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US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have presented a $112 billion reconstruction plan to Gulf officials to build a “high-tech metropolis” atop the remains of Gaza, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The 32-page PowerPoint presentation labeled "sensitive" and titled "Project Sunrise" was developed over 45 days and reportedly presented to officials from Qatar, UAE, Egypt, and Turkiye. The plan envisions turning the Gaza Strip into a "high-tech metropolis" over the next two decades with four phases of reconstruction beginning in southern Gaza. It also calls for turning Rafah into Gaza's new "administrative center," housing over 500,000...

Donald Trump just sent Nicolas Maduro a Christmas message, of a sort. And that message is not many happy returns of the day. Earlier today, the US Navy boarded a tanker carrying Venezuelan oil in international waters. Unlike the first seizure, Marc Caputo reports for Axios, this ship had no specific sanctions applied to it [see update below]. This escalates the standoff over Maduro's illegal regime and the oil revenue he desperately needs to cling to power:The U.S. military early Saturday boarded a tanker that is not under U.S. sanctions as it shipped Venezuelan oil in hopes of escaping a...

And now, readers, we return to the story that won’t go away, the Jeffrey Epstein saga. The deceased pedophile continues to dominate headlines over six years after his death, mostly because there are rumors that high-profile individuals were involved with his exploits, and if their enemies can prove it, they can be ruined. There are also countless victims who have never received justice. Already this Friday afternoon/evening, news broke that today was the deadline Congress had established for the DOJ to release the files, and the department was doing just that. As our Ward Clark reported, Deputy Attorney General Todd...

The body of a man missing for 28 years has been found in a melting glacier in Pakistan's remote and mountainous Kohistan region.A shepherd stumbled upon the body, which was remarkably well-preserved, with its clothing intact, in the so-called Lady Valley in the country's east..."What I saw was unbelievable," the shepherd who found the body, Omar Khan, told BBC Urdu. "The body was intact. The clothes were not even torn."As soon as police confirmed that it was Naseeruddin, locals began offering more information, Mr Khan added.Naseeruddin had a wife and two children. He was travelling with his brother, Kathiruddin, on...

Deputy Director Dan Bongino is leaving the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in early 2026, as he announced in a post on X, and President Donald Trump has revealed what the seeming cause of that decision to leave is, something he revealed when praising Bongino and thanking him for his time in the position. As background, Bongino’s decision to leave came after media reports revealed that his departure was widely expected at the Bureau after he had cleaned out his office and desk, with early reports saying that he was weighing departure, and it then quickly emerged that he would...

On Thursday evening European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen cancelled today's planned signing in Brazil of a trade deal between the European Union and five South American MERCOSEUR countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay). The deal will now be signed next month. It's a deal farmers in Europe see as a direct threat to their livelihood. Several months ago US ranchers bristled when President Donald Trump... French farmers have been protesting the MERCOSEUR trade deal for months with various demonstrations that sometimes include the dumping of manure and trash at government buildings. Protests continued in France this week... Meanwhile...

Rob Reiner did for Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) what Ray Kroc did for hamburgers, what Henry Ford did for the automobile, and what Genghis Khan may have done for sexually transmitted diseases; he brought it to the masses. Reiner's tweets weren't informative, clever, or funny; they were over-the-top insulting and, more importantly, accusatory, so much so that an acne-besotted incel from Butler, Penn., might want to take a shot at Trump. FACT-O-RAMA! Though other Hollywood celebrities have tried (looking at you, Robert DeNiro), no one has attacked Trump as frequently — or as loopily — as Reiner. Take a peek...

bout 30% of San Francisco was blacked out Saturday, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. said, as a power outage grew to about 130,000 customers. PG&E spokesman Edgar Hoida said the cause of the outage was under investigation. PG&E's online outage status reported 124,555 customers without power, or 30.1% of San Francisco, at 6:44 p.m. Outages were first reported in the Inner Sunset neighborhood at about 9:40 a.m., affecting about 14,700 customers. At 10:10 a.m., more outages were reported impacting about 25,000 customers in the Richmond District, the Presidio, Golden Gate Park, Inner Sunset District, and near the Civic Center. Scattered...

One of Kentucky’s largest bourbon producers apparently is pausing whiskey production at the end of the year. Jim Beam, which is one of the largest makers of American whiskey in the world, is planning to shut down production in Happy Hollow in Clermont on Jan. 1 through 2026. The visitors center on site will remain open for Kentucky Bourbon Trail visitors. “We are always assessing production levels to best meet consumer demand and recently met with our team to discuss our volumes for 2026,” according to a statement from the company. “We’ve shared with our teams that while we will...

