Zurich Has The World's Most Expensive Cappuccino, Amsterdam The Cheapest

Coffee is a daily ritual for millions of people around the world. Yet the price of a simple cappuccino can vary dramatically depending on where you order it.

Local wages, rents, taxes, and currency strength all shape what consumers ultimately pay for their caffeine fix.

This visualization ranks the most expensive cappuccinos among the 69 major cities covered in Deutsche Bank’s Mapping the World’s Prices 2025 report.

It covers cappuccino prices in 2025, expressed in U.S. dollars for comparability.

Swiss and Nordic Cities Lead the Rankings

Zurich and Copenhagen share the top spot, with an average cappuccino price of $6.77. Switzerland’s high wages and cost of living, combined with a strong currency, push everyday purchases higher.

Geneva also ranks among the most expensive cities at $5.86, reinforcing Switzerland’s position as one of the costliest places in the world for daily consumption.

U.S. Cities Cluster Near the Top

Several U.S. cities appear prominently in the rankings. New York ($5.95) and San Francisco ($5.90) lead the pack, followed closely by Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston.

Despite differences in geography and culture, cappuccino prices across these U.S. cities fall within a relatively narrow range, suggesting similar cost structures in large urban markets.

Europe’s Price Range—and Italy’s Exception

European cities show a wider spread. While London ($5.19), Stockholm ($5.10), and Helsinki ($5.13) rank among the pricier options, Vienna and Amsterdam sit below $5.00.

Notably, Italy stands apart. Even the most expensive cappuccino in Italy—found in Milan—costs just $2.15, while in Rome the average price is only $1.79.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Which Countries Drink the Most Wine? on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/23/2025 - 05:45

Germany's Debt-Fueled Illusions: Merz Humiliated, Economy In Freefall

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

The year 2025 ends for the slap-prone German Chancellor with a resounding smack in Brussels. After the failed raid on Russian assets at Euroclear, Berlin now turns its gaze to the hoped-for comeback of the German economy. Yet here too awaits the next bitter realization for naïve statisticians: wealth cannot be printed with debt.

Whether the Chancellor finds any sense of fulfillment—or even joy—in his current job is difficult to discern. Not that Friedrich Merz, with his numerous political sleights of hand, has preserved any claim to professional happiness. And yet curiosity remains: what must the psyche of a man be like, who for nearly eight months has been led by social-democratic buccaneers such as Lars Klingbeil and Bärbel Bas by the nose through the political circus—exposed, humiliated, and repeatedly made ridiculous?

March into Command Economy

Merz’s grandiose promises of cutting bureaucracy, unleashing the economy in a vitalizing fall of reforms, and his bizarre economic patriotism à la “Made for Germany” evaporate at the slightest breeze of intra-coalition opposition. It reads like a naive comedy: the CDU and SPD camouflage reform policies, only to steer the central plan of transforming society and the economy into a green command economy with a military-industrial complex through increasingly rough seas to a safe harbor. The good old Erich—what would he have thought of what the old “FRG” has become?

The ongoing public humiliation of former BlackRock breakfast director Friedrich Merz reached a temporary peak on Friday in Brussels. At the EU summit, he received a resounding slap from the small Visegrád coalition led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, ultimately preventing the expropriation of Russian assets at Euroclear.

For those who understand the significance of Euroclear and even vaguely grasp what it means to damage a pillar of the trust-based international financial market architecture, a sigh of relief was inevitable.

What threatened here was nothing less than a reckless kick against a system’s foundation—whether from ignorance, political incompetence, or an almost manic denial of reality regarding the long-lost war in Ukraine. Panic replaces reason, EU-Europe digs deeper into the spiral of debt and recession, whose accelerating spin now lifts once-prosperous cities like Stuttgart and Wolfsburg off their fiscal saddles.

In Brussels, Merz and his allies were shown a boundary—unmistakably. Thus, the circle closes on a disagreeable year 2025 for him. And everything suggests the coming year will offer little cause for optimism.

Toward the Sunset

The German economy alone ensures that 2026 will seamlessly continue the disaster of 2025. An honest economic assessment requires a willingness for an honest inventory. The state’s share of German GDP has long surpassed the magic mark of 50 percent. New borrowing next year—adjusted for the federal government’s accounting tricks—will amount to roughly 5.6 percent.

Merz’s relentless fight against the debt brake now forces even Bundesbank economists to a sober assessment. For the coming year, they forecast an official budget deficit of 4.8 percent—a figure indirectly confirming our estimate of actual new borrowing.

If one views the state as a consumer filling its deficits with a debt printer, then statistically reported zero growth means nothing more than the private economy—producing goods and services for real consumers—is shrinking dramatically.

To counteract this economic erosion, the federal government, in addition to its already high-deficit budget, channels special funds into two artificial economies: the green disaster economy and the freshly revitalized war sector. Over €50 billion per year is borrowed on the credit market for this purpose.

It is this mixture of economic ignorance, historical oblivion, and near-childlike faith in miracles that leaves one speechless. One can safely assume that no cabinet member comprehends that only capital saved from the economic process and transformed into investments on a free market creates wealth.

The Merz–Klingbeil duo is building a bubble economy ideologically committed to the green transformation and geopolitically following a historically fatal idea: the growth of a war economy.

The Silent Erosion of the Real Economy

This policy may further swell the public sector. Merely distributing these massive debt and credit programs puts tens of thousands to work at the expense of the productive population. The high regulatory tempo in Brussels and Berlin has forced the German economy to create roughly 325,000 new administrative positions over the past three years—solely to handle the flood of documentation and regulatory requirements. Paper piles upon paper: absurd, Kafkaesque, and economically destructive.

The state thus effectively outsources its own bureaucracy and distorts statistics on multiple levels. While administrative apparatuses grow, hundreds of thousands of industrial jobs have already been lost. The consensus estimate for economic growth in 2026 of just about one percent is the true disaster Berlin must now digest.

It matters little how much credit the state withdraws from the capital market or which incentives it creates to direct private capital into industrial wastelands—green steel or wind energy. In this environment, the private sector will shrink by at least four percent next year.

The Turning Point

For Friedrich Merz, this economic catastrophe is no longer merely a domestic political time bomb. If the downward spiral continues, media spectacles, ritualized bashing of entrepreneurs, hollow site patriotism, and endless “persevere” slogans will not suffice to explain to citizens why their exsanguination through taxes and labor markets continues to rise while no one addresses the causes.

At its core, this crisis is about correcting two fundamental ideological misdirections. The moment will come when Germany must abandon the leftist illusion of permanently acting as the world’s social office. This cut will coincide with the end of destructive climate socialism, which is either bankrupting German industry or pushing it into the arms of rationally managed locations.

The Visegrád group delivered a demonstrative kick to Merz’s shins. But the real dynamics extend further: a powerful opposition of conservative parties and governments—from Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Italy—is forming. They will eventually behead the climate-socialist Medusa of central planners. Yet, given the stiff headwinds and fierce resistance of Brussels’ powerful core, the birth of the liberating European Perseus may be a long and difficult labor.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/23/2025 - 05:00

Non-US Citizens More Likely To Have Devices Checked

Tourists heading to the United States could soon have to disclose the past five years of their social media activities to authorities during the ESTA process. Where providing such information was previously only mandatory for longer-term visas, U.S. Customs and Border Protection have now submitted a new regulatory proposal to make it an essential part of short-term tourists and business travelers’ applications too. The move would be a part of a wider package of data collection measures which authorities say are necessary for security reasons. The decision is not yet legally binding, but could start to come into force from February.

The new regulation would move the inspection process to a pre-travel stage. Currently, the CBP can demand a media search of entrants’ electronic devices at random at the border, without needing a warrant or any specific reason. More “advanced” searches, which happens when a CBP or ICE official connects the device to external equipment in order to review, copy, and/or analyze its contents, requires reasonable suspicion of criminal activity or a "national security concern". CBP officers are also able to "detain” an electronic device or copies of information contained within it, usually up to a maximum of five days.

As Statista's Anna Fleck reports, data from the CBP shows that non-U.S. citizens are over three times more likely to have their devices checked at the U.S. border than those who hold a U.S. passport. Of the 55,318 media searches of electronics devices checks in the fiscal year of 2025, running from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025, 41,728 were of non-U.S. citizens, while 13,590 were of U.S. citizens.

You will find more infographics at Statista

On average, searches have historically been relatively rare. Of the total 419 million passengers processed at U.S. ports of entry last year, around 0.01 percent had their electronic devices searched. Ports of entry include international airports, road and rail crossings on land borders and major seaports, and are places where travelers can legally enter the country.

