A viral video shows OnlyFans content creator Lily Phillips taking part in a baptism ceremony, saying she has “found Jesus” and now feels “closer to God.”

British adult OnlyFans content creator Phillips is known for a series of sensational stunts, including reportedly outdoing fellow OF creator Bonnie Blue by sleeping with more than 1,100 men. 

The baptism represents spiritual cleansing, commitment, and transformation for Phillips after years of creating adult content on OF.

The exact end of her OF activity isn’t clear. She hasn’t publicly announced any retirement, but a viral video shows Phillips getting baptized.

It’s hard to know whether this baptism- intended to wash her of sins – is genuine or a public stunt. 

Lily Philips, the woman who slept with 1,113 men in 12 hours gets baptized and says she’s ‘Closer to God’. 🤔 pic.twitter.com/O6kpCAhkVe

— kira 👾 (@kirawontmiss) January 1, 2026

One X user said… 

Change that water ASAP 🤮

— DWebbs (@DWebbs) January 1, 2026

However, we’ve documented another well-known OF model who apparently found Jesus…

The entire OF fad for young women has generated $25 billion in earnings since 2016, but it comes at a reputational cost.

As we’ve pointed out, OF “isn’t cultural drift; it’s social engineering.”

Now, an upswing in Christianity may suggest that, once models peak, they will “find Jesus” and likely require retraining to reenter the actual workforce

Authored by Michael Kern via OilPrice.com,

• The shift to Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) is driven by rising global electricity demand, especially from AI data centers, and the limitations of intermittent renewable energy sources, positioning nuclear as the essential source of 24/7 “firm” baseload power.

• SMRs bypass the financial risks of traditional megaprojects like Vogtle by offering shorter construction timelines (3–5 years) and a lower initial cost, trading “economies of scale” for “economies of unit production” through factory-built components.

• Key challenges for the SMR industry include the need for mass production to achieve economic viability, managing the waste issue, and navigating the geopolitical risks associated with a highly concentrated global uranium fuel supply chain.

Nuclear power is currently having its “Silicon Valley” moment. After decades of being treated as a dinosaur technology—too slow, too expensive, and too politically toxic—the industry has pivoted toward something it calls the Small Modular Reactor (SMR). The goal is to stop building energy cathedrals and start building energy appliances.

The market fundamentals are finally in place for a new era. Global electricity demand is rising at twice the rate of total energy demand, pushed over the edge by the relentless growth of AI data centers and the slow-motion electrification of the global vehicle fleet. Generation from the world’s fleet of nearly 420 reactors is already on track to reach an all-time high in 2025. This is  about a global realization that “intermittent” renewables cannot carry the load of a 24/7 civilization alone.

Baseload power is no longer a luxury; it’s the price of admission for the modern economy.

Why Small Is the Only Way Big Nuclear Survives

If you’ve spent any time reading about energy, you know the term “Small Modular Reactor” is used as a catch-all… it actually refers to three distinct shifts in how we think about the atom.

• First, “Small” means anything up to 300 MWe. That is roughly a third of the output of a traditional Gigawatt-scale plant… enough to power about 250,000 homes or a massive industrial complex.

• Second, “Modular” is the real economic engine. Instead of custom-designing every pipe and valve on a muddy construction site, components are factory-built and shipped via truck or rail.

• Finally, “Reactor” is where the physics get messy. Current designs aren’t just “shrunk down” versions of the 1970s light-water tech. 

We are seeing a move toward Generation IV concepts: molten salt reactors that can’t melt down because the fuel is already liquid, and gas-cooled reactors that can provide the 700°C+ process heat required for making steel or hydrogen.

Why Megaprojects Died in Georgia

Traditional nuclear projects like the Vogtle plant in Georgia or Hinkley Point C in the UK have become legendary for their cost overruns. They aren’t just power plants; they are multi-decade civil engineering nightmares that consume capital faster than they produce watts.

Vogtle ended up costing over $30 billion… nearly double the original estimate.

No private investor wants to sit on a $30 billion debt for fifteen years before the first dollar of revenue trickles in. SMRs attempt to bypass this “Valley of Death” by shortening construction timelines to roughly 3–5 years and lowering the initial check to something a mid-sized utility or a tech giant can actually afford.

It’s an attempt to trade “economies of scale” for “economies of unit production.”

The East Is Building While the West Files Paperwork

The “Nuclear Renaissance” is already happening; it just hasn’t reached the Atlantic yet. Of the 52 reactors started since 2017, nearly half are Chinese, and the other half are Russian.

(Source: IEA) 

And the bottleneck isn’t technology…it’s fuel. Russia currently controls 40% of the world’s uranium enrichment capacity. Energy security is a hollow promise if you have to buy the uranium from your primary adversary.

AI Is the Insatiable Beast That Only Fission Can Feed

The tech giants aren’t buying nuclear because they’ve suddenly developed a passion for carbon-free baseload. They’re doing it because their AI roadmaps are hitting a physical wall… a single ChatGPT query consumes roughly ten times the electricity of a Google search.

Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have realized that wind and solar are essentially “part-time” energy sources.

When the sun goes down and the wind stops, the data centers don’t. This creates a massive, expensive problem called “intermittency” that batteries aren’t ready to solve at a multi-gigawatt scale. The SMR is the only thing on the menu that offers 24/7 “firm” power with a small enough footprint to sit next to a server farm.

For the first time in history, the primary driver for nuclear power is coming from the private sector, not the state. 

• Microsoft: Signed a 20-year PPA to resurrect Three Mile Island (Unit 1).

• Google: Ordered 6–7 reactors from Kairos Power for 500 MW of clean energy.

• Amazon: Bought a stake in X-energy and signed an MoU with Dominion for SMR siting.

• Oracle: Announced a massive data campus powered by three modular reactors.

These companies have the credit ratings and the long-term horizons to do what traditional utilities can’t: they can guarantee “offtake.” 

By signing 20-year Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs), they provide the bankability that SMR manufacturers need to start their assembly lines.