Seventy-two-year-old Target employee Jeanie Beeman took to the stage at Turning Point USA’s AmFest in Phoenix, Arizona, on Saturday to thunderous applause. She even had a hug and a special moment with Erika Kirk, the widow of TPUSA’s slain co-founder Charlie Kirk. RedState brought you the story of out of Chico, California, where Jeanie was verbally harassed by — in the inestimable words of our Rusty Weiss — a “leftist shrew” who swore at her Wednesday, accusing her of being "f**king stupid" and supporting “a racist.” All of this because Jeanie had the temerity to wear a shirt honoring Charlie,...

Democrats have decided that they need to have their own version of Turning Point USA in order to appeal to young voters and what they have come up with is the most Democrat thing ever. It’s going to be a total disaster. It’s called the ‘DNC National Youth Coordinated Table’. It’s not a grassroots group, it’s completely fabricated. And you can just imagine how meetings of this group are going to go, with mini-groups within the group fighting for dominance and power. Newsweek reported on this: Exclusive: Democrats Unveil New Plan to Win Young Voters From Trump The Democratic National...

Now here's a story out of Florida that bears watching. Florida's black bear hunt is underway, and troubles' a-bruin. The problem is, as it so often is in wildlife policy: A question of policy based on emotion vs. policy based on science. Ten years ago, a Florida bear hunt shocked the public when photos spread online of bloody carcasses of mother bears loaded in pick-up trucks and splayed out on concrete slabs at hunter check-in stations. The hunt, the first in 20 years, was halted in less than 48 hours after an estimated 304 bears were killed the first weekend....

Praying daily since 2015: Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media. I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. ~ 1 Timothy 2:1-2 Religion Forum Threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind.

Randon Sprinkle, the former finance chairman of the Virginia Democratic Party, has been hit with federal charges of distribution of child pornography. According to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the affiant “completed the extraction” of Sprinkle’s computer “and found two archived files constituting child pornography,” and one of the files referenced “consists of a 16-second video which shows an adult male’s erect penis penetrating the mouth of an infant.” FBI Richmond executed a federal search warrant on October 16, 2025. Internet archives show that Sprinkle formerly served as finance director...

Putting baby Jesus in zip ties places the Christmas story as a polemic against the Trump administration and its immigration law enforcement. Here in Dallas and elsewhere, individuals have been motivated by these narratives to attempt to kill ICE agents. Despite the virtues signaled by many Christian pastors across the United States, the demonization of law enforcement is not consistent with the teaching and praxis of Jesus. In fact, Mary and Joseph conformed to difficult imperial mandates compelling them to move and register in the hometown of Joseph. Herod is the dark evil figure of the Christmas story, and the...

The ammunition boxes stacked on the stage opened up to reveal figurines of angels and an infant Jesus lying in his manger. Six actors sang plaintive carols, accompanied by readings of the brooding poetry of Kharkiv writer Serhiy Zhadan. The audience sat, transfixed by the almost unbearable intensity of the spectacle. The nativity play, performed on a recent evening at Kharkiv’s puppet theatre, was a reminder that conflict has seeped into the fabric of almost everything in Ukrainian life over the past four years. “We can’t just put on comedies and escape from reality,” said Oksana Dmitrieva, the nativity play’s...

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI Those of you who are more "mature" Marines & Sailors will remember one of the pre-eminent TV series of the '50's, Rod Serling's Twilight Zone. Many of these programs were quite scary, but they usually had a good moral and made the point in a rather unforgettable manner. On one episode, an astronaut is readying for his blast off on a fifty-year mission to outer space. He is to be placed in a state of suspended animation and will not age one day by the time he returns to Earth. As fate has it,...

The difficult decision that Ukraine’s government now faces is between enduring continued bombing by Russia and relinquishing sovereign land to Russia that is a part of its own cultural identity. There are indications that Ukraine may consider ceding territory currently under Russian control if it received ironclad security guarantees in the event of a renewed Russian attack. But Ukraine is still trying to hold onto the part of the Donbas region that it has painstakingly fortified—or, at least, it is trying to avoid recognizing it as Russian and giving it up altogether. Ukraine still holds between 10 to 15 percent...

The suspected gunman behind both the deadly shooting spree at Brown University and the killing of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor was already dead for two days before authorities found his body inside a New Hampshire storage facility, officials said Friday. Claudio Neves Valente, a 48-year-old Portuguese national and former Brown University graduate student, died Tuesday from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head, according to the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office. Police discovered his body Thursday night inside a storage unit in Salem following a nearly weeklong manhunt. Authorities identified Valente as the suspect who opened fire...

President Donald Trump announced Dec. 19 that his administration has sold more than $1.3 billion worth of “Trump Gold Cards,” a new immigration program offering expedited residency to high-skilled foreign talent, with proceeds going toward paying down the national debt. In remarks to the press, Trump said that sales had exceeded $1.3 billion and described the Gold Card as a “green card on steroids.” He said the option would allow companies to retain graduates from elite institutions, such as Harvard and Wharton, who might otherwise have to go back to their native countries upon graduation. “They graduate from the top...