However, the number of searches, which includes the checking of mobile phones, computers, cameras, or other electronics, has been on the rise over the past decade. An increase in annual passenger footfall likely plays a part, with the dip in the number of device checks in 2020 and 2021 mirroring a decrease in travelers those years due to pandemic-related restrictions.

But this reason alone does not explain why the number of searches in 2025 nearly tripled since 2016, and increased more than six fold since 2015. In the latter year, around 382 million travelers were processed at U.S. ports of entry and the devices of 8,503 travelers were checked, working out to an average of around 0.002 percent.

It remains to be seen how the number of checks will change over the next few years with the Trump 2.0 administration. While checks generally increased under Biden too, the new proposed regulations and string of cases of U.S. tourists and work visa holders having been detained on arrival to the U.S. this year have raised concerns that there has been a shift, with the country now carrying out greater scrutiny than before.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/23/2025 - 04:15

New NATO Hub To Open In Romania, Doubling Weapons Deliveries To Ukraine

Via Remix News,

Starting in January 2026, a second NATO hub will begin operating in Romania, doubling the transit of weapons to Ukraine, including through the PURL (Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List) mechanism.

Right after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, a similar hub was opened in Jasionka, Poland, to serve as a key logistics center for all international aid flowing to Kyiv — military, humanitarian, and medical. Funds flow into Jasionka from Europe and the United States, writes Do Rzeczy.

The opening of the second hub reporting directly to NATO was confirmed by NATO’s deputy commander for support to Ukraine, General Mike Keller, who also informed press that in the past year, Ukraine received around 220,000 tons of military aid – approximately 9,000 trucks, 1,800 railway cars, and some 500 aircraft carrying weapons and military equipment.

“This is actually quite positive news, considering the independence of arms supplies to Ukraine from a single logistics center in Poland. This concerns urgently needed air defense assets, and above all, missiles, ammunition, etc.,” Defense Express experts assessed.

The current hub in Poland is located approximately 80 kilometers from the Polish-Ukrainian border. From there, goods, previously subjected to security checks, including explosives and counterintelligence equipment, are transported to the Ukrainian border.

For over two years, all these tasks were performed by a special support inspectorate – a team of four services under the overall leadership of the Military Counterintelligence Service – the police, the Central Bureau of Police Investigation, the Military Counterintelligence Service, and a dozen or so officers of the Military Gendarmerie.

Read more here...

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/23/2025 - 03:30

US Mulls Sanctions On Spanish-Flagged Vessels

Lately headlines have been filled with developments of the United States targeting Venezuelan-linked tankers, or sanctioning Russia's so-called Shadow Fleet, or else intercepts of Iranian oil shipments on the high seas. Such country names on the receiving end of Washington's punitive measures have become commonplace, but it is surprising to see the EU country of Spain pop up as potentially next on the target list. Sanctions on Spanish-flagged vessels?

The US is actually mulling it, based on Madrid having blocked vessels carrying weapons bound for Israel since last year, even including refusals for American ships to dock.

Source: Bloomberg

Maritime monitoring source Freight Waves reported of several incidents last year, "Spain refused docking privileges at APM terminals in Algeciras, Spain in November 2024 to three U.S. flagged vessels operating under the MSP: Maersk Denver, Maersk Nysted, and Maersk Seletar."

The Federal Maritime Commission conducted a formal investigation and this month confirmed the anti-US and anti-Israel actions by the Spanish government did take place, in line with Spain's recent boycotting of Israel (specifically arms and military equipment) policy due to the Gaza war.

Spain has made clear it has recently codified a "multi-faceted policy" to ban ships and aircraft carrying weapons headed for Israel or tankers carrying fuel for use by the Israeli military from using Spanish ports or even flying in its airspace.

The US Federal Maritime Commission within the last days issued a statement confirming that it is considering "remedies the commission can implement to adjust or meet unfavorable conditions to shipping in the foreign trade of the United States include adopting regulations restricting voyages to or from US ports, imposing per voyage fees, limiting amounts or types of cargo, or taking ‘any other action the commission finds necessary and appropriate to adjust or meet any condition unfavorable to shipping the foreign trade of the United States’."

There has long existed routine coordination between Spanish and American military officials, however, the relationship is becoming increasingly tense, given port blockage issue reflects a serious political divergence amid the ongoing war in Gaza.

The Rota base, near Cádiz on the Atlantic coast, is under Spanish control but heavily utilized by American forces. Also, the Morón air base, which is near Seville, is a key hub for US military operations, with American forces long operating with a broad degree of freedom there.

US naval base at Rota in Cadiz province, file image

Madrid has defended its decision as rooted in Spain's sovereignty and terms outlined in a 1988 bilateral defense agreement, amid the past couple years of European scrutiny of Israeli military action against Palestinians, especially in war-ravaged Gaza.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/23/2025 - 02:45

UK Govt Minister Steps In To Defend Met Office As Fake Temperature Scandal Escalates

Authored by Chris Morrison via DailySceptic.org,

In a couple of weeks’ time, the Met Office is likely to announce another ‘hottest year evah’ in the UK. The message will be broadcast faithfully by trusted messengers in mainstream media, keen to prop up the fading Net Zero fantasy, but greeted with howls of derision across social media. Eye-opening investigative research over the last two years has revealed a national temperature network mainly composed of ‘junk’ inappropriate sites and massive data inventions across over 100 non-existent stations.

Now the British Government has stepped in with the suggestion that questioning the Met Office’s shoddy measuring systems “weakens trust in science”. Misinformation is said to have proliferated on “conspiracy networks”.

Step forward Lord Patrick Vallance, the former Government Chief Scientific Adviser at the heart of the Covid lockdown panic but now an unelected Science Minister in the Labour Administration.

“There has been a growing online narrative in some online and social media spaces attempting to undermine Met Office observations and data,” he observes.

Vallance’s conspiracy claims echo similar comments made earlier in the year by the Met Office. The investigative efforts of a small number of people were said by the state meteorologist to be an “attempt to undermine decades of robust science around the world ‘s changing climate”.

Only in the world inhabited by Vallance and the Met Office can a conspiracy be whipped up when rigorous examination and questioning is applied to scientific data.

From Covid to climate, it seems the scientific process is a closed book to state scientists following the settled political narrative. One of the ‘conspirators’ is citizen sleuth Ray Sanders, who has undertaken a forensic examination of nearly 400 individual Met Office recording stations. Commenting on the official ministerial response, he observed that not one word constituted a scientific approach. “It is a political monologue of the lowest order,” he opined.

Regular co-conspiratorial readers will of course be aware of the reporting problems at the Met Office.

Over the last 18 months, the percentage of sites in junk CIMO Classes 4 and 5 with ‘uncertainties’ due to nearby unnatural obstacles of 2°C and 5°C respectively has climbed from 77.9% to over 80%. In that period, the number of pristine Class 1 sites capable of measuring an uncorrupted ambient air temperature over a large surrounding area has fallen from 24 to just 19. Ray Sanders has catalogued most of the unsuitable sites producing measurements taken by airport runways, in walled gardens, near main roads and in the middle of solar farms. Daily high unnatural heat spikes, amplified by the recent introduction of more accurate electronic devices, are an obvious unaddressed problem, but they are often fed into the official statistics. One such 60-second spike in July 2022 pushed the temperature at RAF Coningsby up to 40.3°C, a declared national record that is widely publicised.

Meanwhile, temperature databases are awash with non-existent stations and invented data. Explanations that the ‘estimates’ are taken from ‘well-correlated neighbouring stations’ might be more convincing if those stations could be identified. Freedom of Information (FOI) efforts by Ray Sanders seeking such details have been dismissed as “vexatious” and “not in the public interest”. The picture has emerged of a very rough-and-ready network, suitable for specific local temperature reporting at places such as airports, but unconvincing in promoting widespread average temperatures down to one hundredth of a degree centigrade.

The Vallance explanations are contained in a letter written to the Conservative MP Sir Julian Lewis following concerns raised by Derek Tripp, a local councillor in his constituency. He notes that in September, the Met Office decided to remove estimated data from three non-existent stations on its historic temperature database.

“They recognised that confusion could be caused when there appears to be a continued flow of data on this website from stations that have closed,” he said.

In fact the confusion was caused by the Daily Sceptic seeking FOI details in November of well-correlated neighbouring stations responsible for data at one of the stations, namely Lowestoft. The well-correlated explanation is often used by the Met Office and formed the basis of an earlier ‘fact check’ by Science Feedback that seems to have relied exclusively on text provided by the Met Office. Sanders had earlier determined that there were no such stations within a reasonable distance of Lowestoft. The Met Office admitted under FOI that it did not use such stations but rather made estimates using its HADUK-Grid. This was little more than passing the buck since HADUK-Grid inputs temperature information from nearby stations, none of which it seems can ever be identified.

