Greetings! Merry Christmas to those celebrating.

Let’s get into today’s top stories.

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🇻🇦 Pope Leo XIV tells Christmas crowds to quit looking away. Pope Leo XIV urged Catholics to shed indifference as wars and hunger grind on. About 26K people packed St. Peter’s Square for his noon blessing. He name-checked genocides in Gaza and Sudan, Ukraine, and migrants crossing dangerous routes. He warned comfort can become a quiet cruelty. He revived multilingual greetings, including Peruvian Spanish, as a nod to his past ministry. The Vatican framed it as a pastoral reset, not a policy memo. The subtext landed cleanly: compassion is a daily discipline, not seasonal décor.

🇳🇬 Suicide blast tears through a mosque in Nigeria’s northeast. Officials said an attacker detonated explosives at a mosque in Maiduguri, in Borno state. At least 5 people were killed and more than 30 were injured. The blast hit a city long scarred by insurgency and high-alert policing. Witnesses described panic as worshippers dragged the wounded into open air. Authorities called it an apparent suicide attack and launched an investigation. Community leaders urged residents to share tips and avoid rumor-fueled reprisals. In a region where fear is routine, prayers still draw large crowds.

👵 America’s baby boomers are aging, and the math is loud. The oldest baby boomers turn 80 in 2026, pulling “retirement” into the foreground. This is the 1946–1964 cohort, now moving from independence to assistance in real time. Families feel it first through caregiving, housing retrofits, and medical scheduling Tetris. Communities feel it next through workforce gaps and rising demand for home health staff. Public systems feel it in longer waits and tighter budgets, from clinics to transit. Economists call it predictable. The takeaway here is the big shift is not a headline, it is a calendar.

🎅 President Trump’s Christmas calls mix kid-gloss with culture-war grit. President Trump spent Christmas Eve at his Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach, Florida, taking calls from children in a holiday tradition with sharp edges. He warned them about infiltration by a “bad Santa”, turning folklore into a security parable. He also defended coal, framing it as a hard-working fuel, not a punchline. The vibe was jovial, but the messaging stayed on brand: vigilance, enemies, and a wink. Supporters heard humor; critics heard indoctrination with tinsel. It was politics delivered through a toy-store megaphone. Santa got deputized, and the audience was in pajamas.

🧩 New Epstein records shove Ghislaine Maxwell back into the spotlight. Newly released records tied to Jeffrey Epstein have refocused attention on Ghislaine Maxwell’s role. Maxwell has long insisted she is innocent, even as the case defined her public identity. Victims’ advocates argue more transparency is overdue, not optional. Defense lawyers see selective disclosure; prosecutors see an old network, newly legible. The story’s fuel is procedural, not cinematic: filings, names, dates, and what is still sealed. Every tranche lands like a trust stress-test for institutions that already look brittle. In this latest chapter in the saga, “public record” functions like a second sentencing.

🚗 ICE agents fired at a moving car, leaving 2 people hurt. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents shot at a moving vehicle on Christmas Eve, injuring 2 people. The incident happened in Maryland as officers tried to stop the car, authorities said. The gunfire raised immediate questions about threat perception and escalation. Officials described it as a fast-moving encounter, with an investigation now underway. Civil-rights advocates want body-camera clarity; officers cite split-second risk. The politics are unavoidable because immigration enforcement now doubles as a national Rorschach. One traffic moment became a policy argument with bullet holes.

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That’s all for today!

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See you tomorrow!