Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that despite a ceasefire being in place in Gaza since October 11, severe hardships persist in residential areas left in ruins by Israeli attacks. He noted that colder weather and the onset of rainfall have further worsened conditions, saying scenes of tents flooded by heavy rain and babies and children suffering from hypothermia in Gaza are being watched with deep sorrow.

According to sources who spoke with Axios, the White House has taken control of the U.S. Department of Justice’s official account on X in an effort to manage and counter narratives surrounding the ongoing release of documents related to the case of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Officials said that approximately 700,000 additional files still require review before they can be made public, despite the Epstein Files Transparency Act mandating that all documents be released by last Friday, December 19. As a result, smaller batch releases are expected to continue into early January.

🚨 Massive police response on I-695 in Washington, D.C. amid reports of police officer down.

Ukrainian attack drones have reportedly struck one of Russia’s oldest and largest rubber facilities, the Efremov Synthetic Rubber Plant. Images show flames rising above the expansive factory complex.

The U.S. Coast Guard is continuing its pursuit of the Guyana-flagged, Iranian-linked sanctioned crude oil tanker *M/T Bella 1* in the North Atlantic, officials told Reuters. Authorities are waiting for specialized assets and personnel to arrive before attempting to board and seize the vessel, which fled east over the weekend after being interdicted in the southern Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela.

Australia’s most populous state, New South Wales, on Wednesday passed sweeping new gun control and anti-terrorism laws in the wake of the recent mass shooting at Bondi Beach. The measures tighten firearm ownership rules, ban the public display of terrorist symbols, and expand police powers to curb protests.

In a 6–3 ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court has blocked the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard to Chicago to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations. The Court said that, at this preliminary stage, the government had not identified a legal authority permitting the military to enforce laws in Illinois. Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch dissented from the decision.

The U.S. Navy told The War Zone that construction of the first two Trump-class battleships—USS Defiant (BBG-1) and a second, as-yet-unnamed vessel—is not expected to start until the early 2030s. Cost estimates are still being finalized, and the Navy is moving toward awarding sole-source contracts for design and preparatory work to Bath Iron Works in Maine, Huntington Ingalls Industries in Mississippi, and Virginia-based Gibbs & Cox.

According to a statement from the U.S. Department of Justice, a letter included in the latest release of Epstein-related documents that had been attributed to Jeffrey Epstein and addressed to convicted sex offender Larry Nassar was determined by the FBI to be fake. The FBI cited several reasons for this conclusion: the handwriting does not appear to match Epstein’s; the letter was postmarked three days after Epstein’s death and sent from northern Virginia, despite Epstein having died in a New York jail; and the return address failed to list the detention facility or Epstein’s inmate number, both of which are required for outgoing inmate mail under Federal Bureau of Prisons rules. View quoted note →

Concerns are mounting in Washington over Chinese-backed investment in U.S. education following reports that companies with links to China have acquired hundreds of American schools. One example frequently cited is Spring Education Group, which operates roughly 240 schools across 19 states and is financed by a Chinese investment firm whose CEO has been described as a strong Chinese nationalist. Critics argue that these investments may be driven by motives beyond profit, warning that they could be aimed at influencing American education and introducing ideology aligned with the Chinese Communist Party, a prospect they describe as dangerous.