Vallance went on to note that the historic dataset was for “general interest only and is not intended for climate monitoring purposes”.

Curiously, Vallance failed to point out that this was a very recent explanation since it only appeared on the Met Office historic page after the Daily Sceptic submitted its FOI.

On the 80% junk nature of the Met Office’s temperature sites, Vallance rushes to the aid of the party.

“It is misleading and inappropriate to interpret the CIMO classifications in isolation to question the quality of the Met Office’s observing network or the integrity of the UK’s climate record,” he states.

What pompous piffle.

In-house activists have been allowed to leverage the reputation of the Met Office to produce a flood of dubious measurements and statistics designed to create mass climate psychosis with the aim of promoting a hard-Left Net Zero agenda. The World Meteorological Organisation could not be clearer in stating that a CIMO Class 1 location can be considered as a “reference” site giving a true air temperature over a wide surrounding area. “A Class 5 site is a site where nearby obstacles create an inappropriate environment for a meteorological measurement that is intended to be representative of a wide area,” it notes. A site with a poor class number can still be valuable for a specified application, it adds.

In other words, a Class 5 is useful for giving jet pilots a vital runway temperature, but less so for telling us that the annual temperature in the UK was 0.06°C cooler in 2023 than the ‘record’ year of 2022.

Vallance also claims that the Met Office “follows a structured, requirements-driven process to identify and establish new land observing stations”. It is reasonable to ask what “requirements-driven” process is being used by the Met Office, given that a large majority of sites started over the last 30, 10 and five years are to be found in the junk 4 and 5 Classes.

Even worse, the Daily Sceptic has disclosed using FOI information that 20 new sites have opened since April 2024, and of the 17 that have received CIMO classifications, a frankly incredible 64.7% started life in the Class 4 and 5 junk lane.

And they say we are the conspiracy nuts.

Tyler Durden Tue, 12/23/2025 - 02:00

There Are Over 8,500 Toxic Shipwrecks Across The Globe

There are over 8,500 potentially polluting wrecks (PPWs) across the world’s ocean. These shipwrecks may hold as much as 20.4 million metric tons of oil and toxic substances, according to estimates.

This graphic, produced by Visual Capitalist's Cody Good in partnership with Lloyd’s Register Foundation, shows the global density of World War II wrecks. It uses data from Paul Heersink’s Sunken Ships of the Second World War database and oil estimates from Michel et al., 2005, presented at the International Oil Spill Conference.

Where Toxic Shipwrecks Are Found

World War II battles sank over 75% of PPWs, concentrating most in regions such as the South Pacific (32% of PPWs, 25% of oil) and the North Atlantic (25% of PPWs, 38% of oil).

Here is a table that shows the concentration of PPWs by ocean region and their estimated oil content:

These wrecks remain under the ownership of the original flag states, who have no legal obligation to intervene. As a result, proactive international cooperation is urgently required.

The Environmental Threat

Many PPWs lie in the waters of small island states reliant on fishing and tourism. Even minor oil spills in sensitive marine areas can be devastating.

Here is a table showing the top 10 countries with the most PPWs located in their exclusive economic zones (EEZs), ranked by GDP:

Source: Shipwreck locations – Paul Heersink, 2025; EEZ file – Flanders Marine Institute, 2023

Because these nations often lack the resources to respond, they remain especially vulnerable to emerging threats.

The Malta Manifesto: Charting a Path Forward

The Malta Manifesto, launched by Project Tangaroa, calls for a global framework to address the PPW threat. It outlines key actions, from identifying high-risk wrecks to supporting coastal nations with limited capacity.

By recognizing that even a single leak in the wrong location can have far-reaching impacts, the Manifesto pushes for equitable, science-based solutions to this overlooked legacy of conflict.

Read the Malta Manifesto here...

Tyler Durden Mon, 12/22/2025 - 23:00

Trump Deal Highlights Intensifying Global Competition For Fusion Energy

Authored by Alex Kimani via OilPrice.com,

Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (NYSE:DJT) have surged nearly 70% after the company agreed to merge with fusion startup TAE Technologies in a $6 billion deal. Under the terms of the deal, shareholders of each company will own roughly half of the combined entity on a fully diluted equity basis. Trump Media, majority owned by U.S. President Donald Trump, will now become the holding company for TAE Power Solutions and TAE Life Sciences alongside current holdings Truth Social, Truth+ and Truth.Fi. 

Founded in 1998, TAE Technologies aims to deploy commercial, utility-scale fusion energy. The company plans to commence construction of its first fusion power plant in 2026, expected to generate 350-500 MWe.

TAE Technologies has raised more than $1.3 billion thanks to backing by high-profile investors, including Google, Chevron Technology Ventures, Goldman Sachs, and Sumitomo Corporation of America. The company plans to employ neutral particle beams and magnets in its fusion reactors instead of standard lasers.

Widely regarded as the Holy Grail of low-carbon electricity, nuclear fusion works by ‘smashing’ together hydrogen atoms to create helium and release energy through the famous E=MC2 mass-energy equivalence. Fusion is the process by which stars, including our own sun, generate vast amounts of energy in their cores. 

Nuclear fusion is able to generate four times as much energy as nuclear fission from the same mass of fuel. Fusion reactors are highly regarded not only because of their massive power output but also because they produce much less radioactive waste and cannot melt down, unlike fission reactors, where uncontrolled chain reactions can be catastrophic. 

Nuclear fission is a process where a nucleus (usually of a heavy atom like uranium) splits into two smaller nuclei, releasing a large amount of energy and additional neutrons. These released neutrons can then induce further fission events, leading to a chain reaction.

After a long period of stagnation, nuclear fusion is hot again thanks to the ongoing global nuclear renaissance amid surging energy demand. Back in August, Sam Altman-backed Helion Energy began construction of its first commercial nuclear fusion plant in Chelan County, Washington. Helion’s project has already undergone rigorous environmental assessments as part of the Environmental Policy Act (SEPA) process by the State of Washington. 

Two years ago, Microsoft Inc. (NASDAQ:MSFT) signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Helion Energy to buy electricity from the nuclear fusion startup beginning in 2028. Constellation Energy (NASDAQ:CEG) was appointed as the marketer for the zero-carbon electricity Helion plans to generate at its Orion plant.

Helion has scored some important fusion milestones, with its Trenta prototype the first private reactor to achieve nuclear fusion on a commercial scale. Trenta--Helion’s sixth fusion prototype--has been able to achieve a critical fuel temperature of 180 million degrees Fahrenheit, widely considered a benchmark for commercial fusion viability. 

Testing of the prototype began in 2019 and concluded in January 2023, during which the facility completed nearly 10,000 high-power pulses and operated under vacuum for 16 months. Trenta uses a pulsed magneto-inertial fusion (MIF) approach to generate fusion energy. It accelerates two Field Reversed Configurations (FRCs) of plasma to collide, compressing them to fusion temperatures and directly recapturing the released energy as electricity, bypassing the traditional steam turbine cycle.

China Enters Fusion Race

That said, China has entered the fusion race with a bang. Whereas the U.S. was among the world’s first countries to bet big on this futuristic gambit, China’s foray came much later. China has been making rapid progress over the past decade, and now owns more fusion patents than any country according to industry data published by Nikkei. Further, China is building projects at record speed. 

China's private fusion energy company, Energy Singularity, has achieved several significant breakthroughs in developing high-temperature superconducting (HTS) tokamak devices aimed at accelerating the commercialization of fusion energy. In June 2024, the company's HH70 device successfully achieved its "first plasma," making it the first and only operational full high-temperature superconducting tokamak built by a commercial company globally. The HH70 device was designed and constructed in under two years, a world record for the fastest development and construction of a superconducting tokamak.

In early 2025, Energy Singularity's large-bore D-shaped HTS magnet, named "Jingtian" generated a world-record magnetic field of 21.7 tesla in a test. This surpassed the previous record held by a U.S. company/MIT collaboration and is a critical step for developing smaller, more cost-effective fusion reactors.The company is now developing its next-generation device, the HH170, which is planned for completion by 2027 and aims to achieve a tenfold energy gain (Q>10), a crucial milestone for commercial viability.

