ByteDance Plans $14 Billion Nvidia H200 AI Chip Buying Spree As Computing Demand Soars

ByteDance plans to purchase 100 billion yuan ($14 billion) in AI chips in 2026, up from 85 billion yuan in 2025, with the bulk of spending directed toward Nvidia hardware, according to the South China Morning Post. The plan hinges on Beijing approving sales of Nvidia’s H200 GPUs in China. If approval is granted, Nvidia would need to scale up production of the China-tailored H200 with its manufacturing partner, TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company).

The Trump administration recently authorized exports of H200 AI chips to China under a controlled licensing rule, marking a significant shift from prior export curbs. Despite U.S. approval for exports, Beijing has not yet formally approved purchases of H200s by Chinese firms, and reports indicate that access may be restricted or that imports of AI chips may be discouraged to protect its domestic semiconductor industry.

SCMP reports that ByteDance is planning a massive AI capex push, with H200-related spending in the neighborhood of $14 billion. This comes despite the company operating a 1,000-person internal chip design team, which has made progress on a new processor but has not yet matched Nvidia’s performance.

Demand for computing power is surging across TikTok, Douyin, its cloud unit Volcano Engine, and its large language models, driving the need for more advanced chips.

Doubao, ByteDance’s chatbot, now processes more than 50 trillion tokens daily, up from 4 trillion in late 2024, while Volcano Engine serves over 100 enterprise clients and will be a top AI cloud partner for China Central Television’s Spring Festival Gala.

In a separate report, Reuters said Chinese technology companies have shown strong interest in Nvidia’s second-most powerful AI chip and hope shipments can begin before the Lunar New Year.

Reuters also noted that Nvidia holds about 700,000 H200 AI chips in inventory, while Chinese technology firms have ordered more than 2 million units for next year, prompting Nvidia to ask TSMC to increase production.

Beijing now faces a strategic balancing act: ensuring its tech giants use best-in-class chips to compete in the AI race against the West, while simultaneously promoting the adoption of domestic alternatives, including products from Huawei Technologies’ Ascend unit, Moore Threads Technology, MetaX Integrated Circuits, and Cambricon Technologies.

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 07:45

DOE Orders Indiana Coal Units Totaling More Than 950 MW To Run Past Retirement Dates

By Ethan Howland of UtilityDive

The U.S. Department of Energy on Dec. 23 ordered Northern Indiana Public Service Co., a division of NiSource, and CenterPoint Energy to continue running three coal-fired units in Indiana, totaling more than 950 MW, beyond their planned retirement at the end of the month.

DOE contends that portions of the Midcontinent Independent System Operator face an emergency situation, citing studies by the grid operator and the results of recent capacity auctions that indicate tightening supply conditions.

“The emergency conditions resulting from increasing demand and shortage from accelerated retirement of generation facilities will continue in the near term and are also likely to continue in subsequent years,” DOE said in its 90-day emergency orders to MISO, NIPSCO and CenterPoint.

However, MISO reviewed NIPSCO’s plan to retire the coal-fired units at its Schahfer power plant and CenterPoint’s proposal to shutter its F.B. Culley Unit 2, all of which were scheduled to occur on Dec. 31.

DOE has issued a string of last-minute emergency orders under the Federal Power Act’s Section 202(c) to keep power plants in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Washington from retiring. Those generating units total about 3.1 GW.

The latest emergency orders were issued a day after the Trump administration froze work on five offshore wind farms totaling 7 GW.

The Indiana units must run until March 23, although DOE can extend the orders, as it has done for the Campbell power plant in Michigan and the Eddystone units near Philadelphia.

Citizens Action Coalition of Indiana, a ratepayer advocacy group, contends the DOE orders will drive up electricity bills.

“The federal government’s order to force extremely expensive and unreliable coal units to stay open will result in higher bills for Hoosiers who are already reeling from record-high rate increases in 2025,” Ben Inskeep, CAC program director, said in a statement.

The DOE’s emergency orders for the Campbell power plant are being challenged in federal appeals court by Michigan’s attorney general, Minnesota and Illinois as well as a coalition of advocacy groups led by the Sierra Club and Earthjustice.

In a Dec. 19 court brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the advocacy groups said DOE failed to show MISO faces an energy emergency.

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 07:20

My morning train WFH reads:

• The Unexpected Winner of Rising American Tariffs Is Mexico: Its exports to the U.S. have surged since President Trump imposed new duties on countries this year. (Wall Street Journal)

• Earth Is Running Out of Sand … Which Is, You Know, Pretty Concerning: Sand is the second most-used resource after water, but it’s unregulated and ripping environments apart. (Popular Mechanics) see also A huge cache of critical minerals found in Utah may be the largest in the US: The discovery could reshape the clean energy supply chain. (Grist)

• Car Payments Now Average More Than $750 a Month. Enter the 100-Month Car Loan. This fall, typical new car broke $50,000 barrier; ‘We don’t have $300 monthly payments any longer.’ (Wall Street Journal)

• Is the Federal Reserve truly independent? Who will be chosen as the chair of the Federal Reserve? (Washington Post)

• New York’s Congestion Pricing Is Working. Five Charts Show How: Congestion pricing is working as planned, with a significant drop in pollution and traffic declining by 11% in the tolled zone. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is poised to beat its target of generating $500 million of revenue from the program after expenses. Despite initial concerns, the business impact in the district doesn’t appear to be as onerous as some had feared, with a 3.4% increase in visitors and a 6.3% boost in sales-tax revenue. (CityLab)

• The Santa Presidency: Trying to fix the economy by handing out cash. (The Atlantic)

• How diamonds are powering a new quantum revolution: By inserting tiny imperfections into the stones, scientists open up possibilities in computing, encryption, and sensors. (Financial Times)

• The Nordic diet can help you sleep better and live longer: The Mediterranean diet’s colder-climate cousin comes with the same health benefits thanks to its combination of anti-inflammatory- and antioxidant-rich foods. (National Geographic)

• Here Are 5 Wars Trump Started or Expanded in 2025: The U.S. military is fighting or preparing to fight in more countries than it was when the self-proclaimed “peace president” took office. (Reason) see also 25 Worst Villains of the Trump Admin: This most difficult part of this exercise was only picking 25. (Meidas+)

• The intellect of LeBron James: As the NBA great nears retirement he shows how the mind works. (Washington Post)

Be sure to check out our Masters in Business interview with comedian Jay Leno, former Tonight Show host, and creator of Jay Leno’s Garage.

 

Almost no jobs have been added to the American economy since April 2025; 710,000 more people are unemployed since November 2024.

Source: Robert Reich

 

Sign up for our reads-only mailing list here.

 

 

The post 10 New Year’s Eve AM Reads appeared first on The Big Picture.

The Brits Want The Poles To Contain Russia In The Baltic

Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack,

The Polish Defense Minister announced in late November that his country will buy three A26 Blekinge-class diesel-electric submarines from Sweden as part of a deal estimated to be worth a little less than €2.5 billion.

This comes just several months after their first joint exercise, which presaged closer cooperation against Russia in the Baltic, and also follows reported British lobbying for Sweden over other competing bidders since one of its defense companies is expected to profit from this deal.

Although the US is Poland’s closest partner, with which it’s working hand-in-hand to geostrategically re-engineer Europe by facilitating the revival of Poland’s long-lost Great Power status simultaneously with counteracting Germany’s plans to federalize the EU, the Brits are arguably its second-closest one. This was confirmed by the creation of their de facto trilateral alliance with Ukraine exactly one week before the special operation started. They then conspired to sabotage that spring’s peace talks with Russia.

Last summer, it was assessed that “The UK Aims To Entrench Its Influence In Estonia In Order To Lead The Arctic-Baltic Front”, which preceded “SVR Once Again Warning About A British-Ukrainian False Flag Provocation At Sea” a month later.

Then at the start of fall, Scandinavia experienced a Russian drone scare that was likely a series of false flags for justifying a potential crackdown on Russia’s shadow fleet in the Baltic, which is already under pressure.

Such a move could serve to greatly escalate tensions.

That hasn’t yet happened due to Trump once again escalating against Russia in mid-October and then just as unexpectedly pushing for peace a month later.

