US capture of Maduro tests limits of China’s diplomatic push Reuters
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01a Apocalyptic
Artificial intelligence is easily the most deceptive technological innovation of the 21st century. Its ease of use and the lightning-fast reflexes with which it spits out responses belie its enormous appetite for water and energy.ChatGPT took the world by storm when it launched in late 2023, signalling an era of intelligence demand marked by seamless, conversational interactions between user and machine But behind every smooth exchange lies a complex physical process. Modern AI is built on vast neural networks trained on trillions of words, images, and numbers. This training, to help models learn to predict the next word or recognise a pattern, involves processing colossal datasets repeatedly through graphics processing units, or GPUs. These chips, originally designed for rendering video game graphics, have become AI workhorses because they can perform thousands of mathematical operations simultaneously. But this speed comes at a price: intense heat.
Zohran Mamdani, the young upstart of the US left, was sworn to take over as New York mayor for a term sure to see him cross swords with President Donald Trump.
from www.news24.com
US President Donald Trump on Sunday openly threatened possible military action against Colombia, saying such a move “sounds good to me”.His comments come just a day after the United States carried out an operation in Venezuela, capturing President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores and transporting them to New York to face federal charges.
‘They Won’t Survive’: GOP Lawmakers Reveal 2 New Trump Targets After Maduro Operation
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump launched a sharp attack on Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, accusing his government of producing and exporting cocaine to the United States.“Colombia is very sick, too, run by a sick man, who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States, and he’s not going to be doing it very long,” Trump said.
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it’s investigating the financials of Elon Musk’s pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, ‘The A Word’, which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
Scientists working with China’s fully superconducting Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) have successfully reached a long-theorized “density-free regime” in fusion plasma experiments. In this state, the plasma remains stable even when its density rises far beyond traditional limits. The results, published in Science Advances on January 1, shed new light on how one of fusion energy’s most stubborn physical barriers might finally be overcome on the road to ignition.
The research was co-led by Prof. Ping Zhu of Huazhong University of Science and Technology and Associate Prof. Ning Yan of the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. By developing a new high-density operating approach for EAST, the team showed that plasma density can be pushed well past long-standing empirical limits without triggering the disruptive instabilities that usually end experiments. This finding challenges decades of assumptions about how tokamak plasmas behave at high density.
US deploys two aircraft carriers to Western Pacific amid China’s Taiwan drills News On AIR
from news.google.com
China signals it won’t give an inch to the US in Latin America MSN
from news.google.com
‘Doomed to fail’: Trump cautioned his ‘cultural coup’ is backfiring rawstory.com
from news.google.com
The New York Times is demanding that the Canadian government advances it’s rapid expansion of “assisted suicide” laws in order to swiftly euthanize a woman suffering from mental health issues.
It comes as Canada’s spiraling assisted-suicide program is once again under international fire after the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities called on the Canadian government to repeal its planned expansion of euthanasia for those suffering solely from mental illness, a policy critics warn will normalize suicide as “healthcare.”
San Francisco has been a nutty place for some time now. The city’s been a stronghold of liberals for years, arguably since shortly after World War 2. But over the last couple of decades, the city’s leftist population has crossed over into pure wackadoodle. It’s also a hotbed of Trump Derangement Syndrome; if President Trump found a way to generate clean, free electricity from nothing, the San Francisco left would suddenly be campaigning in favor of coal plants.
Now, in the latest chapter in “San Francisco goes completely bat-guano nuts,” San Franciscans are taking to the streets (I’m sure it’s genuinely spontaneous) to protest Trump’s ouster of Venezuela’s tinpot dictator Nicolás Maduro.
NOW: Massive crowd in San Francisco, CA says “Hands Off Venezuela”! pic.twitter.com/GB5uHe3IGN
— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) January 3, 2026
Zohran Mamdani was sworn in as New York City’s mayor today.
The 34-year-old promised universal childcare for the many by taxing the wealthiest few. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders swore Mamdani into office and even Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez made an appearance.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s (R) office downplayed the significance of alleged Somali fraud occurring in the state, equating massive amounts of fraud to stores dealing with shoplifting.
