Editor’s Note: Join Fareed Zakaria on Sunday, April 6 at 8pmET/PT as he examines the long history of the conservative movement’s struggle to roll back government in “The War on Government: A Fareed Zakaria Special”.

When Donald Trump announced that he was creating the Department of Government Efficiency, I welcomed the initiative. Streamlining the federal government by having outsiders take a look was an excellent idea. And Elon Musk’s stated objective, to cut the budget by $2 trillion, while ambitious, would be a useful yardstick.

But DOGE began its work not by taking on the most logical targets if you were really looking for waste, fraud and abuse – places like Medicare and the Defense Department with their gigantic budgets. No, its first major target was a tiny agency most Americans had probably never heard of. The US Agency for International Development, whose total budget, around $40 billion, was less than 1% of federal spending. DOGE went after it with a brutality and glee that was stunning. Musk called it a “criminal organization.” Government officials who had spent years in foreign countries providing assistance to the poor were summarily fired and asked to return home. Medical and nutrition programs were cut off, with the likely consequence that, by some calculations, millions would get sick or starve.

What could explain this cruelty directed at people and programs that in budgetary terms were insignificant? DOGE seemed to understand the central challenge the right faces in its war on government. The real money is in the large programs that the public supports. So DOGE began its war by choosing a broadly unpopular item of government spending – on foreigners.

Musk and Trump delighted in listing all the fraud that they found, even though none of the projects they listed have shown any evidence of large-scale corruption. They were simply programs they knew many Americans would not want to fund – especially when they were mischaracterized.

DOGE did take on Social Security, but in a rather strange way. It claimed to find millions of dead people on its rolls. The implication was that these people were still getting payments. Actually,all they appear to have found were old personnel files in which dead people’s names had not been deleted – much like your rolodex or contact folder probably still has the names of people who are deceased. Almost none appear to be getting benefits. But again, it was a revealing strategy. Rather than talk seriously about changing Social Security – by means testing benefits or raising the retirement age – DOGE was promising that it could save billions by just cleaning up the personnel files.

Of course it’s possible to find savings in Washington. Former Vice President Al Gore’s Reinventing Government Commission saved the federal government around $140 billion dollars. But it worked in a manner that was almost the opposite of DOGE. It partnered with the agencies to identify redundancies, worked with Congress to change laws, and used a scalpel to trim fat. DOGE, on the other hand, has been doing mass firings without much consultation, so much so that its large-scale IRS firings could result in significantly lower tax revenues collected – which would raise the deficit.

DOGE has also been firing masses of workers. But the federal bureaucracy is small compared with other rich countries and is about the same size as it was 50 years ago.

It’s worth remembering where the money is. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and other mandatory spending like veterans’ benefits – along with defense spending and interest payments – make up around 85% of the budget. Much of this is efficient check writing, which doesn’t require much bureaucracy. The Department of Defense could be massively reformed, as the Trump administration has begun to do a little bit. But why does it have four air forces – the Army’s, Navy’s, Marines’, and Air Force itself?

If DOGE approached the problem as one does in the private sector, it would recognize there are two components to any deficit – how much you spend and how much you take in, in this case through taxes. America’s bloated national debt has a great deal to do with a series of tax cuts that began in the Reagan administration. By one estimate from a progressive think tank, the Bush and Trump tax cuts alone have added $10 trillion to the debt and account for 57% of the increase in America’s debt-to-GDP ratio since 2001. Bear in mind, that compared to other rich countries, the United States still has close to the lowest tax revenues as a percent of its GDP.

In that context, the simplest way for DOGE to achieve maximum success would be to recommend that the Trump tax cuts be allowed to lapse as they will under law, which would then reduce the debt by about $4.5 trillion over the next 10 years, vastly more than any plan the GOP seems willing to go through with to cut spending. That would take America back to the tax rates under former President Barack Obama, when the stock market more than doubled, and America grew faster than almost every European country. And it would put the US on a much more stable debt trajectory.

But don’t hold your breath on that happening. Far more likely, DOGE will announce some new stunning finding, something like software duplication in the Environmental Protection Agency, which might save the federal government $100 million – or .001% of the 2025 budget.

It’s eaten with almost every meal, used to make sushi, made into sweets, fermented into alcohol and offered to the spirits at religious ceremonies.

Rice is everywhere in the diet of Japan – there are at least six ways in Japanese to describe the grain, from unhusked to ready to eat. It’s so popular that McDonald’s there added a burger bun made of rice to its menu.