This made such a provocation redundant and then reduced the likeliness that Trump would fall for it after he soured on the Europeans yet again throughout the ongoing peace process that he abruptly revived. Instead of staging a false flag provocation at sea, the Brits were likely the ones who leaked the Witkoff-Ushakov call, which intended to discredit this process.

Regardless of whether or not Albion employs any more of its infamous perfidy, it’s nevertheless doing what’s needed to ensure its regional influence in the Arctic, Baltic, and Central Europe after the Ukrainian Conflict ends. Its interests in the Arctic are advanced through its base in Estonia, which also enables it to exert influence over the northern Baltic Sea, while its interests in the rest of that sea and Central Europe are advanced through its de facto alliance with Poland.

This takes the form of bilateral cooperation on Ukraine as well as the latest opportunity of indirectly cooperating through Poland’s new submarine deal with Sweden as was earlier explained. From the UK’s strategic perspective, facilitating closer cooperation between Poland and Sweden in the Baltic helps to contain Russia there, the shared goal of which is furthered by Poland’s new “SAFE Baltic” program that expands the scope of its naval activity and aims to streamline decisions on the use of force at sea.

Crucially, some of the €44 billion in loans that Poland just received from the EU’s €150 billion “Security Action For Europe” program (SAFE, which is part of the “ReArm Europe Plan”), will go towards the “SAFE Baltic” program.

The precedent established by Poland’s submarine deal with Sweden could see the UK lobbying for more such deals from which its own companies will profit.

Therefore, Poland’s rise as a Baltic naval power will be backed by the UK, which hopes that this will tighten Russia’s containment.

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 06:30

How China's Rare Earth Stranglehold Is Unleashing American Innovation

Authored by Owen Evans via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The West may have found an unexpected way to chip away at communist China’s dominance in the production of critical minerals: extracting metals from oil wells, waste streams, and discarded electronics in an attempt to scale up processing technologies at home.

Illustration by The Epoch Times, Jeff Fitlow, James Tour’s Lab/Rice University, John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

Instead of waiting years for new mines to open, a wave of startups is turning to existing resources to recover metals that Beijing has controlled for decades.

“Chevron’s wells in just three [Texas] counties can actually produce the world supply of rhodium,” Eric Herrera, CEO of MaverickX, recently told The Epoch Times.

Rhodium is the world’s most valuable precious metal, prized for its ability to neutralize toxic emissions.

It sits alongside a wider class of materials that make up the hidden components in smartphones, electric vehicles, renewable energy, and even weapons.

Geostrategic Weaponized Tools

Rare-earth elements such as neodymium and dysprosium are not actually rare. They are abundant but difficult to separate, while minerals such as lithium, cobalt, and tungsten are deemed “critical” because modern economies and defense systems cannot function without them.

Currently, China controls roughly 90 percent of global capacity for the processing, smelting, and separation of all such materials, as well as for the manufacturing of magnetic materials.

This means that while the United States, Australia, Brazil, India, and parts of Africa are racing to establish new mines, most of their concentrates will still have to travel to Chinese refineries.

Beijing knows the leverage this monopoly provides and used it most recently during a trade spat with the United States by restricting exports of rare earths, germanium, and other critical materials this year.

In 2010, China cut off rare-earth exports to Japan for about two months during a territorial dispute.

Meanwhile, Western companies are seeking to confront China’s processing advantage by leapfrogging it.

A view of the China Rare Earth Group processing plant in Longnan County, Jiangxi Province, China, on Nov. 20, 2025. As countries race to chip away at communist China’s dominance in critical minerals, startups are turning to extracting metals from oil wells, waste streams, and discarded electronics to recover materials long controlled by Beijing. Hector Retamal/AFP via Getty Images Replacing China

Herrera’s company is developing methods to recover more metal from existing ore and waste, juicing rocks and discarded electronics for all they are worth.

He told The Epoch Times that he also believes that part of the solution lies under American oil fields.

He said his process can use oil wells to yield not only rhodium, but also titanium, nickel, vanadium, cobalt, copper, and more.

“The oil here in Texas is 19,000 feet deep, about 110 stages,“ he said. ”Each stage has about 110,000 gallons or 20,000 gallons of water to use that’s already permitted, that’s already set up, and the infrastructure is already deployed.”

“All we have to do is add our chemical to take the metals out, and then separate the chemicals. ... That’s much, much faster, much cheaper as well,” he said.

Herrera said the oil industry can also move more quickly than traditional mining operations. For major companies, it takes at least five to 10 years for a new technology to reach a mine site.

It also uses existing infrastructure. Moreover, unlike a mining project, a well can be shut down with minimal disruption, whereas killing a copper mine is far more consequential, he said.

That speed, Herrera said, may allow Western companies to compete with China’s processing advantage in a “slow and steady” way.

“I don’t think it’s going to happen all at once,“ he said. ”I think it’ll be subtle, a couple of wells first, more wells, then fields, then entire plains of oil, all of those will have to be going at full capacity to take it away from China.”

“We’re not at that level yet, I think in a couple of years we can get to that level, and if we all do it at once, then yes, then China would absolutely respond,” he said, noting that the same technology could be deployed in other major countries with metal-rich geology, including Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia, whose hot shales are known to contain extractable uranium.

Eric Herrera, CEO of MaverickX, at a research expedition at the Antarctic on Dec. 9, 2025. Herrera’s company is developing methods to recover more metal from existing ore and waste, juicing rocks and discarded electronics for all they are worth. Courtesy of MaverickX Can ‘Prevent Wars’

At Rice University in Houston, chemist and nanotechnologist James Tour has pioneered a method for quickly extracting rare-earth metals.

Tour developed a technique capable of breaking down electronic waste, ash, tailings, and more to rapidly recover rare-earth metals and other critical minerals, with a minimal environmental footprint.

His method uses flash Joule heating technology, a patented process that raises material temperatures to thousands of degrees within milliseconds and uses chlorine gas to extract rare-earth elements from magnet waste in seconds without needing water or acids.

Tour said his flash Joule heating technology is already commercially proven in the company Universal Matter, which was spun out of his lab, and in other contexts with graphene, a one-atom-thick form of carbon used to strengthen materials, improve battery performance, and enhance electronics.

“People never really knew how to scale that, and we came up with a process to do this using flash Joule heating,“ he told The Epoch Times. ”That company is up and running and making 1 ton per day of graphene, and it’s already introduced into concrete and asphalt markets.”

The rare-earth version is close behind with a Texas factory that has licensed the method for metal recovery.

He said Flash Metals USA, the U.S.-based subsidiary of Australia’s Metallium, is aiming to process 1 ton per day of print circuit boards by January 2026 and 20 tons per day by September 2026 to recover the rare-earth elements and critical metals they contain.

Electronic waste can contain metal concentrations up to 1,000 times higher than those found in natural ores.

“It’s easier to just deal with things that we already have separated, that we have already deployed into our current electronics and magnets that we’re throwing away,“ Tour said. ”This is [a] treasure, it’s an absolute gold mine.”

​​The technologies behind modern rare-earth separation were developed in the United States during the Manhattan Project led by J. Robert Oppenheimer. Solvent extraction methods were later adopted to isolate individual rare-earth elements.

The United States dominated global production through the 1960s and 1970s via California’s Mountain Pass Mine but lost that position after the mid-1980s as China, initially lacking expertise in heavy rare-earth refining, expanded mining and processing.

Molycorp’s rare earth mine and processing facilities at Mountain Pass, Calif., in this file image. The United States dominated global rare earth production through the 1960s and 1970s via the Mountain Pass mine but lost that position in the mid-1980s. AlanM1/CC-BY-3.0

A key turning point occurred in 1995 when General Motors sold its magnet subsidiary Magnequench, the last U.S. company making rare-earth magnets, to a Chinese-led consortium. The sale was approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and resulted in the transfer of technologies and operations to China, marking the end of U.S. leadership in rare-earth production.

The deal was condemned in 2005 by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) for leaving the United States without a domestic neodymium magnet supplier during Washington’s broader economic opening to Beijing under President Bill Clinton.

Tour said China’s monopoly has also bred its environmentally destructive refining methods.

“This is a horrendously messy process in China, and they’ve contaminated the cities and the rivers in those cities and the water systems in those cities,” he said.

Tour said the Trump administration is treating the issue of rare-earth processing with great importance.

“President [Donald] Trump’s very serious, and it’s this type of thing that can prevent wars,” he said.

