“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 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)
“The U.S. military struck an alleged drug-trafficking boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Monday, [murdering] one ‘narco-terrorist.’ U.S. Southern Command (Southcom) shared a 27-second video of the strike on X, adding that the vessel was ‘operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters’ and was ‘transiting along known narco-trafficking routes’ in the eastern Pacific. No U.S. military forces were injured in the latest operations, Southcom noted. The U.S. military has now conducted a minimum of 27 strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea since early September, [murdering] at least 105 people.” (12/22/25)
“The Federal Communications Commission on Monday said it would ban new foreign-made drones, a move that will keep new Chinese-made drones such as those from DJI and Autel out of the U.S. market.
The announcement came a year after Congress passed a defense bill that [pretended there are] national security concerns about Chinese-made drones …. The bill called for stopping the two Chinese companies from selling new drones in the U.S. if a review found they posed a risk to American national security. The deadline for the review was Dec. 23. The FCC said Monday the review found that all drones and critical components produced in foreign countries, not just by the two Chinese companies, posed ‘unacceptable risks to the national security of the United States and to the safety and security of U.S. persons.'” (12/22/25)
“Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer plans to force a vote on a measure to allow the chamber to jump-start litigation against the Trump administration for failing to comply with the new law requiring the full release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. ‘The law Congress passed is crystal clear: release the Epstein files in full so Americans can see the truth,’ the New York Democrat said in a statement Monday. ‘Instead, the Trump Department of Justice dumped redactions and withheld the evidence — that breaks the law. Today, I am introducing a resolution to force the Senate to take legal action and compel this administration to comply.’ … It’s unlikely that enough Republicans would join Democrats in supporting the measure, but Schumer intends to put his colleagues on the spot in January, bringing the resolution to the floor when the Senate reconvenes after the holiday recess.” (12/22/25)
“South Korea’s rival political parties are set to appoint special prosecutors to investigate allegations that the Unification Church bribed and lobbied politicians across the ideological divide, a rare move that observers have said could test the country’s constitutional separation of religion and politics. On Monday, the ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) said it would accept a proposal from the conservative opposition People Power Party (PPP) for the team of special prosecutors to investigate the church’s alleged political influence. The decision marks a turnaround for the DPK, which has previously opposed the idea, and reflects growing public pressure to launch an inquiry to examine politicians from both ruling and opposition parties over their supposed links to the Unification Church.” (12/22/25)
“The Trump administration is recalling nearly 30 career diplomats from ambassadorial and other senior embassy posts as it moves to reshape the U.S. diplomatic posture abroad with personnel deemed fully supportive of President Donald Trump’s ‘America First’ priorities. The chiefs of mission in at least 29 countries were informed last week that their tenures would end in January, according to two State Department officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal personnel moves.” (12/22/25)
It’s a “Hybrid Tuesday” — a full email and social media edition, plus another 30 or so news stories, opinion pieces, and audio/video links here on the web. Enjoy!
On Monday, December 23, 2002, Rational Review News Digest published its first daily edition — Steve Trinward, Mary Lou Seymour, R. Lee Wrights, Brad Spangler, and I stepped in to replace Freedom News Daily, which had shut down the previous Thursday after its publisher, the Henry Hazlitt Foundation, shut down without notice. Two years later, the International Society for Individual Liberty (now Liberty International), which had taken over FND, asked us to start publishing it for them, and we have ever since. Happy birthday to us …
… and THANK YOU to HH, T, and GB, whose donations yesterday, totaling $145, bring our year-end fundraiser total to $2,353.84!
HH writes “I’ll match ‘RB’ and add a second $100 to my donation from July.” HH has sent us $100 a year for years, and can never know how much we appreciate him for that support.
T is a long-time “subscribing contributor” who decided to throw in with some extra support, for which we’re extra-grateful.
GB writes “Keep up the good work! (Would love it if the editorials were a little less conservative).” THANK YOU, GB, and we’ll continue to work on perfecting our content balance. We look for things that libertarians will find interesting — libertarian material, but also “left” and “right” content that’s good for a think or an argument. It’s a moving target, but we’ll always chase it.
“China on Monday criticized the U.S.’s seizures of oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela and accused Washington of breaking international law amid reports that the U.S. Coast Guard was pursuing another sanctioned oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea after seizing two others this month. In a press briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lin Jian said: ‘The U.S.’s arbitrary seizure of other countries’ vessels is a serious violation of international law,’ adding that China ‘opposes illegal unilateral sanctions … without authorization from the UN Security Council.'” (12/22/25)
