Trump set to announce embassy move to Jerusalem

ISRAEL: U.S. President Donald Trump will give a statement later today on his plan to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as world and regional leaders puzzle over the change ahead of substantive negotiations on an Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative. Palestinians have long seen Jerusalem as the capital of a Palestinian state, and the dispute over the city has kept foreign diplomats in Tel Aviv since Israel’s founding in 1948. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the move cautious praise, while Palestinian leaders planned mass protests.

SAUDI ARABIA: A French-Saudi expedition has discovered some of the oldest Arabic inscriptions, and Christians likely wrote them.

IRAQ: Two more mass graves containing the bodies of 140 Yazidis have been found in Sinjar, where ISIS forced out the Yazidi population in 2014, bringing to nearly 50 the number of mass graves discovered in the region.

TURKEY: Today is St. Nicholas’ Day, and researchers believe they may have found a pelvic bone belonging to the gift giver.

MAP: John Sparks’ Histomap is an admirable attempt at making history more approachable—plus showing the United States’ small sliver in the stream of world history.

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