Ron Paul Praises Trump Taking A Step Toward Liberty Authored by Ron Paul, President Trump recently signed an executive order changing marijuana’s Controlled Substances Act classification from Schedule I to Schedule III. Schedule I is supposed to include especially dangerous drugs that are likely to be abused and have no medical purpose. Whatever one thinks of the wisdom and morality of using marijuana, the fact is it is less […]

Gas Prices Drop For 5th Consecutive Week; Lowest NYE Level Since COVID Authored by Rob Sabo via The Epoch Times, Gas prices continued their sharp downward trend throughout December, falling by nearly 23 cents over the month to a national average of $2.75 per gallon on Dec. 29—the lowest level recorded since 2021, according to a report by fuel price comparison app GasBuddy. The national average price of diesel fuel, meanwhile, […]

IRS CEO Says 94% Of Middle-Class Taxpayers Will See Tax Relief Next Year Authored by Jack Phillips via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), The CEO of the IRS said during an interview on Dec. 23 that 94 percent of middle-class Americans will see some form of tax relief next year. The sign outside the Internal Revenue Service building in Washington. AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File “You’re going to look at probably 94 percent-plus […]

Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake Just Played On Russia’s Doomsday Shortwave Radio Station X users are reporting that a mysterious Russian shortwave radio signal, nicknamed “The Buzzer” and informally known as the “doomsday radio station,” that has been continuously broadcasting since the late 1970s, has just transmitted the classical piece Swan Lake by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. UVB-76 is transmitted on 4625 kHz and is occasionally […]

Jennings: “Until Somebody In Power Goes To Jail”, Blue State Fraud Won’t Stop Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news, In a heated CNN clash, conservative commentator Scott Jennings called out the lack of real accountability in Democrat-run states, demanding elected officials face consequences for enabling billion-dollar scams. Jennings addressed the rot in blue states where massive fraud schemes have flourished under lax […]

CIA Drone Carried Out First Known Land Strike On Venezuela  The CIA is reported to have carried out a bombing operation within Venezuelan territory, CNN and The New York Times report in follow-up to President Trump touting that the US had knocked out “a big facility”. CNN while citing unnamed sources, reports that the CIA conducted a drone strike on a remote dock along Venezuela’s coastline, after the US suspected the site was […]

Trump Says Netanyahu Pardon “On Its Way”, Israeli President Says Otherwise Authored by Travis Gilmore via The Epoch Times, President Donald Trump said on Dec. 29 that Israeli President Isaac Herzog told him a pardon for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “on its way.” That assertion, however, was disputed by Herzog’s office. “He’s a wartime prime minister who’s a hero. How do you not give a pardon?” Trump, while […]

“Stark Reversal” From Pandemic: US Home Price Growth Slowest Since Q2 2023 Home prices in America’s largest 20 cities surged 0.32% MoM in October (far higher than the +0.1% MoM move expected) but for context, this is the weakest annual home price growth since the March through July 2023 period, when the market was absorbing the initial shock of the Fed’s rapid rate hikes Source: Bloomberg “October’s data show the housing […]

Meta “Joining Forces” With China-Founded Manus AI In $2 Billion Deal Mark Zuckerberg has been aggressively repositioning Meta Platforms’ focus and spending toward artificial intelligence, particularly to achieve “personal superintelligence” that enhances existing apps like Facebook and Instagram and, of course, boosts revenue. Put simply, the pivot to AI looks like a far better venture than Zuckerberg’s absolutely horrendous bet on […]

Futures Flat, Precious Metals Rebound On Last Full Trading Session Of 2025 Stock struggled to find direction amid a year-end lack of catalysts and the traditional lull in trading in the final trading days of the year. After suffering one of the biggest one-day drops on record, silver and gold regained their footing after sliding from all-time highs. As of 8:15am, the S&P 500 was set to open flat, while Nasdaq futures […]

Citizen Journalist Descends On Ohio, Immediately Finds ‘First Signs Of Potentially Massive Somali Fraud’ The “Nick Shirley Effect” has begun, with Muckraker founder Anthony Rubin on the ground in Columbus, Ohio, home to the second-largest Somali community in the U.S., investigating daycare centers. This development comes less than a day after Ohio attorney Mehek Cooke said federal investigators are examining allegations that […]

Tesla Publishes Downbeat Wall Street Estimates For Vehicle Sales Tesla has compiled vehicle delivery forecasts from a broad group of Wall Street firms, including Daiwa, DB, Wedbush, Canaccord, Baird, Wolfe, Exane, GS, RBC, Evercore ISI, Barclays, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Jefferies, Needham, HSBC, Cantor Fitzgerald, and William Blair. The overall sell-side analyst consensus implies Q4 deliveries of roughly 422,850 vehicles, […]

