https://apnews.com/article/australia-shooting-sydney-bondi-beach-31f711f09f677d0f88091ece25f651c1
SYDNEY (AP) — Two gunmen shot dead at least 11 people on Sunday at a Jewish event being held at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, Australian authorities said, declaring it a terrorist attack. One gunman was fatally shot by police and the second arrested.

The suspect was in critical condition, authorities said. At least 29 people were confirmed wounded, including two police officers, said Mal Lanyon, the police commissioner for New South Wales state, where Sydney is located.

“This attack was designed to target Sydney’s Jewish community,” the state’s Premier Chris Minns said. The massacre was declared a terrorist attack due to the event targeted and weapons used, Lanyon said.

Hundreds had gathered for an event at Bondi Beach called Chanukah by the Sea, which was celebrating the start of the Hanukkah Jewish festival.

Dramatic footage apparently filmed by a member of the public and broadcast on Australian television channels showed someone appearing to tackle and disarm one of the gunmen, before pointing the man’s weapon at him.

Lanyon said the death toll was “fluid” and that wounded people were still arriving at hospitals.

Lachlan Moran, 32, from Melbourne, was waiting for his family nearby when he heard shots, he told The Associated Press. He dropped the beer he was carrying for his brother and ran.

“You heard a few pops, and I freaked out and ran away. ... I started sprinting. I just had that intuition. I sprinted as quickly as I could,” Moran said. He said he heard shooting off and on for about five minutes.

“Everyone just dropped all their possessions and everything and were running and people were crying and it was just horrible,” Moran said.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/palantir-ceo-alex-karp-pays-record-120-million-for-colorado-monastery/ar-AA1StL46

"Palantir CEO Alex Karp has paid a record $120 million for a ranch outside Aspen, Colo., that was used for decades as a monastery, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.

Located in Snowmass, about 30 minutes from Aspen, St. Benedict’s Monastery was listed for $150 million last year, said Ken Mirr of Mirr Ranch Group, one of the listing agents. The deal is the priciest residential sale to date in Colorado’s Pitkin County, Mirr said.

Spanning about 3,700 acres, the property had been owned for about 70 years by an order of Trappist monks, Mirr said, although only about five still live there.

Mirr declined to comment on the identity of the buyer, but said the purchaser does plan to use the property as a home.

Karp is the co-founder and chief executive of Palantir, a data-analysis firm best known for working with the U.S. military and intelligence agencies. The company, which was founded in 2003 by a group of entrepreneurs including Silicon Valley heavyweight Peter Thiel, has made Karp a billionaire many times over. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates his net worth at about $18 billion. Karp is also known to be an avid skier.

Nine-figure home sales are a new phenomenon in the Aspen area. The first took place last year, when former casino mogul Steve Wynn and financier Thomas Peterffy teamed up to pay $108 million for an estate at the base of Red Mountain. And the monastery deal, Mirr said, isn’t “your typical sale of a property in Aspen with a 20,000-square-foot home on it.”"

A 74-acre property in Aspen is currently on the market for $300 million.

https://www.axios.com/2025/12/15/israel-violate-ceasefire-gaza-strike-trump

The White House sent a stern private message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressing that the killing of a top Hamas military commander over the weekend constituted a violation of the ceasefire agreement brokered by President Trump, two U.S. officials tell Axios.

Why it matters: The angry message from the White House comes amid growing tensions between the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government around the next phase of the agreement to end the war in Gaza and over Israel's broader regional policy.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner have become very frustrated with Netanyahu, according to the two U.S. officials.
Netanyahu is expected to meet Trump in Mar-a-Lago on December 29.

Driving the news: On Saturday, Israel killed Raed Saad, the deputy commander of Hamas' military wing and one of the alleged architects of the Oct. 7 attacks. The attack in Gaza City killed four people in total.

U.S. officials said the Israeli government didn't notify or consult the U.S. ahead of the strike.

Behind the scenes: "The White House message to Netanyahu was: 'If you want to ruin your reputation and show that you don't abide by agreements be our guest, but we won't allow you to ruin President Trump's reputation after he brokered the deal in Gaza," a senior U.S. official said.

An Israeli official confirmed the White House was unhappy but claimed the message was milder — that "certain Arab countries" consider it a ceasefire violation. According to the U.S. officials, the White House was unequivocal that Israel had violated the ceasefire.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/12/15/military-command-plan-caine-hegseth/
Senior Pentagon officials are preparing a plan to downgrade several of the U.S. military’s major headquarters and shift the balance of power among its top generals, in a major consolidation sought by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, people familiar with the matter said.

