A case of measles was confirmed on December 24th in Contra Costa County, and officials have now issued a warning that anyone who was shopping at multiple stores in Walnut Creek before Christmas Eve could have been exposed. The infected person was apparently shopping at Anthropologie on December 17 or 19, at Macy's or the Apple Store on December 18, and several other locations. [KTVU]
A diplomatic breakthrough after more than 30 years of international isolation, following its break-up from Somalia. But Israel's recognition of Somaliland as an independent state is drawing widespread condemnation. Somaliland is strategically located near the Bab al Mandeb, through which a third of the world's shipping crosses into the Red sea. That makes it vital for maritime security and intelligence operations in a volatile region.
The US fired Tomahawk missiles into Nigeria's Sokoto State late last week, claiming to target members of ISIS targeting Christians in the country, but the region hit by the strikes - and facing the brunt of ISIS attacks - is majority Muslim. Also, the world's first carbon tariff is set to take effect in Europe at the start of 2026.
In an unusually short period of time, three successive statements were issued within a single context, beginning with an official Yemeni request from President Rashad al-Alimi, the head of Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council, the governing body of the internationally recognised government. This was followed by an operational response from the Saudi-led coalition, and then a political message by the Saudi minister of defence that defines the moves on the ground and the directions they take.
Israel has attacked more countries than any other country this year. In 2025, Israel attacked at least six countries, including Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Qatar, Syria, and Yemen. It also carried out strikes in Tunisian, Maltese and Greek territorial waters on aid flotillas heading for Gaza. According to Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), an independent conflict monitor, from January 1 to December 5, Israel carried out at least 10,631 attacks, marking one of the broadest geographic military offensives in a single year.
United States President Donald Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for talks at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and said the two leaders were getting a lot closer, maybe very close to a deal to end the war in Ukraine. Trump and Zelenskyy reported progress on two of the most contentious issues in the peace talks: security guarantees for Ukraine and the division of eastern Ukraine's Donbas region that Russia has sought to capture.
A week of extremes in the US as Arctic air plunges southwards across many states, sweeping away record-breaking warmth from last weekend. With low pressure in the west drawing up warm, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico, much of the south and midwest basked in spring-like weather this weekend with temperatures widely an extraordinary 15-20C above normal for late December.
The issue there is that royal commissions can be good at deciding facts. What the Richardson review will do is decide facts. Where royal commissions are not as good, is to consider things that are not agreed, where people have differences of views, and to enable, which is what it would do, a repetition of some of the worst developments, he said.
They have a big plant or a big facility where the ships come from. Two nights ago we knocked that out. The Republican was talking about the U.S. operation against drug trafficking in the Caribbean, focused on Venezuela. And if he said what he seemed to mean, he was confirming an attack the first strike on the ground after months of threatening to do so, escalating the offensive against Nicolas Maduro's government.
Kim Keon-hee took more than $200,000 in bribes and illegally intervened in state affairs, South Korean prosecutors say. A special prosecutor in South Korea has accused the wife of former President Yoon Suk-yeol of interfering in state affairs in return for expensive valuables and money. Min Jung-ki's comments on Monday came a day after he wrapped up a yearlong investigation into Yoon's brief imposition of martial law and other scandals related to the once-powerful couple.
The Chinese Communist party's practice is to try and destroy history and truth, the 46-year-old director says from his home in the region. It's ridiculous that I can still live in Hong Kong without being in jail. In a society where someone can be jailed for wearing a seditious T-shirt, his surprise is understandable. Chow is best known for co-directing the 2015 dystopian anthology film Ten Years, which imagined a future Hong Kong under the increasing influence of the CCP.
Ciaran Tyler, lead naphtha research analyst at Brussels, Belgium-based commodity data analytics firm Kpler, says Taiwan's imports of Russian-origin naphtha have not slowed significantly, even though they have said they would not renew contracts to buy the product. Kpler data shows that naphtha volumes from Russia imported by Formosa Petrochemical Corporation (FPCC) the Taiwanese company almost entirely responsible for the surge in naphtha imports remained steady in November and December.
While Mexico was calling for a peaceful solution to the crisis between the United States and Venezuela at the United Nations, two oil tankers flying the Liberian flag were sailing near Cuba. Both vessels had departed from the port of Coatzacoalcos in the Mexican state of Veracruz, specifically from the Pajaritos terminal owned by the Mexican state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex),
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed on Monday that the attack had taken place on Putin's residence in northwestern Russia's Novgorod region, using 91 long-range strike drones. list of 4 itemsend of list Lavrov said air defence systems shot down the aerial attack, and added that no one was injured. Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said the strike took place on Sunday, practically immediately after talks held in Florida between United States President Donald Trump and Zelenskyy on negotiations to end Russia's war on Ukraine.
The search for Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 is expected to resume on 30 December, more than a decade after the plane disappeared with 239 people onboard in one of aviation's greatest mysteries. A renewed search by Ocean Infinity, a UK and US-based marine robotics company, had begun earlier this year but was called off in April because of bad weather. The Malaysian transport ministry announced this month that the search of the seabed would be conducted intermittently over 55 days from 30 December.
Iranians are further squeezed every day amid a tanking economy, an energy crisis, water bankruptcy and lethal pollution. Several protests have erupted in downtown Tehran after business owners closed down their shops in reaction to a free-falling national currency, and no improvement appears in sight amid multiple ongoing crises. Shopkeepers near two major tech and mobile phone shopping centres in the capital's Jomhouri area closed their businesses and chanted slogans on Sunday,
Protests in Iran over a plummeting currency and inflation fears continued for a second day in the capital, despite attempts by security forces to disperse crowds with volleys of tear gas. RFE/RL's Radio Farda reported on December 29 that crowds of people were seen chanting slogans about the economic situation and against the government at gatherings at the Grand Bazaar -- where many merchants had closed their shops -- and elsewhere in central Tehran.
