MIDDLE EAST - In the aftermath of the Israel-Hamas War, US and Israeli officials are increasingly diverging in how they assess Turkey’s regional role - a shift that has become more visible as Egypt and Turkey deepen military and security coordination after years of estrangement. That difference in approach now sits at the center of a growing US–Israel gap. While Washington has sought to widen the circle of regional partners involved in managing the postwar phase, Jerusalem has pressed to keep Turkey outside any framework that could shape Gaza’s future security order. “After the Gaza war, US and Israeli views diverge much more sharply on Turkey than on Egypt,” said Professor Chuck Freilich, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and a former deputy national security adviser. “For Washington, Turkey remains an ally. Israel, however, sees Turkey as a hostile state and is trying to keep it out of Gaza and out of security affairs more broadly.”

MIDDLE EAST - Neither Israel nor Iran wants war at the moment, nor do either of them want war for the foreseeable future. While neither side wants war, both suspect the other of being ready to launch a surprise attack. Israeli officials have been stating their readiness to strike Iran to try to deter it from rebuilding its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. And if Iran keeps building up its ballistic missile volume, Israel may again need to attack, whether that’s in three months, six months, or a few years. In the meantime, however, Israeli officials are now concerned that they may have intimidated Iran too aggressively, and are hoping that a recalibration can avoid an early war.

USA - President Donald Trump erupted against the New York Times on Tuesday, calling the left-leaning publication “a serious threat to the National Security of our Nation.” His comments come in the wake of a Times article linking Trump to Palm Beach pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, titled: “‘Don’s Best Friend’: How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women.” The Times reported: “The president has tried to minimize their friendship, but documents and interviews reveal an intense and complicated relationship. Chasing women was a game of ego and dominance. Female bodies were currency.” Investigative journalist Jack Cashill shredded the Times for its deceptive reporting, stating: "You would have to read deep into a lengthy December 18 New York Times article misleadingly titled, ‘Don’s Best Friend’: How Epstein and Trump Bonded Over the Pursuit of Women, before getting to the only finding that mattered: ‘An examination of their history by The New York Times has found no evidence implicating Mr Trump in Mr Epstein’s abuse and trafficking of minors.'"

UK - Children who sign up to the controversial puberty blockers trial will be told to consider freezing their eggs or sperm because of the risk posed to their fertility. Young people experiencing 'gender incongruence' who take part in the NHS-backed study will be offered expert advice on preserving their ability to become parents later in life - even though they will be as young as ten. Girls among the cohort will also be warned not to get pregnant in case the powerful drugs damage unborn babies. And they will be reassured that they will not be taken off the medication if they report 'upsetting' experiences – even though the main measure of the two-year clinical trial will be questionnaires asking participants how they feel.

UK - Shoppers have been taken aback by the appearance of Easter eggs on sale at a high street store – before Christmas has even taken place. A selection of the Easter treats have appeared at Poundland stores, with brands available including KitKat, Maltesers, Dairy Milk Buttons, Mini Eggs and Cadbury Crème Eggs. Customers questioned the seasonal mismatch on social media, with one in Sheffield saying: ‘*** he [Christ] hasn’t been born yet and they’re selling his resurrection.’ Others said ‘For **** sake… we haven’t had Christmas yet’, ‘Santa left quickly – now it’s the Easter bunny here’ and ‘My Halloween stuff is next.’

USA - An activist group steeped in legal battles over alleged support for Hamas announced its new DMV chapter on Sunday, expanding its presence around the nation’s capital. American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) will target schools and political institutions around Washington, DC, Maryland and Virginia to spread the cause of “Palestinian liberation,” the organization said in a statement. AMP faces an investigation by Republican Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares and several lawsuits alleging material support for terrorists... “From Gaza to the DMV, the movement for Palestinian liberation remains steadfast,” AMP said. “We are grounded in our duty to achieve Collective Liberation and resist every day until every inch of land, from the river to the sea, is liberated and returned to the Palestinian people. May Allah grant victory to the oppressed, protect the steadfast & allow us to witness a free Palestine within our lifetime,” the group declared.

VATICAN - Pope Leo XIV issued messages on Monday to the clergy in anticipation of the Christmas holiday, emphasizing the importance of friendship and community to sustain the work of the Church. The pope, serving during his first Advent as the Archbishop of Rome, addressed the Roman Curia on Monday, urging them to help build the “new humanity” heralded by the arrival of Jesus Christ among humanity. He warned of the potential of “rigidity or ideology” diluting the work of the Church and the detrimental effect of “the digital sphere and politics” in building connections of love between people. Pope Leo also published an Apostolic Letter reminding priests, bishops and deacons that their missions are “never a purely individual path” and “no shepherd exists alone.”