“[But] if we don’t have access to these elements, we will go to war. This is the stuff you fight over.”

With guaranteed pricing, Tour said, the U.S. government will counter China’s tactic of artificially depressing prices and bankrupting competitors by flooding markets with cheap material to render Western projects uneconomic.

“The U.S. government will stand behind us, make sure that we get paid a fair price for this, so that the Chinese cannot just artificially drop the price and put us out,” he said.

A former U.S. Army officer said she views the rare-earths issue as “the free world against the not-free world.”

Rice University chemist James Tour (L) and postdoctoral research associate Bing Deng prepare to “flash” electronic waste to recover its valuable metals for recycling. Tour developed a technique to quickly extract rare earth metals from electronic waste, ash, tailings, and other materials. (Bottom Left) The innovative research builds on Tour’s 2020 development of waste disposal and upcycling applications using flash Joule heating.

Jessica Lewis McFate, who is now senior director of intelligence solutions at Babel Street, focusing on open-source intelligence and national security, said the implications around sourcing rare earths are profound.

McFate told The Epoch Times that if a Fortune 500 company were to lose access to rare earth-dependent components such as gallium for six months, the impact would extend well beyond a shortage of high-performance chips used in high-intensity computing or radio-frequency applications, including weapons and radar systems.

Gallium, she said, is also critical in medical technologies, meaning that disruptions would ripple across both national security and civilian sectors.

“It scales out to our smartphones, it scales out to MRI machines,” she said.

“And it becomes this requirement for CEOs to all of a sudden really ask how much they know, and ask their vendors tough questions [such as] ‘Where did you get the circuit board?’”

“The Chinese perspective is that they are fighting a war,” she said.

“I think it’s a lot safer for humanity if we fight back by non-lethal means for what we believe in. So I think it’s OK to be deeply competitive and even clever in our competition for advantage.”

‘Momentum Is Clearly Shifting’

Billions of dollars in federal funding are now moving into the sector.

The Department of Energy has announced nearly $1 billion in funding opportunities aimed at supply chains for critical minerals and rare earths, covering mining, processing, manufacturing, recycling, and byproduct recovery.

Under the Trump administration, Washington now holds stakes in MP Materials, Vulcan Elements, ReElement Technologies, and Lithium Americas, and has struck critical minerals deals with more than a dozen countries.

Australia is becoming the strongest non-Chinese processing hub through Lynas’s expansion, Iluka’s Eneabba refinery, and Arafura’s Nolans Project.

Read the rest here...

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 05:00

"We Are The Free World Now" - Europe Declares War On Free Speech

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Below is my column in The Hill on the move by the Trump Administration against five leading figures in the European censorship movement, including Thierry Breton, the former European Union commissioner responsible for digital policy. The United States is finally responding to what is an existential threat to American values. It is worth noting, as I discuss in my new book, Rage and the Republic, that the EU is not only exporting its censorship rules but threatening American companies that do not meet its environment, social and governance (ESG) policies. It is time for Congress to follow suit and get into this fight.

“We are the free world now.”

Those words from Raphael Glucksmann, a French socialist member of the European Parliament, captured the pearl-clutching outrage of Europeans after the Trump administration did what no prior administration has ever done — stand up to Europe to defend the freedom of speech.

This week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio barred five figures closely associated with European censorship efforts from traveling to the U.S. This includes Thierry Breton, the former European Union commissioner responsible for digital policy.

In a post on X, Rubio declared that the U.S. “will no longer tolerate these egregious acts of extraterritorial censorship” and will target “leading figures of the global censorship-industrial complex from entering the United States.”

Breton achieved infamy as one of the architects of the massive EU censorship system, which is now being globalized. Armed with the notorious Digital Services Act, Breton and others threatened American companies and officials that they would have to yield to European standards of free speech. After Breton learned that Musk was planning to interview Trump before the last presidential election, he even warned the X owner that he would be “monitored” and potentially subject to EU fines.

Socialist Glucksmann is now irate at “this scandalous sanction against Thierry Breton.”

“We are Europeans,” he declared.

“We must defend our laws, our principles, our interests.” In other words, this is a war over whether Europe or the U.S. Constitution will dictate the scope of free speech for American companies and citizens.

Breton and his colleagues are finally being treated as what they are: a clear and present danger to the “indispensable right” that defines all Americans.

The EU has been enlisted by anti-free speech figures in the U.S. to force companies like X and Facebook to restore censorship of Americans. After Musk bought Twitter with a pledge to restore free-speech protections, Hillary Clinton called upon European officials to force him to censor under Europe’s Digital Services Act.

Nina Jankowicz, the former head of Biden’s infamous Disinformation Governance Board, appeared before the European Parliament. She called upon the 27 EU countries to fight against the U.S., which she described as a global threat.

The E.U. enthusiastically took up the challenge. This year, I spoke in Berlin at the World Forum, which boosted the slogan, “A New World Order with European Values.” Bill and Hillary Clinton and other Americans cheered on the European efforts.

The Digital Services Act bars speech that is viewed as “disinformation” or “incitement.” When it was passed over the condemnations of many of us in the free speech community, European Commission Executive Vice President Margrethe Vestager celebrated by declaring that it is “not a slogan anymore — that what is illegal offline should also be seen and dealt with as illegal online. Now it is a real thing. Democracy’s back.”

It is indeed a “real thing.”

In my forthcoming book, Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution, I discuss the challenges facing our republic in the 21st century, including the EU and its transnational governance model. Many on the left are supporting the erosion of national laws and values in favor of standards set by global experts and elites.

This cadre of American enablers has been increasingly vocal in Europe. Notably, late-night ABC host Jimmy Kimmel delivered a Christmas Eve address in Great Britain denouncing the U.S. as a global threat. He declared that “from a fascism perspective, this has been a really great year. Tyranny is booming over here.”

It was crushingly ironic.

Many of us have been writing for years about how free speech has been eviscerated in the United Kingdom, where people are being prosecuted for “toxic ideologies” and an ever-lengthening list of unacceptable political viewpoints.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett issued a warning this week about the collapse of free speech in the United Kingdom.

Yet that is where a comedian, who is paid millions and attacks Trump and conservatives nightly, went to complain about the threat to free speech in the U.S.

Both Vice President JD Vance and Secretary Rubio have delivered major speeches warning the EU about its effort to export censorship systems, particularly targeting American citizens and companies. After years of encouragement and enabling from the Obama and Biden administrations, the U.S. government is finally in this fight.

That is why Europe is up in arms, denouncing the move to bar these officials as an attack on its own sovereignty. 

In other words, an effort to defend our own free speech values is a threat to the proclaimed “New World Order with European Values.”

In reality, I do not like travel bans. I prefer that these figures come to this country and face free-speech advocates. Yet despite our calls for Congress to get into this fight, it has done nothing due to opposition from Democratic members. We cannot wait as the EU weaponizes and globalizes censorship.

Glucksmann is right about one thing. This is a fight over who today can be rightfully called the “free world.” In the U.S., we continue to cling to the quaint notion that the free world should be based on … well, freedom.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of the forthcoming “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution” on the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution.

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 03:30

Latvia Hails Completion Of 175-Mile Fence Along Russian Border

Latvia has finally finished building a long anticipated nearly 175-mile fence along its border with Russia, according to regional media on Tuesday, which cited the state-linked company responsible for managing the project.

The fence cost an equivalent of nearly $20 million, and so at that price points to it being defensively minimal and low-tech, however some additional work is still underway on supporting infrastructure - which is expected to include support items such as footbridges over marshy terrain, observation towers, and engineering installations. 

Illustrative: fence on the Latvia-Belarus border

The country's Interior Minister Rihards Kozlovskis said Latvia is now deploying advanced surveillance and monitoring systems along the frontier for an eventual "modern border security system" on the European Union's eastern edge.

This will also complement the previously erected 90-mile fence along Latvia's border with Belarus, which has been a partner of Moscow in the Ukraine war. 

A little over a year ago, Latvia had reached 80% completion of the border wall with Russia. It represents the general attitude of the Baltic neighborhood - that Russia can't be trusted and is an 'aggressor' state bent on expansion.

There's also been a rise in Baltic armies hosting war games, and exercises which are integrated with NATO, which is fast becoming a 'new normal'.