If adopted, the plan would usher in some of the most significant changes at the military’s highest ranks in decades, in part following through on Hegseth’s promise to break the status quo and slash the number of four-star generals in the military. It would reduce in prominence the headquarters of U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command by placing them under the control of a new organization known as U.S. International Command, according to five people familiar with the matter.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine is expected to detail the proposal, which has not previously been reported, for Hegseth in the coming days. Such moves would complement other efforts by the administration to shift resources from the Middle East and Europe and focus foremost on expanding military operations in the Western Hemisphere, these people said. Like others interviewed for this report, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the effort before it is conveyed to the secretary.

Hegseth’s team said in a statement that they would not comment on “rumored internal discussions” or “pre-decisional matters.” Any insinuation that there is a divide among officials over the issue is “completely false — everyone in the Department is working to achieve the same goal under this administration,” the statement said.

The Pentagon has shared little to no details with Congress, a lack of communication that has perturbed members of the Republican-led Senate and House Armed Services committees. Top officers at the commands involved are awaiting more details as well, officials said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/12/16/trump-executive-orders-second-term/
President Donald Trump has signed more executive orders in less than a year of his presidency than he did in his entire first term — repeatedly bypassing Congress and forcing the courts to grapple with the constitutional bounds of his power.

Trump on Monday signed an order instructing fentanyl to be designated as a “weapon of mass destruction,” the 221st executive order of his second term. Since his inauguration, Trump has used the orders to impose sweeping tariffs, seek retribution against his perceived enemies and weigh in on cultural issues big and small, from challenging immigration laws to regulating water pressure from showerheads.

One third of Trump’s executive orders have been explicitly challenged in court as of Dec. 12, a Washington Post analysis of data from nonprofits CourtListener and JustSecurity found.

American presidents have consolidated executive power to skirt Congress since the beginning of the 20th century. But Trump has accelerated the trend that intensified in recent decades amid a decline in legislative activity and rising partisan brinkmanship.

Trump supercharged that trajectory by repeatedly bypassing a Congress that his party controls. The approach has allowed for swift results in a way legislating rarely affords, but it has also left some of his most prized achievements vulnerable to court challenges and potential reversals by future administrations.

Among the 11 orders aimed at punishing Trump’s political enemies, almost three-quarters have been challenged.

“While President Trump brilliantly took immediate action to quickly reverse Joe Biden’s catastrophe causing Americans four years of pain, many of these policies are expected to be codified by Congress, ensuring the President’s popular policies keep America great for future generations,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers.

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/hong-kongs-last-opposition-party-vote-disbandment-under-china-pressure-2025-12-14/
HONG KONG, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Hong Kong's last major opposition party disbanded on Sunday after a vote by its members, the culmination of Chinese pressure on the city's remaining liberal voices in a years-long security crackdown.

The Democratic Party has been Hong Kong's flagship opposition since its founding three years before the financial hub's return to Chinese rule from Britain in 1997. It used to sweep city-wide legislative elections and push China on democratic reforms and upholding freedom.

However, mass pro-democracy protests in 2019 against a perceived tightening of China's grip on the city prompted Beijing to enact a sweeping national security law to stifle dissent.
On Sunday, members of the Democratic Party voted to disband the party and to enter liquidation, Chairman Lo Kin-hei told reporters after an extraordinary general meeting.

"To have journeyed through these three decades, shoulder to shoulder with the people of Hong Kong, has been our greatest honour. Throughout these years, we have always treated the well-being of Hong Kong and its people as our guiding purpose," Lo said.

Of 121 votes cast, 117 voted to disband while 4 abstained.
Senior party members previously told Reuters they had been approached by Chinese officials or middlemen and told to disband or face severe consequences, including possible arrest.

There was no immediate response to a request for comment from the Hong Kong Liaison Office, China's main representative body in Hong Kong.

Emily Lau, a former Democratic Party chairwoman, expressed regret at the vote's outcome.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-a-trump-business-deal-with-a-crypto-firm-exposes-potential-conflicts-of-interest

WASHINGTON (AP) — Crypto.com was under siege.

For more than a year, the firm had been investigated by President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, part of an aggressive push to regulate the largely unregulated cryptocurrency industry. Financial regulators had told the company that enforcement action was likely.

Then Donald Trump won the 2024 election, and the company’s legal peril dissipated.