UK - While investigating everything from bizarre coincidences to ghoulish encounters, Sarah Knapton, our Science Editor, and Joe Pinkstone, our Science Correspondent, have found that apparently supernatural experiences tend to have perfectly rational explanations. Today, for a special Christmas edition, our duo weigh up an age old question: Is Santa Claus real?

UK - Answering questions at a conference recently on the implications of artificial intelligence, I realised there was only one answer to all of them: things could go very well, or alternatively very badly. We don’t know which. Could AI move us into a golden age of medical discoveries with new cures for terrible diseases? Yes, absolutely it could. Or could it be used to create deadly pathogens that wipe most of us out instead? Er, possibly. Might it lead to breakthroughs in developing nuclear fusion and thereby save the planet? Yes, let’s hope so. But could it consume so much energy in vast data centres that climate change gets even more out of control? Yes, that too.

CHINA - China expects to be able to fight and win a war on Taiwan by the end of 2027, a US report has found. Beijing is refining its military options to take the territory by “brute force” via tactics that could include launching strikes up to 2,000 nautical miles from China, the Pentagon said. The report into Chinese military ambitions, obtained by Reuters, noted that Beijing has probably loaded more than 100 intercontinental ballistic missiles across its new three silo fields. The findings will probably raise concerns in Washington after a US government assessment in November found that China would defeat the US military in a war over Taiwan. China, which views Taiwan as its own territory, has never ruled out using force to “reunify” with the island.

USA - The US will commission a new “Golden Fleet” of heavily armed Navy ‘battleships’ named after Donald Trump. The president announced that the laser-armed vessels would be the “largest battleships in the history of the world” to maintain his country’s military supremacy. He said construction on the Trump Class USS Defiant – the first US warship to be named after a sitting president – would begin soon, and it was expected to be operational within two and a half years. Mr Trump told reporters at Mar-a-Lago, Florida: “Each one of these will be the largest battleship in the history of our country, the largest battleship in the history of the world ever built. They’ll help maintain American military supremacy, revive the American ship-building industry and inspire fear in America’s enemies all over the world.”

USA - Administration says turbines can interfere with radar systems and potentially generate false targets. The Trump administration halted construction of five offshore windfarms, blaming national security fears. Doug Burgum, the secretary of the interior, said suspending the leases of the wind farms off the East Coast would address “emerging national security risks” and the “rapid evolution of relevant adversary technologies”. The department said the turbines can interfere with radar systems and potentially generate “false targets” and suspending the leases will enable the administration to work with developers and states to mitigate any security risks. Mr Trump has made no secret of his dislike of wind farms. At a rally in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania on December 9 he said: “Wind is the worst... That’s a scam. They ruin your valleys. They ruin your peaks. And [it’s] the most expensive energy.”

UK - An ex-neighbour of mine came up to me in our local shop. “Just wanted to tell you to keep going,” he said. He is a GP. “I agree with you on all the gender stuff. But we are having real difficulty with some of the younger doctors.” This kind of thing happens to me a lot – approaches from individuals who have not bought into gender self-ID nonsense and explain to me that they work for institutions that are riddled with it. Like the NHS. They are forever given rules and guidelines and the possibility of sanctions if they do not adhere to policies produced by a lanyard class who never goes near an actual patient. There are so many things that need repairing in our health service right now that fiddling at the outer edges of trans ideology feels deliberately obtuse. Such fiddling never stops but its purpose these days is to find ways to defy the Supreme Court ruling on the legal definition of a woman. Presumably the correct gender here means whatever that person feels themselves to be that day? Medical staff, then, are not only meant to accommodate a delusion but will be in trouble if they don’t.

UK - Non-crime hate incidents are to be scrapped under plans that police chiefs will present to the Home Secretary next month. Police leaders have decided that NCHIs are no longer “fit for purpose” after warnings that recording them undermines freedom of speech and diverts officers away from fighting crime. Under the plans, NCHIs will be replaced with a new “common sense” system, where only a fraction of such incidents will be recorded under the most serious category of anti-social behaviour. An NCHI falls short of being criminal but is perceived to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards a person with a particular characteristic. They stay on police records indefinitely and can come up in background checks.

EUROPE - Ten years after the arrival of a million migrants ushered in the era of closed borders and paved the way for the rise of the political right across Europe, the Syrians and Afghans who changed the face of the Continent are going home. The overall trend in migration into Europe is down and likely to drop again next year, officials from UN agencies and Frontex, the EU border force, told the Times. The reasons? Governments sealing their borders and the toppling of the Assad dictatorship in Syria. Nearly 711,000 Syrians have returned home since Assad fell last December, and asylum requests made by Syrians in the EU, Norway and Switzerland fell from 16,000 in October last year to 3,500 in September this year. “Two thirds of the drop-off in arrivals this year is due to Syrians no longer coming,” a Frontex source said.