Other countries in both eastern and northern Europe are racing to construct their own walls. For example Finland has committed $143 million to a greatly expanded fence along its southeastern boundary.

Helsinki has further announced plans for additional defensive structures, including bunkers and shelters designed to withstand direct artillery or missile attacks.

Poland too has erected electronic surveillance barrier along its border with Russia's Kaliningrad exclave, and recent reports have said it is reintroducing land mines after long being part of an international ban on the controversial weapons.

via BBC

Polish authorities have also wanted to reduce the risk of migration pressure, pointing to the launch of flights to Kaliningrad as well as Belarus from the Middle East and Africa.

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 02:45

'Bribes For Votes' Scheme Uncovered In Ukraine Parliament Involves Members Of Zelensky's Party

Via Remix News,

Ukraine’s anti-corruption authorities have announced charges against members of an organized crime group that operated in the Verkhovna Rada.

Among the suspects are five members of parliament from Volodymyr Zelensky’s party, reports Do Rzezcy.

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Special Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAP) announced that the charges were filed regarding bribes paid for votes in parliament.

According to investigators’ findings, MPs were paid to influence decisions made in the legislative chamber in a persistent and well-organized manner.

In an official statement posted on Telegram, NABU announced that, in cooperation with SAP, an undercover investigation had identified an organized criminal group that included serving members of Ukraine’s parliament.

The investigation’s findings indicate that members of this group accepted illegal benefits in exchange for votes in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

The bureau also emphasized that these activities are part of a broader strategy to combat corruption at the highest levels of government.

On Saturday, the website Ukrainska Pravda revealed that the suspects are members of parliament from President Volodymyr Zelensky’s party, Servant of the People: Yevhen Pyvarov, Ihor Nehulevsky, Olha Savchenko, and Yuri Kisel. The website also reported the name of Yuri Koryachenkov.

According to the investigation’s findings, the group had a hierarchical structure and a clear division of roles. It included current Ukrainian deputies and officials from the Chancellery of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine."

"The group’s activities were coordinated by one of the deputies,” the report reads.

The Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported that “when organizing the votes, group members sent instructions with the numbers of bills in a specially created WhatsApp group.”

“Following the votes, payments were systematically transferred to individual deputies,” the report added.

The news comes after the “golden toilet” corruption scandal rocked Ukraine just months ago, and which led to the arrest of top ministers in Zelensky’s government and the arrest of Zelensky’s top aide.

In addition, a long-time business associate of Zelensky fled to Israel after receiving a tip-off just hours before a NABU raid on his residence.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Wed, 12/31/2025 - 02:00

The Lifespan Of A Country

Authored by Jeff Thomas via InternationalMan.com,

It will be no secret to readers that more and more people are coming to the realization that the economic, political, and social problems in the world are becoming quite pronounced – worse than at any other point in their lifetimes. Increasingly, such people are turning to publications such as this one to find answers as to: (a) where it will all end; and (b) how they can personally avoid (or at least minimize) the damage to themselves, personally.

Publications such as this one do their best to inform people as to how they may positively affect their future; however, in order for people to make informed choices, they must first understand the nature of their situation.

One of the misperceptions that seems to be almost universal is that, although things are bad, there is no particular reason why, if the right people were in charge, the situation could not simply reverse itself and all would be well again.

This is not at all the case.

At the root of the misunderstanding is the common perception that a country’s progress (economically and politically) is rather like a sine wave, endlessly oscillating. Booms and busts come and go with regularity. If it were as simple as this, the goal for all concerned right now would be to remain as liquid as possible and to ride out the current situation until we reach the next upward wave, which surely could take place if the right people are at the helm.

At such times, the heat that revolves around elections becomes considerable, as people take up sides over whether the liberal or conservative candidate “has the answer.”

However, if we step well back from the situation and examine which government philosophy has been the most successful, we would have to admit that, regardless of the outcome of elections, the decline has continued unabated. In fact, nearly all the countries of the First World are now in a more dire condition that at any time in living memory. Whatever is taking place, it is not a repetitive sine wave; and we should not rest our hopes on the possibility that “our guy” will be elected and carry us through to the next upswing.

If we step back further, we note that historically this is not a new condition. The present situation has played itself out over the millennia. Countries come to prominence, flourish for a time, then decay for sometimes long periods before rising again, if ever. Countries, particularly democracies, tend to have a lifespan.

Typically, they follow this pattern:

• From Bondage to Moral Certitude

• From Moral Certitude to Great Courage

• From Great Courage to Liberty

• From Liberty to Abundance

• From Abundance to Selfishness

• From Selfishness to Complacency

• From Complacency to Apathy

• From Apathy to Dependency <--You are here...

• From Dependency to Bondage

The empires of old, such as the Roman Empire and the Athenian Republic, followed this pattern. Rome took roughly 500 years to complete the entire transition (or longer, depending upon interpretations). Later, others, such as Spain, Holland, and the UK took their turns, each taking a bit less time to complete the pattern. The US is the present holder of the title of “Greatest Empire.” It has taken about 250 years to travel from its point of Moral Certitude to its present state of Apathy/Dependency.

The reader can perform his own appraisals of when the US passed through each of the above stages.

He may even wish to add one or two of his own mini-stages, or retitle some stages to his liking. Still, it is likely that he will agree that this pattern has been followed.

What is striking about the pattern is that it is based upon human nature. For the majority of people in any country, there is a brief time (Great Courage to Liberty) when human frustration gives way to dramatic change. This is followed by natural and even predictable periods that often take a generation or two to fully play out, until they morph into the next stage. But they are logical, as they follow a path of human nature.

What is significant is that the pattern remains the same; and it represents the lifetime of a country. Some may take longer than others to travel from one stage to the other, but the pattern remains over the entire transition.

But all the above is academic. To have worth, the recognition of the premise that a country has a lifetime must be related to the present situation.

If we recognize that the present Empire has indeed passed through the various stages and is now in the Apathy/Dependency stage, we would have to consider that the final stage of Bondage is now on the horizon. If we are prepared to take a major step back from our present standpoint to assess both the past and future, we will conclude that no election – in the US or any other country – will reverse the inexorable progress of governments to dominate the electorate. Nor will it reverse the electorate’s slow but steady compliance over generations. This process is as perennial as the grass. Those who seek to dominate will always keep up the pressure for ever-greater control, and the average citizen will always hope for an easier life if he gives in “just one more time” to the powers that be.

Judge Andrew Napolitano is fond of referring of the American government as a “giant predatory bird, with a right wing and a left wing.” This is an excellent analogy that does not only apply to the US. It can be applied to most every “democracy” in the world. Elections serve as useful illusions to provide hope for the populace that they, in some way, contribute to their own destiny. They therefore follow the election process to such a degree that, in those countries where the election scam is most prominent, the candidates actually begin campaigning a year or more before their terms are complete, rather than focus on the running of the country.

No matter which candidate wins, the pattern continues to play itself out.

And so, the question bears asking again. Why, if countries do pass through a natural progression of stages, would anyone hold on to the thin sliver of hope that any election in any country would somehow reverse the entire process, as has never occurred in the past?

The answer, it would seem, is that once this vain hope is given up, all that is left is the acceptance that the final stage of development is on the way. And to accept such a dark inevitability is a prospect that not even a Russian novelist could bear.

There will certainly be those who say, “I choose to be hopeful,” and by doing so will in essence seal their fate. On the other hand, those who do take the difficult decision to stare down the dark road that lies ahead must make a choice – and it is in that choice that the real hope lies.

In the nineteenth century, Europe was in tatters. Old, bloated kingdoms were either falling into decay or being toppled by revolution. Often the leaders of those revolutions were just as sociopathic as many of our modern-day leaders (although less subtle in their methods of control). Back then, the majority of citizens in every country put their heads down and hoped that “maybe it will get better.” However, a few people actually took the courageous step to pull up stakes and sail across the water to a new, more promising country. The stories of success that found their way back to Europe, in time, resulted in a flood of people who made the move. The very ambition that they created within themselves proved to be the foundation of the American transition “from Liberty to Abundance.”

Today, the trickle of people has begun again. As before, many people are quietly exiting Europe, but this time, the US is not the destination. In fact, a flow has also begun from that country.

