https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/08/trump-ban-on-wind-power-projects-overturned-by-federal-judge.html

A federal judge on Monday struck down President Donald Trump’s sweeping ban on new wind power projects in the U.S., a major victory for an industry that has been singled out by the White House since the administration’s first day.

Judge Patti Saris of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts ruled that Trump’s ban is “arbitrary and capricious and contrary to law,” tossing out the president’s action in its entirety.

Trump issued a memorandum on Jan. 20 halting permits and leases for offshore and onshore wind farms, pending federal review. Saris said that federal agencies had failed to provide a reasoned explanation for such a drastic change in U.S. policy.

Seventeen states led by New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Trump in May to overturn the president’s ban. They argued it created “an existential threat to the wind industry.”

https://youtu.be/CL-h4O3AhDU?si=l_586w8nR2pTeJkA

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/07/congress-republicans-tease-trump-marjorie-taylor-greene

Republicans in Congress mocked Trump privately, Marjorie Taylor Greene says

Georgia lawmaker says colleagues who made fun of president before 2024 win now support him out of fear
Sam Levine
Sun 7 Dec 2025 19.12 EST

Republicans in Congress privately made fun of Donald Trump only to come around to support him when he won their party’s 2024 White House nomination, the outgoing GOP House member Marjorie Taylor Greene said on Sunday.

“I watched many of my colleagues go from making fun of him, making fun of how he talks, making fun of me constantly for supporting him, to when he won the primary in 2024, they all started – excuse my language, Lesley – kissing his ass,” Greene, a Georgia Republican, said in a clip of an interview that is set to air on Sunday on CBS’s 60 Minutes program.

Referring to Trump’s “Make America great again” slogan, Greene told Lesley Stahl, the 60 Minutes correspondent, that those Republicans at that point “decided to put on a Maga hat for the first time”.

Greene was once a staunch Trump ally who has split with the president and is leaving Congress in January. Trump has called her a “traitor” and attacked her online, prompting what she says is a wave of threats against her.

In posts on Sunday on X, Greene said she had reported hundreds of threats to the US Capitol police. She added that first those threats came from those who opposed Trump on the US’s political left. But then, she said, threats were aimed at her and her son when she opposed Trump on his handling of files pertaining to the prosecution of the president’s former friend Jeffrey Epstein, the late convicted sex offender and disgraced financier.

Epstein was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor and died by suicide while jailed on federal sex-trafficking charges in 2019, during Trump’s first presidency.

A plurality of registered voters (37%) say the country is currently in a recession. Two weeks ago, 35% said the country was currently in a recession,

Almost half (48%) of Democrats say the U.S. is in a recession, while only 18% disagree.

Republicans are more positive; only 25% say the country is in a recession, and 50% disagree.

Among the 37% who say the U.S. is in a recession, most (66%) say it will not end in the next 6 months.

Similarly, among the 33% of voters who say we are not in a recession, a majority (59%) say the U.S. will not enter a recession in the next 6 months.

As always, the party in power is more optimistic.

This data is from a Napolitan News Service survey of 1,000 Registered Voters conducted online by Scott Rasmussen, December 1-2, 2025. RMG Research, Inc., conducted the field work for the survey. It has a margin of error of +/- 3.1

https://napolitannews.org/posts/37-percent-now-say-the-u-s-is-in-a-recession

https://www.malaymail.com/news/world/2025/12/08/tokyo-police-probe-after-severed-babys-head-and-limbs-found-in-adult-entertainment-business-freezer/201122

TOKYO, Dec 8 — Police in Tokyo are investigating after a severed head and limbs of a baby were discovered in a freezer at an adult entertainment business in the city’s Sumida Ward, according to The Japan Times.

The grisly discovery was made on Saturday evening when an employee found what appeared to be a child’s head while cleaning a refrigerator, prompting a call to police around 9pm.

Officers searching the premises found the decapitated head wrapped in a plastic bag in the freezer, with the baby’s arms and legs placed underneath in a food container, The Japan Times reported.

Authorities said the remains appear to belong to an infant estimated to be under one year old.

The torso has not been recovered, and the baby’s gender remains unknown.

Police are treating the case as suspected mutilation and abandonment of a corpse, and have cordoned off the building near Kinshichō Station as the investigation continues.

A 35-year-old restaurant worker told the news outlet that he saw police tape and was unsure what had happened, noting the premises is often used as a waiting room for sex workers.

Another resident, speaking anonymously, said she “could not believe such a thing happened” in what she described as a “rough neighbourhood.”

Investigators are now working to identify the baby and determine how the body ended up at the site.

So far, no arrests have been made and there have been no claims of responsibility, according to the report.

https://edition.cnn.com/2025/12/07/asia/thailand-cambodia-border-clashes-december-intl-hnk
Thailand launched airstrikes against Cambodia on Monday as a new wave of fighting erupted between the southeast Asian neighbors, leaving a peace plan presided over by US President Donald Trump just two months ago in danger of collapse.

Both sides accused the other of launching strikes along their disputed border in the early morning hours, after weeks of simmering tension and the earlier suspension of progress on the ceasefire agreement by Thailand.

The two nations have repeatedly fought brief border skirmishes in recent decades, with a deadly five-day conflict in July leaving dozens dead and displacing about 200,000 on both sides of the frontier.

Thailand’s Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said the country “never wished to see violence,” but would “not allow the violation of its sovereignty.”

Additional military action would be decided “according to the conditions of the situation,” he said, in apparent reference to further aggression from Cambodia.

Cambodia’s defense ministry condemned the Thai strikes, insisting it remained committed to implementing the previous ceasefire.

Thailand’s army said Monday’s airstrikes targeted Cambodian military infrastructure, and were retaliation for an attack earlier on Monday that killed a Thai soldier and injured seven people.

“The target was at Cambodia’s arms supporting positions in the area of Chong An Ma Pass,” said army spokesperson Maj. Gen. Winthai Suvaree, who accused Cambodia of using “artilleries and mortar launchers to attack the Thai side at Anupong Base.”

Cambodia began targeting the Thai border at around 3 a.m. local time, mobilizing heavy weapons and repositioning combat units, Thai military officials claimed. The Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) called them “activities that could escalate military operations and pose a threat to the Thai border area.”

https://www.statesman.com/news/politics/elections/article/texas-congress-redistricting-court-case-21118138.php

A three-judge panel in El Paso on Tuesday blocked Texas Republicans’ newly redrawn congressional map, dealing a major blow to President Donald Trump, who hoped the redistricting would help the party pick up five more seats in next year’s midterm election.

In a 2-1 ruling, the judges said the plaintiffs' argument was likely to prevail that the new map violated the U.S. Constitution by drawing districts based on race, rather than simply to give Republicans a partisan edge.

The determination, which was quickly appealed, could have major implications for the upcoming March 3 primary election. Filing for the race opened Nov. 8 and lasts for one month.

Some Democrats in Congress, including U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin, have said they won’t decide whether to run for reelection until the map is settled. The redrawn version had wiped out a Democratic-leaning district in Houston, Austin and Dallas, and made two South Texas districts held by Democrats more Republican-leaning.