Crypto.com ramped up spending to a lobbyist close to Trump and donated $11 million to political committees tied to the Republican president, records show. Within months, the investigation was dropped. By August, Crypto.com announced it was plunging roughly $1 billion worth of assets into a venture with a new partner — Trump’s social media company.

Legal and ethics experts say Crypto.com’s journey from investigative target to Trump business partner provides a case study of the conflicts of interest that have arisen in Trump’s second presidency. Unlike any of his predecessors in the modern era, Trump has allowed his family businesses to enter lucrative arrangements with companies regulated by the federal government, some of which have benefited from action taken by his administration.

In this instance, the deal struck with Crypto.com was favorable for the president’s social media company, which has lost hundreds of millions of dollars since its 2021 launch. Trump Media and Technology Group put up little cash yet received a substantial ownership stake in the new treasury for Crypto.com’s Cronos token.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn41gqq8vyko
A suspected New Year's Eve terror plot by an extremist group has been foiled by federal authorities in Los Angeles, officials say.
Four alleged members of the Turtle Island Liberation Front - an offshoot of a pro-Palestinian anti-government group - have been arrested on suspicion of planning a coordinated bombing attack in at least five locations across southern California, the FBI and LA law enforcement said on Monday.

The suspects were apprehended last week while traveling to the desert east of Los Angeles to test improvised explosive devices, officials said.
The FBI believes it has "disrupted the plot", but an investigation to identify other potential suspects is ongoing.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi said on X on Sunday that the agencies prevented "far-left" extremists from executing "a massive and horrific terror plot".
Audrey Illeene Carroll, 30; Zachary Aaron Page, 32; Dante Gaffield, 24; and Tina Lai, 41, face charges including conspiracy and possession of an unregistered destructive device, according to the complaint filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California.

On 12 December, the group travelled to the desert with "precursor chemicals" and were allegedly going to create bombs with their wares, officials said during a media conference on Monday.
A surveillance plane captured footage of their movements and the Los Angeles FBI SWAT team, along with the FBI, moved in and arrested the quartet without incident.

The bombing plot involved explosive devices being planted at locations that targeted two US companies described as logistic centres at midnight on New Year's Eve in the Los Angeles area.

https://apnews.com/article/syria-alawite-women-kidnapped-militants-extremists-rape-a469660022301de378d1fa130467bec0

Foreign fighters
Another woman said two of her female relatives, one of them a teenager, were taken by foreign fighters from a street in March. According to the relative’s account, the two were held in the basement of a house several hours away. There, the teenager was raped by the same man for 10 days until he left. The other woman was raped by another person for about two months, after which they were set free.
Another victim, who was 19, said she was taken in early July by three masked foreign fighters – an Iraqi and two non-Arabs.
“You Alawites are filthy infidels,” one of the men told her. When she tried to argue and begged for her life, he hit her head against the windshield until she bled.
She was locked in a basement of the Iraqi’s home. He threatened to kill her if she didn’t let him touch her. When she started screaming, he left, fearing neighbors would hear, she said.
She said she tried to kill herself by breaking a glass and cutting her vein, but the cut was not deep enough.
The next day, the Iraqi told her that his “emir,” a term used by jihadis to refer to their leader, had decided to set her free “on the condition that you learn about Islam.” The next morning, he put her in the car with his wife and children. On the way, he told her not to tell people she had been kidnapped but to say she’d left home of her own will to learn about Islam. They stopped and he bought her sweets from a store, then dropped her off at a taxi station in Idlib city, she said.
Not long after returning home, a state investigator came to her family home and questioned her about what happened. She identified the Iraqi through security footage from the sweets shop. But it is not known if he was arrested, and officials did not comment when asked.
Fearing reprisals, the family fled Syria.

Has anyone ever heard of Sabrina Walter. I am researching her as she is a German-born founder of the South African-based organisation Women For Change (WFC) and the running community Catch Me If You Can (CMIYC). Her public profile is strongly focused on her activism against Gender-Based Violence and Femicide (GBVF) in South Africa.

I am looking for any documented, publicly available information regarding her background outside of her activism role. Specifically:

Does she hold South African citizenship or Permanent Residency status?

Is there any public record of past legal issues, warrants, charges of fraud, malpractice, or civil/criminal convictions related to her time in Germany (her country of birth) or elsewhere?

All public sources I have checked are solely focused on her activism, so I am reaching out to see if anyone has access to or can point me toward verified, non-activism related, public information. I am not looking for dirt, just the facts. Here’s a link to her charity organisation… https://www.instagram.com/womenforchangesa?igsh=Y3JjZHZiOGV4MjNv