FBI Thwarts ISIS-Inspired New Year’s Eve Terror Plot In North Carolina
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
DOJ Eyes Minnesota’s ‘Vouching’ System For Voter Registration, Demands Records
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.
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.
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.
Rep. Massie Blasts Trump’s Iran Warning: “We Have Problems At Home”
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.
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.
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani signed an executive order on Jan. 1 that will undo orders his predecessor, Eric Adams, issued after being indicted on bribery and corruption charges in September 2024.
The order, which went into effect immediately, is among a series of executive actions Mamdani signed on his first day in office after being sworn in as the city’s mayor on Jan. 1.
His office stated that the order would rescind executive actions issued by Adams on or after Sept. 26, 2024, when the outgoing mayor was indicted on bribery, campaign finance, and conspiracy offenses. It did not list the specific executive orders to be revoked.
Orders likely to be revoked include a directive Adams issued on Dec. 3, 2025, which barred agency staff and mayoral appointees from engaging in procurement practices that discriminate against Israel and Israeli citizens.
Another affected order, issued by Adams that same day, directed the New York Police Department commissioner to evaluate proposals for regulating protest activity near houses of worship to protect freedom of speech.
Mamdani told reporters on Jan. 1 that he intends to keep the Mayor’s Office to Combat Anti-Semitism, established by Adams in May 2025. Adams issued the first mayoral report on anti-Semitism one day before Mamdani was sworn in, highlighting the need to tackle anti-Semitism in the city.
“That is an issue that we take seriously, and it’s part of the commitment that we’ve made to Jewish New Yorkers to not only protect them, but to celebrate and cherish them,” the new mayor said.
In his inaugural address, Mamdani emphasized that his administration would not “hesitate to use its power to improve New Yorkers’ lives.”
“The only expectation I seek to reset is that of small expectations,” he said during his inauguration ceremony at City Hall. “Beginning today, we will govern expansively and audaciously. We may not always succeed. But never will we be accused of lacking the courage to try.”
The September 2024 indictment against Adams, the first against a sitting New York City mayor, alleged that Adams accepted illegal campaign contributions from foreign nationals during his 2021 mayoral campaign.
Adams was also accused of receiving improper benefits while serving as Brooklyn Borough president in 2014, including international travel from foreign businessmen and at least one Turkish government official.
He pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing. A federal judge in April 2025 dismissed the case with prejudice, meaning the charges cannot be brought again, after the Justice Department asked for the case to be dismissed.
The Epoch Times reached out to Adams for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.
Other executive orders Mamdani signed included measures to revitalize the Mayor’s Office to Protect Tenants and to establish two new task forces focused on leveraging city-owned land to accelerate housing development and removing bureaucratic and permitting barriers that drive up costs and delay housing construction.
Mamdani, a self-described democratic socialist, won the Nov. 4, 2025, mayoral contest over independent candidate former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa.
Kremlin Makes Show Of Handing Evidence To US Side ‘Proving’ Ukrainian Attack On Putin Residence
The Kremlin has really made a big show for the cameras of handing over to American officials what it says is evidence that Ukrainian drones had attempted to strike Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residence in the Novgorod region Sunday night into Monday morning.
The international community has asked for evidence Putin’s residence was targeted, and Moscow has responded. Footage released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday shows Igor Kostykov, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Russian General Staff, meeting with the US defense attaché in Moscow and handing over what he identified as a “navigation unit” recovered from one of the drones shot down in Novgorod.
Russia has been on an information blitz, putting out images of downed drones and televised interviews of local Russian eyewitnesses to the drone waves early this week. But the ‘evidence hand-over’ to the US side is ultimately strong signaling aimed at President Trump.
Kostykov described that the “decryption of the content of the memory of the navigation controller of the drones carried out by specialists of Russia’s special services confirms without question that the target of the attack was the complex of buildings of the Russian president’s residence in the Novgorod region.”
MOMENT MoD hands over KEY data to US representatives
‘Decryption of navigation controllers… unequivocally CONFIRMED that target of attack was Russian President’s residence in Novgorod region’
Putin had informed President Trump about the alleged incident on the day it occurred via phone call, and Trump initially appeared to accept Moscow’s version, expressing sympathy and saying he “wasn’t happy about it.” He followed by sharing a New York Post article which said Moscow “is the one standing in the way of peace.”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow would not withdraw from peace talks with Washington, but would still adjust its negotiating stance and respond militarily, adding that potential targets had already been selected. “Such reckless actions will not go unanswered,” he said.
What might this response look like? Author and geopolitical pundit Glenn Diesen writes the following:
WSJ reports that Russia’s attacks on Odessa (ports, bridges, etc.) are cutting Ukraine’s economic lifeline. This was a predictable Russian response after Ukraine/NATO began using Odessa to target Russian civilian ships.