But there is a difference this time. So far, the waves of “refugees” have not yet filled the ships, although that may yet happen. For now, what is occurring is the quiet exit of those people who still retain some level of wealth and are seeking to both retain that wealth and to gain greater freedom for the future. This, in a sense, is the “golden time,” when the welcome mat is still out in many desirable destinations; when the first to arrive will have the greatest opportunity. Later, if the predictable flood of expatriation occurs, the welcome mats may be withdrawn.

Those who take advantage of the golden time are likely to be those who benefit most.

*  *  *

History suggests that those who preserve their freedom and wealth are rarely the ones who wait for clarity—they are the ones who act while options still exist. As the pressures described in this article continue to build, advance preparation becomes the difference between choice and compulsion. To help readers think through what may lie ahead, we’ve prepared a special report, Guide to Surviving and Thriving During an Economic Collapse, which examines the practical steps that can be taken before capital controls, asset seizures, and movement restrictions inevitably emerge. You can download the free PDF report here.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/30/2025 - 23:25

Immigrant Truckers File Lawsuit To Stop 20,000 CDL Cancellations In California

California’s Department of Motor Vehicles is facing a class-action lawsuit over plans to cancel nearly 20,000 immigrant truckers’ commercial driver’s licenses, a move plaintiffs say would cause widespread disruption, according to Fox News.

The case was filed Tuesday by the Asian Law Caucus, the Sikh Coalition, and the firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, seeking to block the DMV from revoking the licenses. According to the complaint, the cancellations would "result in mass work stoppages" beginning Jan. 5, 2026.

In a joint statement, the two advocacy groups said: "This class-action lawsuit is brought on behalf of the Jakara Movement and five commercial drivers who have been deprived of their rights and livelihoods."

They added that although officials said licenses would start being reissued on Dec. 17, "the state has neither reissued any of the contested licenses nor created a process to remedy the date issue with no indication that it plans to do so before January 5."

Fox News writes that the lawsuit says the DMV notified 17,299 drivers on Nov. 6 that their non-domiciled CDLs would be canceled on Jan. 5 due to errors with license expiration dates. Another 2,700 drivers received similar letters in December, with cancellations scheduled for mid-February.

State law requires CDL expiration dates to align with a driver’s work authorization or legal status. Instead, the suit claims the DMV issued cancellation notices rather than correcting the dates.

"For all 19,999 immigrants, the DMV intends to cancel their commercial licenses without affording any opportunity to obtain a corrected license or to contest the cancellation," the lawsuit states.

It also alleges that "despite its own regulation, the DMV did not consistently ensure that a CDL’s expiration date matched the end of a person’s period of work authorization or lawful presence."

Plaintiffs say the consequences extend beyond the drivers, noting they "play an indispensable role in our local and national economies" and warning that "the sudden loss of their ability to work threatens not only their livelihoods but also the stability of our supply chains and services on which the public depends."

The filing includes examples of alleged errors, including a driver whose CDL already matches his work authorization and a Jakara Movement member who was "pressured into surrendering his CDL, out of fear that his non-commercial driver’s license would already be cancelled." The suit also says the "DMV has not explained how it identified 19,999 licenses as out of compliance with state law and how it can ensure that its determinations are accurate."

The plaintiffs are asking the court to order the DMV to provide corrected licenses "without interruption to their driving privileges."

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/30/2025 - 23:00

US Commits $2 Billion For Foreign Aid But Tells Agencies To 'Adapt, Shrink, Or Die'

Authored by Sam Dorman via The Epoch Times,

The United States and the United Nations have finalized an agreement that includes $2 billion in humanitarian funding and what the State Department described as radical reform to save Americans’ tax dollars while avoiding ideological projects.

The finalized agreement supports the U.N.’s 2026 plan to reach nearly 90 million people and target 17 crisis-affected countries.

It was signed in Geneva, Switzerland, on Dec. 29 amid the administration’s criticism of what it said were wasteful foreign aid programs and its dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“The agreement requires the U.N. to consolidate humanitarian functions to reduce bureaucratic overhead, unnecessary duplication, and ideological creep,” the State Department said in a press release.

“Individual U.N. agencies will need to adapt, shrink, or die.”

According to the department, annual contributions by the United States have increased in recent years, reaching $8 billion to $10 billion annually in voluntary contributions for humanitarian assistance.

The new agreement channels U.S. funding into consolidated and flexible fund vehicles administered by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, according to the department.

“Flexible funding vehicles will allow the Department of State to administer humanitarian funding more efficiently, materially reducing administrative burdens on the Department, and allowing diplomats to spend less time on bureaucratic grant management and more of their time on policy oversight, accountability, and impact analysis,” it said.

In a press release, the United Nations described the agreement as part of a “Humanitarian Reset” announced by U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher earlier this year.

During a speech in February, Fletcher warned that a “massive funding, morale, and legitimacy crisis” was confronting the humanitarian community.

Citing funding cuts, he later called for a series of reforms while emphasizing the need for “much lighter, more nimble cooperation.”

Most of the countries impacted by the recent agreement are located in Africa.

Among them was Nigeria, where the U.S. military recently struck the ISIS terrorist group over concerns about the widespread persecution of Christians in the country.

Before that attack, the Trump administration also aimed at ISIS in Syria, which was one of the other 17 crisis-affected countries impacted by the agreement.

Other countries included Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, and Bangladesh.

Ukraine was also named as its government lobbied the Trump administration for a long-lasting plan to quell hostilities with Russia.

According to the U.N., the Dec. 29 agreement affects the U.N. Central Emergency Response Fund, which focuses on providing quick humanitarian assistance to people in crises.

The United Nations said on Dec. 29 that Fletcher “emphasized that donors expect results, saying accountability mechanisms would ensure that ‘every dollar we spend’ is tracked to confirm that it is saving lives.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the funding as “lifesaving” in a statement while pledging a new model that would require the United Nations to cut waste.

“Today, the [State Department] and United Nations signed an agreement that radically reforms the way the U.S. programs, funds, and oversees U.N.-administered humanitarian work, ensuring that more lives will be saved for fewer U.S. taxpayer dollars,” he said.

“This new model will better share the burden of U.N. humanitarian work with other developed countries and will require the U.N. to cut bloat, remove duplication, and commit to powerful new impact, accountability, and oversight mechanisms.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/30/2025 - 22:35

Hollywood Blamed The Fans For Their Failures And Now They Face Collapse

In November, the entertainment media was energized by the news of potential studio mergers and a potential jump in content spending by Disney and Paramount.  The possibility of more cash flowing into productions was seen as a light at the end of a long dark tunnel for a film industry crushed by endless box office and TV streaming failures.  Maybe this new funding would revitalize a Hollywood gasping for oxygen?

However, as The Hollywood Reporter noted, the surge in funding was not necessarily going into the pockets of the current crop of filmmakers and TV series showrunners.  Instead, Disney, Paramount and other entertainment conglomerates are shifting cash into sports and foreign content.  

The reasons why media giants are quietly abandoning Hollywood should be obvious.  In early 2025, these same companies took one last gamble on DEI and stood in solidarity with activist producers, directors and writers.  And, the result this year was the same as the last several years:  They lost billions in revenues.

The raw box office numbers are ugly, but they don't tell the whole story.  Overall productions costs have skyrocketed by 25% since early 2020 and inflation in ticket prices has hidden the crippling plunge in total ticket sales compared to the same time period.  In other words, Hollywood's profit margins are shrinking while their audience is dwindling.

Their strategy in early 2025 revolved around the idea of attacking the audience (their customer base) as a "toxic fandom" that needs to be shamed and marginalized.  The problem is, in most cases when companies go to war with their customers they inevitably lose.  

More recent examples include Superman director James Gunn's social media rants attacking fans for criticizing the pro-illegal immigration propaganda planted in the comic book film which was intended to relaunch the Warner Bros. DC universe.  The media applauded Gunn's handling of the fandom and claimed that he set a precedent for future films that draw audience backlash.  In reality, Gunn's movie was a box office flop, falling $100 million short of the $700 million in global ticket sales needed for the film to break even.

Gunn's big mouth and far-left propaganda sunk the movie's chances.  Keep in mind, the Superman franchise is about as all-American as you can get; to not draw in a massive US audience requires stunning incompetence. 

