“Sudan’s prime minister has presented a plan to end the country’s nearly three-year war before the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), calling on members to stand ‘on the right side of history’ by backing the initiative, as fighting continued in Kordofan and North Kordofan states. Addressing the UNSC on Monday, Kamil Idris outlined the proposal that includes a ceasefire monitored by the UN, African Union and Arab League, and the withdrawal of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary from territory it controls. The plan would also see RSF forces, who have been engaged in fierce clashes with the Sudanese army since April 2023, being placed in camps and disarmed – a measure, Idris said, would be necessary for the truce to have any ‘chance for success.'” (12/23/25)
“From the moment you saw the speaker lineup at Turning Point USA’s year-end conference, the biggest national event for the organization since the assassination of its founder, Charlie Kirk, you could see the trouble waiting to happen. No, the group did not book podcaster Candace Owens, who has spun a seemingly endless variety of conspiracy theories around Kirk’s murder, insisting that the alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson, was merely a pawn of larger, more sinister forces. (In early October, Owens claimed that Kirk appeared to her in a dream and told her ‘that he was betrayed.’ It is very difficult to corroborate her sources.) But Turning Point did invite big-name podcasters such as Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly, who have steadfastly refused to utter a critical word about Owens’s unhinged rants and unfounded accusations.” (12/22/25)
“Patrick Hotze’s three daughters made it home safe from Camp Mystic after July’s catastrophic floods that killed 25 campers and two teenage counselors. He attended some of the funerals and says he understands the outrage over the Texas camp’s plan to partially reopen next year. He also intends to send his girls back. … For the first time since the roaring flood, the 100-year-old all-girls Christian sleepaway retreat plans to sign up campers in January, forging ahead with a reopening that has divided families and stunned some lawmakers. Campers will start arriving in May, bunking on higher ground than the area where fast-rising waters on the Guadalupe River swept away two cabins. Some families say the decision to let their daughters return is a vital step in their own healing from the disaster that is still under scrutiny.” (12/23/25)
“President Trump and his administration have recently lost numerous court cases, raising questions about the qualifications of his legal team. While I am not a lawyer, I believe one civil case involving his Mar-a-Lago estate could have been won if he had a competent economist on his team. President Trump was accused not of violence or theft, but of assigning a higher value to his own property than government officials and expert witnesses deem acceptable. If we scrupulously examine this court case in essence, we can see that it touches upon the main problem that occupied the minds of economists of the past, namely, what value is and how it is determined.” (12/22/25)
“President Donald Trump expressed sympathy Monday for powerful and influential people caught up in convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s orbit, including former President Bill Clinton, telling reporters that he doesn’t ‘like the pictures of other people being shown.’ … Photos included Epstein with well-known figures, including Trump, on his plane or at social events. Clinton has appeared in multiple photos that were released last week as part of the first batch of documents the DOJ made available. There has been ‘tremendous backlash’ to the documents, Trump said, because they’ve ensnared ‘people that innocently met Jeffrey Epstein years ago,’ including successful lawyers and businesspeople. … Trump briefly acknowledged that there were photos of himself included in the recent document dumps, but didn’t provide any details on his relationship with Epstein at the time, except to say that he threw him out of Mar-a-Lago.” (12/22/25)
“Russia hammered Ukraine with missiles and drones in a new air attack on Tuesday, authorities said, killing at least three people including a child and triggering emergency power cuts across the country as Ukrainians gear up to celebrate Christmas. Moscow’s latest combined strike hit energy facilities in western regions the hardest, said Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, and came days after another round of U.S.-led peace talks to end the nearly four-year-old war.” (12/23/25)
“Evita Duffy-Alfonso, the pregnant daughter of Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, tore into TSA last week over the abuse she suffered prior to a recent flight. Writing on X on Thursday, she called for abolishing TSA: ‘I nearly missed my flight this morning after the TSA made me wait 15 minutes for a pat-down because I’m pregnant and didn’t feel like getting radiation exposure from their body scanner. The agents were passive-aggressive, rude, and tried to pressure me and another pregnant woman into just walking through the scanner because it’s ‘safe.’ … Duffy-Alfonso’s condemnation of TSA is refreshing regardless of whether it spurs the Trump administration to repent. But the outrage that her comment evoked on Twitter does raise the question: How many Trump voters abandoned their opposition to unleashing federal agencies after Trump was back in the Oval Office?” (12/22/25)