It is equally predictable that Russia will annex Odessa if there is no peace agreement that restores Ukraine’s neutrality and prevents Odessa from being used as a NATO front line. Our political-media establishment should learn about the security dilemma instead of cosplaying a the 1930s.
Diesen ends with this apt conclusion: “NATO is not ‘helping’ Ukraine by intensifying attacks on Russia, it is sacrificing Ukraine in the hope of bleeding Russia.”
Reporting in mainstream media indicates a US intelligence consensus which casts doubt on Ukrainian drones being intentionally sent against Putin’s residence; however, there does seem to be acknowledgement that a drone wave was active in the general area.
The below is conveyed from The Wall Street Journal report:
U.S. national-security officials said Wednesday that Ukraine didn’t target Russian President Vladimir Putin or one of his residences in an alleged drone operation, challenging Moscow’s assertion that Kyiv sought to kill the Russian leader.
That conclusion is supported by a Central Intelligence Agency assessment that found no attempted attack against Putin had occurred, according to a U.S. official briefed on the intelligence. The CIA declined to comment.
The U.S. found that Ukraine had been seeking to strike a military target located in the same region as Putin’s country residence but not close by, the official said.
The big question remains, if drones did target the residence, was the CIA involved in assisting with targeting information?
UBS Says Soaring Memory Chip Prices To “Turbo-Charge” Samsung Earnings
For several months, we have tracked a sharp increase in DDR5 DRAM pricing, as evidenced by DRAMeXchange data, driven primarily by surging AI-related cloud computing demand and hyperscalers accelerating data center buildouts.
On day one of the new year, Samsung co-CEO Jun Young Hyun told employees in an internal memo that customers have praised the differentiated competitiveness of its next-generation high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, or HBM4, saying, “It’s even earning an assessment from customers that ‘Samsung is back’.” He noted that Samsung will also benefit from favorable memory market conditions this year, as demand for artificial intelligence chips has materialized much quicker than initially anticipated.
The other week, Goldman analyst Maho Kamiya told clients that mounting concerns about soaring memory prices posed new risks for Nintendo, which manufactures consumer electronics such as the popular Switch 2.
“Some investors think that Nintendo will be selling Switch 2 at a loss and gross profit falling into the red. While rising memory prices are a risk factor that could depress hardware margins, we think concerns are somewhat excessive,” Kamiya told clients last week.
While end-use consumer electronics companies such as Nintendo may be pressured by higher memory costs, the same pricing surge is expected to “turbo-charge earnings” for Samsung’s memory business, according to UBS analyst Nicolas Gaudois.
Gaudois explains why:
DDR and NAND contract pricing coming out higher than expected
With 4Q25 memory contract pricing negotiations now completed, we lift our forecast for DDR contract pricing to +35% QoQ (was +21%), and for NAND +20% (was +15%). We believe customers are trying to secure 1Q26 contract pricing in earnest, with further potential for upside. We now forecast blended DDR contract pricing to increase 29% QoQ (was +15%) and NAND +20% (was +10%) in 1Q26. From there on, we continue to forecast DRAM to remain undersupplied until 1Q27, and NAND 3Q26. We see the ongoing upside in conventional memory pricing as the main stock driver for Samsung. At 1.43x NTM book, we believe the stock is not yet discounting the strength and length of the upcycle ahead.
HBM shipments to catch up in 2026E
While we maintain our 2026 DRAM bit growth forecast of 15% YoY, we could see up to 2 pct pts upside depending on production yields / efficiency / mix. We continue to forecast HBM shipments to reach 7.5bn Gb in 2026, up 77% YoY. We continue to expect Samsung to provide HBM4 samples to Nvidia by February, which could lead to qualification by 2Q26 (with production starting earlier in 1Q). We believe Samsung remains first source for HBM for AMD and Open AI. Regarding Google, we believe Samsung is second source for TPU 7p, while Micron may be second source for TPU 7e (first source in both cases being SK Hynix).
Increasing forecasts well ahead of consensus on DDR/NAND ASP estimates
We increase our 4Q25 OP forecast to Won18.1tn from Won15.0tn (VA consensus: Won15.3tn) on the back of increased DRAM and NAND ASPs. We raise 2026E/27E OP to Won135.3tn/Won143.6tn (from Won101.2tn/Won109.5tn respectively), well ahead of consensus Won86.9tn/Won109.6tn respectively, and lift our 2026/27 EPS forecasts by 31%/29%. These changes are due to raised DDR/NAND ASPs as well as DRAM bit growth forecasts, which more than offset us lowering smartphone margins due to rising memory prices.
Valuation: lift price target to Won154,000 from Won128,000 – Buy
We value Samsung ordinary shares at 1.97x NTM book (was 1.79x) considering our 2026-30 average ROE estimate of 16.3% (was 14.6%) and CoE of 8.3% (was 8.2%). We also raise our Samsung GDR PT to US$2,610, from US$2,230, with the latest FX.
We’ve shown readers DDR5 DRAM pricing via DRAMeXchange…
