Waste Of The Day: Austin Funds Allegedly Sent To Fake Companies Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations, Topline: A then-employee at the City of Austin’s energy utility allegedly paid $980,000 in taxpayer funds to fictional companies with bank accounts belonging to his family members, according to a new report from the city auditor. Key facts: Mark Ybarra was given a city credit card from 2018 to 2023 to hire […]

Abrego Garcia Free To Make TikTok Videos While DHS Kept Silent Under Gag Order Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the illegal immigrant, alleged MS-13 gang member, and suspected human smuggler, is living freely in Maryland, posting TikTok videos for the world to see. At the same time, federal authorities sit muzzled under a judicial gag order.  The Salvadoran national, released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody in early […]

Oh Crap: Over-The-Counter Medicines, Other Items Recalled Over Feces Contamination Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) late last week announced that a distributor is recalling its FDA-regulated products because of the presence of bird and rodent feces at a Minneapolis facility. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in White Oak, Md., on June 5, 2023. Madalina […]

US Pending Home Sales Jump To Highest In 33 Months Pending sales of existing homes in the US surged 3.3% MoM (more than the expected 0.9% MoM move) in November as a modest improvement in prices and mortgage rates encouraged buyers. The gain was broad-based across regions and exceeded all but one estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists, but left the YoY change in sales somewhat stagnant on an NSA basis. Signings have now […]

Zelensky Wants 50-Year(!) Security Guarantee From Trump There were no substantial breakthroughs in the latest Trump-Zelensky talks on Ukraine peace at Mar-a-Lago resort on Sunday, and fresh reporting on Monday reveals why. A major point of disagreement remains security guarantees. Ukraine has been pushing maximalist demands for something akin to NATO Article 5 protections. It would be like getting all the benefits of being in NATO […]

How The AI Bubble Is Being Masked Within Big Tech Authored by Autumn Spredemann via The Epoch Times, As artificial intelligence (AI) investment ramps up, some analysts are now drawing comparisons to the early “dot com” days of the internet and the market crash that followed. It’s a deja vu moment for Wall Street: A revolutionary technology captures the imagination while capital floods in and valuations begin to put a high […]

Did US Land Strikes On Venezuela Begin Last Week & No One Knew It? President Trump on Friday in a radio interview disclosed something which missed the attention of the US and global media. He let slip that a large land site had been knocked out by a strike from US forces in the Caribbean – however without specifying which country was hit (whether Venezuela or perhaps Colombia). Trump may have actually assumed the attack which […]

Ilhan Omar’s Husband’s Venture Capital Firm Removes Names From Website Under Scrutiny Authored by Bryan Jung via PJMedia.com, A venture capital firm run by Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) husband quietly scrubbed important names from its website, as the Minnesota congresswoman faces mounting questions on her sudden wealth amid a multi-billion Somali welfare fraud scheme in her district. Rose Lake Capital, the $60 million dollar […]

Futures Drop As Silver Slides From Record Stocks are extending their modest losses from their pre-Christmas record as another shortened trading week starts. As late last week, much of the market action is in precious metals, with silver first smashing through $80 for the first time before sliding while gold also retreated from Friday’s all-time high and platinum pulling back sharply after surging nearly 10%, and hitting limit down […]

European Defense Stocks Slide As Trump-Zelensky Peace Talks Show Progress European defense stocks moved lower on Monday after President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made progress in talks aimed at ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict. On Sunday evening, after the talks, Trump told reporters, “I do think we’re getting a lot closer, maybe very close.” Zelensky told reporters the peace talks were a “really great […]

China Conducts War Drills Around Taiwan, Simulating A Blockade Of Key Ports China launched large-scale military drills around Taiwan on Monday, showcasing Beijing’s ability to simulate a full blockade of the self-ruled island’s key ports. The live-fire exercises come just one week after the U.S. announced an $11.1 billion arms sale to Taipei. According to Taiwan’s Defense Ministry, at around 15:00 local time, 89 Chinese military […]

One Year In, Trump’s Economy Defies The Experts And Outpaces G7 Authored by Daniel Lacalle via The Epoch Times, One year into Donald Trump’s new presidency, the verdict from the data is clear: the apocalyptic consensus forecasts have failed, and the United States stands as the only major developed economy combining strong growth, controlled inflation, and fiscal consolidation. The same analysts and institutions that applauded […]

