“Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi was taken to hospital after being beaten when she was arrested last week, her family says. The 53-year-old human rights activist told them in a phone call on Sunday that she was brought to an emergency department twice after being ‘attacked by plain clothed agents with severe and repeated baton blows to the head and neck’, according to the Narges Foundation. There was no comment from Iranian authorities, but they have said she was detained for making ‘provocative remarks’ at a memorial ceremony in the city of Mashhad on Friday. The Nobel Committee and award-winning film-maker Jafar Panahi are among those calling for her release. Ms Mohammadi, the vice-president of the Defenders of Human Rights Center in Iran, was awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize for her activism against female oppression in Iran and promoting human rights.” (12/15/25)
“I write this from the front of a Columbia classroom in which about 60 first-year college students are taking the final exam for Frontiers of Science. Yes, it’s a Sunday, but the class is required of all Columbia College students and so having the exam on the weekend ensures that there won’t be conflicts with the exams for other courses they are taking. The 60 students in my classroom are a fraction of the nearly 740 taking the course this semester. The exam began at 2 pm, less than 24 hours after the shooting at Brown University, and just hours after many of us learned about the shooting in Sydney, Australia. Given these devastating events, I offered this morning that anyone who was adversely affected could take the exam later in the week …” (12/15/25)
“A near collision between a JetBlue commercial flight and US Air Force refuelling tanker near Venezuela is under review, US Southern Command told media on Monday. The passenger plane originating out of Curaçao halted its ascent in order to avoid hitting the military aircraft. The exact distance between the two planes remains unclear because the Air Force plane’s transponder – a device that transmits location information to air traffic controllers – was not on. JetBlue said in a statement to the BBC that its flight crew reported the incident to airline leadership and the carrier ‘will participate in any investigation’. The JetBlue plane was flying from Curacao, an island just off the coast of Venezuela, to New York.” (12/15/25)
“Gavin Newsom won headlines Friday after he trolled Elon Musk — by attacking his relationship with his children. ‘We’re sorry your daughter hates you, Elon’, the California governor’s press office posted on X. Yes, this is the same Gavin Newsom who recently said Democrats’ next presidential nominee needs to be ‘someone who is a repairer of the breach’. By that standard, he has disqualified himself. Newsom has spent much of the year trolling President Donald Trump, trying to match — or exceed — Trump’s provocative rhetoric. Last week, responding to a White House post of footage of criminal illegal aliens being arrested, Newsom posted an AI-generated video showing Trump handcuffed and crying on a street curb. Ironically, Newsom once boasted that he had banned such AI ‘deepfake’ videos. But a federal judge said Newsom’s ban violated the First Amendment. Now such videos are part of Newsom’s daily output.” (12/15/25)
“Prosecutors played audio recordings Monday as they tried to show jurors that a Wisconsin judge knew what was at stake last spring when she directed an immigrant to a private door while federal agents were in the courthouse to [abduct] the man. ‘I’ll get the heat,’ Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan told her court reporter as they discussed who would assist Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, according to courtroom audio. Dugan is on trial for obstruction and concealment, an extraordinary consequence of President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. There is no dispute that Dugan directed Flores-Ruiz to leave her courtroom through a private door after telling immigration agents to speak with the chief judge about trying to [abduct] him.” (12/15/25)
“Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino will make a decision about his future at the bureau within the next few weeks, two sources familiar with his considerations tell Fox News. The sources deny recent reports that Bongino’s office at the FBI is empty, but they say his departure is a possibility in the near future. A source familiar with the situation told Fox News Digital that Bongino has not made any decisions about his future. Bongino’s tenure at the FBI has come under fire in recent weeks, alongside FBI Director Kash Patel. Earlier this month, a report from an alliance of active-duty and retired FBI personnel portrayed the bureau as directionless under its new leadership. Bongino and Patel pushed back on the report, however, defending sweeping reforms they say have delivered major gains in accountability and public safety.” (12/15/25)
“In a rare display of North American harmony, President Trump, Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum, and Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney managed to rise above the FIFA 2026 World Cup draw’s cringeworthy game-show theatrics. There were no juvenile recriminations, new tariff threats, or provocations. Though the president showcased dance moves better left behind in 1978, the prime minister restrained himself. ‘It’s the first time I haven’t danced to the Y.M.C.A. when it came on, but there you go’, Carney confessed when he returned to Ottawa. Sheinbaum, sometimes called the ‘Trump whisperer’, emerged unscathed from her first in-person meeting with the president. As for Carney, Trump has described him as ‘a good man; and ‘a tough negotiator’. Even the leaders’ short tête-à-tête minus advisers avoided drama and left the world to decode whether the short meeting offered any bankable assurances that the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) will survive the Trump presidency.” (12/15/25)
“President Vladimir Putin is stalling efforts to end Russia’s war on Ukraine, and is testing the West with tactics that fall ‘just below the threshold of war’, the head of Britain’s MI6 spy agency said Monday. Blaise Metreweli said Putin is ‘dragging out negotiations’ on stopping the conflict, and remains determined to ‘subjugate Ukraine and harass NATO members’. ‘We are now operating in a space between peace and war,’ Metreweli said of the wider global threat landscape in her first public speech since becoming chief of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency two months ago. Metreweli accused Moscow of sponsoring cyberattacks on other countries’ critical infrastructure, drone incursions around European airports, campaigns of arson, sabotage and disinformation, and ‘aggressive activities in our seas, above and below the waves’.” (12/15/25)
“The government has been cracking down on the misuse of opioids, but the restrictions have gone too far, hurting ordinary Americans who need them. Approximately one quarter of the nation’s population suffers from pain. The latest assault, causing problems for those suffering, which includes many elderly people, is the Biden DOJ’s lawsuits against the pharmacies CVS and Walgreens for prescribing them. This has resulted in repeatedly denying those in pain the prescriptions their doctors wrote, forcing them to try to convince pharmacists who know nothing about their conditions that they’re not criminals, but patients in need of relief. The DOJ launched its nationwide case against CVS about a year ago. Today, we’re no closer to a resolution. The lawsuit alleged that CVS ‘knowingly filled prescriptions for controlled substances’, a dramatic headline that masks something much simpler, instead portraying it as far more dangerous.” (12/15/25)
“Before the end of the year, the Trump administration is planning to eliminate up to 35,000 healthcare jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs, a chronically understaffed agency that has already lost tens of thousands of employees to the White House’s sweeping assault on the federal workforce. The Washington Post reported over the weekend that the targeted positions (many of which are unfilled) include doctors, nurses, and support staff. A spokesperson for the VA, led by former Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA), described the jobs as ‘mostly Covid-era roles that are no longer necessary’. VA workers, veterans advocates, and a union representing hundreds of thousands of department employees disputed that characterization as the agency faces staff shortages across the country. ‘We are all doing the work of others to compensate,” one VA employee told the Post. ‘The idea that relief isn’t coming is really, really disappointing.'” (12/15/25)
