TAIWAN - China encircles Taiwan with live-fire drill as invasion panic grows. The drills came after Beijing expressed anger at US arms sales to the territory and a statement by Japan's prime minister. China has deployed land, air and sea assets for major joint military drills around the island of Taiwan. Beijing called the move a "stern warning" against separatist and "external interference" forces. Sanae Takaichi (Japan's prime minister) said Japanese forces could get involved if China were to take action against Taiwan, the self-governing island that the world's second-biggest economy says must come under its rule.

IRAN - The US, Israel and Europe have been warned. Iran President Masoud Pezeshkian said Saturday his country is in a full-scale war with all three ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s meeting on Monday with President Donald Trump. Pezeshkian said in an interview published on the website of the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the war is worse than Iran’s deadly war with Iraq in the 1980s, AP reports. “We are in a full-scale war with the US, Israel and Europe; they don’t want our country to remain stable,” he said. His words echo proclamations by Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) commander, General Hossein Salami, who has previously cautioned the West that death awaits it at the hands of a victorious Iranian regime.

ISRAEL - Israel has begun field deployment of its “game-changing” Iron Beam laser air defense system, according to the country’s Defense Ministry, which confirmed the technology is now operating as part of the country’s layered missile defense network, with its combat performance expected to inform US missile defense planning. The announcement, made Sunday, follows months of phased rollouts and testing by Israel’s defense establishment and domestic industry partners. Defense officials said the system is already being positioned at multiple sites nationwide. With deployment now underway and additional batteries planned, Israeli defense leaders say Iron Beam is moving from a wartime innovation to a central pillar of the country’s future air defense doctrine.

USA - I think that nearly the entire population of the world would like to see peace in 2026, but global events just continue to drag us toward war. I honestly do not understand why more people are not upset about this. The drumbeats of war seem to get louder with each passing day, and we are getting dangerously close to a point of no return. Nobody wanted World War I to happen, but once it started nobody could stop it and more than 20 million people died. Nobody wanted World War II to happen, but once it started nobody could stop it and more than 50 million people died. Now we have reached a stage where a war between major powers should be unthinkable because of the immense power of the weapons that we now possess. If we are not very careful, billions of people could die before World War III is finally over. The time to stop a war is before it starts. If we do not choose peace now, the consequences could be cataclysmic.

USA - Several cities worldwide are calling off their New Year's Eve festivities due to credible threats of terrorist attacks. This follows the FBI's thwarting of an alleged planned bombing attack in Los Angeles set for New Year's Eve. In Paris, the concert planned for New Year's Eve this year has been canceled, according to the local news outlet sortiraparis.com, which said was due to the request of the Paris police over security concerns. New Years Eve fireworks in Australia have been cancelled in the wake of the deadly Bondi Beach shooting earlier this month. The display was set to draw 15,000 people to Bondi Beach. Similar to Paris, officials in Tokyo cancelled the planned New Years Eve countdown Shibuya Station due to concerns about large crowd gatherings being a target for attacks and the potential for stampedes, according to local news outlet Japan Today.

USA - If you are having a really difficult time keeping up with the rapidly rising cost of living, you are certainly not alone. This year, “affordability” was a buzzword that was constantly on the lips of politicians, economists and talking heads on television. Americans are being slammed by rising prices from a multitude of directions. Meanwhile, “layoffs” has been another buzzword that has been widely used in 2025. Thanks to the rise of AI and our steadily deteriorating economy, we have seen far more mass layoffs this year than we did last year. Unfortunately, one survey has found that executives are gearing up for an even larger round in 2026. This is what happens when you flood the system with money and you go into unprecedented amounts of debt. Eventually a day of reckoning arrives.

USA - Silver surged past $75 per ounce for the first time in the overnight session leading into December 26, extending a powerful rally that has made it the strongest-performing precious metal this year, while gold and platinum also climbed to record highs, as investors bet on US interest rate cuts and grappled with tight supply and geopolitical uncertainty. Spot silver rose by as much as 2.4 percent to a record $75.62 and was at about $75.30 at 10:30 am EST on December 26. The metal is up by more than 150 percent so far this year, far outpacing gold’s gain of more than 70 percent. “We see gold prices hitting more record highs in 2026.”

THAILAND - President Donald J Trump has once again proven why the United States under his leadership is the world’s premier force for peace. Following weeks of renewed border clashes, Thailand and Cambodia signed a new ceasefire agreement, effectively halting the fighting and restoring adherence to the original treaty framework that President Trump helped broker earlier this year. This rapid resolution underscores the power of America First foreign policy: strong leadership, direct diplomacy, and leveraging US influence to prioritize peace and trade over endless conflict. While the ineffective United Nations dithers on major crises like Ukraine, President Trump has delivered tangible results — ending or halting eight major conflicts in just eleven months.

MIDDLE EAST - Here’s the thing everyone seems trained not to ask: What if the real issue isn’t poverty, colonial hangovers, or fringe extremists? What if the problem is that the West just refuses to take Islam seriously on its own terms? Despite the Bondi Beach catastrophe, this idea feels like a forbidden question, not because it’s disproved, but because admitting it would topple the moral worldview that the modern West has built. Our entire system of institutions, careers, and ideologies all rests on the belief that no ideology beyond liberal democracy could be truly incompatible with our values. Tear that down, and the whole story of constant progress crumbles. Islam isn’t just another religion quietly coexisting in people’s private lives, ticking off rituals. It demands more. It is a full package of theology, law, politics, identity, and ambition all wrapped into one. It doesn’t ask politely to coexist; it demands submission. That’s not spin; it’s literally how it defines itself.

USA - The US is undergoing its fastest religious shift in modern history, marked by a rapid increase in the religiously unaffiliated and numerous church closures nationwide. Why it matters: The great unchurching of America comes as identity and reality are increasingly shaped by non-institutional spiritual sources — YouTube mystics, TikTok tarot, digital skeptics, folk saints and AI-generated prayer bots. It's a tectonic transformation that has profound implications for race, civic identity, political persuasion and the ability to govern a fracturing moral landscape. About four in ten Americans ages 18 to 29 identify as religiously unaffiliated (38%), an increase from 32% in 2013, PRRI said. Around 57% of Americans today seldom or never attend religious services, a jump from 40% in 2000, per a recent Gallup survey. The shift in religious activity also is leaving behind a trail of "church graveyards," or empty buildings that are now difficult to sell or have been abandoned. The old religious map is disappearing. The new one — digital, more secular, decentralized and deeply fragmented — is only beginning to take shape.