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Stay up to date with live coverage of the Trump administration and national politics Wednesday as President Trump wishes Americans a Merry Christmas on Christmas Eve just days after declaring the day a national holiday. Meanwhile, The US military has moved a large number of special-operations aircraft, troops and equipment into the Caribbean as Trump openly considers military action to oust Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, according to a new report. President Trump took to Truth Social Wednesday to wish Americans a "MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!" Trump will be spending the holiday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Last week, Trump took executive...

I'm 75% of the way through writing my fantasy trilogy and I heard a piece of music on Youtube that to me screamed for lyrics. If I write my own lyrics based on it and have my characters listen to someone singing it, can I legally use it in my book or is it problematic from a copyright standpoint? Do I have to get permission from the music composer? Am I better off just dropping the idea?

Keir Starmer has admitted people are 'still struggling with the cost of living' in a downbeat Christmas message. After a chaotic year and with the threat of a Labour coup rising, the PM used his festive address to insist his 'priority' is making life easier in Britain. But he urged everyone to 'do our bit' by 'reaching out' to friends, relatives and neighbours over the season. Sir Keir is finishing 2025 on an humiliating note, after he U-turned on the government's flagship farms tax in the face of opposition from Labour MPs. It is the latest in a string of...

The recent presidential elections in Honduras felt like the never-ending story in recent weeks, but we can officially report that Nasry "Tito" Asfura is the winner. He's the conservative candidate who was backed by Donald Trump earlier this year. It was close. Asfura received just over 40% of the vote, while center-right candidate Salvador Nasralla got about 39.5%. The far-left socialist candidate, Rixi Moncada, who was hand-picked by the sitting president received about 19% of the vote. The inauguration is scheduled for Jan. 27, 2026, and, despite initial claims of fraud, current president Xiomara Castro promises there will be a...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would be willing to withdraw troops from the country’s eastern industrial heartland as part of a plan to end Russia’s war, if Moscow also pulls back and the area becomes a demilitarized zone monitored by international forces. The proposal offered another potential compromise on control of the Donbas region, which has been a major sticking point in peace negotiations. Zelenskyy said the U.S. proposed the creation of a “free economic zone,” which he said should be demilitarized. But it was unclear what that idea would mean for governance or development of the region. A...

The Epstein papers have dropped, and, of course, as anyone with the brain power exceeding that of your common garden snail could’ve told you, it turned out to be more disappointing than a Bulwark staffer’s wife’s wedding night. If you were looking for a giant Trump conspiracy, all you got was Bill Clinton floating in a tub with some bimbo. And if that surprises you, I can only assume that someone accompanies you everywhere you go, reminding you to breathe. Out at AmFest, the Turning Point USA convention, one of the big topics was the USS Liberty incident from 1967....

Almost 100 Minnesota mayors banded together to tell Gov. Tim Walz and state lawmakers that they object to citizens suffering from higher taxes and reduced services—problems they blame on state spending and rampant government program fraud.The Minnesota capitol building in St. Paul, Minn., on Dec. 8, 2025.Jenn Ackerman for The Epoch TimesThe message, conveyed in a two-page letter, can best be summed up by saying, “Clean up your act,” Diane Cash, mayor of Crosby, a small city in north-central Minnesota, told The Epoch Times on Dec. 23, a day after the letter was sent.The mayors are urging state leaders, “Put...

There continues to be a debate among global geopolitical analysts regarding whether the United States and China are engaged in a Cold War or a competition for global dominance.The answer is irrelevant.By anyone's observation, China seeks to dominate the 21st century, and they will do so by "any means necessary." In the process, they will use their military might to create a sphere of influence that is designed to cow nations that range from Japan to Australia to India.Their invasion of Taiwan is almost a foregone conclusion among many military observers, who believe it is not a question of if...

Nvidia has agreed to buy assets from Groq, a designer of high-performance artificial intelligence accelerator chips, for $20 billion in cash, according to Alex Davis, CEO of Disruptive, which led the startup’s latest financing round in September. Davis, whose firm has invested more than half a billion dollars in Groq since the company was founded in 2016, said the deal came together quickly. Groq raised $750 million at a valuation of about $6.9 billion three months ago. Investors in the round included Blackrock and Neuberger Berman, as well as Samsung, Cisco , Altimeter and 1789 Capital, where Donald Trump Jr....