Picking Winners in a Graveyard of Energy Startups

The SMR market is a graveyard of good ideas that ran out of money. To win, a company needs three things: a simple design, a licensed site, and a customer with deeper pockets than God.

The market is split between the “Old Guard” shrinking proven tech and “Disruptors” chasing Generation IV designs.

The $2,500/kW Target: Chasing the Chinese Cost Curve

This is where the marketing brochures usually stop being honest. If you build one SMR, it is the most expensive electricity on Earth. The “Modular” promise only works if you build them like airplanes—in a factory, at scale.

The IEA projects SMR investment will hit $25 billion annually by 2030. That sounds like a lot until you realize that building the first factory for these modules could eat half that budget before the first reactor is even shipped. The “learning curve” for SMRs is a steep and expensive climb. Studies suggest that “learning-by-doing” can reduce capital costs by 5% to 10% for every doubling of production. However, a report by Germany’s BASE suggests that an average of 3,000 SMRs would have to be produced before they reach true economies of mass production.

This is the central friction of the industry. No CEO wants to tell their board they are the “guinea pig” for an unproven $1 billion reactor. 

Private funding alone won’t work. The long timelines for permitting mean the “breakeven point” for a large reactor is 20-30 years after project start. SMRs cut that timeline in half, but it’s still a tough sell for commercial lenders.

This is where Green Bonds and Public-Private Partnerships come in. 

Over $5 billion in green bonds have been issued for nuclear so far, and the U.S. DOE’s Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program is throwing billions at prototypes. But the real bridge across the “Financial Valley of Death” is the credit rating of Big Tech. When Google or Amazon signs a 20-year PPA, the debt becomes bankable.

Fukushima-Proofing the Atom With Passive Physics

SMR proponents love to talk about “passive safety”—designs where physics (gravity and convection) cool the reactor even if the power goes out. It’s essentially “Fukushima-proofing” by design. Because these units are smaller, they have a lower radioactive inventory per reactor, allowing them to be placed on the sites of retired coal plants. The need: 

• Gravity-Driven Cooling: If power is lost, cool water is naturally pulled into the core.

• Smaller Cores: Less radioactive inventory means the “exclusion zone” can be significantly smaller.

• Underground Siting: Placing reactors below grade adds a natural barrier against external threats.

But the waste issue remains messy. A 2022 Stanford study claimed that SMRs might actually produce more waste per unit of energy because smaller cores “leak” more neutrons, making the surrounding shielding more radioactive over time. The industry’s rebuttal? They claim they can “burn” this waste as fuel in the next generation of breeder reactors. Both sides are technically correct, but the breeder reactors aren’t here yet, and the waste is.

If we build thousands of SMRs and ship them to remote mining sites or developing nations, we are “distributing” nuclear material across the globe. That is a security nightmare. The fix is “Battery-Style” SMRs: built, fueled, and welded shut in a factory. They are shipped to a site, run for 20 years, and shipped back. The end-user never touches the fuel.

Teaching the NRC to Move at the Speed of Light

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was designed to regulate massive, one-off light-water reactors. Applying 1970s regulations to 2025 technology is like trying to get a Tesla licensed using rules written for steam engines.

In July 2024, the ADVANCE Act was signed into law, explicitly directing the NRC to streamline the process for microreactors and SMRs. By December 2025, the NRC had already met 30 of its 36 planned deliverables under the act. It’s an attempt to stop the “licensing-by-exhaustion” strategy that has killed so many designs in the past.

International harmonization is the next frontier. If a design is approved in Canada (like the BWRX-300), why does it need to spend another five years and $100 million being “re-approved” in the U.S. or the UK? Strategic leadership is being built in concrete while the West waits for a policy consensus.

The $1.5 Trillion Industrial Heat Prize

Most people think of nuclear as a way to keep the lights on. But electricity is only about 20% of global primary energy demand. The real monster in the room is Industrial Process Heat. If you want to make steel, cement, or glass, you need temperatures that wind and solar simply cannot provide through a wire without massive efficiency losses. Today, 89% of that high-temperature demand is met by burning fossil fuels.

The SMR—specifically the High-Temperature Gas Reactor (HTGR)—is the only zero-carbon technology that can sit “inside-the-fence” with a chemical plant and provide 750°C steam. According to a 2025 study by LucidCatalyst, the potential market for industrial SMRs could hit 700 GW by 2050. 

We’re talking about a $1.5 trillion investment opportunity.

The top five markets for this aren’t utilities… they are synthetic aviation fuels, coal plant repowering, maritime fuels, data centers, and chemicals. 

In October 2025, the European Commission launched its first pilot auction for industrial heat decarbonization. Companies like France’s Blue Capsule are designing reactors specifically for this market. 

If SMRs can’t crack the industrial heat market, Net Zero is a mathematical impossibility.

Why Desalination Might Be the Secret Middle East Play

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), energy security is inseparable from water security. Arab states currently account for more than 50% of global desalination capacity. Desalination is an energy hog. Traditionally, it’s been powered by oil and gas, but the GCC nations have pledged net-zero goals for 2050–2060.

SMRs offer a “dual-purpose” solution: they provide baseload power for the grid and the massive amounts of heat or electricity needed for Reverse Osmosis (RO) or Multi-Effect Distillation (MED).

 In Jordan, an IAEA team recently evaluated studies for using SMRs to pull drinking water from the Red Sea to Amman. In Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest desalinated water producer, the government is looking at nuclear as the cornerstone of its move away from an oil-based economy.

The economics are starting to pencil out. Using the Desalination Economic Evaluation Program (DEEP) model, 2025 data shows that high-temperature helium-cooled reactors can produce water at an economically viable range of $0.69 to $1.04 per cubic meter.

Microreactors Are the Frontier Batteries for the Arctic and the Mine

While the 300 MWe reactors get the headlines, a subset of the industry is going even smaller. Microreactors (under 10 MWe) are being designed as “nuclear batteries” for the most austere environments on Earth.

