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UN Backs, Hamas Rejects Trump's Gaza Peace Plan
The U.N. Security Council has voted 13-0 to approve a U.S.-drafted resolution endorsing President Donald Trump's 20-point Gaza peace plan, which includes establishing an International Stabilization Force and a Board of Peace. China and Russia abstained.
Hamas rejected the U.N. resolution, stating it imposes international guardianship on Gaza and strips the international force of neutrality by tasking it with disarming resistance groups, while the Palestinian Authority welcomed the measure.
The resolution authorizes the International Stabilization Force to use all necessary measures to demilitarize Gaza, dismantle terrorist infrastructure, decommission weapons and secure border areas in coordination with Israel and Egypt.
Pro-Israel narrative
Trump's Gaza peace plan is a historic breakthrough that finally offers real hope for ending ongoing suffering. The unanimous U.N. Security Council support proves this bold blueprint can deliver lasting peace, security and prosperity to both Palestinians and Israelis through practical solutions. This comprehensive framework creates genuine pathways to Palestinian self-determination while ensuring Israeli security through international stabilization forces.
Pro-Palestine narrative
Trump's Gaza plan amounts to nothing more than a disguised occupation that strips Palestinians of genuine self-determination. The deployment of foreign troops to control Gaza's borders and disarm resistance forces creates an international trusteeship that legitimizes continued oppression under a different name rather than true independence. This scheme keeps Gaza under new forms of control for years while appeasing parties with meaningless non-binding language.
Nerd narrative
There's a 1% chance that Israel will establish direct governmental control of the Gaza Strip in 2025, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
Trump Announces Fast-Track Visas for FIFA World Cup Fans
During a White House meeting with FIFA President Gianni Infantino on Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced the FIFA Prioritized Appointments Scheduling System (PASS) that will allow World Cup ticket holders to receive expedited visa interview appointments.
The 2026 World Cup will feature 78 matches in 11 U.S. cities. The tournament is expected to generate $30.5 billion in economic output and add $17.2 billion to the U.S. GDP, according to State Department projections.
Infantino estimates that five to 10 million people will travel to America for the tournament, while FIFA is expected to sell between six and seven million tickets for the 104 matches across the three host nations.
Pro-government narrative
Trump's FIFA Pass initiative fast-tracks U.S. visas for 2026 World Cup ticket holders, streamlining entry for millions of international fans. This pragmatic policy promises economic windfalls through tourism, packed stadiums and cultural exchange, positioning America as a gracious host and soccer powerhouse on the world stage.
Opposition narrative
Trump's so-called fast-track visas for World Cup fans ring hollow, with no entry guarantees and ongoing threats to yank games from "sanctuary cities." This selective perk clashes with his anti-immigrant rhetoric, breeding uncertainty for fans, diplomatic friction and accusations of politicizing a unifying global event for partisan gain.
Nerd narrative
There's a 45% chance that 60 or more teams will compete in the 2030 FIFA World Cup, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
25 Nigerian Schoolgirls Kidnapped in Kebbi State Attack
A "gang of armed bandits" attacked the Government Girls Comprehensive Secondary School in the town of Maga, Kebbi State, Nigeria, on Monday, abducting 25 female students from their dormitory, the Nigerian Police said in a statement Monday.
The attackers engaged police personnel in gunfire before scaling the school's perimeter fence to access the students' hostel, with Vice Principal Hassan Yakubu Makuku shot dead while attempting to protect the students. Another staff member sustained gunshot wounds.
Nigerian security forces, including police tactical units, military personnel and local vigilante groups, have been deployed to search suspected escape routes and surrounding forests in a coordinated rescue operation to locate the abducted students.
Pro-government narrative
Nigeria’s resolute response to the Kebbi kidnapping shows a government acting with clear focus and discipline. The Army Chief’s order for nonstop operations reflects a security system fully committed to bringing the girls home. Expanded deployments, sharper intelligence work and stronger regional ties reveal a state pushing its capacities with intent — a government actively confronting armed bands and terrorist networks rather than yielding ground.
Government-critical narrative
The Kebbi kidnapping underscores a relentless pattern of state collapse as mass abductions intensify ahead of the 2027 elections. Since 2014, more than 1,680 pupils have been abducted, many later being forced into marriage, trafficked across borders, or returning with babies after ransom deals. These cycles reveal a security system that issues grand promises but fails to deliver either deterrence or accountability, leaving entire communities vulnerable to criminal governance.
