This week, Erin and Jake talked about the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has escalated with the rebel group M23 capturing the city of Goma. The roots of the conflict are complex, stemming from arbitrarily drawn African national borders by European colonizers. This has led to disputes between tribal and religious groups within the same country and is also a factor in the Rwandan genocide. The M23 group, formed to protect Tutsi people, has reignited violence in the resource-rich eastern DRC, leading to mass casualties and a humanitarian crisis, and prompting international calls for action. There are also reports that the fighting has caused water and electricity supplies to the city to be cut off.

Then they moved to the US, where newly inaugurated President Trump signed a series of executive orders on immigration, including one that seeks to revoke birthright citizenship for children of undocumented parents and halting all refugee admissions. Trump has framed immigration as a national security issue, granting the president more unilateral power. The immigration policies led to a recent diplomatic breakdown between the US and Colombia over deported Colombians sent on military planes. The issue was resolved through diplomatic channels. 

Then, some financial news. A Chinese startup, DeepSeek, launched an AI chatbot at a fraction of the cost of its US competitors, sparking concern in the US tech and stock markets. DeepSeek says that it only needed $6 million to train their chatbot, compared to the $100 million needed to train ChatGPT. The AI model is comparable to the industry leaders in the US, on par with Google and OpenAI, and it has raised questions about the US's ability to keep up in this market, with Nvidia, a major processor manufacturer, seeing the largest single-day drop in market history. But while China has global ambitions for AI, their censorship standards may end up being the challenge that slows them down.

Other global headlines from the week include Denmark bumping up military spending for the defense of Greenland after Trump's comments about taking it by force, the Serbian PM resigning after months of protests, and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko claiming victory in an election which was called a sham by Western governments. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he will cover the US contribution to the UN's climate body after Trump withdrew the US from the Paris agreement in his first day in office. Displaced Palestinians have begun returning to Northern Gaza, many of them to destroyed homes, and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz was marked on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Finally, Thailand has become the first country in SE Asia to recognize marriage equality for same-sex couples, with hundreds of couples getting married to celebrate.

Stay With Me Here is an independent project, and all views and opinions expressed in this show, and in this writeup, represent our personal views and not that of any organization we’re affiliated with. 

Erin Flanagan is a former U.S. Coast Guard intelligence officer and Agence France-Presse digital investigations journalist.

Jacob Shropshire is an editorial intern at Worldcrunch and the managing editor of Peacock Media at the American University of Paris. He spent two years working for Democratic political campaigns in the US.