The U.S. Department of the Air Force is the lead customer here. In May 2025, they issued a Notice of Intent to Award a contract to Oklo, Inc. for a microreactor pilot at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska. 

Why Alaska? 

Because shipping diesel to remote Arctic bases is expensive, dangerous, and a massive logistical vulnerability.

The Eielson project is a 30-year PPA where the vendor owns and operates the reactor. It is “Mission Assurance” in a 50-below-zero environment. But it’s not just the military. 

Remote mining operations in Canada and Australia are looking at microreactors like the eVinci (Westinghouse) or the KRONOS (Nano Nuclear). For a mine that currently spends $50 million a year on diesel fuel, a microreactor that runs for 10 years without refueling isn’t just a “green” choice… it’s a massive competitive advantage.

Navigating the Yellowcake Landmine in Kazakhstan and Niger

Now, we have to talk about the fuel. Everything we’ve discussed depends on HALEU (High-Assay Low-Enriched Uranium), and right now, the supply chain is a geopolitical landmine. Kazakhstan currently supplies over 43% of the world’s uranium. That is a terrifying level of concentration, especially given the civil unrest seen in the region.

Then there is Africa. 

The 2023 military coup in Niger effectively knocked out a reliable supplier for Europe. In 2025, no production was reported from the SOMAÏR mine.

The West is finally waking up. In late 2025, Urenco USA produced its first run of enriched uranium above 5% in New Mexico. Centrus Energy launched commercial enrichment activities in Ohio, targeting HALEU production to meet a $2.3 billion backlog. But new mines take 7–10 years to come online. We are currently in a “seller’s market,” with uranium prices hitting a range of $86 to $90 per pound in new contracts. If the fuel supply isn’t diversified, the SMR revolution will be choked in its cradle.

Overcoming the Duck Curve

The modern grid is struggling to handle the “Duck Curve“—the massive fluctuation in supply caused by solar and wind. 

(Source: DOE)

Traditionally, nuclear was considered “inflexible” baseload… you turned it on and left it at 100% for two years.

SMRs are being designed with Load-Following capabilities. 

TerraPower’s Natrium reactor, for example, includes a molten salt heat storage system. This allows the reactor to run at a constant temperature while the storage system “flexes” the electrical output to the grid. When the sun is shining, the reactor stores heat. When the sun goes down, it releases it to generate power.

It turns the nuclear reactor from a “firm floor” into a “flexible battery.” This is the missing piece of the renewable energy transition. Without this flexibility, we are forced to keep gas-fired “peaker” plants on standby, which defeats the purpose of the carbon-free goal.

Resurrecting the Rust Belt With Coal-to-Nuclear Pivots

There are over 300 retired or retiring coal plant sites in the United States alone. These sites are energy goldmines. They already have the grid connections, the cooling water access, and, most importantly, a workforce that knows how to run a thermal power plant.

The SMR is the only technology that can “slot” into these sites without requiring a total overhaul of the local economy.

NuScale is currently working with Dairyland Power in Wisconsin to evaluate VOYGR plants for retiring coal sites. It preserves high-paying jobs in rural communities that would otherwise be hollowed out by the move away from coal. It turns a liability (a dead coal plant) into a 60-year asset.

The 2030 Deadline: A Final Verdict for the Assembly Line Era

We have moved past the era of “paper reactors.” By the end of 2025, the industry has shifted its focus to the three pillars of success: Licensing, Supply Chain, and Offtake. The technology is no longer the main question… the factory is.

The IEA’s APS scenario calls for 120 GW of SMR capacity by 2050. Under today’s policy settings, we are only on track for 40 GW. The gap between those two numbers represents the difference between a grid that works and a grid that fails.

The next five years (2025–2030) will be the most important in the history of nuclear power. SMRs are not a “silver bullet,” but they are the only “firm” floor that makes a clean grid physically possible. If SMR manufacturers can reach a production rate of just one unit per month, the “learning curve” will finally drive costs toward that $4,500/kW target.

If they remain stuck in “bespoke project” mode, they will join the graveyard of 20th-century energy experiments.

The stakes are higher than they’ve ever been. 

Between AI’s hunger for power and the world’s desperate need for clean industrial heat, the SMR isn’t just an “option.” 

For a carbon-free industrial civilization, it might be the only move left on the board. The atomic renaissance is here; the only question is whether the West can build it fast enough to matter.

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

Minnesota State Rep. Kristin Robbins has unleashed a stunning revelation, confirming that credible whistleblowers came forward with evidence that Gov. Tim Walz and his administration used threats of “racism” and “Islamophobia” labels to suppress exposures of massive Somali-linked fraud schemes draining taxpayer dollars.

In an appearance on Fox Business, Robbins detailed how the protective shield around certain communities enabled rampant abuse of state and federal funds for years.

“We have dozens of credible whistleblower reports saying that exact same thing. That people were told not to say anything because they’d be called racist or Islamophobic or it would hurt the state,” Robbins stated.

? HOLY CRAP! Minnesota lawmaker confirms credible whistleblowers have come forward proving Tim Walz and his team threatened them with accusations of “RACISM” and “ISLAMOPHOBIA” if they exposed Somali fraud

We need people to go to jail.

“We have dozens of credible whistleblower… pic.twitter.com/aEA0cnEvc1

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) December 30, 2025

“And so people tried to come forward but were shut down and that protection of a particular community is what really allowed this fraud to flourish in Minnesota for years!”

This bombshell aligns with ongoing scrutiny of Walz’s oversight failures, as Robbins, who chairs the House Fraud Prevention and State Agency Oversight Policy Committee, has repeatedly blasted the governor for turning a blind eye to red flags.

Recent reports indicate Robbins warned Walz directly about alleged fraud in social services, including daycare and adult care programs, but claims her alerts went unheeded. 

“Minnesota fraud was not a ‘hidden secret’,” she emphasized in the interview, pointing to leadership lapses that let schemes balloon unchecked.

The slur threats are also not isolated.

