USA - Donald Trump has warned that the United States could seize back the Panama Canal unless the country agrees to lower its costs and counter Chinese influence. In a post on Truth Social, the incoming president urged the Panamanian government to start taking care of the canal or face the consequences.

USA - From the ballots of India, France, United Kingdom and many more countries to the shifting candidates, trials, and even assassination attempts in the United States, 2024 unfolded as a year of monumental elections and political change. Nature’s shifts spared no corner of the globe — eclipses darkened skies, while floods, earthquakes, fires, and extreme weather wreaked havoc, leaving indelible marks on communities worldwide. The world came together for the Paris Games, a rare moment of global unity. Meanwhile, war raged in the Middle East, the conflict in Ukraine persisted, and a seismic shift occurred with the end of the Assad regime in Syria. This is 2024.

GERMANY - The attack in Magdeburg has capped off an annus horribilis for Germany, another blow upon the bruises of recession, potentially terminal industrial decline, terror, coup plots, government collapse and impotence on the international stage. Analogies between the present day and the Weimar era are often overcooked. The centre has held in Berlin when it has crumbled in other European capitals, and it faces nothing like the organised threat from the extremes of left and right that chancellors had to contend with in the 1920s. Whatever happens at the election in February, the country will almost certainly get a moderate and familiar ruling coalition.

USA - Elon Musk has backed the far-Right AfD party to “save Germany”, wading into the country’s fledgling election campaign. “Only the AfD can save Germany” Mr Musk declared to his 208 million followers on X, formerly Twitter, which he owns. Election campaigning kicked off in Germany after the government of Olaf Scholz was brought down by a vote of no confidence on Monday. The AfD is currently polling between 17 per cent and 19.5 per cent, with higher support in eastern Germany, despite some of its members having expressed Nazi sympathies.

IRAN - Iran is in the midst of a fuel shortage and an electricity crisis, causing essential utilities to be shut down in the middle of a cold winter. The regime has failed to provide for its own people but has spent billions of dollars on terror abroad. Al Jazeera reported Wednesday: "Tens of millions of people across Iran are facing major disruptions as authorities shut down services in the face of an exacerbating energy and currency crisis amid historic regional tensions. This week, government offices, schools, banks and businesses in major provinces and in the capital Tehran have been largely closed due to worsening fuel and power shortages as temperatures dropped to subzero levels. Energy Minister Abbas Aliabadi said on Wednesday that 13 power plants are out of commission due to a lack of fuel."

NIGERIA - Starving families, sick children and rampaging violence. Despite its vast oil wealth, Africa’s most populous country is in the grip of one of the world’s worst hunger emergencies. According to UN data, some 32 million Nigerians are facing “crisis” levels of hunger – 14 per cent of its 235 million-strong population.

USA - When Dr Sherri Tenpenny worked in the emergency room, she believed vaccines contained only weakened viruses and saline. That assumption shattered in September 2000 when she read the package insert of a vaccine for the first time. What she discovered set her on a path to uncover the shocking truth behind vaccine ingredients — information hidden in plain sight but ignored by most. Dr Tenpenny was horrified by what she found. “If a child receives every vaccine on the current US vaccine schedule, they are injected with almost 13,000 micrograms of aluminum, nearly 600 micrograms of mercury, and over 200 other chemicals,” she explained in a recent interview with Jonathan Patrick Sears at the premiere of The Great Awakening. “I didn’t know that.”

USA - The oldest known stone tablet inscribed with the Ten Commandments sold for more than $5 million at an auction on Wednesday. Sotheby’s said the 155-pound marble slab was acquired by an anonymous buyer who plans to donate it to an Israeli institution. Sotheby’s said the tablet was used as a paving stone at a local home until 1943 when it was sold to a scholar who grasped its significance. The text inscribed on the slab follows the Biblical verses familiar to Christian and Jewish traditions but omits the third commandment against taking the name of the Lord in vain. It includes a new directive to worship on Mount Gerizim, a holy site specific to the Samaritans, Sotheby’s said.