Nerd narrative
There is a 10% chance that the United States will attack Nigeria before 2027, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
Canada: Carney's Liberals Narrowly Survive Budget Vote, Avoid Election
Prime Minister Mark Carney's Liberal government survived a critical confidence vote on Monday night, with a final tally of 170-168 votes in favor of passing the federal budget, narrowly avoiding a winter election over the holidays.
Green Party Leader Elizabeth May provided the crucial opposition vote after Carney committed during question period to meeting Canada's legally binding commitments under the Paris Agreement on climate change targets.
Four MPs abstained from the vote, including Conservatives Shannon Stubbs (who was on medical leave) and Matt Jeneroux (who had announced his resignation), plus NDP MPs Lori Idlout and Gord Johns who reportedly sought to avoid forcing an election.
Pro-establishment narrative
Carney's leadership transformation has revitalized the Liberal brand and earned cross-party support for critical nation-building initiatives. The budget's infrastructure spending and immigration reforms won approval from 76% and 74% of Canadians respectively, with even Alberta showing unprecedented support for Liberal policies. This strategic pivot from Trudeau's approach proves effective leadership can reshape party fortunes and unite the country.
Establishment-critical narrative
The razor-thin budget victory exposes deep fractures across all parties, while Carney's overconfident governing style nearly triggered an unwanted election. Multiple Conservative MPs are reportedly uneasy with Poilievre while Liberal MPs question distancing from Trudeau's legacy. The NDP remains leaderless and divided, with the budget only surviving through desperate last-minute deals and abstentions rather than genuine unity and support.
Nerd narrative
There is a 4% chance that the U.S. will annex any part of Canada before June 3, 2072, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
Anthropic Releases Open-Source Tool to Test AI Political Bias
Anthropic has released an open-source evaluation method to measure political neutrality in AI chatbots, using 1,350 paired prompts across 150 topics to assess how evenly models treat opposing political viewpoints through structured scoring.
Anthropic's evaluation framework measured three dimensions — even-handedness in treating opposing views, plurality of perspectives to acknowledge nuance, and refusal rates to ensure the model doesn't selectively decline engagement.
According to Anthropic's testing, Claude Sonnet 4.5 scored 94% in even-handedness, while Gemini 2.5 Pro achieved 97%, Grok 4 reached 96%, GPT-5 scored 89%, and Llama 4 received 66% in political neutrality assessments.
Techno-skeptic narrative
Anthropic's so-called bias testing is nothing but corporate manipulation disguised as transparency. This fear-mongering company pushes fake "safety" measures to control AI development and gatekeep competition. Their circular self-evaluation system is fundamentally flawed propaganda.
Techno-optimist narrative
Anthropic's groundbreaking open-source evaluation tool is a significant advancement in AI transparency and fairness. The company's rigorous testing across thousands of prompts shows Claude achieves 94% even-handedness while maintaining political neutrality. This shared standard benefits the entire industry.
Cloudflare Outage Disrupts Platforms Including X, ChatGPT and Spotify
Cloudflare experienced a global network outage on Tuesday that disrupted internet services for millions of websites, with the company acknowledging the issue and stating that it was investigating the problem.
The outage affected major platforms, including X, ChatGPT, Spotify, and Zoom, with users encountering error messages such as "Please unblock challenges.cloudflare.com to proceed" and internal server errors across affected sites.
Cloudflare reported experiencing a spike in "unusual traffic" to one of its services, though the company stated that it did not yet know the cause of this traffic increase and was working to serve all traffic "without errors."
Establishment-critical narrative
Tech infrastructure has become dangerously fragile due to corporate cost-cutting and neglect of basic maintenance. Companies prioritize flashy innovation over boring but critical upkeep, leaving overworked IT staff to manage systems that affect millions with inadequate resources and impossible deadlines.
Pro-establishment narrative
Internet outages are inevitable, given the massive scale and complexity of modern cloud systems, but the infrastructure is actually remarkably resilient. These rare disruptions highlight how well-designed the decentralized internet architecture truly is, with robust backup systems and rapid recovery capabilities.
Trump Welcomes Saudi Crown Prince to the White House
U.S. President Donald Trump welcomed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to the White House on Tuesday, greeting him with a ceremony that included a military honor guard, a cannon salute and a flyover by U.S. warplanes.
During a joint appearance, Trump defended the crown prince concerning the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed in 2018 at the Saudi embassy in Istanbul. Though U.S. intelligence concluded he ordered the killing, the crown prince has consistently denied any involvement.
This visit marked the crown prince's first trip to the U.S. since Khashoggi's assassination. During discussions, they addressed U.S.-Saudi agreements, including arms sales of F-35 fighter jets and investment commitments, with Trump announcing the two had reached a "defense agreement."