Interestingly, just like it did with AI models, China is pulling off impressive fusion milestones with much less. To wit, Energy Singularity has so far received just $112 million in private investment, significantly less than U.S. fusion startups. For some context, Charles Seife, director of the Arthur L. Carter Institute of Journalism at New York University, estimates that France-based International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project costs have surpassed €20 billion ($21.8 billion), more than four times the original budget of €5 billion (then $5.5 billion) and nearly a decade late from its 2016 delivery date.

That said, Energy Singularity is not the only fusion startup that’s pursuing small reactor designs. Deven, Massachusetts-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems is collaborating with MIT to build its small fusion reactor. 

The company has achieved major breakthroughs in fusion energy by developing world-record High-Temperature Superconducting (HTS) magnets, enabling smaller, more powerful tokamaks like their SPARC device, which aims to be the first to produce net energy. They've secured massive funding (around $3 billion), validated their magnet technology with the U.S. DOE, and demonstrated key magnet performance milestones. CFS is now building its SPARC reactor to prove net-energy fusion, paving the way for its first commercial power plant, ARC.

Tyler Durden Mon, 12/22/2025 - 22:35

Rocking Around The Plastic Tree

For some families, the search for the right Christmas tree is an annual event.

For large shares of Americans and Brits though, this search may have ended a long time ago - the perfect tree already sitting safely in the attic or garage, ready for its glorious but fleeting return to the living room.

As Statista's Felix Richter reports, a new survey from Statista Consumer Insights shows, it's a different story in Germany.

You will find more infographics at Statista

There, at the home of the Christmas tree tradition, the practice is still very much alive - 41 percent of German adults said they would be putting up a real tree this year, compared to 32 percent in the U.S. and just 24 percent in the United Kingdom.

Tyler Durden Mon, 12/22/2025 - 22:10

Vance: "You Don't Have To Apologize For Being White"

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Vice President JD Vance announced Sunday the Trump administration’s decisive victory over the woke scourge of DEI, banishing it to where it belongs—the trash heap of failed ideas. Speaking at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest, Vance made it crystal clear: America is back to rewarding merit and hard work, not pandering to identity politics that divide and weaken the nation.

This move shreds the chains of racial guilt and sex-based favoritism pushed by the radical left, restoring true equality under the law. With Trump at the helm, the radical left’s grip on discriminatory programs is crumbling.

Vance was forthright in his address, highlighting how the administration is dismantling the leftist playbook that treats people differently based on immutable traits.

JD Vance: "Unlike the left, we don't treat anybody differently because of their race or their sex"

"So we have relegated DEI to the dustbin of history which is exactly where it belongs"

This is what you call moral clarity and strong leadership. ? pic.twitter.com/SOcaryUgOX

— Lee Harris (@LeeHarris) December 21, 2025

“We have finally made it clear that in the United States, we believe in hard work and merit. Unlike the left, we stand against treating anybody, and I love what Nikki [Minaj] said about this, we don’t treat anybody different because of their race or their sex,” Vance said.

He added, “So we have relegated [DEI] to the dustbin of history, which is exactly where it belongs. In the United States of America, you don’t have to apologize for being white anymore.”

He drove the point home by addressing the unfair burdens placed on various groups under DEI regimes.

“And if you’re an Asian, you don’t have to talk around your skin color when you’re applying for college, because we judge people based on who they are, not on ethnicity and things they can’t control,” Vance continued.

He further urged, “We don’t persecute you for being male, for being straight, for being gay, for being anything. The only thing that we demand is that you be a great American patriot. And if you’re that you’re very much on our team.”

The declaration comes on the heels of President Trump’s executive order, signed mere hours after his inauguration on January 20, 2025, which eradicated DEI programs across the federal government. This swift action fulfilled a core promise to dismantle bureaucratic bloat that prioritizes division over unity.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth revealed in a further speech that the Department of War has also scrapped promotion quotas, ensuring military advancements are based on capability, not checkboxes. It’s a stark contrast to the previous administration’s chaos, where open borders and identity obsessions eroded national strength.

Even the corporate world is waking up. Major players like McDonald’s, Walmart, and Coors are retreating from DEI initiatives, as a damning report in Econ Journal Watch exposed the flawed McKinsey studies claiming diversity boosts profits—turns out, they couldn’t be replicated. The house of cards is collapsing, revealing DEI as the fraud it always was.

Vance’s words echo a broader rejection of globalist agendas that undermine American values. By endorsing him for a potential 2028 run, TPUSA CEO Erika Kirk signals the rising tide of young conservatives ready to fight back against the elite’s control.

Vance’s message reinforces what MAGA has always stood for—unity through strength, merit over manipulation, and an unapologetic love for America. As the dust settles on DEI’s demise, the path forward is clear: a nation where freedom thrives, not divides.

Watch Vance’s full speech:

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Tyler Durden Mon, 12/22/2025 - 21:45

MSM Stays Silent As Horrific Video Emerges Of Attack On 75-Year-Old Woman In Seattle

Outside of local reporting in Seattle, corporate media outlets at the national level have entirely ignored the brutal attack on a 75-year-old woman by a repeat offender. The silence is telling and underscores how progressive criminal justice reforms continue to backfire spectacularly, enabling a revolving-door chaotic environment that releases serial offenders back onto the streets with nation-killing consequences.

That's correct. There has been no coverage in the mainstream press. The reason is very simple: corporate media outlets no longer function as independent news organizations, but as public-relations arms that filter stories based on narrative control rather than public importance. 

0 AP stories on Jeanette Marken
0 PBS stories on Jeanette Marken
0 NYT stories on Jeanette Marken
0 NPR stories on Jeanette Marken
0 WSJ stories on Jeanette Marken
0 BBC stories on Jeanette Marken
0 CNN stories on Jeanette Marken
0 WAPO stories on… pic.twitter.com/KogLaTWrWd

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 21, 2025

KOMO News released new surveillance video showing a horrific and random attack outside the King County Courthouse in downtown Seattle earlier this month.

75 year old Jeanette Marken was victim of an unprovoked attack by REPEAT violent offender Fale Vaigalepa Pea.

She lost an eye and broke her nose and cheekbone.

Fale has a long violent record of stabbings to drugs.

Judges kept releasing him to terrorize others.

This must stop! pic.twitter.com/vBFJu8BdWu

— C3 (@C_3C_3) December 22, 2025

According to charging documents, 42-year-old Fale Vaigalepa Pea used a wooden stick with a protruding screw to strike 75-year-old Jeanette Marken in the face.

BREAKING: Violent repeat offender who was known to police just randomly slashed a 75-year-old woman in the face in Seattle and permanently blinded her pic.twitter.com/fXH2bXpsMc

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 21, 2025

KOMO said court records show Pea has been known to law enforcement for years and has a long history of violent behavior.

In 2011, Pea stabbed two people at a party in SeaTac, including one victim who was stabbed eight times. He was later convicted by a jury and sentenced to 18 months of community custody. Since then, he has been charged in multiple assault cases, including one in 2020, four in 2023, and another in 2024.

This year alone, Pea has been booked into the King County Jail eight times. Despite repeated arrests for assault, indecent exposure, drug offenses, property destruction, unlawful use of weapons, and malicious mischief, none of those arrests this year resulted in charges before the random attack on the 75-year-old woman.

Pea now faces a first-degree assault charge and is scheduled for a competency hearing later this month. Prosecutors argue that his actions and criminal history show he's a danger to the community.

What's most shocking is that body camera footage from officers at the scene described Pea as a "regular" and noted, "He's notorious for random assaults on Third."

Elon Musk commented on the shocking video on X, saying, "This keeps happening to innocent people."

Unacceptable… Judges must be held accountable! pic.twitter.com/HIDONCoF0R

— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) November 26, 2025

Musk is likely referring to the fatal stabbing in Charlotte of a Ukrainian refugee by yet another serial offender released onto the street by progressive judges.

Judges must be held accountable https://t.co/bgDbt5rbH0

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2025

It's time to hold left-wing politicians, judges, and anyone in between accountable for allowing repeat criminals back onto the streets, slaying the innocent.

This is why we need to Nayib Bukele America's judicial system.

"We had to remove corrupt judges and corrupt attorneys and prosecutors!"pic.twitter.com/jxs5lJHV41

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) December 22, 2025

In the meantime, continue to avoid crime-ridden, Democrat-run cities and stay vigilant. None of this chaos should be happening, yet it has been allowed through nation-killing policies pushed by Democrats who follow a globalist framework aimed at undermining America from within.

Tyler Durden Mon, 12/22/2025 - 21:20

Despite Headwinds: Airlines On Track For A Record Year

The global airline industry is on track to hit new revenue and profit records in 2025 and 2026.