I followed 4 Minnesota daycare fraud investigations for 4 years. No charges filed at all. The lead BCA agent partially blamed DHS for refusing to provide documents she needed. Now two of the daycare owners are suing, claiming the state discriminated against them for being Somali. pic.twitter.com/kaUsJOyPS3

— Lou Raguse (@LouRaguse) December 30, 2025

The revelations build on citizen journalist Nick Shirley’s explosive investigations, which uncovered over $110 million in questionable payments to Somali-operated businesses appearing largely inactive. 

The FBI now views this as the “tip of the iceberg,” with Director Kash Patel vowing to “continue to follow the money” in an ongoing probe.

Shirley’s fieldwork exposed patterns like shared addresses, recycled officers, and shell companies—hallmarks of organized fraud networks potentially diverting funds overseas, including to terrorist groups.

HHS announces they have frozen all childcare payments to the state of Minnesota.

“We believe the state of Minnesota has allowed scammers and fake daycares to siphon millions of taxpayer dollars over the past decade.” – Deputy HHS Secretary.

pic.twitter.com/IjmdASFSUc

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) December 30, 2025

As this scandal began to explode Walz attempted damage control earlier this month. stating, “I am accountable for this, and more importantly, I am the one that will fix it.” 

Yet, he now appears to be attempting to deflect the blame onto… President Trump.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz speaks out about fraud in the state; blames Trump.

“We’ve spent years cracking down on fraud – referring cases to law enforcement, shutting down and auditing high-risk programs.

Trump keeps letting fraudsters out of prison.” pic.twitter.com/84Iwtp27AV

— Oli London (@OliLondonTV) December 30, 2025

Yet critics argue his administration’s inaction speaks louder, especially as federal investigators ramp up entity mapping to trace circular payments and minimal operations.

The Trump administration has seized on the scandal, using it to justify immigration raids targeting Somali communities implicated in the fraud, signaling a shift toward stricter enforcement against welfare abuse.

? JUST IN: Somali fraudsters in Minnesota are PANICKING, frantically trying to cover up their fraud as HUNDREDS of DHS agents go door-to-door

“They’re trying to WHITEWASH the operational facts on the ground, purporting to be a legitimate business with legitimate operations! We… pic.twitter.com/84gpPdWGAe

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) December 31, 2025

This protectionist playbook—silencing dissent with weaponized smears—echoes broader Democrat tactics to shield failed policies on immigration and entitlements. As Robbins’ committee pushes for more hearings, including on adult day services, the pressure builds for real consequences.

I’d rather be called a white supremacist than turn a blind eye to billions in Somali fraud.

I’d rather be called racist than cover up for muslim r*pe gangs.

I’d rather be called transphobic than allow men to invade women’s spaces and harm girls.

These insults don’t work…

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 29, 2025

With billions potentially siphoned off, far exceeding Somalia’s GDP in scale, Minnesotans, and all Americans, deserve transparency and justice. 

Now even more citizen journalists are joining the effort to dismantle the networks exploiting America’s generosity and hold enablers accountable before billions more in taxpayer funds vanishes into the void.

? JUST IN: Nick Shirley has created THOUSANDS more citizen journalists, Americans are now reporting they will do their own “investigative work” on fraudulent Somali care centers in their area

“I’ll be doing my OWN now! Let’s see if they cuss me out!” ?pic.twitter.com/vedDHeRwLB

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) December 30, 2025

? WOW! Citizen journalist Cam Higby has just exposed “Hilowle Safia Daycare” in Washington for getting nearly $1 MILLION in taxpayer dollars — yet residents say “there is NO DAYCARE HERE”

The fraudsters are being exposed en masse. KEEP PUSHING! pic.twitter.com/qmGvzEAT0a

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) December 31, 2025

? JUST IN: A Somali just HARASSED and THREATENED an independent journalist after he checked on a so-called “child care” center in Columbus OH

The Somali calls @ThomasMHern a “TERRORIST” ?

These people are dangerous.

DEPORT THE 3RD WORLDpic.twitter.com/NyYvGhhQD6

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) December 31, 2025

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The FBI said it foiled an ISIS-inspired New Year’s Eve terror attack in North Carolina.

Suspect Christian Sturdivant, 18, was arrested on Dec. 31 and charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina Russ Ferguson said at a Jan. 2 press conference.

Sturdivant appeared in court on Jan. 2.

A U.S. citizen, Sturdivant had allegedly planned the attack for about a year, according to Ferguson.

A hand-written document titled “The New Year’s Eve Attack 2026” was found in Sturdivant’s bedroom trash can and included a section labeled, “martyrdom Op,” court papers claim.

As Jackson Richman reports below for The Epoch Times, Sturdivant read ISIS material online, visited the terrorist group’s websites, and made TikTok videos, Ferguson said.

He communicated online with someone he thought was a member of ISIS, but was actually an undercover agent with the New York Police Department, he added.

Ferguson said Sturdivant pledged his allegiance to ISIS with the agent and said he would “do jihad soon.”

Sturdivant also met an undercover FBI agent he thought was an ISIS participant, “and he started to be very specific with his plans,” Ferguson said, adding that Sturdivant allegedly said he planned to carry out the attack at a grocery store and a fast-food restaurant in Mint Hill, which is outside Charlotte.

The suspect said he was going to wear a Kevlar vest and attack people with knives and hammers on New Year’s Eve, according to Ferguson.

The FBI searched Sturdivant’s home, where they found hammers and knives underneath his bed and notes planning the attack, said Ferguson.

“It was a very well-planned, thoughtful attack … that was fortunately foiled here,” Ferguson said.

“He was preparing for jihad and innocent people were going to die. And we’re very, very fortunate they did not.”

Sturdivant faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

The FBI took Sturdivant to a state magistrate to attempt to have him involuntarily committed due to his allegedly threatening people and planning to die at the hands of a policeman, according to Ferguson.

The judge denied the request.

The FBI investigation lasted two weeks, said Special Agent in Charge James Barnacle.