But being so reliant on the staple leaves the country – the world’s fourth-biggest economy – vulnerable to the slightest supply glitch.

In recent years, a combination of bad weather, heatwaves and the threats of typhoons and earthquakes have sparked bouts of panic-buying in the nation of 124 million people.

The average price of a 60-kilogram bag rose to around $160 last year – up 55 per cent compared to two years ago, according to government figures.

The situation has become so dire that the government announced in February that it would release 210,000 tons of rice – more than a fifth of what it holds in its contingency reserve – for auction. The first bags of the reserve rice have now gone on sale in supermarkets.

The government built its rice reserve in 1995, two years after an unexpected cool summer crippled rice harvests forcing it to import overseas grains.

It dipped into the store following the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in which 20,000 people died or went missing, and again following the deadly Kumamoto earthquake in 2016.

Other countries across Asia where rice is a staple, such as India, Vietnam and Thailand also hold rice stockpiles to shield their populations against shortages and price rises – which can spill into politics, like a recent surge in egg prices in the United States.

China also has a strategic reserve of the country’s favorite meat, pork, to deal with emergencies and stabilize prices when necessary.

In Japan, the first batch of 150,000 tons of rice went under the hammer last month, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

“Prices now are exceptionally high,” Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Taku Eto said ahead of the auction.

“But I urge everyone not to worry,” he added, saying that he expected the injection of rice into the market would mean prices “eventually come down.”

Eto also attributed the recent price hikes to a supply chain issue, saying that there was sufficient rice in the system, only that it has failed to reach the shelves in supermarkets, without specifying why.

But, in a country that is particular about its rice – with various prefectures competing against one another for the title of best rice in the country – some said they would rather sit this batch out, skeptical of the grain’s quality.

Uchibori said she stocked up on supplies in early March after reading about prices going up and hoped what she had would last until prices ease.

“But it doesn’t look like it will go back to its original price,” she said.

Yuko Takiguchi, 53, a part time worker, said she would pass on the auctioned rice unless it became significantly cheaper.

She said she wouldn’t mind forking out more for quality rice as the price of flour had also gone up, driving up costs for other staples such as bread, udon and pasta.

“I prefer rice as a staple food since it is more filling. Also, since I have school-age children, rice is essential for their lunch boxes,” she said.

Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian American teenager and wounded two others in the occupied West Bank on Sunday, according to Palestinian officials.

Ramallah Gov. Laila Ghannam said a 14-year-old Palestinian American boy was shot dead by Israeli troops in the village of Turmusaya. Two other Palestinian American boys, ages 14 and 15, were injured in the incident, according to Turmusaya Mayor Lafi Shalabi.

The Israeli military said its soldiers opened fire during a counterterrorism operation in Turmusaya when they saw three “terrorists who hurled rocks toward the highway, thus endangering civilians driving.”

The soldiers killed one and hit the other two, the military said.

The military shared a blurry video purportedly showing the incident, in which three barely visible figures appear. It said it would continue operating in the West Bank “to protect the residents in the area.”

The injured boys were shot in the abdomen, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society.

One severely injured boy and another with minor wounds were taken to a hospital in Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority health ministry said.

The killing or detention of American citizens in occupied Palestinian territories by Israelis and concerns about a lack of accountability date back years. In 2003, American activist Rachel Corrie, 23, was crushed by an Israeli army bulldozer while trying to block it from razing Palestinian homes in Gaza. Nine years later, an Israeli civil court ruled her death an accident.

In February last year, Florida-born US citizen Mohammed Khdour, 17, was killed by Israeli forces who shot him in the head while he was in his car. The teenager was taking the car out during a study break, snacking on chocolate waffles, posing for Instagram.

Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank have intensified since late January following the launch of an expanded military campaign there almost immediately after the Gaza ceasefire began. Since then, roughly 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced from their homes.

The Israeli military says it is targeting Palestinian militant groups who have mounted attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians, but Palestinians and human rights groups say the expanded assault is increasingly indiscriminate – killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure in a manner consistent with collective punishment. In late February, Israel deployed tanks to the occupied West Bank for the first time in two decades.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Rats don’t always have the best reputations, but one named Ronin with a super sense of smell is working to change that.

Ronin and his landmine-sniffing rat pack are making a name for rodents everywhere by saving innocent civilians from hidden explosives.

The African giant pouched rat recently set a new world record for the most landmines detected by a rat. Between August 2021 and February 2025, Ronin uncovered 109 landmines and 15 other pieces of unexploded ordnance in a region close to Siem Reap in Cambodia, according to Guinness World Records.