As Statista's Felix Richter details below, according to the latest industry outlook from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), commercial airlines, including passenger and cargo airlines, are expected to surpass $1 trillion in revenue for the first time this year, showing resilience in the face of significant headwinds.

This is especially true for the air cargo sector, which successfully weathered the storm after the Trump administration's new tariff policy shook up global trade. Tariff front-loading and subsequent re-routing of global trade flows posed significant operational challenges in 2025, despite which cargo revenue is expected to grow 2.6 percent this year. Despite non-fuel cost pressures, mainly in the form of rising labor and maintenance costs, airline profit margins have recovered from their 2024 dip, promising new industry records in terms of total profit for this year and 2026.

While hailing the industry's performance in a challenging operating environment, IATA's Director General Willie Walsh bemoaned airline profit margins, which he doesn't consider well-aligned with value the industry creates.

"They [airlines] stand at the core of a value chain that underpins nearly 4 percent of the global economy and supports 87 million jobs. Yet Apple will earn more selling an iPhone cover than the $7.90 airlines will make transporting the average passenger," Walsh argued.

Looking ahead, the IATA expects industry revenues to reach a historic high of $1.05 trillion in 2026, up 4.5 percent from the expected 2025 total.

You will find more infographics at Statista

Passenger revenue is projected to reach $751 billion in 2026, as 5.2 billion passengers are expected to board a commercial plane next year.

"Airlines are expected to generate a 3.9 percent net margin and a $41 billion profit in 2026. That’s extremely welcome news considering the headwinds that the industry faces - rising costs from bottlenecks in the aerospace supply chain, geopolitical conflict, sluggish global trade and growing regulatory burdens among them. Airlines have successfully built shock-absorbing resilience into their businesses that is delivering stable profitability,” Willie Walsh concluded.

Tyler Durden Mon, 12/22/2025 - 20:30

From Matthew Graham at Mortgage News Daily: Mortgage Rates Hold Steady to Start Holiday-Shortened Week

Mortgage rates are tied to movement in the bond market and bonds were close enough to Friday's levels that mortgage rates were essentially unchanged today. This keeps the average lender in the lower portion of the narrow range seen over the past 4 months. [30 year fixed 6.24%]
emphasis added

Tuesday:
• At 8:30 AM ET, Durable Goods Orders for November.  The consensus is for a 0.4% increase.

• Also at 8:30 AM: Gross Domestic Product, 3rd Quarter 2025 (Initial Estimate) and Corporate Profits (Preliminary). The consensus is that real GDP increased 3.2% annualized in Q3, down from 3.8% in Q2.
• At 9:15 AM, The Fed will release Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for October. The consensus is for a 0.1% increase in Industrial Production, and for Capacity Utilization to be unchanged at 75.9%.

• At 10:00 AM, Richmond Fed Survey of Manufacturing Activity for December.

Judge Green-Lights Secret Service Agent's Retaliation Case

Authored by Susan Crabtree via RealClearPolitics,

A federal judge has allowed most claims in a senior Secret Service agent’s lawsuit alleging a hostile workplace, retaliation, and discrimination to move forward despite Department of Homeland Security opposition, according to court documents.  

Rashid Ellis, a 14-year veteran of the agency with expertise in drone systems, sued DHS, which oversees the Secret Service, three months before the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt against Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania.

Ellis’ lawsuit accuses agency leaders of dismissing complaints, elevating problematic colleagues to oversight positions, and punishing him for advocating for advancements in drone technology and racial unity within the agency.

The claims of retaliation, discrimination, and hostile work environment took place when Alejandro Mayorkas was DHS secretary and Kimberly Cheatle ran the Secret Service. Cheatle was forced to resign after severe criticism of her testimony to Congress about the Butler failures.

Even though Ellis’ former agency is now led by Trump-appointed Secretary Kristi Noem and Secret Service Director Sean Curran, so far there has been no effort to settle the case out of court.

Ruling Preserves Ellis’ Core Allegations

U.S. District Judge Emmit Sullivan ruled in late September that most of the claims in Ellis’ lawsuit could proceed. The decision, which RealClearPolitics is first to report, rejects the government’s motion to dismiss the case, clearing the path for legal discovery into allegations of systemic leadership failings, which Ellis argues enabled bias, stifled innovation, and endangered the agency’s mission.

A graduate of The Citadel who was consistently awarded “exceeds expectations” ratings in his performance reviews, Ellis served on former President Joe Biden’s protective detail, the elite Counter Assault Team, and as an instructor at the Secret Service’s James J. Rowley Training Center on counter-surveillance and the use of drones. His role as the Secret Service point person for the Federal Law Enforcement Officers’ Association, a lobbying entity that offers legal services, retirement benefits, and other support, amplified his advocacy for racial equality. Ellis argues it also made him a target for Secret Service leadership.

Multiple Secret Service shortcomings were evident in Butler on the day Trump was nearly killed, including the failure to detect the shooter’s drone in the air over the rally site. On the one-year anniversary of the Butler assassination attempt, the Secret Service announced reforms, including the creation of an Aviation and Airspace Security division “dedicated to maintaining the agency’s critical aerial monitoring capabilities.”

Ellis’ lawsuit detailing his experiences with Cheatle at the helm, which RCP reported on last year, reads like a case study of the agency leaders’ long-running tendency to engage in petty squabbles, favoritism, and retaliation instead of keeping its focus on the big picture – its mission of protecting presidents, vice presidents, Cabinet members, and former presidents.

In a detailed 63-page opinion, Sullivan determined that Ellis had sufficiently alleged civil rights violations.

The judge was unpersuaded by DHS attorneys’ arguments, including that Ellis didn’t truly suffer any adverse action because he never lost his salary and that he didn’t exhaust administrative remedies on his charges before filing suit.

DHS attorneys also argued that federal employees are held to a higher standard than those in the private sector when it comes to experiencing adverse actions. Sullivan dismissed this last argument as one that has repeatedly failed in previous court decisions.

“As discussed below,” the judge wrote, “this theory has been rejected by every judge on this court to have considered it.”

Ellis’ attorney, David Blum of Alan Lescht & Associates, P.C., told RCP: “We look forward to litigating the merits of this case.”

The Secret Service has declined comment on Ellis’ case and ignored several separate questions about the agency’s history of resisting efforts to implement an extensive aerial drone program and the readiness level of that program. Prior to the assassination attempts, the Secret Service had an aerial drone program, but it was limited in scope, sources told RCP.

“As a matter of longstanding policy, the U.S. Secret Service does not comment on pending or proposed litigation,” a spokesperson told RCP last year. The agency did not respond to a request for comment on Sullivan’s ruling.

The lawsuit depicts a corrosive Secret Service culture in which leaders engage in intimidation, and supervisors ignore harassment reports, neglect investigations, and retaliate if personnel complain of mistreatment.

Ellis argues that Cheatle, then serving as the head of the Secret Service’s Office of Protective Operations, backed by human resource managers and other bureaucrats, blocked and retaliated against him for trying to transfer jobs to work full-time on a special drone project he was developing, according to three sources in the Secret Service community.

Some of these agency officials, Ellis asserts, also retaliated against him for lodging complaints about personal and inaccurate attacks based on his perceived religion.

Cheatle and a group of senior Secret Service officials went to great lengths to prevent Ellis from serving in a key role in the Airspace Security Branch of the Secret Service’s Special Operations Division, which oversees the drone program, according to court records Ellis filed last year.

Instead, the agency wanted to send him to the vice presidential detail to help provide security for Kamala Harris, her husband, and their extended family, and wouldn’t budge when he appealed the decision – even though the agency had formally listed the airspace position as “hard-to-staff.”

Ellis, who is black but eschews racial divisions, referring to himself as “American,” filed suit against DHS in April 2024 and amended the complaint in late July to outline a pattern of harassment. The lawsuit accuses agency officials of orchestrating an elaborate scheme, beginning in 2021, to undermine his career in retaliation for his efforts to transfer to an Airspace position. Ellis wanted the position so he could play a direct role in establishing and implementing “a special project involving drones,” according to the lawsuit.

Ellis’ lawsuit alleges that those who conspired against him include Cheatle; then-human resources head Susan Yarwood; Elizabeth Lewis, Yarwood’s then-deputy; then-Technical Services Division Assistant Director Darren Giacolleto; then-Human Resources supervisors Danielle Watson and Thomas Hamman; and others.