While DeWine has indicated that the state “has strong safeguards in place to prevent fraud in the state’s publicly funded childcare system,” Dan Tierney, a spokesman for DeWine, used grocery stores as an example to point out that getting fraud as “close to zero as possible” would likely never happen, according to Cleveland.com.
Democrats and the corporate media rushed to defend Somalis throughout the end of 2025 as reports emerged that they committed widespread fraud in Minnesota.
Federal prosecutors charged dozens of Somalis with stealing over $9 billion of taxpayer money intended for social services, including the nonprofit Feeding Our Future.
As more details have emerged about their fraudulent actions, Democrats accused President Donald Trump and conservatives of using Somalis as scapegoats and expressed their support for the population.
President Donald Trump warned Friday that the United States would step in if Iran’s regime turns its guns on peaceful protesters, as economic demonstrations across the Islamic Republic spiral into deadly unrest.
If Iran “kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump wrote in an overnight post on Truth Social.
Iranian leaders quickly fired back, threatening retaliation and warning that any U.S. involvement would put American forces in the Middle East in the crosshairs.
VENEZULANS spoke of their terror yesterday as US commandos detonated “earthquake” blasts before kidnapping their president in the shock attack.
Crack US Army Delta Force and FBI agents blazed their way past Nicolas Maduro’s feared Avispas Negras bodyguards to grab him in the heart of Caracas.
Widening demonstrations sparked by Iran’s ailing economy spread Thursday into the Islamic Republic’s rural provinces, with at least six people being killed in the first fatalities reported among security forces and protesters, authorities said.
The deaths may mark the start of a heavier-handed response by Iran’s theocracy over the demonstrations, which have slowed in the capital, Tehran, but expanded elsewhere. The fatalities, one on Wednesday and five on Thursday, occurred in three cities predominantly home to Iran’s Lur ethnic group.
China’s cargo ship spotted with drone launch system, raising military concerns newskarnataka.com
from news.google.com
Dubai:
Widening demonstrations sparked by Iran’s ailing economy spread Thursday into the Islamic Republic’s rural provinces, with at least six people being killed in the first fatalities reported among security forces and protesters, authorities said.
The deaths may mark the start of a heavier-handed response by Iran’s theocracy over the demonstrations, which have slowed in the capital, Tehran, but expanded elsewhere. The fatalities, one on Wednesday and five on Thursday, occurred in three cities predominantly home to Iran’s Lur ethnic group.
Russia Asks US to Halt Chase of “Stateless” Oil Tanker Fleeing Coast Guard in the Atlantic UNITED24 Media
from news.google.com
Good thing Vice President JD Vance and his family were not home during this incident.
A man in Ohio was arrested after allegedly breaking the windows at Vice President JD Vance’s residence.
A Secret Service spokesperson shared that the incident occurred in the early hours of Monday.
WLWT reported more on the crime:
A man has been taken into custody by Cincinnati police after officers and Secret Service agents responded to the Cincinnati home of Vice President JD Vance overnight.
The Secret Service confirmed to WLWT that a man has been taken into custody by Cincinnati police after he was detained by Secret Service personnel. Officials say the man has been arrested for “causing property damage, including breaking windows on the exterior of a personal residence associated with the Vice President.”
The agency says it happened shortly after midnight early Monday morning. Secret Service is coordinating with CPD and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
According to an arrest report obtained by WLWT, William DeFoor, 26, has been arrested in connection to the damage done at the home.
Defense stocks in Europe and Asia surged on Monday as investors assessed how the dramatic overthrow of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro could herald a significant geopolitical shift that will boost the rearmament trade in the long run.
Rheinmetall, Germany’s largest arms manufacturer, gained over 8%, while military technology and surveillance specialist Hensoldt rose more than 7%. Italy’s Leonardo added more than 5%, while German counterpart Renk added around 8%.
Swedish fighter jet maker Saab added more than 6%.
U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein has been assigned to preside over the federal criminal case against former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in the Southern District of New York.
The toppled socialist dictator faces sweeping narco-terrorism and weapons charges in the U.S. after being captured by American forces in Venezuela on Saturday.