Sturdivant first came to the FBI’s attention in January 2022 as he was in contact on social media with an identified ISIS member overseas, said Barnacle.

The ISIS member instructed him to dress in all black, knock on people’s doors, and attack people with a hammer.

Sturdivant dressed in all black and left his house with a hammer, but his family stepped in, Barnacle said.

No charges were filed, and Sturdivant was referred for and underwent psychological care – the details of which Barnacle said he did not know.

A contact for Sturdivant’s legal representative could not be found.

Authored by Rachel Roberts via The Epoch Times,

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said he is open to talks with the United States to combat drug trafficking, but did not comment on last week’s U.S. strikes on a docking facility.

Maduro made his comments in an interview aired Thursday on Venezuelan state television, repeating his claim that the United States is trying to force a government change in the South American country and gain access to its vast oil reserves through the campaign against the cartels.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s actions to combat drug trafficking began last August with a significant military deployment to the Caribbean Sea. Boat strikes by the United States began off Venezuela’s Caribbean coast and later expanded to the eastern Pacific Ocean.

“What are they seeking? It is clear that they seek to impose themselves through threats, intimidation, and force,” Maduro said.

‘Ready’ for Oil Investment

Later in the interview, he said that it is time for both nations to “start talking seriously, with data in hand.”

“The U.S. government knows, because we’ve told many of their spokespeople, that if they want to seriously discuss an agreement to combat drug trafficking, we’re ready,” he said.

“If they want oil, Venezuela is ready for U.S. investment, like with Chevron, whenever they want it, wherever they want it, and however they want it.”

Venezuela has the world’s largest known oil reserves, and Chevron Corp. is the only major company exporting the South American country’s crude oil to the United States.

Footage of a U.S. strike on three alleged drug trafficking boats in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Dec. 29, 2025. U.S. Southern Command/Screenshot via The Epoch Times

New Year Boat Strikes

The New Year’s Eve interview was recorded on the same day the U.S. military announced strikes against five alleged drug-smuggling boats.

The latest attacks bring the number of known boat strikes to 35, while the number of people killed is at least 115, according to numbers from Washington, with Venezuelans among the dead.

The White House said in October that the attacks are a necessary escalation to stem the flow of illegal drugs into the United States, stating that the government is engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels.

Trump on Dec. 29 said that the United States had knocked out a loading facility linked to Venezuelan drug boats, but didn’t provide further details, in the first known direct operation in the South American country since the boat strikes began.

The latest strike marks a significant escalation in the Trump administration’s campaign to put pressure on Maduro, who was charged with narco-terrorism in the United States in March 2020.

In the interview, Maduro said he would be able to talk about the operation on Venezuelan soil “in a few days.”

Trump made reference to the operation in an interview on Friday with John Catsimatidis on WABC radio in New York, saying the United States had knocked out some type of “big facility where ships come from.”

On Monday, as he hosted Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump declined to comment when asked whether the attack was conducted by the military or the CIA, but said in an exchange with reporters that the operation targeted a “dock area where they load the boats up with drugs.”

(Left) U.S. President Donald Trump looks on aboard Air Force One during travel to Palm Beach, Florida, from Joint Base Andrews, Md., on Nov. 25, 2025. (Right) Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro speaks during the Meeting of Jurists in Defense of International Law at the Eurobuilding Hotel in Caracas on Nov. 14, 2025. Anna Rose Layden/Reuters; Federico Parra/AFP via Getty Images

Covert Operations

However, Trump has previously taken the step of publicly acknowledging that he had authorized the CIA to carry out covert action inside Venezuela.

The administration is required to report covert CIA activities to senior congressional officials, including the chair and ranking members of both the Senate and House intelligence committees. However, an action undertaken by the intelligence agency rather than the military would likely face less scrutiny from lawmakers in the United States.

In October, Trump said he authorized the operations for two reasons: criminals and drug trafficking.

“And the other thing, the drugs, we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea,” he told reporters.

Justice Department officials alleged that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and other regime officials ran a cartel aimed at flooding the United States with cocaine. The United States estimates that 250 metric tons of cocaine are trafficked from Venezuela each year. Department of Justice

Accusations Against Maduro

Trump and members of his administration have alleged that Maduro and senior officials in Venezuela lead the Cartel de los Soles, a shadowy network they say moves cocaine through Venezuelan territory in cooperation with criminal groups such as Tren de Aragua.

The gang has been accused by Trump of engaging in “irregular warfare” against the United States through drug trafficking and transnational violence.

Maduro denies any such involvement in organized crime, alleging that Washington has fabricated evidence to justify intervention and impose “regime change through military threat.”

The United States and much of the international community view Maduro’s presidency as illegitimate, citing evidence that his 2024 reelection—his third term in office—was marred by allegations of fraud and manipulation, while accusing Venezuela’s leftist authoritarian regime of human rights abuses.

Trump has repeatedly expressed readiness to deploy U.S. military power to stop drug trafficking from Latin America, including land-based strikes or the use of ground forces if deemed necessary.

In November, War Secretary Pete Hegseth unveiled Operation Southern Spear, a broad U.S. initiative aimed at dismantling what the administration terms “narco-terrorist” networks across the Western Hemisphere.

Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill made a straightforward promise: more money in workers’ pockets.

The plan eliminated the federal tax on tips and overtime pay for linemen and factory workers, and created a new deduction for seniors relying on Social Security. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called it “the most pro-worker, pro-family legislation in a generation.” 

However, several blue-state governors were refusing to reciprocate by eliminating state taxes on tips, including Govs. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.), J.B. Pritzker (D-Ill.), and Jared Polis (D-Colo.). Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused them of “deliberately blocking their own residents” from the bill’s benefits at the state level.

Bessent made clear that states that refused to comply with the law should expect consequences.

“Treasury stands ready to work with any state committed to delivering on that promise, but we will not stand idly by as this obstructionism drags down the national recovery,” he said. “This is about fairness. This is about opportunity. And this is about putting America first, starting with the families and workers who make our economy the envy of the world.”