Pro-establishment narrative
Trump's historic welcome of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman marks a crucial reset for America's most important Middle East partnership. The $1 trillion Saudi investment pledge and F-35 fighter jet sales strengthen American security while creating jobs and advancing regional stability.
Establishment-critical narrative
Rolling out the red carpet for a dictator who ordered journalist Jamal Khashoggi's murder shows Trump prioritizing corrupt business deals over American values. The F-35 sales ignore Pentagon security concerns while Trump family real estate projects with Saudi Arabia create obvious conflicts of interest.
Nerd narrative
There is a 42% chance Israel and Saudi Arabia will normalize relations during Donald Trump's second presidency, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
UK Declines to Publicly Release COVID Vaccine Death Data
The U.K. Health Security Agency (UKHSA) has declined to publish data mapping COVID-19 vaccine doses to death dates, citing several concerns, including that releasing the information could cause public "distress or anger" among bereaved relatives.
According to a cross-party group of MPs and peers who called for its release on an anonymized basis, the data has been provided to pharmaceutical companies.
Campaign group UsForThem sought the anonymized data for two years through freedom of information laws, but the Information Commissioner ultimately upheld UKHSA’s decision not to release it.
Establishment-critical narrative
The U.K. government is deliberately hiding vaccine death data from the public while secretly sharing it with Big Pharma. Officials refuse transparency by claiming the truth would cause "distress and anger," revealing a likely cover-up of mass vaccine deaths that families deserve to know about.
Pro-establishment narrative
The UKHSA’s decision reflects a responsible approach to public health communication. Releasing raw, decontextualized mortality data could enable misleading interpretations and undermine vaccine confidence. Prioritizing privacy protections and scientific clarity ensures that information shared with the public remains accurate, secure and resistant to misuse.
Florida Rescues 122 Missing Children in Historic Operation
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier announced that Operation Home for the Holidays rescued 122 missing children during a two-week period, with officials describing it as one of the largest child-recovery operations in American history.
The operation recovered children from multiple Florida cities, including 57 from Tampa Bay, 14 from Orlando, 22 from Jacksonville and 29 from Fort Myers, with additional recoveries reported in nine other states plus Mexico and Guatemala.
The rescued children ranged in age from 23 months to 17 years old, with many having experienced various levels of abuse, neglect, exploitation or exposure to criminal activity, according to state officials.
Republican narrative
Florida's child rescue operation demonstrates how effective law enforcement becomes under proper federal leadership and coordination. Trump's administration enables agencies to share intelligence faster and hunt predators more efficiently. This success shows what happens when politics takes a backseat to protecting children.
Democratic narrative
While this is certainly great news, Florida still has issues with child trafficking and maltreatment of child migrants. The state remains among the highest in reported trafficking cases, and ongoing failures in child-welfare oversight raise concerns about whether vulnerable children — including migrant youths — are being adequately protected.
Trump Signs Bill to Release Epstein Files
After the U.S. House voted 427-1 in favor of the bill and the Senate approved it via unanimous consent, President Donald Trump signed the Epstein Files Transparency Act on Wednesday, giving the Department of Justice (DOJ) 30 days to release all of its files on Jeffrey Epstein.
The bill allows the DOJ to exclude certain files from being released, including those determined to be related to victim privacy or ongoing federal investigations, "provided that such withholding is narrowly tailored and temporary." Trump previously ordered investigations into Democrats involved with Epstein, including former President Bill Clinton.
Trump's signature comes after he reversed his position on the Epstein files, following months of calling the effort a Democratic hoax, but ultimately supporting the bill's passage and stating he would sign it into law if it reached his desk.
Republican narrative
Democrats and left-leaning media weaponized the Epstein files against Trump after ignoring them for four years in power, but their scheme backfired spectacularly. Released documents show Epstein hated Trump, and Democrats were texting with Epstein during anti-Trump hearings. Trump's full transparency agenda, having called for this vote, puts Democrats in an uncomfortable position after their own operatives got exposed.
Democratic narrative
Trump's grip on the Republican Party is cracking as his own opposition to releasing Epstein files created a cover-up impression that forced him into a humiliating reversal full of bad-faith arguments. Defiance from some GOP members exposed Trump's weakening control when intimidation tactics failed against determined Republicans. This stunning defeat shows Trump no longer wields absolute mastery over the GOP.
Cynical narrative
While this vote is, of course, good news, the government is still likely to continue hiding certain information. Between Mike Johnson calling for the redaction of intelligence agency-related information and Trump tapping an Epstein-connected attorney to investigate the issue, the cover-up seems to continue.