Specific Leadership Failures

Incidents of harassment Ellis endured include:

• A fellow agent, whom the lawsuit identifies as Michael Hackney, allegedly used a training exercise to physically attack him and pulled a live weapon on him as a joke while he was working a protection detail. Ellis reported the incident to his superior, who took no action, telling him, “The juice isn’t worth the squeeze,” according to the lawsuit. Two years later, Hackney allegedly aggressively drove his SUV toward Ellis and his pregnant wife and one-year-old son as though he was going to run them over.
• Another agent, who Ellis says witnessed the aggressive driving threat, warned him not to report Hackney because “that’s how some people joke.”
• Ellis, a Christian, believes his complaints about Hackney, whom he said also misidentified him as Muslim and called him a “terrorist” based on his Islamic-sounding first name, contributed to his failure to land bids for two hard-to-staff positions in the agency’s Airspace branch, even though he argues he was eligible for both positions.

The lawsuit further alleges:

• A senior official acknowledged agency-wide racism and backed Ellis’ 2021 drone position bid, calling him the “number one selection,” but failed to counter Human Resources’ disqualification. Lewis and Yarwood deemed him ineligible despite his qualifications and the endorsement.
• After Ellis appealed that decision, Danielle Watson twisted his frustrated comment about the process “driving him to drink” into cynical claims that he admitted to abusing alcohol. Yarwood, after consulting Lewis, directed Watson to draft a memorandum falsely alleging Ellis admitted to drinking, family disputes, and related issues – proven false by video evidence. The agency then placed Ellis on administrative leave and forced him to surrender his gear while recommending a nine-month sobriety program. Those decisions were overturned shortly afterward, but nonetheless damaged Ellis’ reputation.
• Cheatle supported the phony alcoholism narrative, recommending administrative leave and the sobriety program, and allegedly provided misleading statements in an affidavit about the sources of information that informed her decisions.
• Giacoletto denied Ellis’ appeal the day the agency imposed the administrative leave and was involved in the initial disqualification.

A supervisor warned Ellis of “a lot of trouble” for pursuing grievances, while others told him that the real source of his troubles with the agency was his pro-drone advocacy.

These incidents, Ellis claims, reflect a Secret Service pattern of weaponizing human resources processes against those who complain of mistreatment, a similar refrain among numerous former agents and the lawyers who have represented them.

Connections to Broader Secret Service Challenges

Despite new leadership, the Secret Service has experienced a string of continued lapses and embarrassing incidents. As RCP first reported, two female officers were involved in a physical fight outside former President Obama’s D.C. residence; Secret Service officers also missed a Glock while screening bags at Trump’s Virginia golf course; a Uniformed Division officer fell asleep on the job and left his fully automatic rifle unattended while protecting the United Nations General Assembly in New York; and an agent openly celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination in a Facebook post. Trump’s detail also allowed protesters at a D.C. restaurant to get close to Trump and several of his top Cabinet members and taunt them.

Ellis’ lawsuit alleges that his blocked transfer to a leadership position in the drone program quite possibly hindered advancements that might have prevented the 2024 Trump assassination attempts. A Senate report on the Butler failures faulted Secret Service leaders for denying counter-drone requests and technical failures. Then-Acting Director Ronald Rowe admitted to lapses during congressional testimony last year.

Ellis himself ties the Butler failures to Cheatle and prior leaders’ DEI priorities, arguing they favored quotas over merit, eroding standards and morale and agent retention. As the discovery process proceeds, the case may force DHS to address these leadership decisions.

“The relentless push by Secret Service leadership to meet diversity quotas has compromised our ability to meet our protectees’ needs,” Ellis said in a video posted on the Independent Women’s Forum website. IWF is a nonprofit conservative advocacy organization.

Despite efforts to dismantle DEI under the current administration, Ellis cautions that it will take years for the agency to recover.

“If we do not clean out the rot, our people – and our protectees – will pay the price,” he warned.

Tyler Durden Mon, 12/22/2025 - 18:25

MSM Belatedly Details Syrian 'Prisons Filling Up Again, Torture' Under Jolani Regime

More than a year after Bashar al-Assad's overthrow, and some mainstream media outlets are finally taking a critical eye to the new Sharaa/Jolani regime and its human rights abuses, religious oppression, and war crimes.

While the West and Gulf countries celebrated Assad fleeting the country for Russia in December 2024, with the al-Qaeda linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) taking over Damascus, the new government quickly got to work persecuting, massacring, and disappearing religious minorities.

Source: Christian Science Monitory/Getty Images

First Alawites were targeted last spring, then Christians, and more recently Druze - or anyone not acting according to the HTS brand of fanatical Islam and jihad. But CNN and other establishment news outlets have 'moved on' and are turning a blind eye. 

But somewhat surprisingly, Reuters has issued a new report which highlights the country simply traded Assad's 'notorious prisons' for Jolani's dark dungeons:

The first wave of detentions in the new Syria came almost immediately – just after victorious rebels flung open the doors of Bashar al-Assad’s notorious prisons.

As ordinary Syrians stormed detention complexes last December to search for loved ones who had vanished under Assad’s rule, thousands of the deposed dictator’s soldiers who had abandoned their posts – officers and conscripts alike – were taken prisoner by the rebels.

Then came the second wave in late winter: Hundreds of people from Assad’s Alawite sect, mostly men, were seized by the new authorities throughout Syria. Their detentions spiked after a brief uprising along the coast in March killed dozens of security forces, sparking reprisals that left nearly 1,500 Alawites dead. Those arrests continue to this day.

In the next wave to be targeted for mass detentions by the new government were Druze, especially after fighting and unrest was sparked in the south between locals and Jolani's Sunni security forces.

Reuters underscores, "Prisons and lockups that jailed tens of thousands of people during Assad’s rule are now crowded with Syrians detained by President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s security forces and held without formal charges."

The outlet has compiled names of over 800 Syrians held under such circumstances, and says the true figure is likely much higher.

Syrian general security headed towards Aleppo calls Kurds pigs. Not the SDF. Not the Asayish. Kurds.

"We'll step on your necks, God willing."

This is the "inclusive" Syrian government. pic.twitter.com/LWzxJdX3ls

— Lindsey Snell (@LindseySnell) December 22, 2025

The secular rule of the Assad family over the years consistently saw widespread accusations of torture happening at government detention sites. But again, it seems the country has simply moved to jails now overseen by torturers who are bearded jihadists: 

In December 2024, Sharaa pledged to “close the notorious prisons” of the fallen dictator. But Reuters found that at least 28 prisons and lockups from the Assad era have been operational again over the past year.

Asked for comment on the findings of this report, Syria’s Information Ministry said that the need to bring those involved in Assad’s abuses to justice explained many of the detentions and the reopening of some facilities.

“The number of people involved in crimes and violations in Syria under the former regime is very large, given the scale of the abuses committed,” the ministry said. “There are past crimes, involvement in new violations, and threats to security and stability by those associated with the regime, in addition to other crimes.”

So it seems this is more about mass revenge against non-Muslim communities, and detainees interviewed by Reuters say they've been insulted with fanatical and religious language. "You are infidels, you are pigs," one Syrian farmer who was arrested by the new regime described.

Another Alawite man recounted, "Everyone ordered me to bark like a dog. They beat me with the butts of their rifles, their fists, their boots. I thought my life was coming to an end."

Shocking how #ISIS has become more powerful and present in #Syria since Trump made #Jolani and the #NewSyria Takfiris part of the Anti-ISIS coalition. LOL pic.twitter.com/poM3LzwLnh

— Vanessa Beeley (@VanessaBeeley) December 17, 2025

Reuters also included the story of a Christian merchant who was tortured and killed under the new regime:

Among the dead was a detainee at Kafr Sousa, a 59-year-old Christian merchant named Milad al-Farkh. His family said he was arrested on August 24 on allegations of hiding weapons, working as an arms dealer and selling expired meat at his butcher shop.

Al-Farkh’s family described the arrest as an attempt to pressure them into paying $10,000 in protection money.

Two weeks later, an inmate at Kafr Sousa managed to get a call out to the family to tell them al-Farkh was near death from torture. The call from the hospital morgue came the next day, on September 9, the family said. One relative was arrested for demanding an autopsy. 

Sadly, Syria's new rulers - who resemble ISIS or al Qaeda in their words, actions, appearance, and beliefs - were installed with the help of the US, Turkey, and Gulf allies.

Below: "Details of the real-life experiences of the Orthodox Christian families and others who suffered at the hands of radical terrorists supported by countries and groups from outside Syria."

The Book SYRIA CRUCIFIED offers unique stories of individual Syrian Christians telling of their war-torn homeland. Order your copy with the link below. https://t.co/tn0pfyQFS9 pic.twitter.com/zazLajtIsh

— Brad Hoff (@BradRHoff) December 28, 2021

President Trump even recently boasted, "It’s been amazing what — what’s taken place in Syria. We got rid of Assad." 