Kathy Hochul has now caved. On New Year’s Day, she announced that New York will finally move to exempt service workers’ tips from state income taxes on up to $25,000 in tipped income.

“As we welcome in the New Year, affordability remains my top priority and I am doubling down on my commitment to put money back in New Yorkers’ pockets,” Governor Hochul said in a statement Thursday.

“Starting today, tax rates for the vast majority of lower and middle-class New Yorkers will be cut, families with children will see a sweeping increase in the child tax credit, and minimum wage workers across the state will see their wages go up. I’m kicking the new year off with a proposal of no state income tax on tips, continuing my efforts to make New York more affordable for hard working New Yorkers.”

The change comes only after months of outrage from restaurant owners and service workers who accused Albany of putting politics ahead of paychecks.
Service industry workers noticed and called it a slap in the face to people barely scraping by in such an expensive state. 

One worker, reacting to Hochul’s original stance, told the New York Post last month, “Screw her.”

Another called her refusal “disgraceful,” while a different worker described it as “disheartening” that the governor would block a policy that could put real money back in their pockets. They argued that Albany is effectively punishing people who live off tips, with one server saying, “We’re the ones who make the least and get taxed the most.” 

“Their hands are in everything and finally they’re doing some good and they passed the bill and now the state comes and screws you,” said Jackie Puttre, manager of P. McDaid’s Irish Pub in Midtown.

 Others stressed how transformative the policy could be; as one put it, “That extra money could help me pay my rent and maybe work one less double shift.” To these workers, Hochul’s opposition to eliminating the state tax on tips proved she is out of touch with the reality of living on tips in New York. 

 “It’s like, what are we doing? Just leave it to Kathy Hochul to do that.” Bartender Hannah Teal said she earned only $40,000 in 2024 after state taxes and figured she’d make at least $3,000 more if New York followed Trump’s lead. With Hochul seeking reelection in November, it must have become clear that refusing to eliminate taxes on tips would hurt her campaign. 

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican running for governor of New York, had been among her sharpest critics for moving too slowly, welcomed the shift with a jab of his own.

“I see Kathy Hochul is doing a u-turn on taxing tips. I was told she changed her mind after I said I would never tax tips,” Blakeman told The New York Post. “Kathy, if you want more of my ‘tips’ on how to govern, just continue to follow my lead.”

While the flip-flop is welcome news for the service industry, some are still criticizing her for not acting quickly enough.

But the tax eliminating proposal has existed in Albany in some form since at least early last year when Assemblyman Mike Durso (R-Nassau) and state Sen. Jack Martins (R-Nassau) introduced a bill to scrap levies on tips.

Durso said Hochul shouldn’t wait to pack the policy into the burgeoning state budget package, which isn’t likely to be passed before its April 1 deadline.

“We don’t need to add stuff to it, attach stuff to it that’s going to make it stink. Let’s just get it done,” Durso said.

“This is plain and simple. It’s going to help working class people,” he added. “I don’t see any pushback, and if there is pushback on it from any of my colleagues, shame on them because they obviously have never worked in these types of industries and understand how hard these people work.”

Hochul narrowly won reelection in 2022 against Republican Lee Zeldin, and polls have suggested Hochul isn’t a lock for reelection. Several polls showed Hochul either locked in a tight race or losing to Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.). Though Stefanik has since dropped her bid for governor, Hochul can’t afford to anger working-class voters, even if it is to spite Donald Trump.

Authored by Aaron Gifford via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President Donald Trump prioritized education reform during his 2024 campaign and went to work quickly after taking the oath of office.

A series of executive orders followed by actions against the status quo in both K–12 and higher education that would save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars prompted pushback from Democratic governors and the national teachers’ union. Several lawsuits will continue into 2026.

“These are reforms that conservatives have championed for decades,” the Department of Education proclaimed in a year-end post on its website. “And in one year, we’ve made them a reality.”

Here are five things to know about Trump’s education policy in 2025.

Ending the Department of Education

Trump appointed Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who supports his goal of returning policy decisions to states and shifting funding mechanisms to other federal agencies, thereby potentially putting herself out of a job. Both have acknowledged that officially eliminating the Education Department requires congressional approval.

McMahon immediately cut her staff in half and closed satellite offices outside Washington. So far, she’s announced plans to move all functions except special education, student loans/financial aid, the office of civil rights, and data and information services to other departments, though she previously suggested those programs could be absorbed by Health and Human Services, the Treasury Department, Justice Department, and Census Bureau, respectively.

Eliminating the federal bureaucracy would get more money directly into classrooms, McMahon announced last month, adding that these interagency agreements are allowed under the Economy Act, which authorizes agencies to conduct transactions with one another in the absence of cheaper private alternatives.

In the months ahead, as state block grant programs are established to replace the current federal education grant systems, McMahon will continue her nationwide school visits, gather input from education leaders, and establish best practices for districts and states aimed at improving K–12 academic achievement.

The National Education Association teachers’ union has called the moves “illegal, cruel, and shameful.”

Civil Rights

Trump signed an executive order prohibiting the use of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practices such as race-based hiring, admissions and curriculum; mandatory diversity training; and affinity groups by race or ethnicity. This was followed by orders condemning campus anti-Semitism and protecting women’s sports programs under Title IX.

The Education and Justice departments immediately began enforcing these policies in schools, launching investigations and withholding billions in federal funding to colleges and universities with recent histories of civil rights violations and disruptive or violent anti-Semitic protests.

Trump reached settlements with several universities he investigated, including Columbia, Brown, Cornell, the University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern, Wagner College, and the University of Virginia.

Columbia will pay a $200 million fine plus $21 million to Jewish employees harassed by co-workers and students. Cornell University, also cited for both discriminatory student admissions practices and anti-Semitism, agreed to pay a $30 million penalty to the federal government and invest $30 million in research that directly benefits U.S. farmers.

