Welcome to Scoop, where you get the scoop on this week's news. My name is Jenna, and this is

Smarter News. Hi, everybody. Congress is back in session and ready for a fight. Cabinet members

head to the Hill to be back in the hot seat, and it turns out the de-weaponization fund that the Justice Department recently announced with the Trump family may not be the biggest story of them all when it comes to the major settlement that we've been covering over the last several weeks. I'll explain all of that. We're going to unpack all of that. I'm glad to see you today. Thank you for joining us at Smarter News. We're about quick and concise nonpartisan news, but occasionally we need to chat a little bit

further, a little bit more in depth, and that's what we're going to do today because there is

one word that comes up when I think about this week and what's happening with the news on multiple

fronts. And that one word is escalation. We're seeing escalation of several stories abroad and here at home. And whether or not that escalation leads to more conflict is a question. In fact, there are some that believe you need that pressure to actually make movement on negotiation and compromise. That's one way to look at it. Of course, the risk is always that

more escalation leads to more escalation, which leads to more conflict. But let's keep both of

these things in our hands together as we look at some of the news stories in front of us,

because they can go multiple directions, even if I say, you know, escalation is actually

the word that we're thinking most about.

So first, let me just start overseas just real quickly here because it's a story that I saw

reading in the New York Times, an actual physical newspaper. I know that's shocking.

I walked all over Newark Airport yesterday looking for one. I find an airplane is a great

place to actually read a newspaper, like an old, old-fashioned newspaper, you know, remember back in the day when we had those things? Anyhow, still have a newspaper, still want to support those that continue to print. So I walked over and found, you know, a print of the New York Times. And hidden in the New York Times several pages back was this particular story. And I thought this is

something that I want to make sure. It's something I missed last week. And I want to make sure that

you don't miss it as well. So let's talk about escalation when it comes to what's happening

between Russia and Ukraine. We saw a drone strike that happened in Romania. Romania is bordering

Ukraine. Romania is also a member of the European Union. It's also a member of

NATO that's going to be really important in a moment. As you know, there's constant fighting between

Russia and Ukraine, and we do see at times threats extend over the borders. So we're seeing Ukraine

become more aggressive moving farther into Russia with

some of their attacks. And then occasionally you see Russian drone strikes or strikes that are

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