A fire broke out Wednesday at an oil project in eastern Venezuela where the Petrocedeno crude upgrader operates, according to local media reports and a source at state oil company PDVSA.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla has halted the Trump administration’s attempt to end temporary deportation protections and work permits for more than 6,100 Syrians, ruling that the measures must remain in place while the legal challenge moves forward.

U.S. Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll met today with Ukraine’s Defense Minister Denys Shmyhal in Kyiv to discuss ongoing and future cooperation on defense development — including air-defense systems, as well as long-range drones and missiles — between Ukraine and the United States. The sharp contrast between Driscoll’s visit and the behind-the-scenes maneuvering involving Special Envoy Witkoff highlights the chaotic state of foreign policy within the Trump Administration.

Reuters reports that four sources say Keith Kellogg, President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy for Ukraine, has informed associates he intends to leave the administration in January — a move that would remove one of Kyiv’s strongest advocates inside the Trump administration.

Elon Musk on future energy for AI: “I expect that within five years, running AI systems in space will be far more economical than running them on Earth. Well before we run into energy constraints here, the lowest-cost option for large-scale AI will probably be solar-powered compute satellites. My guess is we’re about four to five years away from that.” NVIDIA’s Jensen Huang added: “Look at the supercomputers we’re building now. Each rack weighs around two tons — and about 1.95 tons of that is cooling alone. Now imagine shrinking that entire system down to a tiny, ultra-efficient unit. That’s what the next generation of GB300 racks could look like.”

At the U.S.–Saudi Investment Forum, President Donald J. Trump delivered sharp remarks about Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, saying: “Rates are falling in spite of the Fed. Scott, you’ve got to deal with this guy — he’s got serious issues. Something is wrong with him. Honestly, I’d love to fire him. He should be fired. He’s completely incompetent, and he ought to be sued for spending four billion dollars on a tiny building. I’m putting up a ballroom that costs a fraction of that and is bigger than the whole thing. Scott, you need to get this under control. The only thing you’re messing up is the Fed. Rates are too high, Scott — and if you don’t fix it fast, I’m going to fire you.”

Trump praises his chief of staff, Susie Wiles: "Most powerful woman in the world. She can take out a country,  destroy, take out a country with one phone call. That’s power. I don’t know if I could do that, but she could."

Germany’s Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt on Wednesday defended Berlin’s move to revoke a man’s citizenship over alleged support for Hamas, saying that naturalized citizens should lose their nationality if they are found to be acting against German values.

Putin: Life expectancy may reach 150 years, but even that would not be enough. What matters most is how you live those years and for what purpose.

According to Reuters, U.S. officials are privately signaling that the long-promised semiconductor tariffs may not be imposed anytime soon, potentially pushing back a key pillar of President Donald Trump’s economic agenda.

Trump: Turkey is down 33%, and I am not talking about the country. Erdogan is fine, he is doing good. He is a friend, we need to take care of our friends.

The House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed J.P. Morgan and Deutsche Bank for financial records related to Jeffrey Epstein.

U.S. Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll has released a memo titled “Just Pick Up During the Holidays,” a message that resonates deeply and deserves to be adopted across every military branch. While the holidays are joyful for many, they can also be an incredibly difficult time for countless Servicemembers. Driscoll urges troops to check in on their Battle Buddies, squads, squadrons, and shipmates throughout Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s — because you never truly know what someone is facing until it’s too late.