Hellerstein, 92, was nominated to the federal bench by President Bill Clinton in 1998 and confirmed by the Senate that same year.
Antifa first rose to mainstream prominence during the summer riots of 2020. While how the group managed to recruit so many young people has remained a mystery to most Americans, domestic security expert Kyle Shideler knows its methods well.
“So as to the psychological perspective, you know, you talk about those mug shots. There’s almost, like, if you look at, over the course of 2020, there’s almost like a ‘faces of meth’ campaign,” domestic security expert Kyle Shideler tells BlazeTV hosts Christopher Rufo and Jonathan “Lomez” Keeperman on “Rufo & Lomez.”
“Investigators are asking for the public’s help in identifying and speaking to the individual shown in these photos who was in proximity of the person of interest.”
Providence Police on Wednesday released images of a person of interest they are seeking in connection with the Brown University shooting that took place on Saturday. The suspect is still on the loose.
Police said that the person had been seen “in proximity of” the suspected gunman. In a Tuesday press conference, Providence Police Chief said that the “person of interest” that they have released numerous photos and videos of since the Saturday shooting is strongly believed to be the suspect in the case.
Canada’s government-run euthanasia program increased its death toll again last year, taking more than 16,000 lives, and placing medically assisted suicide as the fourth leading cause of death in the country.
According to an annual report published by the Canadian government, 16,499 people were killed through the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program in 2024, increasing 6.9 percent from the previous year. Close to 75 percent of the 22,535 people who applied for the program were approved.
The report authors stated that the number of deaths is possibly stabilizing, while admitting that “long-term trends” have not yet been identified. Based on 2023 numbers, an estimated 1 in 20 deaths are government-directed.
Most observers of the abortion debate would likely agree that it is primarily a matter of ethics, a contest between the Hippocratic standard of respect for human life and various forms of humanistic pragmatism that allow abortion as a way to address personal and social problems. Resolving that debate has engaged philosophers of medicine, religious leaders, and the few political figures who seriously address it, for decades, with shifts in public policy and law back and forth. The debate also necessarily involves the matter of real-world consequences, making data collection and analysis a crucial part of the discussion, even if they are not ultimately the primary drivers of convictions on so profound a set of questions.
This fact has led to a range of skirmishes and debates all their own. One example is the decision of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during the Obama administration to drop the requirement that abortion pill (mifepristone) manufacturers report non-fatal events to the FDA involving the drug. Only deaths were, and still are under the Trump administration, subject to mandatory reporting.
As fresh controversy swirls around the FDA’s promise to review the safety of mifepristone, the status of future injury reporting remains in doubt, although it would be a welcome restoration of a policy with virtually no downside, especially as other FDA policy changes have increased risks to women who are taking the abortion drug regimen later in pregnancy, without a doctor’s visit, and no tests to rule out ectopic pregnancy and other serious health concerns.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Wednesday that she will sign dangerous legislation legalizing assisted suicide.
That’s a move pro-life and disability rights advocates warn endangers the state’s most vulnerable citizens, discriminates against the disabled and opens the door to future expansions of state-sanctioned death.
Hochul, a Catholic, said she has reached an agreement with legislative leaders to add supposed “guardrails” to the Medical Aid in Dying Act before signing it into law next year. However pro-life groups warn that such limits have eventually been abused or removed in other states and countries, leading to euthanasia and pressure to die.
Australian police announced on Wednesday that the suspected gunman who killed 15 people in a shooting on Sydney’s Bondi Beach has been charged with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder.
24-year-old Naveed Akram was arrested at the scene of the incident and taken to a Sydney hospital following a shootout with police that killed his father, 50-year-old Sajid Akram.
Naveed Akram was charged with one count of murder for each victim who died and one count of committing a terrorist act after waking from a coma on Tuesday.
The pair allegedly opened fire on those attending an event to mark the start of an eight-day Hanukkah festival at Bondi beach on Sunday.
The men had reportedly pledged allegiance to the radical Islamic State group (IS) and flags of the terrorist group were found in their car where police also discovered at least two improvised explosive devices.