The University of Pennsylvania, which was sanctioned for allowing a male to compete on the women’s swim team, was required to strip that athlete, Lia Thomas, of all awards, including his 2022 NCAA national championship, and send a letter of apology to all female swimmers who competed against him.

Trump attempted to freeze more than $500 million in research grants to the University of California-Los Angeles, but the school obtained a federal court order that said the funding must be released.

A legal battle with the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university, Harvard, is also ongoing. Trump’s attempt to withhold billions of dollars in research grants to the institution was met with a lawsuit, though the two sides have discussed a settlement. In September, Trump said a settlement could include $500 million for trade school programs that provide instruction on artificial intelligence, engines, and other vocations.

But most U.S. colleges and universities have not challenged federal policies and have removed online references to DEI programs.

“Faculties had collectively owned universities, and problems had been allowed to fester for years,” Jay Greene, formerly of the Heritage Foundation and now a member of the National Advisory Committee on Institutional Quality and Integrity, previously told The Epoch Times. “Senior leadership at these schools gains back control. They are relieved, and they get to blame Trump. It’s a total win.”

Trump has taken far fewer civil rights actions against K–12 institutions, though he has threatened to withhold federal funding from states that allow males to compete in girls’ sports or permit schools to withhold information about their child’s sexuality or chosen gender from parents.

Higher Education Compact

After the 2025–2026 academic year began, the Trump administration presented its proposed Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education to nine universities.

They were offered preferred consideration for federal grants and flexibility in research costs if they agreed to eliminate preferential treatment by race, require SAT scores in student applications, limit undergraduate admission of foreign students to 15 percent, freeze tuition for five years, maintain a policy of institutional neutrality on political and social issues, and accept all transfer credits from military members and veterans.

Seven schools declined the offer, announcing that such a deal would compromise their institutional independence. The remaining two schools, Vanderbilt and the University of Texas, haven’t announced a decision yet.

The Education Department hasn’t indicated whether the compact has been, or will be, offered to additional colleges and universities.

Universal School Choice

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, passed by Congress this year, includes a federal scholarship tax program supporting private school vouchers.

The program, which takes effect in 2027, allows a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for donors to qualified scholarship-granting organizations or to cover associated costs like transportation and supplies. There are income eligibility guidelines in place to prioritize needy families.

The program is optional for states, and governors will consider it in the months ahead.

Trump and McMahon have promoted school choice, saying the one-size-fits-all approach of assigned schools by ZIP code is largely to blame for declining test scores across the nation.

In April, the president spoke to Republican Texas state legislators before they passed a bill that provides $1 billion for private school vouchers in the first year of the program, plus $2,000 per student for homeschooling expenses and up to $30,000 for special education students who chose a different school.

In June, McMahon boosted federal funding to publicly funded charter schools by $60 million for an annual total of $500 million. Her Republican supporters in Congress plan to introduce a federal tax credit for charitable donations to start up new charter schools.

Student Loans and Higher Education Transparency

Trump overhauled the student loan policies of his predecessor, President Joe Biden, who attempted to forgive hundreds of billions of dollars in delinquent debt to more than 5 million student borrowers. He also capped student loan programs that under Biden allowed students and parents to borrow unlimited amounts.

“The Trump administration is righting this wrong and bringing an end to this deceptive scheme. The law is clear: If you take out a loan, you must pay it back,” Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a Dec. 9 statement.

The Education Department will soon begin garnishing wages of borrowers who default on loans. The agency has also denied almost 380,000 requests for lower monthly payments. The American Federation of Teachers has sued the administration to maintain Biden-era payback arrangements.

In applying for federal student aid, meanwhile, borrowers are now informed of their post-graduation earning potential based on data from colleges and universities.

In 2026, Trump is expected to push the bipartisan College Transparency Act, which would task the National Center for Education Statistics with analyzing higher education costs and financial aid, as well as evaluating student enrollment patterns, completion rates, and post-collegiate outcomes.

The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) civil rights division demanded voter registration records from Minnesota on Jan. 2, saying the state’s law that allows people to “vouch” for others’ residency for voter registration appeared inconsistent with federal voting laws.

According to Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, the DOJ is “particularly concerned” with votes and registrations accepted by “vouching” from other registered voters or residential facility employees, along with other same-day registration procedures.

Minnesota allows a registered voter to vouch for up to eight other individuals on Election Day.

Employees of senior care homes or other group facilities can vouch for an unlimited number of residents in their facilities.

As Jill McLaughlin reports below for The Epoch Times, Dhillon sent a letter to Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon demanding that he turn over all records documenting same-day voter registrations, records for votes cast by voters registered under same-day voter registrations, and other records related to the registrations and votes.

The request is for records going back 22 months, including the March 5, 2024, primary election and Nov. 5, 2024, general election.

The demand was made under the Civil Rights Act of 1960 and is to “ensure Minnesota’s registration and voting practices are in compliance with federal law, particularly the minimum requirement under [the Help America Vote Act],” according to the letter.

Minnesota’s “system seems facially inconsistent with the Help America Vote Act of 2002. We’ll see!” Dhillon posted on X on Friday.

The Help America Vote Act was passed by Congress in 2002 to reform the voting process by improving voting systems and voter access, following the 2000 election, when Florida’s recount exposed significant flaws in outdated punch-card voting machines that resulted in “hanging” and “dimpled” chads. Minnesota passed same-day voter registration in 1974.

Simon’s office did not return a request for comment about the demand.

Former Trump administration special government employee Elon Musk, who has been outspoken about recent developments in Minnesota, said the state’s voting system was “made for fraud” in an X post on Dec. 27, 2025.

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington on Sept. 29, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Meanwhile, federal investigations into alleged widespread fraud continue in Minnesota.

In the latest move, the Small Business Administration (SBA) has suspended 6,900 of the state’s borrowers amid suspected fraudulent activity in the state’s pandemic-era loan programs, SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said on Jan 1.

President Donald Trump said this week his administration plans to continue targeting alleged social services fraud in the state but may also focus on other states.

