Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at Background Briefing.org, I'm me and Masters,

and today we'll look into a number of stories and issues in the news.

We'll begin with the likelihood of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, expected to be

announced soon by President Biden and President Macron of France, once the Israeli Knesset has

voted to approve the 60-day ceasefire involving Hezbollah retreating to the north and Israel retreating in the south of Lebanon.

Joining us is Asha Kaufman, Director of the Crock Institute for International Peace Studies and a

professor of history and peace studies at the University of Notre Dame. Prior to that, he taught at Hebrew

University of Jerusalem, and he was a research fellow at the Harry S. Truman Research

Institute for the Advance of a Peace where he headed its Middle East unit. He's the author of

reviving Phoenicia, The Search for Identity in Lebanon, and his latest book is Contested

Frontiers, Cartography, Sovereignty, and Conflict at the Syria-Lebanon, Israel, tri-border region.

Then with Elon Musk musing with Donald Trump Jr. and Joe Rogan about buying MSNBC,

with Don Jr. joking about castrating Lawrence O'Donnell,

we'll examine the possibility of Trump taking a cue from Hungary's dictator Orban

to get his rich cronies to buy up TV networks to control and spread the government line.

Joining us is Natis Pawa, a writer for business and tech at Slate,

covering topics including social media, the financial industry, climate science to artificial intelligence.

His work has also appeared in the New York Times, Mother Joan Vox, NBC News and The Business

Insider, among others, and we'll discuss his latest article at Slate, cable TV is on its very last

legs. Next year may be the end. Then finally we'll assess the advance of

Christian nationalism in America's failing education system following Friday's vote of the Texas

State Board of Education to approve a Bible-infused curriculum for elementary school students.

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