Donald Trump fired General Charles “CQ” Brown as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and said he would replace people in five other senior positions, in an unprecedented shake-up of the Pentagon. Mr Trump is cracking down on those he blames for pushing diversity, equity and inclusion policies. The Pentagon was already braced for sweeping cuts to its budget and staff.
Elon Musk gave all federal employees just over 48 hours to explain what they had worked on in the past week or face dismissal, hours after Mr Trump pushed the DOGE boss to “get more aggressive”. In his effort to make deep cuts in government spending, Mr Musk has already offered federal employees the chance to resign if they do not want to return to the office full-time.
Voting began in a closely watched election in Germany. Closing polls suggested that the centre-right Christian Democratic opposition, led by Friedrich Merz, will win. But it will need to strike a deal with at least one another party. On the eve of the vote, Mr Merz was adamant that he would not enter into a coalition with the hard-right Alternative for Germany, which has been lying second in the polls.
The Vatican said that Pope Francis was in critical condition, after suffering a long asthma-like respiratory crisis on Saturday morning. He remains “alert”, but he is “in more pain” than in previous days. Francis was admitted to hospital on February 14th. The 88-year-old pontiff has pneumonia in both lungs, one of which was partly removed by surgeons when he was young.
Hamas released six hostages on Saturday, but Israel did not hand over more than 600 Palestinians it was expected to free in return. Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, blamed “Hamas’s repeated violations” such as “the cynical use of hostages for propaganda”. Officials said the prisoners would not be freed “until the release of the next hostages is guaranteed”.
In his annual letter to shareholders in Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett defended the size of the investment firm’s cash and its equivalents: $334.2bn at the end of 2024, after cutting back on equities. Shareholders should “rest assured” that Berkshire would “never” prefer cash to “good businesses”. Operating profits jumped by 71% in the fourth quarter, to $14.5bn, buoyed partly by higher profits from insurance underwriting.
Piers Litherland, a British archaeologist who announced on February 22nd that he had discovered the first rock-cut pharaoh’s tomb since Tutankhamun’s was identified in 1922, told the Observer that he had found a second tomb. Mr Litherland suggested that it probably contains the remains of Thutmose II, a young pharaoh who died in 1479BC and who also owned the tomb discovered earlier this month.
Word of the week: guang gun, a Chinese term meaning “bare branches”, used to describe unmarried men who are unable to continue their family line. Read the full story.
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