California, Illinois, and New York could be committing fraud that is allegedly worse, Trump said.

The DOJ has charged nearly 100 people in Minnesota as fraud investigations continue, according to Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Authored by Sean Stephens via American Greatness,

This year, the fight over free expression in American higher education reached a troubling milestone. According to data from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, efforts to censor speech on college campuses hit record highs and across multiple fronts—and most succeeded.

Let’s start with the raw numbers. In 2025, FIRE’s Scholars Under Fire, Students Under Fire, and Campus Deplatforming databases collectively tracked:

• 525 attempts to sanction scholars for their speech, more than one a day, with 460 of them resulting in punishment.

• 273 attempts to punish students for expression, more than five a week, with 176 of these attempts succeeding.

• 160 attempts to deplatform speakers, about three each week, with 99 of them succeeding.

That’s 958 censorship attempts in total, nearly three per day on campuses across the country. For comparison, FIRE’s next highest total was 477 two years ago.

The 525 scholar sanction attempts are the highest ever recorded in FIRE’s database, which spans from 2000 to the present. Even when a large-scale incident at the U.S. Naval Academy is treated as just a single entry, the 2025 total still breaks records.

Twenty-nine scholars were fired, including 18 who were terminated since September for social media comments about Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Student sanction attempts also hit a new high, and deplatforming efforts—our records date back to 1998—rank third all-time, behind 2023 and 2024.

The problem is actually worse because FIRE’s data undercounts the true scale of campus censorship.

Why? The data rely on publicly available information, and an unknown number of incidents, especially those that may involve quiet administrative pressure, never make the public record.

Then there’s the chilling effect.

Scholars are self-censoring. 

Students are staying silent.

Speakers are being disinvited or shouted down.

And administrators, eager to appease the loudest voices, are launching investigations and handing out suspensions and dismissals with questionable regard for academic freedom, due process, or free speech.

Some critics argue that the total number of incidents is small compared to the roughly 4,000 colleges in the country. But this argument collapses under scrutiny. While there are technically thousands of institutions labeled as “colleges” or “universities,” roughly 600 of them educate about 80% of undergraduates enrolled at not-for-profit four-year schools. Many of the rest of these “colleges” and “universities” are highly specialized or vocational programs. This includes a number of beauty academies, truck-driving schools, and similar institutions—in other words, campuses that aren’t at the heart of the free speech debate.

These censorship campaigns aren’t coming from only one side of the political spectrum.

FIRE’s data shows, for instance, that liberal students are punished for pro-Palestinian activism, conservative faculty are targeted for controversial opinions on gender or race, and speaking events featuring all points of view are targeted for cancellation. The two most targeted student groups on campus? Students for Justice in Palestine and Turning Point USA. If that doesn’t make this point clear, nothing will.

The common denominator across these censorship campaigns is not ideology— it’s intolerance.

So where do we go from here?

We need courage: from faculty, from students, and especially from administrators. It’s easy to defend speech when it’s popular. It’s harder when the ideas are offensive or inconvenient. But that’s when it matters most.

Even more urgently, higher education needs a cultural reset. Universities must recommit to the idea that exposure to ideas and speech that one dislikes or finds offensive is not “violence.” That principle is essential for democracy, not just for universities.

This year’s record number of campus censorship attempts should be a wake-up call for campus administrators. For decades, many allowed a culture of censorship to fester, dismissing concerns as overblown, isolated, or a politically motivated myth. Now, with governors, state legislatures, members of Congress, and even the White House moving aggressively to police campus expression, some administrators are finally pushing back. But this push-back from administrators doesn’t seem principled. Instead, it seems more like an attempt to shield their institutions from outside political interference.

That’s not leadership. It’s damage control. And it’s what got higher education into this mess in the first place.

If university leaders want to reclaim their role as stewards of free inquiry, they cannot act just when governmental pressure threatens their autonomy. They also need to be steadfast when internal intolerance threatens their mission. A true commitment to academic freedom means defending expression even when it’s unpopular or offensive. That’s the price of intellectual integrity in a free society.

First it was over the White House’s Venezuela policy, but now conservative and contrarian libertarian-leaning firebrand Rep. Thomas Massie is lashing out at President Trump over his fresh Iran warning and ultimatum.

Amid the nearly weeklong economic and anti-government protests in Iran, Trump added fuel to the fire on Friday, stating on Truth Social that if Iran shoots and “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue.”

This sounded to many like threat of regime change in another Middle East capital – though Trump might be thinking of other ‘options’ such as more sanctions and efforts to further isolate the Islamic Republic on the world stage.

Massie on Friday in response listed three points as a counter to and critique of Trump: “We have problems at home and shouldn’t be wasting military resources on another country’s internal affairs,” Massie wrote on X.

He said that second, “Military strikes on Iran require Congressional authorization.” He followed with the final criticism of, “This threat isn’t about freedom of speech in Iran; it’s about the dollar, oil, and Israel” – while reposting Trump’s original message.

Massie has long been a thorn in the side of Trump’s latest foreign policy adventures, and the Republican from Kentucky along with Sen. Rand Paul has a significant following among Trump’s MAGA base.

He indeed gives voice to the growing viewpoint that Trump should stick to his campaign promises and not allow the United States military to be the “police force of the world”.

Journalist Glenn Greenwald has meanwhile also called out Trump for not being ‘America First’ enough, while highlighting Massie’s commentary…

In case you’re wondering why three fanatically pro-Israel oligarchs (Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer and John Paulson) are single-handedly funding the campaign to remove @RepThomasMassie from Congress, see below.

Too much America First. Can’t have that: pic.twitter.com/i7NwMmkNC1

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) January 2, 2026

For many others, however, Trump’s reviving a Monroe Doctrine concept of how foreign policy should work might sound promising and refreshing. But it does require Washington to lessen or remove its footprint from conflict theatres ranging from Eastern Europe to the Middle East, as well as perhaps a policy of much less provoking China over the hot button Taiwan issue.

* * *

And more shots fired from MGT to boot…