Amer Matar, a journalist and filmmaker briefly detained by ruling HTS forces this year has observed, "Those ruling today decided to turn the Assad prisons into new prisons... It's the most absurd thing I have ever seen."

Tyler Durden Mon, 12/22/2025 - 18:00

State Department Recalls 29 Biden-Appointed Ambassadors

Authored by Jackson Richman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

The United States has recalled almost 30 career diplomats from ambassadorial roles.

A sign for the State Department on the outside of the Harry S. Truman Federal Building in Washington on July 11, 2025. Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

All of the ambassadors were appointed under President Joe Biden and are senior members of the State Department’s Foreign Service, which produces career diplomats to serve in Washington and abroad.

These diplomats tend to stay in their roles for a few years and usually do not leave when there is a change in administration, as they are trained to carry out the president’s agenda, no matter which party occupies the White House.

The ambassadors were informed last week that their tenures will end in January. Those affected by the recalls will return to Washington and are able to take on other assignments.

A State Department official told The Epoch Times that ambassadors serve at the pleasure of the president.

“This is a standard process in any administration,” the official said.

“An ambassador is a personal representative of the president, and it is the president’s right to ensure that he has individuals in these countries who advance the America First agenda.”

Politico first reported the ambassadorial recalls.

“One of the reasons why President Trump was elected is sort of an understanding among the American people that our foreign policy was in need of a complete recalibration because the world has dramatically changed,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Dec. 19

“Many of the institutions, policies, assumptions that our foreign policy was operating under were built upon a world that no longer existed, and it required us to re-examine that.”

The 29 ambassadors recalled included 15 from Africa: Algeria (Elizabeth Aubin), Burundi (Lisa Peterson), Cameroon (Christopher Lamora), Cape Verde (Jennifer Adams), Egypt (Herro Mustafa Garg), Gabon (Vernelle Trim FitzPatrick), Ivory Coast (Jessica Davis Ba), Madagascar (Claire A. Pierangelo), Mauritius (Henry Jardine), Niger (Kathleen FitzGibbon), Nigeria (Richard Mills Jr.), Rwanda (Eric W. Kneedler), Senegal (Michael Raynor), Somalia (Richard Riley), and Uganda (William Popp).

There were eight recalled from the Asia-Pacific region: Fiji (Marie Damour), Laos (Heather Variava), Marshall Islands (Laura Stone), Nepal (Dean Thompson), Papua New Guinea (Ann Marie Yastishock), the Philippines (MaryKay Loss Carlson), Sri Lanka (Julie Chung), and Vietnam (Marc Knapper).

Four of the recalled ambassadors were from Europe: Armenia (Kristina Kvien), Macedonia (Angela Aggeler), Montenegro (Judy Reinke), and Slovakia (Gautam Rana).

Two were from the Americas: Guatemala (Tobin Bradley) and Suriname (Robert Faucher).

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Mon, 12/22/2025 - 17:40

Japan To Resume Operations At World's Largest Nuclear Plant 15 Years After Fukushima Disaster

Authored by Rachel Roberts via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Japan is set to resume operations at the world’s largest nuclear power plant, marking a key development in the country’s return to nuclear energy almost 15 years after the Fukushima disaster.

Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO)'s Kashiwazaki Kariwa nuclear power plant, one of the world's largest nuclear facilities, stands along the seaside in Kashiwazaki, Niigata prefecture, Japan, on Dec. 21, 2025. Issei Kato/Reuters

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa, located around 136 miles northwest of Tokyo, was among 54 reactors shut down after the nuclear disaster that occurred after the crippling of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan in March 2011. The disaster occurred following the 9.0 magnitude Great East Japan Earthquake, which led to a large tsunami.

Japan has now resumed nuclear power generation at 14 of the 33 plants that remain operable, as part of its shift away from reliance on fossil fuels.

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa will be the first operated by Tokyo Electric Power Co (TEPCO), which also ran the Fukushima plant.

Operations can resume immediately following Niigata prefecture’s assembly passing a vote of confidence on Niigata Gov. Hideyo Hanazumi on Dec. 22.

Hanazumi, who backed the restart last month, said after the vote, “This is a milestone, but this is not the end.”

“There is no end in terms of ensuring the safety of Niigata residents,” he said.

Bags of radiation-contaminated soil are gathered at a temporary storage field in Okuma town of Fukushima prefecture on Feb. 19, 2025. Yuichi Yamazaki / AFP via Getty Images Deep Divisions

The assembly session revealed the community’s deep divisions over the restart, in spite of lawmakers giving their backing to Hanazumi.

“This is nothing other than a political settlement that does not take into account the will of the Niigata residents,” an assembly member told fellow lawmakers during the session.

Around 300 protesters gathered outside the assembly holding billboards with signs expressing their opposition to the resumption in operations, such as  “No Nukes” and “Support Fukushima.”

“I am truly angry from the bottom of my heart,” Kenichiro Ishiyama, a 77-year-old protester from Niigata city, told reporters after the vote.

“If something was to happen at the plant, we would be the ones to suffer the consequences.”

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, damaged by a massive March 11, 2011, earthquake and tsunami, is seen from the nearby Ukedo fishing port in Namie town, northeastern Japan, on Aug. 24, 2023. Eugene Hoshiko/AP Photo Evacuation Effects

An almost 50-foot tsunami disabled the power supply and cooling of three of Fukushima Daiichi reactors, causing a nuclear accident rated level 7 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale, with a high level of radioactive release occurring.

The evacuation has been criticized for having done more harm than good, due to the effects of stress on those displaced, particularly on elderly people. Experts have concluded that the loss of life would have been far smaller if all residents had done nothing at all, or were sheltered in place, instead of being evacuated.

“We remain firmly committed to never repeating such an accident and ensuring Niigata residents never experience anything similar,” said TEPCO spokesperson Masakatsu Takata, who declined to comment on timing.

TEPCO pledged earlier this year to pour 100 billion yen ($641 million) into the district over the next 10 years as it fought to win the support of Niigata’s wary residents. The company’s shares rose by 2 percent in Monday’s afternoon trade in Tokyo, higher than the Nikkei index as a whole, which was up 1.8 percent.

A survey in October found 60 percent of residents did not think conditions for the restart had been met, with almost 70 percent worried about TEPCO operating the plant.

Farmer Ayako Oga, 52, was forced to flee the area around the Fukushima plant in 2011, along with around 160,000 other evacuees.

“We know firsthand the risk of a nuclear accident and cannot dismiss it,” said Oga, who still suffers from post-traumatic stress-like symptoms following the disaster.

Hanazumi has said he hopes Japan will eventually be able to reduce its reliance on nuclear power.

“I want to see an era where we don’t have to rely on energy sources that cause anxiety,” he said last month.

The Dec. 22 vote represented the final hurdle before TEPCO restarts the first reactor, which alone could boost electricity supply to the Tokyo area by 2 percent, according to an estimate by Japan’s trade ministry.

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi delivers her first policy speech in the parliament, in Tokyo, Japan, on Oct. 24, 2025. Kim Kyung-Hoon/File Photo/Reuters AI Driving Energy Demand

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has expressed her support for nuclear restarts to counter the cost of imported fossil fuels, which account for 60–70 percent of the country’s total electricity generation.

Last year, Japan spent 10.7 trillion yen ($68 billion) on imported liquefied natural gas and coal, representing a tenth of the country’s total import costs.

Despite its declining population, Japan expects energy demand to rise over the next decade, due to the power needs of artificial intelligence (AI) data processing centers.

The country has set a target of doubling the portion of nuclear power in its electricity mix to 20 percent by 2040.

Kashiwazaki-Kariwa’s total capacity is 8.2 GW, which is enough to power a few million homes.

Japan’s top nuclear power operator, Kansai Electric Power, said in July it would begin conducting surveys for a reactor in western Japan, in what is planned to be the country’s first new plant since the Fukushima disaster.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden Mon, 12/22/2025 - 17:00

Mapping The Chances Of A White Christmas

A white Christmas is one of those holiday experiences that feels universal—until you look at the weather history and actual odds of snowfall on Christmas Day across the United States.

This map, via Visual Capitalist's Niccolo Conte, shows the historic probability across the U.S. of seeing at least one inch of snow on the ground on December 25, using data from the NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) is based on the latest U.S. Climate Normals (1991–2020).

These “normals” are three-decade averages built from observations at nearly 15,000 stations, offering a consistent baseline for what’s typical in different parts of the country.