Why Did The EU Slide Into Complete Irrelevance? Authored by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com, Hint: It’s structural. Trump has nothing to do with it… The Creeping Death of the Single Market Eurointelligence discussed the EU’s Slide Towards Irrelevance The EU has zero chance to emerge as a geopolitical power like the US or China. Strategic autonomy was only a slogan. It came with no strategy, and most importantly, with no […]

The World Is Hopeful For A Better 2026 Despite ongoing conflicts, uncertainty over what Trump era 2.0 will bring next and the imminent climate catastrophe, global optimism is holding firm for 2026. As Statista’s Anna Fleck details below, according to the latest data from Ipsos, an average of 71 percent of respondents across 30 countries said they felt optimistic that their 2026 will be better than 2025. This is the same share as […]

Kazakhstan Crude Production Dips 6% After Black Sea Drone Attack By Charles Kennedy of OilPrice.com, Following the Ukrainian drone attack that damaged a key export terminal on Russia’s Black Sea at end-November, Kazakhstan’s crude and condensate production has fallen by 6% so far in December compared to the average output in November, an anonymous industry source told Reuters on Monday.  A Ukrainian attack damaged […]

Europe’s Ideological Paralysis Threatens AI Boom Submitted by Thomas Kolbe Economic prosperity is created in free markets by innovative companies. Over 50 percent of globally operating AI unicorns are located in the U.S., while Europe plays virtually no role. The race for the next future technology is already decided. It seems that economic history is repeating itself in these months. On the stock markets, companies in the […]

Where Do Microplastics Come From Anyway? Most people know that plastic pollution is a problem, but microplastics (the tiny fragments shed by everyday products) are much more pervasive than many realize. Microplastics are defined as plastic particles smaller than 5 mm. These particles are found everywhere: in oceans, soil, drinking water, food, and even the air we breathe. Yet, the origins of these particles are often invisible to […]

Ukraine’s Zaporozhia Nuclear Plant Could Restart 18 Months After War Ends By Michael Kern of OilPrice.com, The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, which has been under Russian control since early 2022, could resume operations within a year and a half after a potential end to the war, the head of the plant’s Russian operating company said on Monday.  “If this (the end of the conflict) happens tomorrow, we will be […]

These Are The World’s 5 Largest Megacities By 2050, 68% of the global population is projected to live in urban centers, up from 55% today. The world’s largest megacity, when measured by the combination of satellite imagery and census data, is Guangzhou, China. Strikingly, the population has boomed by nearly 20-fold in just 50 years driven by China’s rapid economic rise. This graphic, via Visual Capitalist’s Dorothy Neufeld, […]

The Beginning Of The End For Europe’s Old Security Order Authored by J.Ricardo Martins via journal-neo.su, Europe’s long-standing security framework is undergoing profound strain, increasingly overshadowed by economic instruments that shape geopolitical influence. This analysis examines how geoeconomic logics are reshaping Europe’s strategic posture and challenging the foundations of its traditional security order. The […]

China Condemns Israel’s Recognition Of Somaliland As Taiwan Embraces Move Via The Cradle The Chinese Foreign Ministry released a statement on Monday condemning Israel’s recognition of the separatist Republic of Somaliland, after Taiwan became the first state to welcome Tel Aviv’s move.  China opposes the Israeli recognition of Somaliland as an “independent sovereign state” and the decision to “establish diplomatic relations” […]

Lung Cancer? Alarming Study Finds Ultra-Processed Foods Are Even Worse Than Previously Thought A large U.S. cohort study has found that individuals consuming the highest levels of ultra-processed foods face a significantly greater risk of developing lung cancer, even after adjusting for smoking and other factors. Research published in the journal Thorax analyzed data from more than 101,000 participants in the Prostate, Lung, […]

Your Mind Can Bend Time – Here’s How Authored by Makai Allbert via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), A minute is always a minute, except when it isn’t. This idea was put to the test in a 2023 Harvard study. Researchers induced minor bruising on participants’ forearms and then had them sit in rooms where the clocks ran at normal speed, half-speed, or double-speed. Illustration by The Epoch Times/Shutterstock Crucially, the […]

These Are The Best-Selling Video Games Since 2020 Since 2020, blockbuster game launches have arrived across every major platform and in a variety of genres, from cozy life sims to sprawling open-world adventure RPGs. This visualization, via Visual Capitalist’s Niccolo Conte, ranks the best-selling video games from 2020 to 2025 based on global unit sales using data from Video Game Sales Wiki (Fandom). Animal Crossing Dominates […]

China’s CNOOC Discovers Massive Oilfield in Bohai Sea By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com CNOOC Ltd, China’s top offshore crude oil and natural gas producer, has announced the discovery of a major new oilfield in the Bohai Sea.  The Qinhuangdao 29-6 discovery in the shallow Neogene formations of the Bohai Sea is yet another oilfield estimated to hold more than 100 million tons of crude, or about 730 million barrels, and […]