“The highest-ranking Minnesotan in Congress is demanding accountability for anyone who was involved in or aware of the growing social services fraud scandal in the Gopher State. ‘I think as they start to peel this onion back, which just seems to be getting deeper and deeper and broader and broader, whoever was responsible needs to be held accountable,’ House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, the No. 3 House Republican, told Fox News Digital. It comes after U.S. attorneys suggested that Minnesota social services programs could have seen potentially billions of dollars’ worth of fraud and abuse since 2018.” (12/22/25)
“Israeli forces have stormed towns in the occupied West Bank and demolished a residential building. Soldiers fired stun grenades and tear gas on Monday as they carried out the demolition in East Jerusalem. Palestinian officials accused Israel of a campaign of displacement in the city, saying the operation was part of a systematic attempt to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from their land. Scores of Palestinians were displaced as Israeli bulldozers tore through a four-storey residential building. Activists called it the largest such demolition in the area this year.” (12/22/25)
“Italy’s antitrust authority fined Apple 98.6 million euros ($116 million) on Monday after determining that operating one of its privacy features restricted App Store competition. Apple said it would appeal the sanction. Apple abused its dominant position with its App Tracking Transparency, ATT, policy, which forces apps to obtain permission before collecting data to target users with personalized ads, the antitrust authority said in a statement. The company rolled out ATT starting in April 2021 as part of an update to the operating system powering the iPhone and iPad. While the feature was designed to tighten up privacy, it faced criticism from Big Tech rivals that it would make it harder for smaller apps to survive without charging consumers. The authority didn’t criticize the policy per se, but the fact that the Apple system requires third-party app makers to ask users for consent twice in order to comply with Europe’s strict privacy rules.” (12/22/25)
“The State Department’s independent watchdog is reviewing a request from two Democratic senators to investigate whether Trump officials broke ethics rules in connection with deals involving the United Arab Emirates, according to correspondence shared with Semafor. The department’s inspector general wrote to Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., this month confirming that it was evaluating their request for an investigation of the involvement by Trump aides Steve Witkoff and David Sacks in a decision to allow the export of advanced US-made chips to the UAE. Witkoff and Sacks’ work on the issue drew scrutiny from the senators as a result of their reported financial ties to the UAE in the cryptocurrency space.” (12/22/25)
“A Russian general was killed Monday after a bomb exploded under his car in Moscow, officials said. Russian investigators said they were looking into whether Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov was assassinated by Ukrainian intelligence services. NBC News has asked the Ukrainian government for a response. Sarvarov, 56, was head of the operational training directorate of Russia’s armed forces general staff. … If confirmed, it would not be the first time Ukraine has carried out the assassination of a top general deep inside Russia. In April, it claimed responsibility for killing Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik in a car bomb near the Russian capital. And in December 2024, it said it was behind the death of Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s chemical, radiological and biological weapons unit.” (12/22/25)
“The U.S. Coast Guard is pursuing an oil tanker in international waters near Venezuela, officials told Reuters on Sunday, in what would be the second such operation this weekend and the third in less than two weeks if successful. ‘The United States Coast Guard is in active pursuit of a sanctioned ‘dark fleet’ vessel that is part of Venezuela’s illegal sanctions evasion,’ a U.S. official said. ‘It is flying a false flag and under a judicial seizure order.’ … British maritime risk management group Vanguard, along with a U.S. maritime security source, identified the vessel as Bella 1, a very large crude oil carrier that was added last year to the sanctions list of the U.S. Treasury Department, which said the vessel has links to Iran.” (12/22/25)
“Reps. Ro Khanna (D-California) and Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) said Sunday that they will seek to find Attorney General Pam Bondi in contempt of Congress for not releasing more documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. … Khanna and Massie wrote legislation that passed Congress nearly unanimously and was signed by President Donald Trump last month requiring the Justice Department to release a trove of Epstein files in its possession within 30 days. … Khanna said in an interview with The Washington Post that he and Massie were pursuing contempt findings because the measure would take effect when it got through the House and would not need to go through the Senate. He said they were likely to give Bondi a 30-day grace period and then start fining her daily until she released all the records.” (12/21/25)
“Israel’s security cabinet has approved the recognition of 19 new [squats] in the occupied West Bank as the government continues its settlement expansion push. Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler who proposed the move alongside Defence Minister Israel Katz, said the decision was about blocking the [geographic coherence of the] Palestinian state. Israeli [squats] in the occupied West Bank are considered illegal under international law. … Since taking office in 2022, the current Israeli government has significantly increased the approval of new [squats]s and begun the legalisation [sic] process for unauthorised outposts, recognising them as ‘neighbourhoods’ of existing settlements.” (12/22/25)
“The former Cleveland officer who fatally shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice in 2014 was fired from his post as a ranger at a West Virginia resort community, the fourth known time in seven years that he left a small department following public backlash. Timothy Loehmann was fired on Friday from his position at the Snowshoe Resort Community District (SRCD). The district’s board announced Loehmann’s firing in a statement following their emergency meeting. A Cleveland-based attorney for Rice’s family, Subodh Chandra, said that ‘Loehmann’s determination to inflict himself on other people seems pathological. So does the craven poor judgment required by any public officials who hire him.'” (12/21/25)
“Lawyers for Luigi Mangione on Friday renewed and expanded their effort to have the death penalty thrown out in his case, arguing Attorney General Pam Bondi has a disqualifying financial conflict of interest. In court filings reviewed by Fox News Digital, the defense argued that Bondi’s calls for the death penalty following Mangione’s arrest were improper because she was previously a partner at Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm that represented UnitedHealth Group, the parent company of slain CEO Brian Thompson. The defense argues Bondi continues to receive financial benefits through Ballard’s profit-sharing plan and should have recused herself from any role in the case. … Bondi announced in April that she was directing Manhattan federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty, declaring even before Mangione was formally indicted that capital punishment was warranted for what she called a ‘premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.'” (12/20/25)
