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 it was due to the request of the Paris police over security concerns. New Year's 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 Year's 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.

EUROPE - We're on the brink of a historical turning point... We're on the brink of a historical turning point... and it should terrify us. The old world order has ended. We're on our own. This was the year the old world order ended. The order that had defeated Nazi Germany, the greatest evil the modern world has known, then went on to see off Soviet communism – the other great evil of the age. The order that rebuilt – from the carnage, ruins and dictatorships of the Second World War – prosperous Western European democracies. Then embraced the new democracies of Eastern Europe as they threw off their communist yoke. The order that, for all its many lapses in living up to its principles, placed liberal democracy, human rights and the prosperity of the people at the core of its purpose, leading to the greatest rise in global living standards these past eight decades the world has ever known.

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.

JAPAN - “If you want peace, prepare for war” is a Latin credo attributed to Roman writer Vegetius. Japan has heeded that advice, announcing Friday it has approved a record defense budget plan exceeding 9 trillion yen ($58 billion) for the coming year. The spending aims to fortify Japan’s strike-back capability and coastal defense with cruise missiles and unmanned arsenals as tensions rise in the region, AP reports. The draft budget for fiscal 2026 beginning April is up 9.4 percent from 2025 and marks the fourth year of Japan’s ongoing five-year program to double annual arms spending to two percent of gross domestic product. The AP report notes the increase comes as Japan increasingly looks to the US as it faces elevated aggression from Communist China.

ISRAEL - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Wednesday that Israel will invest roughly $110 billion over the next decade to build an independent domestic arms industry, declaring that the Jewish state must “reduce the dependency on any party, including allies,” after repeated weapons restrictions imposed during wartime. Speaking at a graduation ceremony for Israeli Air Force pilots, Netanyahu said he approved, together with the defense and finance ministers, a NIS 350 billion (about $110 billion) multi-year plan aimed at ensuring Israel can arm itself independently while maintaining its battlefield edge. “We will continue to acquire essential supplies while independently arming ourselves,” Netanyahu said. “I don’t know if a country can be completely independent, but we will strive to ensure our arms are produced as much as possible in Israel.” “Our goal,” he added, “is to build an independent arms industry for the State of Israel and reduce the dependency on any party, including allies.”

USA - This year silver has been on the greatest bull run that we have ever seen. It is up an astounding 166 percent since January 1st, and so those that purchased it long ago and stuck with it are really loving life right now. If you check the latest numbers ...the price of silver has already surpassed 80 dollars in Shanghai. I know that I have been using the word “crazy” a lot lately, but without a doubt what we are witnessing at this moment is truly “crazy”. This is the first time in world history that all of the major powers are facing a nightmarish debt crisis simultaneously. For the year, the US dollar index is down about 10 percent… Please keep in mind that the other currencies that the US dollar is being measured against are rapidly losing value as well. It is just that the US dollar is losing value even faster. The US dollar is certainly not dead yet, but the fact that it is in the process of dying should deeply alarm us. Many are anticipating a great deal of financial chaos in 2026, and at this stage it is hard to argue that they are wrong.

USA - For much of the past year, America’s largest food manufacturers haven't been able to rebut Robert F Kennedy Jr's repeated claims that ultraprocessed foods are making Americans sick - something most Americans believe. So instead of even trying to pretend their products are even the slightest bit healthy, the industry appears to have settled on a narrower counterargument; Yes, the food may be bad for you, but it's CHEAP! And in an era when grocery bills have become a political liability (and who cares about the long-term drag on the healthcare system), that may be defense enough. At his confirmation hearing, he contrasted the ingredient lists of American products with their counterparts abroad. “If you buy McDonald’s french fries in our country, there’s 11 ingredients,” he said. “If you buy Froot Loops in our country, they’re loaded with food dyes—yellow dye, red dye, blue dye.” For now, the industry’s most persuasive response to being accused of poisoning Americans is not a denial. It is a reminder that the poison, at least, is cheap.

USA - Four people have died during an “atmospheric river storm” that has swept across California, triggering floods and mudslides and forcing hundreds to evacuate their homes. Large parts of the state have been drenched for the past week, with mud and debris filmed cascading down roads in one mountain resort. Gavin Newsom, the state’s governor, declared a state of emergency for Los Angeles and five other counties in southern California on Wednesday as millions celebrated Christmas. Parts of northern California, including San Francisco, are also under wind advisories with potential for gusts of up to 100mph in mountainous areas.

USA - It's almost as much a Christmas tradition as eggnog and Rankin/Bass - The political left's propaganda disparaging Noel appears like clockwork every December. The disinformation campaigns against Christmas have been so effective in the past that there are even groups of Christians that actually believe the same nonsense and repeat it as if they have discovered some fantastic conspiratorial secrets that only "true Christians" know. Let's examine some of these lies and why they are historically inaccurate.