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.

NIGERIA - The US has carried out an air strike on Islamic State (IS) militants in Nigeria over claims the group had targeted Christians. The attack on the country’s north-west region was launched at the request of the Nigerian government, Donald Trump and the US military said on Thursday. “Tonight, at my direction as commander in chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against Isis terrorist scum in north-west Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing – primarily innocent Christians – at levels not seen for many years, and even centuries,” the US president said on his Truth Social platform. The strike killed multiple IS militants and was conducted after an appeal from Nigerian authorities, the US military’s Africa Command said on X. Mr Trump warned last month that Christianity faces an “existential threat” in Nigeria and vowed to intervene over what he described as the country’s failure to stop violence targeting their communities.

EUROPE - In the final working week before Christmas, EU leaders gathered for what was billed as a historic summit. The familiar platitudes were duly rehearsed. “Ukraine alone can determine the terms of peace,” they insisted, while gesturing towards progress on Kyiv’s EU accession. Yet behind the rhetoric, some of them – a few openly aligned with Moscow, others paralysed by fear – pushed back. The result was not resolve, but exposure: a Europe divided over how to confront the war reshaping its future. Nothing truly shifted.

UK - Man, having supposedly “killed God” sometime in the 20th century, now seems to miss him. The secularisation of the West left a void that states in the 20th century filled with a rights-based humanism of common purpose and shared endeavour. Today, that purpose has withered. Our loss of faith in God has been twinned with a loss of faith in each other. The void has opened up again and we are using technology to try and fill it. Having been dismissed as a relic from a bygone era, religion has returned in a thin, hollow version, shorn of wonder and purpose.

UK - An NHS boss has warned people with mental health problems to avoid using chatbots for support over Christmas. Dr Adrian James, the national medical director for mental health at NHS England, said using the technology as therapy “can be dangerous”. A survey published last month showed that more than a third of adults had turned to artificial intelligence for help with their wellbeing. “As a psychiatrist, I’ve seen an increase in the number of vulnerable patients turning to AI chatbots for mental health support over the last year,” Dr James said. “Despite AI now being part of everyday life and a fantastic resource when used appropriately, it cannot be relied upon for everything – and in some cases can be dangerous. The vast majority of AI chatbots do not have access to your mental health history, cannot fully understand the nuances during a serious mental health situation and can give completely wrong advice, especially when they’re led off their script."

USA - Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard claimed at a recent Turning Point USA AmericaFest event that the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called for Sharia Law in the US. "Earlier this year, there was a conference that was held representing organizations like the Council on American Islamic Relations, also known as CAIR, which issued a call to action to use American legal and political systems to implement Sharia law," she declared. Gabbard said the group’s ideology is “antithetical to the foundation that we find in our Constitution." Gabbard specifically criticized the city of Paterson, New Jersey, which calls itself the first Muslim City. Gabbard said the town is working to implement Islamic principles in the local government.

USA - 2025 has been a smashing year for those that invested in precious metals. The price of copper is up about 30 percent since the start of the year, and the price of silver has risen 128 percent during that same time period. The big financial institutions in the western world that have been attempting to suppress prices are fighting a losing battle, because the “AI revolution” is going to require vast amounts of physical silver and physical copper. At this stage, it would take a truly apocalyptic event to stop the construction of the thousands of colossal data centers that are currently going up all over the globe. At the same time, there has been a worldwide explosion in demand for physical silver from individual investors as paper currencies rapidly lose their purchasing power. And as long as the data center construction boom continues, the price of silver and the price of copper will both continue to rise.