USA - The Golden State has decided to scrap the First Amendment with the passage of a new resolution that forbids religious leaders from opposing homosexuality from the pulpit. Evan Low and three dozen other members of the California State Assembly were successful in passing ACR 99, as it’s officially called, which dictates that Christian pastors and others must affirm the religion of LGBTQ before their congregations, even when doing so violates their own beliefs and convictions. With the help of Dr Kevin Mannoia, Azusa Pacific University‘s current chaplain and the former head of the National Association of Evangelicals, ACR 99 passed with flying colors, effectively stamping out religious freedom in California with the stroke of a pen.

UK - Veganism is a philosophical belief and is therefore protected by law, an employment tribunal has ruled. The landmark case was brought by Jordi Casamitjana who said he was sacked by the League Against Cruel Sports after raising concerns its pension fund was being invested into companies involved in animal testing. He claims he was unfairly disciplined for making this disclosure and that the decision to dismiss him was because of his philosophical belief in ethical veganism.

AUSTRALIA - Tennis great and long-time gay rights activist Martina Navratilova has attacked Margaret Court’s views on transgender athletes, saying the sport shouldn’t feel the need to publicly recognise the Australian’s achievements in view of her beliefs. The 77-year-old, who won a record 24 Grand Slam tennis singles titles, made the comments while giving a sermon at her Victory Life Church in the Australian city of Perth.

ZIMBABWE - Millions of Zimbabweans pushed into hunger by prolonged drought and economic crisis face an increasingly desperate situation Zimbabwe has seen drastic price increases - bread now costs 20 times what it cost six months ago, while the price of maize has nearly tripled over the same period. This year’s maize harvest was down 50 percent on 2018, with overall cereal output less than half the national requirement. “As things stand, we will run out of food by end of February, coinciding with the peak of the hunger season – when needs are at their highest,” said Niels Balzer, WFP’s Deputy Country Director in Zimbabwe.

UK - The UK has prepared its military in the Middle East as fears of World War 3 heighten following Washington's airstrikes which killed Iranian General Qasem Soleiman. The Iranian foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, wrote on Twitter: “The US' act of international terrorism, targeting & assassinating General Soleimani — THE most effective force fighting Daesh (ISIS), Al Nusrah, Al Qaeda et al — is extremely dangerous & a foolish escalation."

USA - On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Ingraham Angle,” House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (Republican for Louisiana) stated that the strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, the leader of Iran’s Quds Force “sent a strong message to Iran and any other terrorists around the world, this is serious business. If you come after America, we’re going to come after you with lethal strength and overwhelming strength.” Scalise said, “He won’t be able to kill anybody else. Because he’s been taken out. President Trump, I think, has sent a strong message to Iran and any other terrorists around the world, this is serious business. If you come after America, we’re going to come after you with lethal strength and overwhelming strength.”

USA - Representative Michael Waltz (Republican for Florida) on Thursday called for more “force” to push back against Iran following the US Embassy attack in Iraq. Waltz applauded President Donald Trump’s actions thus far but said Iran needs to be held “directly accountable,” adding the best way to get a “bully” to stop is to fight back. “We need to hold Iran directly accountable whether that’s through cyber or through sanctions or through even more direct means, but Iran will not back down until – you know, it’s like a bully – until it’s faced with force, it’ll continue to do this,” Waltz told “Fox & Friends.”

IRAN - Iran was not seeking war but remained unafraid of any potential future conflict, a top Iranian commander said on Thursday, after US President Donald Trump said Tehran orchestrated anti-US protests in Iraq. Trump accused Iran of driving mass demonstrations at the US embassy in Baghdad on Tuesday and said Tehran would be held responsible.

IRAN - Iran's supreme leader today hit back at the US and warned his country would not hesitate to strike after Donald Trump said Tehran would pay a 'big price' for Hezbollah's assault on the American embassy in Baghdad. 'I and the government and the nation of Iran strongly condemn this American crime,' Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said of US strikes which killed 25 members of Kataeb Hezbollah in Iraq on Sunday night.

VATICAN - Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, the Vatican’s former doctrinal czar, warned against Catholics who long for a “meta-religion” of world unity in a January 1 homily in Phoenix. Some Catholics want the Church to modernize, abandoning its doctrines for the sake of building a “new religion of world unity,” Müller warned thousands of Catholics gathered in Phoenix for the 2020 Student Leadership Summit hosted by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS). “In order to be admitted to this meta-religion, the only price the Church would have to pay is giving up her truth claim,” the cardinal told the students. “No big deal, it seems, as the relativism dominant in our world anyway rejects the idea that we could actually know the truth and presents itself as guarantor of peace between all world views and world religions.” The post-Christian world welcomes these efforts to remake the Church “as a convenient civil religion,” Müller said.

USA - Sarah Hurwitz, a former speechwriter for Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Barack Obama, and Michelle Obama, described the “original version[s] of the Constitution” and the Old Testament as “evil” and “an abomination” in an interview with David Axelrod, chief strategist of Barack Obama’s two presidential campaigns and a senior advisor to the president during the first term of the Obama administration.

HURWITZ: “The Torah, which is the first five books of what Christians call the Old Testament, it’s 2,500 year old. News flash, it’s really old. Constitution, more than 200 years old. If we lived by the original version of the Constitution, that would be evil. It would be an abomination."

MIDDLE EAST - It doesn't take a crystal ball to see that the Middle East's 2020 will be tumultuous. Libya's civil war has taken a dangerous turn, with Russian mercenaries and Turkish forces joining the fray as General Khalifa Hifter's forces push into the capital. Yemen's still ravaged by economic blockade and war, despite recent efforts on all sides to de-escalate the conflict. Syria's civil war continues to metastasize, with a massive new wave of refugees fleeing violence in Idlib. Large-scale popular protests are challenging Iraq's government, which is bracing for fallout from the growing confrontation between the United States and Iran. Israel and the Palestinian territories could dramatically change their relationship, as the prospects of a two-state solution dissolve. And protest movements throughout the region could shake up half a dozen regimes.

IRAN - After the events that we witnessed on Tuesday, there will be no going back to the way things used to be. A cataclysmic war in the Middle East is not going to benefit anyone, but at this point it is difficult to see how one will be avoided. By directly attacking the US embassy in Baghdad, the Iranians and their allies crossed all the red lines. The US embassy is considered to be US soil, and if President Trump does not respond militarily to this brazen attack on our sovereignty he is going to look like a total wimp to the rest of the world. But then of course Iran and their allies will respond to the attack that Trump launches, and the US will be forced to escalate the conflict even more.

PERU - Hundreds of people queued to be 'cleansed' by guinea pigs in a bizarre ritual ahead of New Year's Eve. Spiritual well-wishers in Lima, Peru, lined the streets as they waited to meet shaman Maria Ramos in a bid to cure and prevent diseases ahead of 2020. Locals attended the Feria de los Deseos, also known as the 'Fare of Wishes', on Monday. Huge crowds of residents patiently waited to be greeted by Maria, who uses rare guinea pigs during the ceremony. She said: "A cleansing with the black guinea pig to take out the bad energies, the bad vibes, has always been done by our ancestors."

USA - America’s cities are being bought up, bit by bit, by anonymous shell companies using piles of cash. Modest single-family homes, owned for generations by families, now are held by corporate vehicles with names that appear to be little more than jumbles of letters and punctuation – such as SC-TUSCA LLC, CNS1975 LLC – registered to law offices and post office boxes miles away. New glittering towers filled with owned but empty condos look down over our cities, as residents below struggle to find any available housing.