USA - It may be said of Joe Biden that nothing in his long political career became him like the leaving it. It has been more than six weeks now since November 5, that Bonfire Night of Democratic hopes and dreams. There are still five more weeks to go to the end of his term of office, and the president of the United States, the most powerful man on Earth, has essentially disappeared.

USA - President-elect Donald Trump said he supports abolishing the debt ceiling because it's the "smartest thing," a day after scuttling a bipartisan spending deal that would have averted a federal government shutdown in two days. Trump informed Republican lawmakers about his opposition to the 1,500-page bill put together by House Speaker Mike Johnson after billionaire Elon Musk, whom Trump named to run a government efficiency panel, criticized it as full of Democratic giveaways. In his Wednesday message, Trump pushed for a "clear" spending bill that increases the debt ceiling. On Thursday, the president-elect told NBC News that he would be fine with ditching it all together, saying it would be the "smartest thing it [Congress] could do. I would support that entirely." "The Democrats have said they want to get rid of it. If they want to get rid of it, I would lead the charge," Trump said, noting that the concept of the debt ceiling "doesn't mean anything, except psychologically." The debt ceiling sets a limit on how much money the US government can borrow to "meet its existing legal obligations." The debt ceiling was suspended in 2023 until January 1, 2025.

FRANCE - President Macron is “finished” and will soon be forced to quit, paving the way for an early presidential election, Marine Le Pen has said. The National Rally leader’s comments to Le Parisien newspaper raised speculation that she might be prepared to join the push for a second confidence vote in the government that is expected to be formed this week by François Bayrou, Macron’s new prime minister. She had previously been thought unlikely to back a push to topple another government so soon after the ousting of Michel Barnier, the former prime minister. Such a move would risk undermining her image as a responsible politician of the right, carefully cultivated over more than a decade to convince mainstream voters that she would act in the national interest.

UK - A council has told parents they must come in and change their children if they soil themselves at school. The new rule comes into force in schools across Blaenau Gwent next term for children in reception and nursery classes. The local authority has sent out letters to parents saying the amount of time school staff are having to spend changing children sent to school without being potty trained is affecting teaching and learning time. The body representing school leaders in Wales said growing numbers of children are arriving at school without being potty trained.

USA - The fierce debate over the role of religion in American children’s education is about to get even fiercer: satanists are preparing to enter the fray. Rising sums of public money are being channelled to religious establishments across the country and many believers in the separation of church and state fear that the re-election of Donald Trump will bring a wave of Christian nationalists to power nationally. Schools are on the front line of these arguments — and a group called The Satanic Temple has spotted an opening. Its leaders are seriously considering opening a school of their own to spread their provocative message of secularism served with a dash of occult symbolism, according to Lucien Greaves, the co-founder. In the United States The Satanic Temple is an official religion, recognised as a tax-exempt church by the Internal Revenue Service.

UK - This is the sort of river many people would picture in England and Wales — a Wind in the Willows-style home to kingfishers, brown trout and other wildlife; a playground for anglers, children and paddle boarders. The reality is far more grim. “Every single river in England today is polluted,” according to Steve Reed, the environment secretary. When I spoke to him this summer, it was clear the issue was personal for him. He recalled messing about in Cornish rock pools as a child but now, he says, people are too afraid they would fall ill. “Parents and grandparents worry children can’t enjoy our waterways in the same way they could,” he added. The disconnect between then and now — and expectations and reality — is why water bills are going up sharply over the next five years. On Thursday, Ofwat approved a record £104 billion of spending by water firms, large chunks of which are for curbing sewage spills and other pollution.

AUSTRALIA - Advocates say the landmark ABS findings show LGBTI+ people are a substantial part of Australian society. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has revealed for the first time that one in 20 Australians are lesbian, gay, bi, trans or gender diverse, or intersex (LGBTI+). According to ABS head of health statistics, Robert Long, this is the “first nationally representative data of their kind in Australia”. Just.Equal Australia spokesperson Rodney Croome said the data showed diverse communities were a powerful voting bloc ahead of next year’s federal election. “It is a reminder to all political parties that they must have policies recognising the human rights of LGBTI+ people and addressing the disadvantages we face in areas such as health, housing, employment, education and public safety,” he said.