This past season, I’ve had the opportunity to teach a Bible Study examining what is known as the “intertestamental period” or more notably, the period in history which we call “the 400 silent years”. This is the period of time between the book of Nehemiah and Malachi (who were both contemporaries of each other), up until the time Jesus Christ was born. What is so interesting about this historical period is both the designated time of the fall of empires, the rise of new empires, sophistication in philosophy, art, and the art of war, descent of man (spiritually and morally),...

ANYONE WHO has stood in a long queue at border control, or bypassed one, knows that not all passports are created equal. Citizens of some countries can speed through the gates; citizens of others must submit to interrogation and delay. Henley & Partners, a consultancy that helps rich people acquire citizenship in attractive countries, ranks passports by the number of countries their holders can enter without a visa. Its latest assessment of passport power shows that America is sliding down the table. Our map below shows how countries compare this year. Asian countries dominate the top of the table. Singapore...

A grand jury has chosen not to indict the father of two Kentucky State University students who faced murder charges following an on-campus shooting that left one student dead and another critically wounded. Following Tuesday's hearing, defense lawyer Scott Danks announced via social media that grand jurors voted against indicting his client, Jacob Lee Bard, for the Dec. 9 shooting, and he has been released from custody. Bard's legal team previously told media outlets that 20 to 30 individuals had assembled to attack his son and family, and that he acted justifiably in shooting two people who were assaulting his...

How has the Postal Service escaped the eye of Trump for reform?

Each Christmas The Economist names a country of the year. Not the happiest: that would nearly always be Scandinavian, making for a dull, predictable contest. Nor the most influential: that would always be a superpower. Rather, we try to identify the country that has improved the most, whether economically, politically or in any other way that matters.The year was a turbulent one, with President Donald Trump disrupting global trade and horrific conflicts scarring places such as Gaza and Sudan. But several countries navigated choppy waters well. Canada elected a sober technocrat as prime minister, rather than a populist, and stood...

...for over two millennia, the great civilizations of the Mediterranean... possessed copper in abundance. They had gold, timber, and grain... What they did not have was tin... in the early centuries, tin came from... Central and South Asia, from the Zeravshan Valley in what is now Tajikistan and the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan... By the Late Bronze Age, the kingdoms had turned to the sea... In 1982, a sponge diver off the coast of Grand Cape in Turke... found what came to be known as the Uluburun shipwreck... mostly, it carried metal. There were ten tons of copper, in the...

"...uncovered over a million more documents potentially related to the Jeffrey Epstein case" That post this afternoon from the US Justice Department...Thomas Massie... "they expect you to believe this involves only two guilty people"... Two oil storage tanks catching fire following a Ukrainian... Shelling continuing on the border between Thailand and Cambodia... The Federal Emergency Management Agency denying 30 million dollars in aid... The new Pentagon report on China's military...nine aircraft carriers in service by 2035... An Israeli attack in southern Lebanon tonight... In the Honduran Presidential Election of November 30th, the candidate backed by... Algeria's parliament today unanimously voted...

When describing U.S. President Donald Trump’s governing style, and particularly his relationships with other countries, two words tend to come up frequently: “mercurial” and “transactional.” The latter suits several U.S. allies, partners, and even adversaries just fine, while the former has buffeted even some of Washington’s closest and most enduring partnerships over the past year. In examining which countries have benefited the most and least from the second Trump administration, we intentionally excluded the parties to the two biggest conflicts that it is trying to mediate—one between Israel and Hamas, the other between Russia and Ukraine. Both of those conflicts...

In today’s culture, with the countless adaptations of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, some adaptations have been forgotten, or cast into the shadows for more modern interpretations. It is not difficult to see how and why this is, especially since there are so many adaptations going all the way back to the silent movie era. This particular version of A Christmas Carol, is one of the most historically significant because of a number of unique factors, of which I am going to address further in this piece....

Christmas has with it a special mood attached to it. Either that mood reflects a fantasy-based perspective, or it has a deeply profound and serious one. In the 1970’s an independent French Film Producer by the name of Alexander Salkind in partnership with his son, Ilya, decided to go way bigger in their movie-making ambitions, by financing big film projects in America by taking American staples and making them big budget films.

He reportedly had stopped in the bookstore to charge his phone when he felt an 'internal build up that led to his fight or flight response kicking in.' He then allegedly attacked Loncharich without any specific motive.