   

Then there was the epic failure of Disney's Star Wars series, "The Acolyte".  The streaming series sought to deconstruct the Star Wars mythos by making the Jedi the villains and portrayed the Sith as misunderstood good guys.  The show was saturated with LGBT casting and gay propaganda including the infamous lesbian space witches.  The Acolyte was created by Leslye Headland, former assistant of Harvey Weinstein, and was essentially the last attempt by Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy to force fans to embrace a woke version of the franchise.

To this day, Headland has been raging against "toxic" audiences for rejecting the series and making it one of the most embarrassing projects ever to be released by Disney's streaming service (and there's a long list of disastrous releases from Disney+).  She asserts that her show's dismal reception had nothing to do with bad writing and woke storytelling; rather, it was the fault of "racist and fascist" fans. 

Disney immediately cancelled the show due to rock bottom viewership and it's unlikely Headland will ever touch another Star Wars project again.   

Even "Stranger Things", a Netflix mainstay considered a sure winner, faced audience decline during its final season after planting abrupt and unnecessary LGBT messaging in the series.  The establishment media came to the show's defense, arguing that audiences have become "entitled" and that studios need to stop trying to give customers what they want. 

The truth is, Hollywood has been ignoring audience feedback for years and their concerns have focused more on force-feeding fans a steady diet of woke indoctrination.  This might have been possible for them a few years ago when cash reserves were still strong, but the studios are finally realizing that they can't propagandize the public if no one pays to watch their garbage.

In other words, the leftists in entertainment didn't take into account the possibility that audiences would simply walk away.  They can control every facet of media from TV to advertising to film, but they can't force people to consume their content (at least not in the US).

And this seems to be the new business model for Hollywood going into next year.  2025 was the last hurrah for woke programming in America.  Now, studios are scrambling to cancel a number of politically charged shows and movies in the hopes of finally bringing profits back to their pre-pandemic glory.  Their pending 2026 release lineup, though, is anorexic.  

In the meantime, companies like Netflix are adapting with targeted woke messaging in countries where people can actually be forced to watch.  In Britain, for example, the government is excitedly promoting the Netflix series "Adolescence". The show is set to be featured in UK classrooms as part of an anti-masculinity program to brainwash young men into avoiding conservative content and fearing their own biology. 

It is likely that the industry will try to adapt their productions to markets where audiences have less freedom of choice in the hopes of offsetting their losses in the US, but the fact remains that unless they abandon woke politics completely there is little chance that they will be able to weather another year of failure similar to the ugliness of 2025.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/30/2025 - 22:10

UAE Announces Full Withdrawal Of Forces From Yemen After Violating Saudi 'Red Line'

Via The Middle East Eye

The UAE has announced that it will withdraw its military personnel from Yemen, hours after Saudi Arabia struck its Yemeni allies and made an extremely rare public condemnation of Abu Dhabi's conduct in the country. The Emirati defense ministry said in a statement that "in light of recent developments" it was announcing "the termination of the remaining counterterrorism personnel in Yemen of its own volition". 

The ministry said Abu Dhabi had participated in an Arab coalition supporting the internationally recognized government of Yemen since 2015. It stated that while UAE forces had mostly concluded their role in 2019, specialized teams remained to work on "counterterrorism efforts" alongside international partners. 

AFP/Getty Images

It added: "In light of the recent developments and the potential repercussions that may affect the safety and effectiveness of counterterrorism missions, the Ministry of Defense announces the termination of the remaining counterterrorism teams in Yemen at its own volition, in a manner that ensures the safety of its personnel, and in coordination with the relevant partners."

Mohammed al-Basha, an expert on Yemen and founder of the Basha Report, a US-based risk advisory, said that most of the UAE's military forces and hardware was withdrawn from Yemen six years ago. 

"This withdrawal included main battle tanks, artillery, Patriot air defense systems, helicopters, and Apache gunships," he told Middle East Eye. "Today, the UAE maintains only a limited presence made up of rotating advisory, intelligence, counterterrorism and reconnaissance personnel. This is not a large-scale combat force and does not conduct major offensive operations."

On Tuesday morning, Saudi Arabia struck targets belonging to the Southern Transitional Council (STC) in the port of Mukalla. The STC is a UAE-backed group that seeks an independent south Yemen.

Riyadh said it targeted weapons and vehicles that had arrived in Mukalla on ships originating in Fujairah, a port city on the east coast of the UAE. It added that the weapons “constituted an imminent threat”, and therefore Saudi-led forces conducted “limited air strikes” targeting shipments offloaded from two vessels. 

Mohamed Alsahimi, an STC representative, told MEE that the group disagreed with this assessment, and said the attack targeted "civilian infrastructure". 

Saudis claim threat to national security

A few hours after the strike, Riyadh published a strong statement criticizing the UAE’s role in Yemen. The Saudi foreign ministry said it was disappointed by actions taken by the UAE "pressuring" the STC to conduct military operations on Saudi Arabia’s southern border, in the Yemeni regions of Hadhramaut and al-Mahrah. 

It said such actions were a threat to Saudi Arabia's national security, and the security and stability of Yemen and the wider region. "The kingdom stresses that any threat to its national security is a red line," it said. "[We] will not hesitate to take all necessary steps and measures to confront and neutralise any such threat."

BIG: Saudi airstrikes hit Yemen’s Mukalla Port, targeting ships from the UAE carrying armored vehicles and weapons for UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) separatists.

Tensions between Saudi-backed and UAE-backed forces have escalated sharply after pro-UAE forces… pic.twitter.com/ExPP78VVTz

— Clash Report (@clashreport) December 30, 2025

It marked the strongest statement made by the kingdom since the STC seized control of swathes of territory in southern Yemen earlier this month. 

The UAE has backed the STC since 2017, said Basha, "through diplomatic support, funding, military assistance, logistics, and training".

"This support has been comprehensive," the analyst added. "The UAE position, however, is that it does not control the STC’s political end goals." The UAE said it was "surprised" by the Saudi strike, and that it rejected Riyadh's account. 

Abu Dhabi's foreign ministry said the strike was made without consulting other member states of the Saudi-led coalition that intervened in the Yemeni war against the Houthis in 2015. 

It said that the targeted shipment was coordinated with Saudi Arabia, and that it did not contain weapons, but rather vehicles intended for use by UAE forces in the country. The UAE claimed Saudi Arabia's statement contained "fundamental inaccuracies". 

"The UAE categorically rejects any attempt to implicate it in the tensions between Yemeni parties and condemns the allegations of pressuring or directing any Yemeni party to carry out military operations," the Emirati foreign ministry said, before later announcing its withdrawal from Yemen.

Saudi Arabia officialy joins the "All my homies hate the UAE" club pic.twitter.com/5oodRCw8kp

— MenchOsint (@MenchOsint) December 30, 2025

After the Yemeni war and the takeover of the capital, Sanaa, and other areas in the north by the Houthis in 2014, the Aden-based STC has emerged as a key player among anti-Houthi elements.

Southern Yemen has for years been overseen by the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), an executive government body that includes the STC and initially had both Saudi and Emirati support. However, the body has long been riddled with internal disagreements and jostling.

Earlier on Tuesday, Rashad al-Alimi, the head of the PLC, called for an immediate withdrawal of Emirati forces from Yemen, and cancelled a joint defence agreement with the UAE. 

Alsahimi, the STC official, said the PLC had "no mandate" to make such an announcement, and that its chair made a "unilateral decision... without any consensus from the other PLC members".

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/30/2025 - 21:45

Trump Admin Freezes All Childcare Payments To Minnesota As Somali Daycare Scandal Goes Viral

The Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday announced that it has frozen all federal childcare funding for the state of Minnesota, citing rampant fraud allegations largely attributed to the Somali community. 

In a post on X, Deputy HHS Secretary Jim O'Neill wrote that "You have probably read the serious allegations that the state of Minnesota has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to fraudulent daycares across Minnesota over the past decade," which resulted in the following:

1. I have activated our defend the spend system for all ACF payments. Starting today, all ACF payments across America will require a justification and a receipt or photo evidence before we send money to a state.

2. Alex Adams and I have identified the individuals in @nickshirleyy 's excellent work. I have demanded from @GovTimWalz
 a comprehensive audit of these centers. This includes attendance records, licenses, complaints, investigations, and inspections.

