By all accounts, protests and unrest have been spreading rapidly in Iran, now over a week-and-a-half into economic and anti-government protests which have begun to grind the country to a halt. On Thursday the demonstrations have disrupted life in the capital in a big way, and there are reports of nationwide internet and cellular outages.

An Alaska Airlines pilot who was universally praised as a hero after safely landing a Boeing jet after a door plug panel flew off shortly after takeoff is suing the company because he says the plane maker wrongly tried to blame him and the rest of the crew.

Authored by Bill Pan via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

President Donald Trump is asking the state of Georgia to reimburse $6.26 million in attorney fees and costs he incurred defending against his now-dismissed election interference case in the state.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents shot two individuals in the sanctuary city of Portland on Thursday evening, according to local media. The incident comes one day after the ICE-involved shooting of an "ICE Watch" left-wing activist in Minneapolis on Wednesday.

First, Trump short-circuited the Fed's rate-cut process. Now he is going after QE by launching his own version of it. 

Update (1858):

The New York Post reports that Renee Nicole Good was an anti-ICE "warrior" and part of a network of left-wing activists who worked to "document and resist" ICE operations in Minnesota.  

Authored by Steve Watson via Modernity.news,

In response to decades of corporate-poisoned nutrition advice, the Trump administration has unleashed updated federal dietary guidelines that torch added sugars, champion protein and healthy fats, and slam the door on ultra-processed junk fueling America’s chronic disease crisis.

The Trump administration withdrew the United States from 66 international organizations, conventions, and treaties that it said go against the country’s interests, the White House announced on Jan. 7.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that Hungary would not leave the European Union, which instead would "fall apart on its own" due to "leadership chaos" and said Brussels aimed to cut Hungary off from Russian energy supplies during a press conference on Monday. 

It didn't take long. Within hours of an ICE-involved shooting in the Minneapolis area, the Democratic Party's protest industrial complex moved into action, quickly creating conditions for coordinated demonstrations across multiple cities.

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

In a letter to members of the governing coalition that has so far only become known in fragments, Chancellor Friedrich Merz warns of a severe economic crisis and calls for reforms. Yet the circulating and quotable elements of the document from the Chancellery reveal no deviation whatsoever from the course already taken.

Authored by Kimberley Hayek via The Epoch Times,

President Donald Trump is seeking to acquire Greenland as a U.S. national security priority necessary to deter adversaries in the region and may consider military action, the White House said on Tuesday.

If the last years have shown us anything, it’s that a lot can change, fast.

While many events cannot be foreseen, can others?

By Elwin de Groot, Head of Macro Strategy at Rabobank

Update (1014ET):

"Donroe Doctrine" to clean up the Western Hemisphere was busy Wednesday morning, with the seizure of the Russian-flagged oil tanker Marinera (formerly Bella 1) in the North Atlantic, followed by U.S. forces seizing a stateless dark-fleet tanker in the Caribbean region.

Authored by Andrew Moran via The Epoch Times,

Switzerland said on Jan. 5 that it has frozen all assets held in the country by deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his associates.

Submitted by Thomas Kolbe

Save in times of plenty, and you’ll have in times of need. An old German proverb, now proving tragically prophetic. The hardship caused by a completely derailed climate-socialist ideology is only just beginning. This socialist experiment is likely to continue ravaging the country until its economic substance is entirely consumed.

Low-cost drones have transformed modern warfare forever during the nearly four-year-long Russia-Ukraine war. These commercially available systems have been used to strike cities, power grids, ports, refineries, and military bases, delivering maximum impact at minimal cost.

The evolution of these drones is notable as well. One major issue that drones on both sides of the battlefield have faced is counter-drone operations involving electronic warfare, interceptor drones, fighter jets, and attack helicopters. However, none have yet proven consistently effective at scale.

Authored by Naveen Athrappully via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

In 2025, electric cars accounted for 95.9 percent of all new cars sold in Norway, the Norwegian Road Traffic Information Council (OFV) said in a statement on Jan. 2.

A major plank in the Trump administration's case for military intervention in Venezuela is looking thinner today, as the Department of Justice has retreated from the notion that captured President Nicolas Maduro was the head of an organized drug cartel called Cartel de los Soles. The DOJ now says the term "Cartel de los Soles" is merely descriptive of a "culture of corruption" fueled by the illegal drug trade.

Update(20:50ET): A mere hours after widespread American mainstream media reports named Maduro's staunchly 'loyal' Vice Presedent Delcy Rodríguez a CIA/US military informer who cooperated with the Trump-ordered invasion which ousted and kidnapped the country's sitting head of state to US soil, there are reports of heavy gunfire engulfing the Venezuelan capital, near the presidential palace. Though there are conflicting reports.

Is there something fundamentally wrong with a celebrity being conservative?  According to the political left, such a prospect calls for immediate and uncompromising punishment from the woke cult.  After all, conservative movie and music stars are rare for a reason - They get blacklisted.