Axios has confirmed the Financial Times’ reporting on a rushed ceasefire proposal brokered by White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian Envoy Kirill Dmitriev — a plan that would grant Russia additional territory in eastern Ukraine and restrict Ukraine’s military capabilities, in exchange for U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine and Europe against future Russian aggression. The 28-point proposal would give Russia full de facto control over the entire Donbas region — Luhansk and Donetsk — and would see the U.S. and other countries formally recognize both areas, along with Crimea, as part of the Russian Federation. Ukraine itself would not be required to recognize the annexations. According to a Ukrainian official, the proposal also included caps on the size of Ukraine’s armed forces and limits on long-range weapons in return for American security assurances. Witkoff was scheduled to travel to Ankara on Wednesday for a trilateral meeting with President Zelensky and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. But officials say the meeting was called off after it became clear that Zelensky was retreating from understandings reportedly reached by his National Security Adviser, Rustem Umerov, during a private meeting with Witkoff in Miami last weekend. Zelensky, they say, is no longer willing to discuss the Trump plan and instead headed to Turkey with an alternative proposal developed with European partners — one U.S. officials insist Russia will never accept.

Speaking at the U.S.–Saudi Investment Forum in Washington, President Donald J. Trump voiced strong support for H-1B visas, saying: “You can’t come in, build a multibillion-dollar chip plant like the one in Arizona, and expect to hire people straight off the unemployment line to run it. They’re going to need to bring in thousands of workers, and I’m going to welcome them. I love my conservative friends, I love MAGA — but this is MAGA.”

The IDF says it has completed a round of airstrikes targeting Hezbollah rocket storage facilities in Deir Kifa, Shehour, Tayr Felsay, and Aynata in southern Lebanon. The depots were located within civilian areas, and evacuation warnings were issued in advance. According to the IDF, these sites were positioned “in the heart of a civilian population,” calling it “yet another example of Hezbollah’s cynical use of Lebanese civilians as human shields.” The military added that the presence of such weapons caches “violates the understandings between Israel and Lebanon.”

Elon Musk says that if current trends in AI and robotics continue, “money will eventually become irrelevant.”

Israel has launched airstrikes in Khan Younis and in the Zeitoun and Shejaiya neighborhoods of Gaza City, following incidents earlier today in which terrorists opened fire on IDF troops. Local media report nine fatalities. According to Israel Hayom, the commander of Hamas’s Zeitoun Brigade was killed in one of the strikes, though there has been no official confirmation yet.

France, the UK, and Germany have recorded the highest number of anti-Christian hate crimes in Europe, according to the Vienna-based Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians (OIDAC) Europe Report 2025. The report identified 2,211 anti-Christian hate crimes across the continent last year. Personal attacks rose to 274, up from 232 in the previous report. The study also highlighted a significant spike in arson targeting churches and Christian sites, documenting 94 arson attacks — nearly double the previous year’s total — with one-third (33) taking place in Germany. Overall, the report recorded 516 hate-motivated crimes, a figure that climbs to 1,503 when including theft and break-ins at religious sites. According to OIDAC, the countries with the highest levels of anti-Christian offenses were France, the UK, Germany, Spain, and Austria. Some of the most serious incidents included: • The killing of a 76-year-old monk during an attack on the Monastery of Santo Espíritu del Monte in Gilet, Spain; • A man shot dead by ISIS militants during Sunday Mass in Istanbul in January 2024; • The near-destruction of a Catholic church in Saint-Omer, France, following an arson attack.

The Shin Bet says it has uncovered a major weapons-smuggling network operating between Syria and northern Israel, leading to the arrest of 12 suspects — five IDF soldiers, four Israeli civilians, and three Syrian nationals. According to the investigation, the soldiers repeatedly crossed the border near the Syrian Druze town of Hader, bringing back weapons that were later handed over to criminal groups in northern Israel. One of the soldiers was identified as Master Sgt. Iyad Halabi, 45, from Yarka; the others are Suheil Maadi, Salah Hanfis, Amal Aslim, and Yazen Salah. The network allegedly attempted to move a large cache of weapons — including explosives, RPGs, assault rifles, and substantial quantities of ammunition — shortly before the arrests. During an overnight raid in the Hader area last month, IDF troops seized dozens of weapons and detained three Syrian smugglers. The Shin Bet says the cache was intended for Rami Abu Shaah, 49, from Shefa-Amr, who was in direct contact with one of the Syrian detainees.