“Ronin’s achievements are a testament to the incredible potential of rats,” his main handler Phanny told the Guinness publication.

Landmines are a major issue in former conflict zones. The explosive weapons, hidden in the ground, are designed to injure or kill anyone who passes over them. In Cambodia alone, they have caused more than 65,000 deaths and injuries since the fall of the brutal Khmer Rouge regime in 1979, according to the Landmine and Cluster Munition Monitor.

Their use is controversial because of their indiscriminate nature and the threat they pose for decades after a conflict has ended, killing and maiming and hampering land development in war-ravaged areas.

They are also notoriously difficult and dangerous to detect. That’s where rats come in; their high intelligence, speed and keen sense of smell make them adept at identifying explosives. They are also too light to trigger landmines.

It’s crucial work. An estimated 110 million landmines are still buried in over 60 countries around the world, said landmine detection nonprofit APOPO. In 2023, landmines caused 5,757 casualties globally — 37% of which involved children, according to the 2024 Landmine Monitor.

Ronin is one of more than 100 rats trained by APOPO to detect the scent of the explosive chemicals and point landmines out to their handlers.

The rats are highly versatile and have also been trained to detect tuberculosis in medical settings, helping to prevent the spread of infectious disease.

The Belgian nonprofit’s team of landmine-sniffing rats can search an area the size of a tennis court in 30 minutes – something that could take a deminer with a metal detector up to four days.

Ronin, who is 5 years old and was born in Tanzania, is much larger than your average pet rat. He is more than 2 feet long – about the length of a cat – and weighs 2.6 pounds, according to APOPO.

Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province, where Ronin was deployed has one of the highest landmine densities in the world following decades of conflict in the 20th century, including heavy bombing by the US during the Vietnam War.

The US dropped 2.7 million tons of ordnance – including cluster bombs and submunitions – in a four-year carpet-bombing campaign in Cambodia. Up to a quarter of the cluster bombs failed to explode, meaning they stayed active and dangerous but out of sight, according to a 2019 report by the US Congressional Research Service.

Despite years of demining efforts, there are still an estimated 4 to 6 million unexploded landmines in Cambodia, according to APOPO.

Ronin claims the world record from Magawa, another rat trained by APOPO who identified 71 landmines and 38 pieces of unexploded ordnance during his five-years of service. Magawa passed peacefully in January 2022.

Israel’s military has transformed every bit of Gazan territory within about half a mile of the Israeli border into a wasteland.

Armored bulldozers have systematically leveled one home after another. Combat engineers have laid explosives and triggered controlled demolitions inside once-bustling factories. Troops have torn up and denied Palestinians any access to the fertile farmland that once sustained lives and livelihoods.

In its place, the Israeli military has established a roughly 1-kilometer-wide buffer zone (about 0.6 miles) from which it has banished Palestinians and killed or fired at those who do set foot within its unmarked perimeter – all of which it has never officially acknowledged.

These testimonies reveal Israeli military practices that arguably violate international humanitarian law and, in some cases are war crimes, according to international law experts.

When Sergeant 1st Class “A” arrived in the industrial zone of Gaza City’s Shujaiya neighborhood in December 2023, many of the warehouses and factories had already been destroyed. But others were still standing.

After initially deploying to Israeli communities along the Gaza border to shore up their defenses following Hamas’s October 7 attack, Sgt. “A” was sent to Shujaiya and tasked with protecting combat engineers as they bulldozed buildings and rigged others to explode.

The purpose of the destruction was quickly made clear to him and his fellow soldiers: Israel was enlarging the buffer zone separating Palestinians from Israeli communities along the Gaza border.

Before October 7, Israel restricted Palestinians from coming within 300 meters (around 980 feet) of the border fence. But after Hamas’s attack, Israel’s military brass soon put into motion a plan to expand that area to approximately 1 kilometer, establishing a clear line of sight through the expanded buffer zone by leveling territory ranging from 800m to 1.5 km from the border.

In testimony provided to Breaking the Silence, an Israeli watchdog group which vets and publishes military testimonials, multiple soldiers said they were told the mission was to dramatically expand the buffer zone, in order to prevent another border attack.

But international law experts say that justification likely fails to meet the bar of “military necessity” that must be met to justify the destruction of civilian property, likely putting Israel’s actions in violation of international humanitarian law.

“There needs to be a legitimate military objective and operational objective – and the only way to achieve it would be to destroy the civilian property. And so, at that scale, that’s simply not quite plausible,” said Janina Dill, co-director at Oxford University’s Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict.