3. We have launched a dedicated fraud-reporting hotline and email address at https://childcare.gov Whether you are a parent, provider, or member of the general public, we want to hear from you.

Starting immediately, all HHS payments to Minnesota "will require a justification and a receipt or photo evidence before we send money to a state."

We have frozen all child care payments to the state of Minnesota.

You have probably read the serious allegations that the state of Minnesota has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to fraudulent daycares across Minnesota over the past decade.

Today we have taken three actions… pic.twitter.com/VYbyf3WGop

— Deputy Secretary Jim O'Neill (@HHS_Jim) December 30, 2025

"Funds will be released only when states prove they are being spent legitimately," O'Neill said in a follow-up comment.

Following viral footage from journalist Nick Shirley which showed nearly a dozen Minnesota day care centers that had no children in attendance during the middle of the day, despite receiving state funds to provide services. O'Neill said that HHS has identified the centers featured in Shirley's video and demanded that the state carry out a "comprehensive audit," including "attendance records, licenses, complaints, investigations and inspections."

And just so you know how the MSM is playing it, CBS News writes: 

CBS News conducted its own analysis of day care centers mentioned by Shirley. All but two have active licenses, according to state records, and all active locations were visited by state regulators within the last six months. The analysis found dozens of citations for safety, cleanliness and other issues, but no recorded evidence of fraud.

...

In recent years, Minnesota has grappled with a litany of alleged fraud schemes targeting the state's public assistance programs. Dozens of people have been convicted as part of a scheme to bilk nearly $250 million from a federally backed child nutrition program during the pandemic, and federal prosecutors have charged people with defrauding Medicaid-supported autism services and housing stabilization programs.

So...

> alleged (Somalian) fraud schemes

> dozens (of Somalians) convicted

> regulators say no fraud in (Somalian) daycare centers

Sure CBS, state regulators in a state with rampant fraud far beyond Shirley's findings - are doing just great.

According to a spokesman for governor Tim Walz, "The governor has been combatting fraud for years while the President has been letting fraudsters out of jail.  Fraud is a serious issue. But this is a transparent attempt to politicize the issue to hurt Minnesotans and defund government programs that help people."

Indeed, Walz thinks he's got it all figured out!

trump's long game is waiting for you to allow $18b in fraud? pic.twitter.com/ZLCGZo80Oj

— Christopher Kocurek (@bigironchris) December 31, 2025

Minnesota receives hundreds of millions in federal dollers annually to support its Child Care Assistance Program, which subsidizes daycare for around 23,000 children from low-income families. In 2026, HHS was expected to kick in $218 million, while the state will kick in $155 million, according to state projections.

Brilliant execution by Trump's sleeper Somali cell. https://t.co/d0ohABYo27

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 31, 2025

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/30/2025 - 21:20

Researchers Successfully Reverse Alzheimer's In Mice: Peer-Reviewed Study

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Scientists have reversed Alzheimer’s disease in mice, potentially showing a pathway to treat the illness among humans, according to a Dec. 22 peer-reviewed study published in the Cell Reports Medicine journal.

A nurse holds the hands of a person suffering from Alzheimer's disease at Les Fontaines retirement home in Lutterbach, France, on Sept. 21, 2009. Sebastien Bozon /AFP via Getty Images

Alzheimer’s is traditionally considered irreversible. In the study, researchers treated two groups of mice with P7C3-A20, a pharmacologic agent. One group carried human mutations related to amyloid processing, while the other carried a tau protein mutation. Both amyloid and tau pathologies are two major early events of Alzheimer’s.

Researchers say that as mice develop brain pathologies resembling Alzheimer’s, they are ideal subjects to test how P7C3-A20 affects Alzheimer’s in humans.

Among the amyloid mice, treatment with P7C3-A20 was found to have resulted in restoring the proper balance of Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), which is a cellular energy molecule and a major driver of Alzheimer’s disease. As people age, NAD+ levels decline in their bodies, including the brain. Without proper NAD+ balance, the cells are unable to execute critical processes necessary for proper functioning.

The treatment was found to have reversed blood-brain barrier deterioration, DNA damage, oxidative stress, and neuroinflammation, researchers wrote. The blood-brain barrier maintains nutrient and hormone levels in the brain while protecting the organ from toxins and pathogens.

The treatment enhanced synaptic plasticity and hippocampal neurogenesis, a process in which new functional neurons are generated.

These changes resulted in “full cognitive recovery and reduction of plasma levels” of p-tau217 among the amyloid mice, researchers said. P-tau217 is the clinical biomarker of Alzheimer’s that helps predict cognitive decline.

In fact, when P7C3-A20 was initiated for 6-month-old mice as they manifested advanced Alzheimer’s pathology and cognitive deficits, the treatment “comprehensively restored brain health and function by 12 months,” researchers wrote in the study.

P7C3-A20 reversed advanced Alzheimer’s in mice with tau mutation and was found to help protect the human brain microvascular endothelial cells (BMEC) from oxidative stress. BMEC is the major component of the blood-brain barrier.

“Our results challenge the long-held view that [Alzheimer’s disease] is intrinsically irreversible,” the researchers wrote.

They said that restoring the proper balance of NAD+ levels may be “a potentially transformative therapeutic approach.”

Multiple study authors declared competing interests for holding patents related to subjects covered under the study.

In a Dec. 22 statement, Ohio-based University Hospitals, whose researchers took part in the study, said the findings should spark new research into complementary approaches and clinical testing in Alzheimer’s patients.

Andrew A. Pieper, senior author of the study, said that they were “very excited and encouraged” by the results.

“The key takeaway is a message of hope—the effects of Alzheimer’s disease may not be inevitably permanent,” he said. “The damaged brain can, under some conditions, repair itself and regain function.”

Alzheimer’s is a progressive illness that starts with mild memory loss and eventually leads to a situation where the person is unable to carry on conversations or conduct daily activities.

Alzheimer’s typically affects people aged 60 and older. While the exact causes of the illness remain unknown, Alzheimer’s is likely the result of various factors such as genes, environment, family history, and lifestyle behaviors, according to an August 2024 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

An October 2024 study identified that a silent phase of Alzheimer’s begins up to 20 years before symptoms appear.

This silent phase is marked by subtle changes in brain cells. For instance, the inhibitory neurons could become vulnerable, thus disrupting communication between brain cells. In this phase, there is a gradual buildup of beta-amyloid plaques and tangles, which are hallmarks of Alzheimer’s.

According to data from the nonprofit Alzheimer’s Association, more than 7 million Americans currently live with the illness, a number projected to jump to almost 13 million by 2050.

About one in nine individuals aged 65 and older has Alzheimer’s. Almost 12 million Americans are estimated to provide unpaid care for people with Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia, valued at more than $413 billion last year.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/30/2025 - 20:55

America Is Arguing About Free Speech... The World Is Putting People In Prison For It

Authored by Matt Schlapp via The Epoch Times,

As the freest nation in the world, America has long understood the value of free speech—not as an abstract ideal, but as a fundamental right.

The Conservative Political Action Conference’s (CPAC) newly released 2025 “Freedom of Speech Around the World Ratings” cut through the noise with a simple question: Does a country imprison or execute citizens for speech protected by the U.S. First Amendment? The purpose is not to deny America’s internal struggles, but to draw a clear line between nations that debate speech and those that punish it with prison or death.

President Donald J. Trump underscored the stakes during his most recent Cabinet meeting, warning that America is nearing a consequential turning point, one in which the nation must decide whether to restore trust and order in its institutions, or follow other countries down a path where breakdown is met not with reform but with censorship.

This debate is real. But a volatile argument is not the same as criminalization. Having different political views should not result in violence or jail.

We have already seen alarming flashes of how volatile debates over speech and ideology have become in America. The assassination of Charlie Kirk underscored those dangers in stark terms. Universities should be places where young people learn to engage ideas, challenge arguments, and think for themselves, and not be arenas where disagreement turns hostile or deadly.

The results of CPAC’s ratings should sober every American.

The worst offenders, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and Syria, score zero. These regimes openly imprison or execute people for words and ideas. More troubling, however, are developed democracies that still describe themselves as free. Several now jail citizens for speech that would be constitutionally protected in the United States.

In Switzerland, a man was sentenced to jail for insulting a journalist. In the United Kingdom, a citizen spent months behind bars for posting stickers labeled “hate speech,” many criticizing illegal immigration and public-safety failures. British authorities later acknowledged ideology played a role in the punishment.

