Wednesday, 10 December 2025

US Fed just cut interest rates for the third-straight time (LINK) 10 December 2025

Foreign tourists could be required to disclose 5 years of social media histories under Trump administration plan (LINK) 10 December 2025

Sen. Warren presses Bessent and Swiss megabank UBS on private conversations on the bank's possible move to the U.S., exposing taxpayers to risk (LINK) 10 December 2025

Jeff Bezos' ex-wife MacKenzie Scott unveils record $7.1 billion in 2024 gifts (LINK) 10 December 2025

— Scott, 55, made the latest donations to 186 organizations around the world, including universities, environmental nonprofits, and groups fighting for equality. So far, she has donated over $26 billion in gifts to over 2,700 non-profit organizations.

Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado in Oslo, but will not attend Nobel Peace ceremony to receive award (LINK) 10 December 2025

— Her daughter, Ana Corina Sosa Machado, is set to accept the award in her place. Machado, who holds many right-wing views, dedicated her prize in part to United States President Donald Trump, who has said that he himself deserved the honour and was infuriated that he did not receive it.

Al Jazeera: Fact-checking Trump's Pennsylvania speech and his Politico interview (LINK) 10 December 2025

• Trump did not, in fact, inherit the "worst inflation" in history. The annualized inflation rate was below 3 percent during the six months before Trump took office in his second term.
• He claimed that Ilhan Omar, the Democrat who has served as a Minnesota representative in Congress since 2019, is in the US illegally. Trump also claimed that Somalia has no military, parliament or police. Somalia does have a military, a parliament and a police force. Omar became eligible for citizenship five years after she entered the US, and finally became a citizen in 2000, when she was 17 years old. Trump: "She married her brother in order to get in, right … she married her brother to get in, therefore she's here illegally." There is no verifiable evidence to back up allegations that either Hirsi or Elmi, her previous husbands, is Omar's brother.
• During the Pennsylvania rally, Trump claimed the Democrats want “transgender for every member in your family”. There is certainly no evidence that the Democratic Party believes all families should have a transgender member.
• Trump also said: "Black people love Trump. I got the biggest vote with Black people." Overall, he secured 20 percent of the Black vote in November 2024 — a big rise from the 12 percent he won in 2020. However, this means that his opponent for the presidency, Democrat Kamala Harris, in fact won the majority of the Black vote.

3 separate US strikes on alleged drug boats have initially left survivors. Each time they’ve been treated differently (LINK) 10 December 2025

Tuesday, 9 December 2025

UN environment report 'hijacked' over fossil fuels, its co-chair says: United States and other countries were unwilling to go along with the scientific findings in the Global Environment Outlook, the result of six years' work (LINK) 9 December 2025

— BBC: At a meeting with government representatives to agree the findings, the US and allies said they could not go along with a summary of the report's conclusions. As the scientists were unwilling to water down or change their findings, the report has now been published without the summary and without the support of governments, weakening its impact.

A sustainable future requires new thinking: UNEP environment report (LINK) 9 December 2025

— The agency calls the report the most comprehensive assessment of the global environment ever undertaken, with input from 287 multi-disciplinary scientists from 82 countries — stretching to well over 1,000 pages. It calls for a transition to circular economy models; a rapid decarbonisation of the energy system; a shift towards sustainable diets, reduced waste and improved agricultural practices; and expanding protected areas and restoring degraded ecosystems — all backed by behavioural, social and cultural shifts that include Indigenous and local knowledge.

Fox News: Zelenskyy ready to present new peace proposals to US and Russia after working with European talks (LINK) 9 December 2025

OpenAI, Anthropic, Block launch agentic AI standards body under the Linux Foundation, joined by Google, Microsoft, AWS, Bloomberg, and Cloudflare (LINK) 10 December 2025

Israel named by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) asleading killer of journalists in 2025 for third straight year (LINK) 9 December 2025

Heather Cox Richardson: Cable news, AI and manipulating voters (LINK) 9 December 2025

Louis XIV's cause of death revealed by DNA from his mummified heart 310 years after he was buried in Paris: longest reigning monarch in European history died four days short of his 77th birthday on 1 September 1715 from fungus infection not bacterial agents in gangrene: the king was in agony for two weeks before his death (LINK) 9 December 2025

Decoding the chemistry of life: revealing how mutations alter enzymes and drive drug resistance through 'maximum entropy' (LINK) 9 December 2025

Pompeii house frozen mid-renovation reveals secrets of Roman cement: reactive hot-mix method — highly reactive quicklime (dry heated limestone) is mixed with volcanic ash and water, setting off a chemical reaction that produces heat and gives the material self-healing capabilities (LINK) 9 December 2025

Monday, 8 December 2025

More than 200 environmental groups demand halt to new US datacenters: Congress urged to act against energy-hungry facilities blamed for increasing bills and worsening climate crisis (LINK) 8 December 2025

UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination urges Britain and Mauritius not to ratify Chagos deal (LINK) 8 December 2025

— "It risks perpetuating long-standing violations of Chagossians' rights." The deal, struck in May after years of talks, passes sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius while allowing Britain to retain control of the US-UK air base on the largest island, Diego Garcia, under a long-term lease. Up to 2,000 Chagossians were forcibly removed from the archipelago in the 1960s and 1970s. Many ended up in Britain, and some have sought the right to return. Committee said it was concerned that the deal "explicitly prevents the return of the Chagossian people to their ancestral lands in Diego Garcia Island".

Al Jazeera: Russia-Ukraine war list of key events, day 1,384 (LINK) 8 December 2025

— The city of Sumy was without power late on Monday after Russian forces launched more than a dozen drones in the span of half an hour. Earlier on Monday, Sumy regional authorities said Russia had launched 130 attacks on the region in one day.

Zelensky meets European leaders as Trump accuses him of not reading US proposal to end war (LINK) 8 December 2025

Police raid East Jerusalem UNRWA offices, apparently over unpaid debts, raise Israeli flag over compound (LINK) 8 December 2025

Thailand launches airstrikes on Cambodia as Trump's peace agreement hangs in balance (LINK) 8 December 2025

Federal judge in US expands criminal contempt probe over deportation flights, saying Kristi Noem failed to provide answers (LINK) 8 December 2025

One of Trump's most consequential decisions — a successor to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell — just got more complicated: investors have concerns (LINK) 8 December 2025

Solar storms ground 6,000 jets, disrupt GPS systems on 9 December (LINK) — ground.news: 15 media reports (LINK) 8 December 2025

Louvre: Water leak in November damaged hundreds of historic books (LINK) 7 December 2025

China's exports rebound in November by 5.9% from 11% drop, massively beating expectations after U.S. trade truce: strong sales to non-US markets but 29% drop to U.S. over November 2024 (LINK) — ground.news: 41 media reports (LINK) 8 December 2025