Beyond potential violations of humanitarian law, the deliberate, widespread destruction of civilian property without a clear military necessity is a war crime, Dill said.

Lawrence Hill-Cawthorne, a professor of public international law at the University of Bristol, agreed there is a strong case that Israel’s widespread destruction of property is a war crime of wanton destruction, an accusation also leveled by Amnesty International and other human rights groups.

“(From) what I’ve seen so far – there’s no clear evidence of a military necessity, at least for the level of destruction that’s been caused by Israel,” Hill-Cawthorne said.

While the Israeli military has acknowledged destroying “terrorist infrastructure” in Gaza in order to improve security conditions for Israeli communities near the border, it has never publicly acknowledged a full-throated plan to destroy thousands of buildings to create a kilometer-wide buffer area inside the territory.

A Sergeant Major who was deployed to Khuza’a in southern Gaza, who also spoke to Breaking the Silence on condition of anonymity, said his brigade got its orders “from the division’s operations branch. It wasn’t some local intervention.” He and others also described the distribution of color-coded maps, marking varying levels of destruction so far achieved in the buffer zone.

The destruction in Khuza’a, which lies to the east of Khan Younis, is unmistakable in satellite imagery, with the destruction of hundreds of buildings cleaving a line marking the zone’s perimeter.

“Residential buildings, greenhouses, sheds, factories; you name it – it needs to be flat. That’s the order,” said the Sgt. Maj. in the 5^th infantry brigade who deployed to Khuza’a. “Except for that UNRWA school and that small water facility – for everything else, the directive was ‘nothing left.’”

The Israeli military has since destroyed more than 6,200 buildings in Gaza within 1 kilometer of the border, according to satellite analysis conducted by Corey Scher and Jamon Van Den Hoek, researchers at the City University of New York and Oregon State University.

Adi Ben-Nun, a researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said as of January, “all buildings in the buffer zone were demolished or heavily damaged.”

‘Kill zone’

For Palestinians, setting foot inside the buffer zone can be a death sentence.

Multiple soldiers described rules of engagement that authorized them to fire on Palestinians in the zone, regardless of whether they were armed or identified as combatants.

“The reservists also always raised questions over whether this was communicated to them (the Palestinians): ‘Do they know such a thing exists?’” the Sgt. 1st Class said.

He said commanders never provided a clear answer, but the reality was clear. “It’s not like they were told: The ridge before the border is (the line),” he said.

A Warrant Officer in the Armored Corps described Palestinians being shot for trying to pick khubeiza or mallow, an edible plant.

“People were incriminated for having bags in their hands,” the Warrant Officer told Breaking the Silence. “Guy showed up with a bag? Incriminated, terrorist. I believe they came to pick khubeiza, but (the army says), ‘No, they’re hiding.’ Boom.” He said a tank fired at them from about 800 meters, narrowly missing.

“A kill zone is in essence the announcement of a party to the war that they won’t take feasible precautions, that they won’t verify the status of an individual before attacking them. And that definitely violates international law,” said Dill, of Oxford University.

“Simply being present in a certain part of a combat theater does not amount to active participation in hostilities. And only active participation in hostilities makes a civilian lose their protection under international law.”

Hill-Cawthorne was equally unequivocal.

“A civilian does not lose their protected status, their immunity from attack merely because they enter an area that they’re not allowed or that they’re told not to enter,” Hill-Cawthorne said. “The only way in which people lose that immunity from attack is if they directly participate in hostilities.”

‘It was like paradise’

For 40 years, Abdul Aziz al-Nabahin grew olives, oranges and guavas on five acres of land he had inherited from his ancestors on the outskirts of Al-Bureij, in central Gaza – about 600 meters from the Israeli border.

His son Mahmoud recently married and had a 3-year-old daughter.

“It was like paradise,” al-Nabahin said. “We used to say, thank God. We were settled and satisfied.”

After being forced to flee earlier in the war, he returned to his farm during the January ceasefire only to find his home and farmland in ruins.

“We found the house destroyed. The trees were bulldozed,” he said. “We didn’t know where to sit, so we just stayed outside in the open.”

But he has lost so much more.

In late June, al-Nabahin said Mahmoud had gone to collect firewood near their home when he was killed. An Israeli tank shell struck him and his cousin, who was grievously injured but survived.

“The Israelis deliberately targeted them. They knew they were only collecting wood – not resisting or fighting. Just a cart with wood, clearly visible. Still, they were targeted,” al-Nabahin said.

“They kill anyone who goes there.”