Latitude Matters Most For a Snow on Christmas Day

If you want the simplest rule of thumb for a white Christmas, head north. The northern Plains, Upper Midwest, and large stretches of the interior Northeast generally sit in higher probability bands than the rest of the country.

The data table below features state averages of NOAA’s full 5,000+ row dataset of specific station probabilities of at least one inch of snow:

State Average probability of at least one inch of snow on Christmas day Alabama 0.1% Alaska 84.3% Arizona 4.1% Arkansas 1.3% California 4.4% Colorado 48.7% Connecticut 35.2% Delaware 6.5% Florida 0.0% Georgia 0.4% Hawaii 0.0% Idaho 62.1% Illinois 27.2% Indiana 26.0% Iowa 46.9% Kansas 15.0% Kentucky 6.6% Louisiana 0.1% Maine 74.4% Maryland 11.2% Massachusetts 35.8% Michigan 64.8% Minnesota 75.2% Mississippi 0.2% Missouri 13.7% Montana 56.7% Nebraska 35.1% Nevada 17.8% New Hampshire 70.1% New Jersey 13.7% New Mexico 11.3% New York 55.9% North Carolina 3.1% North Dakota 77.3% Ohio 26.8% Oklahoma 3.1% Oregon 14.4% Pennsylvania 34.2% Rhode Island 26.9% South Carolina 0.6% South Dakota 55.5% Tennessee 2.8% Texas 0.8% Utah 46.2% Vermont 76.9% Virginia 8.6% Washington 26.9% West Virginia 26.8% Wisconsin 66.3% Wyoming 56.0%

Areas around the Great Lakes can also improve their odds thanks to lake-effect snow, which can build persistent snowpack when cold air is in place.

Meanwhile, the further south you go, the more quickly the map shifts into darker shades—signaling that a white Christmas is historically uncommon.

Mountains Upgrade White Christmas Probabilities

Elevation can change the forecast more than any state line. The Rockies and the Sierra Nevada stand out as some of the most reliable places for holiday snow cover, with many high-altitude areas reaching the upper probabilities of Christmas Day snowfall.

The Cascades and ranges across Idaho also show strong odds, reinforcing how quickly temperatures drop with height.

Even in the East, the Appalachians make a visible difference—higher terrain can hold onto snow that the surrounding lowlands doesn’t.

Why the South and Coasts Often Miss White Christmas

Across the Gulf Coast, Deep South, and much of the Sun Belt, the map largely sits in the 0–10% range. Warmer winter temperatures mean snow is rarer to begin with—and even when it does fall, it’s less likely to stick around long enough to still be on the ground by Christmas morning.

Coastal climates often tilt milder as well, especially where ocean air moderates winter cold.

And for non-contiguous states, the story is mixed: Alaska’s station network is too sparse to confidently fill in the entire map, while Hawaii’s odds remain firmly at zero.

In other words, the classic “white Christmas” is real—but it’s also highly regional. If snow is the goal, history suggests two reliable strategies: chase colder latitudes, or climb into the mountains.

For more Christmas-related visualizations, check out this graphic which ranks Spotify’s most streamed Christmas songs on Voronoi.

Tyler Durden Mon, 12/22/2025 - 16:40

Watch Live: Trump Makes Announcement At Mar-A-Lago With Secretary Of War Pete Hegseth

President Trump is scheduled to make a public announcement at 4:30 p.m. EST at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, alongside Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Secretary of the Navy John Phelan.

*TRUMP'S 4:30PM ANNOUNCEMENT TODAY IS ON SHIPBUILDING: OFFICIAL

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) December 22, 2025

No details have been released about the substance of the announcement, which comes as the holiday week begins with Christmas Eve just days away.

The timing follows a flurry of defense and national security developments. Last week, Trump signed the annual defense policy bill into law, authorizing roughly $900 billion for the Pentagon. Since then, the administration has escalated gunboat diplomacy in the Caribbean, raised new national security concerns over offshore wind farms, and sparked diplomatic backlash after appointing a special envoy, which prompted an angry response from Denmark’s foreign minister earlier today.

It is worth noting that The Epoch Times expects the announcement to focus on shipbuilding, a fitting topic given the Pentagon's strategic repositioning across the Western world and the increased emphasis on hemispheric defense. We have informed readers about how Goldman is profiting from this historic realignment (see here).

Given the news flow, here are several topics Trump, Hegseth, and Phelan could address:

• Trump signs defense policy bill into law

• Hunting Season: US Forces Target Third 'Dark Fleet' Tanker Near Venezuela

• Trump Wants New "Golden Fleet" Of Future Battleships For Hemispheric Defense

• Leases For Five Offshore Wind Projects Suspended Over Radar-Related National Security Concerns

• Denmark Furious After Trump Names Special Envoy To Greenland

Watch Live:

.  .  . 

Tyler Durden Mon, 12/22/2025 - 16:25

"Power That Goes Unpunished Only Learns One Lesson: It Can Do Whatever It Wants..."

Authored by James Howard Kunstler,

Seeing Is Believing (Not)

"...power that goes unpunished only learns one lesson: it can do whatever it wants."

- Roger Stone

Has it occurred to you that the video footage of the hallway outside Jeffrey Epstein’s prison cell that shows nobody coming or going around the hour that he “killed himself” could be fake? All authorities from the FBI to The New York Times pretend that the date-and-time stamped video is authentic, and that it proves nobody went into his cell to kill him. Nobody has questioned this. How difficult would it be to take a few hours of alternate closed-circuit TV footage of the same drab hallway from the same position, making sure nobody got on-camera, and then stick a fabricated date-and-time stamp on it? Do you suppose that the intel agencies don’t have the capacity to fabricate that sort of evidence?

At this point, seeing what the capabilities are for AI to compose any kind of picture — or even what years’ old Photoshop programs can do — why would you suppose that anything in the Epstein files now being released might not be subject to fiddling by persons and parties with an interest? Even one second of video showing a notable person in somebody’s arms, or performing an illicit act with a child, a mere glimpse of such a thing, would be A) easy to manufacture, and B) guaranteed to create a mighty shit-storm of a political crisis that would steal everybody’s attention from now until the Rockies tumble.

The Epstein files looks like the end of the seeing-is-believing phase of human history. Whatever dazzling fakes you’re watching on “X” these days, consider that the deep fake abilities of government agencies are a mile ahead of commercially-available AI tech that any jamoke on TikTok can use. I wouldn’t believe a single goshdarn thing coming out of these files that preoccupy the nation right now — while many momentous events unfold at home and around the world unnoticed, or get crowded out by the hoo-hah over Jeffrey Epstein’s sketchy doings. The further forward in time this goes, the worse you can expect it to get.

And why wouldn’t it be in the intel community’s interest to keep this hoo-hah going as long and hard as possible, so as to distract the public from some of the other problems besetting the republic — such as the intel community’s obdurately sociopathic and seditious activities against that very republic?

Talk might be cheap, too, but there’s plenty of chatter on the Internet these days to the effect that a claque of players with familiar names, currently under suspicion of major misdeeds, are secretly running critical sections of the government as a kind of rogue directorate.

For instance, former CIA Director John Brennan, whose front-job for years has been as a “national security contributor” to MSNBC/NBC.

Do you suppose he sits around his home-office all the livelong day and doesn’t talk to any of his old colleagues? How else would he acquire any “national security” info to report on cable TV? And might you wonder whether these conversations, if they occur, include not just queries and postulations but instructions? That is, orders. . . for people to carry out such-and-such activities? Or suggestions of orders?

And, of course, John Brennan is just one character in a basket of deplorable former intel officials who conceivably wield influence, or issue orders, in the vast turbid, stagnant, septic backwaters of America’s intel swamp.

To name a few: Jim Clapper, Michael Hayden, Mike Pompeo, Avril Haines, Leon Panetta, Gina Haspel. Just add the rest of the list of bigshots who signed the infamous 2020 Hunter Biden / Russian disinfo “open letter.”

And dozens more including a big gang of ex-FBI and DOJ with cases pending for activities that have the shape and smell of a coup to overthrow the US government (that they served.

Do you suppose any of them might have an interest in stirring the pot of cognitive dissonance that is making it nearly impossible for the people of this land to understand what the fuck is going on around them?

You’ve got to wonder what John Ratcliffe thinks about all this (and about the 21,000 employees of the CIA he supposedly directs). And what Tulsi Gabbard knows about the sundry communications flying around the American digital ether.

And what fresh treachery is yet being launched by this coterie of scoundrels. And now imagine how difficult life must be for one President Donald Trump. Just sayin’.

Tyler Durden Mon, 12/22/2025 - 16:15