Free Republic

On Monday, the new government of Syria canceled Russia's 49-year operating lease at the port of Tartus, bringing a multi-decade Russian naval presence in the Eastern Mediterranean to a close. A military cargo ship that had been loitering just off the coast has now berthed at the Russian naval pier, where military vehicles are staged for a likely evacuation. "According to the Director of Tartous Customs, the agreement signed with the Russian company to invest in Tartous Port has been canceled and all its revenues are now for the benefit of the Syrian state," reported local news agency Levant24.

The Archer Daniels Midland wet mill on the outskirts of Decatur, Ill., rises like an industrial behemoth from the frozen, harvested cornfields of Central Illinois. Steam billowed in the 20-degree cold last week, as workers turned raw corn into sweet, ubiquitous high-fructose corn syrup. Three miles away, a Primient mill, which sprawls across 400 acres divided by North 22nd Street, was doing the same. To Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald J. Trump’s nominee for secretary of health and human services, this bedraggled city — set deep in Trump country — is the belly of the agribusiness beast, churning out...