France, Germany, and Canada all score just 20 percent in CPAC’s index. In Canada, the consequences are especially stark. A father, Robert Hoogland, served prison time for refusing to use compelled language regarding his daughter’s gender identity. His crime was not violence or harassment, it was speech, and a refusal to surrender parental conscience to the state.

Australia, often assumed to be a free-speech peer of the United States, also scores poorly. After a religiously motivated stabbing incident, authorities responded not by reinforcing public order but by expanding speech restrictions and online censorship. Using tragedy to justify silencing dissent has become an increasingly common pattern abroad.

This is how free societies slide.

Governments do not begin by banning obvious truths. They start by criminalizing offense, tone, or dissenting ideology. Over time, disagreement itself becomes punishable, debate gives way to intimidation, and silence replaces persuasion.

The United States still stands apart.

America received a perfect score in CPAC’s ratings—not because we are flawless, but because we remain the only nation on Earth with both a constitutional guarantee of free speech and a judicial system that still enforces it.

Even amid fierce internal debate, speech in America remains a right, not a privilege.

That makes the United States not just an outlier, but a model that other nations should be moving toward, not away from.

But a strong score today is not a permanent guarantee.

America’s free-speech culture depends not only on laws, but on restraint. Political movements across the spectrum are free to argue their case in the marketplace of ideas. What must be resisted is the temptation to silence opponents through state power, mob intimidation, or violence.

There have been close calls. The prosecution of Douglass Mackey for a political meme tested the limits of speech protection. His conviction was later overturned on appeal, and he never spent a day in prison. That outcome matters. When free speech survives the close cases, the culture remains free. When it fails, conformity follows.

The lesson for Americans is not complacency, it is vigilance. Around the world, prison cells reveal what happens when nations choose control over debate. The United States still has time to choose wisely, but only if freedom is defended before it is rationed.

To view the full CPAC Freedom of Speech Ratings and country scorecards, click HERE.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times or ZeroHedge.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/30/2025 - 20:05

Vegas Police Roll Out Fleet Of Tesla Cybertrucks After $2.7M Donation

Last month, the Las Vegas police department became the first in the US to deploy a fleet of Tesla Cybertrucks for patrol, according to The Guardian.

The 10 black-and-white vehicles, equipped with sirens and emergency lights, were donated — costing taxpayers nothing, according to Sheriff Kevin McMahill.

“They represent something far bigger than just a police car,” McMahill said. “They represent innovation.”

News of the trucks first emerged in February when McMahill posted renderings on X, writing “These are badass.”

The department later said the fleet “was entirely donated by an anonymous supporter.” That donor was soon revealed as Silicon Valley investor Ben Horowitz and his wife Felicia, who live in Las Vegas and have long supported the police department. Their donation — worth about $2.7m — included 10 patrol vehicles and one Swat “sting protector” and was finalized in January 2025 through a law-enforcement charity called Behind the Blue.

“As we’ve discussed, the use of these vehicles would represent a groundbreaking approach to modern policing,” wrote police chief of staff Mike Gennaro in a December 2024 email. “The morale of the cops will be through the roof when these show up at their substations… And we will use them as a tool to keep morale high and cops productive.”

The trucks were retrofitted by California firm UpFit with tactical gear, barrier shields, radios and ladders. One Swat vehicle will be used in situations involving “barricaded suspects and hostage incidents.” Tesla’s high-speed “beast mode” was removed from all vehicles.

Reaction has been mixed. Athar Haseebullah of the ACLU of Nevada said the vehicles appear to endorse Tesla CEO Elon Musk. “I recognize that LVMPD sees value in having cool-looking vehicles around… But the reality is that for communities, that’s not what they’re asking for,” he said. “They’re asking to feel safer. I don’t know that a Tesla Cybertruck makes anybody feel any safer.”

The Guardian writes that other US cities have faced backlash over Tesla fleet purchases, while several California police departments testing Tesla sedans have said the vehicles are ill-suited to modern policing.

The donation also comes as Cybertruck sales slump and the model faces repeated recalls — including defects involving side panels, accelerator pedals and light bars. Despite Musk’s claims that the truck is “apocalypse-proof” and “really tough, not fake tough,” the vehicle has struggled in the market and is banned in Europe for pedestrian safety concerns.

“Why didn’t they pick any other type of vehicle?” Haseebullah asked. “Why would a Tesla be more efficient for police to utilize than a Ford?”

McMahill remains enthusiastic. For him, the trucks are about building “the most technologically advanced police department on the planet.”

“These trucks are high performance and they’re built tough,” he said. “Cops are going to look kinda cool in them too.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/30/2025 - 19:40

Note: Mortgage rates are from MortgageNewsDaily.com and are for top tier scenarios.

Wednesday:
• At 8:30 AM, The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released.  

Amid Economic Crisis, Mossad-Affiliated X Account Encourages Further Protests In Iran

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

A Farsi-language X account claiming to represent Israel’s Mossad encouraged protests in Iran on Monday and suggested that the Israeli spy agency has operatives involved in demonstrations on the ground.

"Let’s come out to the streets together. The time has come. We are with you. Not just from afar and verbally. We are with you in the field as well," the account, which Israeli media is treating as an official mouthpiece for the Mossad, said in Farsi.

Protesters demonstrate against poor economic conditions in Tehran on December 29, 2025. Source: Fars News Agency/ZUMA Press Wire via Reuters Connect

The protests in Iran were sparked by surging inflation, a collapsing currency, and an overall worsening economic situation in the country, which is under heavy US sanctions.

Amid the demonstrations, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian accepted the resignation of the head of Iran’s central bank.

"The livelihood of the people is my daily concern. We have fundamental actions on the agenda to reform the monetary and banking system and preserve the purchasing power of the people," Pezeshkian wrote on X on Monday.

"I have tasked the Minister of the Interior to hear the legitimate demands of the protesters through dialogue with their representatives, so that the government can act with all its might to resolve problems and respond responsibly," the Iranian president added.

US and Israeli officials have jumped on the protests to push their agenda against the Iranian government. "The people of Iran want freedom. They have suffered at the hands of the Ayatollahs for too long," US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz said on X.

Videos shared online show students at Tehran University chanting "Death to the dictator" as security forces withdrew while protesters moved toward the campus main gate. pic.twitter.com/lT41B1sfjx

— Faytuks Network (@FaytuksNetwork) December 30, 2025

"We stand with Iranians in the streets of Tehran and across the country as they protest a radical regime that has brought them nothing but economic downturn and war," Waltz added.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet posted a video to social media urging Iranians to "rise up."

Machine translated version of Mossad post from the Farsi original...

The US and Israeli encouragement of the protests in Iran comes as President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are plotting another war against the country.

While hosting Netanyahu at Mar-a-Lago, Trump said on Monday that he would support Israeli attacks on Iran if Tehran "continues" its missile program.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/30/2025 - 19:15

"Significant Safety Concerns" After Salem, Oregon Appoints Convicted Killer To Public Safety Boards

Salem, Oregon, is facing backlash after appointing Kyle Hedquist — a convicted murderer whose sentence for a 1995 killing was later commuted — to two influential public safety bodies: the city’s Community Police Review Board and its Civil Service Commission, which oversee police conduct and public safety employment matters, according to Newser and KOIN.

Marion County District Attorney Paige Clarkson, who opposed Hedquist’s 2022 release by then-Gov. Kate Brown, condemned the decision. In a statement Tuesday, she said that while people who have completed their sentences and demonstrated rehabilitation can contribute to society, "this is not one of them," adding that police and firefighters "have a right to expect better from city leadership."

She also renewed her warning of "significant safety concerns" and urged the city to adopt "common sense standards" for appointments tied directly to public safety workers.

The article writes that city leaders themselves appear split. In separate Facebook posts, council members signaled disagreement over whether Hedquist’s appointments should be reconsidered. Councilor Vanessa Nordyke said Tuesday that, after pressure from local police and firefighter unions, she had reversed her position and now supports removing Hedquist from the boards, according to the Salem Reporter.

Hedquist was previously profiled by The Oregonian among former “lifers” who made “a swift switch from Oregon prisons to insider politics.”

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/30/2025 - 18:50