Consider this an open invite to come on Honestly and spill the tea to independent media’s highest-ranking gay official, Bari Weiss.