Trump-Kennedy Center Hits Jazz Star with $1M Lawsuit For Backing Out Of Christmas Eve Show The Trump-Kennedy Center is pursuing a $1 million lawsuit against jazz musician Chuck Redd after he withdrew from his annual Christmas Eve concert at the last minute, citing the recent addition of President Trump’s name to the venue.  Redd, a drummer and vibraphone player who has performed with legends including Dizzy Gillespie and Ray […]

The Global Persecution Of Christians Has Greatly Intensified In 2025 Authored by Michael Snyder via TheMostImportantNews.com, While Christians in the western world peacefully celebrate Christmas, most of them have absolutely no idea what is happening to their brothers and sisters on the other side of the globe.  As I detailed a couple of months ago, most of the population of the world lives in a country where Christians are being […]

Newsom Folds: California Ends Lawsuit Against Trump Admin Over High-Speed Rail Funding California quietly dropped its lawsuit this week against the Trump administration over the federal government’s decision to pull $4 billion in funding for the state’s long-delayed high-speed rail project. The California High-Speed Rail Authority filed a notice of voluntary dismissal on Dec. 23 in the case with the U.S. District Court for the […]

Why China Is Driving Short-Term Oil Prices But OPEC Still Holds The Lever Authored by Charles Kennedy via OilPrice.com, China now drives short-term oil price moves as its opaque import patterns, refinery margins, and strategic stockpiling increasingly shape marginal demand and near-term price discovery. OPEC’s influence has shifted to the medium term. In times of genuine supply stress, pricing power returns to […]

All Of The World’s Births In 2025 In One Giant Chart In 2025, global births are expected to remain highly concentrated in a relatively small number of countries. This visualization, via Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte, shows where the world’s newest citizens are being born and highlights the regions driving global population growth. The data for this visualization comes from the UN World Population Prospects 2024 via Our […]

EX-MI6 Spy Sounds Alarm: Hundreds Of Islamist Sleeper Agents In UK Poised For New 9/11 Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, A chilling revelation from a former MI6 operative exposes the ticking time bomb of Islamist sleeper agents embedded across the UK, ready to unleash devastation rivaling 9/11 or 7/7—all fueled by disastrous open borders policies that prioritize radicals over citizens’ safety. Aimen Dean, who […]

Visualizing The World’s Rare Earth Reserves Rare earth elements (REEs) are the backbone of modern technology, from EV motors and wind turbines to smartphones and precision-guided systems. This map, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, breaks down where the world’s known rare earth reserves are located in 2025, highlighting how concentrated they are across a handful of countries. The distribution is highly uneven. China […]

Poland Is Expanding Its Influence Over The Baltics Through The “Via Baltica” Highway Authored by Andrew Korybko via Substack, Polish President Karol Nawrocki inaugurated the latest section of the “Via Baltica” highway between Poland and the Baltic States in late October in an event with his Lithuanian counterpart, with both highlighting the dual military purpose of this megaproject in an allusion to the “military […]

Pharmakeia: America’s Seniors Are Being Overmedicated Into Oblivion Authored by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog, So many seniors that were once so full of life are now just shadows of their former selves.  It can be really easy to assume that they are “just getting old” and that nothing unusual is happening to them.   But the truth is that in so many cases the reason why America’s seniors are shutting down […]

These Are The Best Countries At Reading Every three years, the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) evaluates how well 15-year-olds can apply reading skills to real-world situations. This visualization, via Visual Capitalist’s Bruno Venditti, ranks the top-performing countries based on their average reading scores. The data for this visualization comes from the OECD’s PISA 2022 results. PISA […]

Syrian Mass Anti-Government Protests Result In Several Alawites Gunned Down Via The Cradle Syrian citizens of the Alawite minority sect took to the streets on Sunday to protest against government violence and sectarian persecution, in line with a call made by the community’s religious leader a day earlier.  Members of the minority sect protested in the Alawite neighborhoods of the central governorate of Homs, and in several […]

Prediction Consensus: What The Experts See Coming In 2026 For the seventh straight year, Visual Capitalist sifted through the forecast landscape to bring you the Prediction Consensus, a synthesis of what analysts, thought leaders, and industry experts expect for the year ahead. This year, Nick Routley analyzed over 2,000 individual predictions from a wide variety of sources including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, the IMF, The […]

The Good News Is People Are Realizing We’re On Our Own Authored by Charles Hugh Smith via OfTwoMinds blog, We no longer care who’s behind the curtain because we’re in charge of our own lives now. The Good News is people are realizing We’re On Our Own and starting to take action accordingly. This article describes how people in one low-income county are localizing self-reliance rather than remain dependent on government […]