USA - Donald Trump has lashed out at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who congratulated President-elect Joe Biden, saying it was “too soon to give up.” McConnell’s move has already angered the president’s most loyal supporters. “Republican Party must finally learn to fight. People are angry!” he wrote. The remark came in response to a statement made by McConnell on Tuesday in which he acknowledged Biden’s win after the electoral college vote, congratulating him and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris. “The Electoral College has spoken,” McConnell said, noting that “as of this morning, our country has a president-elect and a vice president-elect” even though “many millions of us had hoped the presidential election would yield a different result.” Apart from publicly acknowledging Biden’s victory, McConnell has reportedly privately warned fellow Republican senators against challenging the election results, urging them to not dispute the Electoral College decision during the upcoming joint session of Congress to confirm the results. The session is scheduled to take place on January 6.

USA - Twitter has declared that it will remove all posts that suggest there are any “adverse impacts or effects of receiving vaccinations,” despite reports already emerging of health workers getting sick from taking Pfizer’s coronavirus shot. Twitter announced that beginning next week it will memory-hole any posts that “invoke a deliberate conspiracy” or “advance harmful, false, or misleading narratives” about vaccines. “Using a combination of technology and human review, we will begin enforcing this updated policy on December 21, and expanding our actions during the following weeks,” the company proclaimed. Twitter added that it will be monitoring posts about vaccinations “in close consultation with local, national, and global public health authorities around the world.”

USA - A few months ago, a company called Capella Space launched a satellite capable of taking clear radar images of anywhere in the world, with incredible resolution — even through the walls of some buildings. And unlike most of the huge array of surveillance and observational satellites orbiting the Earth, its satellite Capella 2 can snap a clear picture during night or day, rain or shine.

USA - The Energy Department and National Nuclear Security Administration, which maintains the US nuclear weapons stockpile, have evidence that hackers accessed their networks as part of an extensive espionage operation that has affected at least half a dozen federal agencies, officials directly familiar with the matter said. On Thursday, DOE and NNSA officials began coordinating notifications about the breach to their congressional oversight bodies after being briefed by Rocky Campione, the chief information officer at DOE. They found suspicious activity in networks belonging to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), Sandia and Los Alamos national laboratories in New Mexico and Washington, the Office of Secure Transportation at NNSA, and the Richland Field Office of the DOE. The hackers have been able to do more damage at FERC than the other agencies, and officials there have evidence of highly malicious activity, the officials said, but did not elaborate.

USA - Abortion rights activists known as The Satanic Temple (TST) announced Wednesday they have posted billboards in Texas and Florida to promote what they call their “religious abortion ritual.” The Satanic Temple claims its members may undergo “first-trimester abortions upon demand in states that have enacted the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).”

USA - As some 60 million Americans on the east coast prepare for the worst nor'easter in a decade, nearly 84 million across the US are experiencing some level of drought. The west and southwest areas were hit with a drought this past spring that continued and intensified through the summer, fall and now into the winter months. A number of southwest states, including Arizona, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and west Texas, are experiencing an exceptionally prolonged period of abnormally low rain fall – 30 percent of the US is currently ranked at this level. NASA meteorologists say it is unlikely to improve anytime soon as La Niña is looming over these regions and is causing dry weather in the southwest.

EUROPE - The money will make the EU the third biggest investor in defence research in Europe and give it firepower to reduce the longstanding reliance on US military technology. The new defence fund is part of a broader strategy by the EU to flex its geopolitical influence in the world and to cover gaps in the EU’s defence system left uncovered by the US, as the outgoing administration of president Donald Trump has disengaged from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and pressured EU member states to increase their defence budgets to 2% of their GDP. Very few countries have achieved this target.

VATICAN - Rothschild Investment Group Partners with Vatican to rebrand communism as ‘Inclusive Capitalism’. The Council for Inclusive Capitalism with the Vatican (“the Council”), a historic new partnership was launched today between some of the world’s largest investment and business leaders — most notably the Rothschilds — and the Vatican:

ISRAEL - Despite the relentless COVID propaganda in the Israeli press — including Prime Minister Netanyahu allegedly agreeing to be the first in Israel to be vaccinated — the vast majority of Jews in Israel do not plan to get the COVID vaccine when it becomes available to the public in late December: Israelis who choose to get vaccinated against coronavirus will receive “free movement” waivers, allowing them to bypass certain health restrictions, the Health Ministry has said.

VATICAN - Pope Francis will step down before the end of the year, according to a source close to the Vatican, who said there was "no doubt" the Pontiff "will resign in 2020". The 83-year-old became head of the Catholic Church following the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI – a controversial move and the first of its kind in more than 500 years. However, a source close to Pope Francis claimed he would only serve for seven years, stating he would follow in the footsteps of his predecessor. Austen Ivereigh is the former Director for Public Affairs of the previous Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor and continues to work closely with the Vatican. He said: “I don’t think there’s ever been any doubt that he will resign in 2020. He made clear from the beginning that he regarded Pope Benedict’s (XVI) act as a prophetic act of great modesty and he would have absolutely no problem in doing the same." If Mr Ivereigh is correct, it suggests Francis could resign after Christmas so as to avoid letting his papacy run into 2021.

UK - The Global Interfaith Commission on LGBT+ Lives issued a declaration Wednesday calling for the recognition of all sexual proclivities and acts as “part of the natural order.” The UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) financed a conference Wednesday to launch the Global Interfaith Commission on LGBT+ Lives, Pink News reported.

VATICAN - The Vatican has been ridiculed for its 'comically awful' nativity scene with the figures being likened to the Daleks and Darth Vader. The 20 ceramic statues were set up in St Peter's Square by officials on Friday and include an astronaut and a character wearing a warrior-like helmet with skulls on it. In a critical article from The Catholic Herald titled 'The Vatican's Embarrassing SciFi Creche' one writer branded it 'comically awful'. Meanwhile several people on social media likened the figures to Dalek's from the popular Doctor Who series who were famous for their 'Exterminate! Exterminate!' catchphrase. Another person on social media responded by posting a picture showing the astronaut figure planting a Vatican flag on the moon.

VATICAN - The Ancient Astronaut Agenda is the idea that intelligent extraterrestrial beings visited Earth and interacted with man in prehistoric times. It is believed their contact influenced the development of modern technologies. Further, these ancient astronauts were considered gods or deities possessing intelligence far beyond human scope. So why is an astronaut set prominently in the Vatican’s Christmas Nativity scene?

UK - The phrase ‘new variant of coronavirus associated with faster spread’, uttered in sombre tones by Matt Hancock in the Commons yesterday, conjures up terrors of some hitherto unseen mutant pathogen scything through the civilian population: a new plague altogether. In fact, the reality is much more prosaic. The simple fact is that all viruses mutate. It is a normal occurrence, happening all the time, and is not something to be particularly alarmed about. The flu virus does so more readily than Covid, which is why scientists develop a new vaccine against it every year. There is nothing in itself alarming about a virus mutating: in the vast majority of cases, this makes little difference to how much disease it causes or how fast it spreads. A lot of the mutations are down to faults in the ‘proof-reading’ operation when the DNA or RNA multiplies or replicates.

USA - It is often said that a house divided will surely fall, and the same thing can now be said for the United States as a whole. If there is anything that this election has made clear, it is the fact that there is little hope of healing the very deep divisions that exist in our country. Most of those on the political left absolutely hate those on the political right, and most of those on the political right absolutely hate those on the political left. But it isn’t as if the two opposing sides are even united. The radical left is absolutely disgusted with “moderate Democrats” such as Joe Biden and is very much looking forward to the day when their “progressive revolution” finally triumphs in America.