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The US Navy retired its last battleship 19 years ago, the grand warship’s devastating firepower deemed surplus to requirements in the new war on terror. But the era of Great Power conflict has now returned with storm clouds gathering between the US and China. And with them the old warhorse bristling with guns, the battleship, is facing a call back to action. President Trump has said the battleship will come back as the centerpiece of his new Golden Fleet – a cadre of warships designed to equip our navy to face the challenges of the future, not the past.In a speech to the nation’s top military brass, Trump said:“I think we should maybe start thinking about battleships, by the way.

“I’m a Christian man,” the college student at the University of Mississippi said to J.D. Vance, our future 48th (or 49th) President, during a TPUSA event attended by thousands. Uh-oh, here we go. “And I’m just confused why there’s this notion that we might owe Israel something… or that they’re our greatest ally or that we have to support this multi-hundred-billion-dollar foreign aid package to Israel… to quote Charlie Kirk, ‘ethnic cleansing in Gaza.’” That was nothing you wouldn’t hear outside of, say, Glenn Greenwald’s Twitter feed, but then it got dark. The student continued, “I’m just confused why this idea has come around considering the fact that not only does their religion not agree with ours but also openly supports the persecution of ours.

The city of El Fasher, long a symbolic and strategic stronghold in Darfur, has in recent days become the site of atrocities so grave that the United Nations has openly warned of the risk of genocide. Videos reviewed by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights show scores of unarmed men executed in cold blood, some lying dead at the feet of Rapid Support Forces fighters, others dragged off and detained. Journalists and aid workers have disappeared. The last remaining functional hospital was shelled, killing patients and staff. The Saudi Maternity Hospital, once a rare lifeline, is now a mass grave.

President Trump is meeting with Chinese Prime Minister Xi Jinping tonight, or tomorrow, or whenever it is in Asia. Regardless of the time, the meeting will have enormous implications for the future of the US economy and for geopolitical stability. Don’t worry, Trump told his dinner companions in South Korea last night. The three-to-four-hour meeting “will lead to something that’s going to be very, very satisfactory to China and to us. I think it’s going to be a very good meeting. I look forward to it tomorrow morning when we meet.” The China summit will cap what’s been an absolutely delightful Asian invasion for Trump and his retinue. Trump told reporters last week that he felt incredibly lucky.

President Trump’s undeclared war on Latin America’s drug smugglers escalated dramatically on Tuesday when US air strikes destroyed four more boats allegedly carrying narcotics – this time in the eastern Pacific Ocean 400 miles south of the Mexican coastal city of Acapulco.At least fourteen crew members died in the attacks, and one was rescued alive by the Mexican navy, bringing the total number killed by the US campaign in the last two months to 57.Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum condemned the attacks as a violation of international law, and said Mexico’s ambassador in Washington would lodge a protest and demand an explanation from US officials.The latest strikes were personally authorized by Trump and announced by War Secretary Pete Hegseth.

New York’s Kathy Hochul isn’t a good governor. But, like a particularly empathetic house pet, she’s finely attuned to any change in the weather. A huge crowd in a Queens stadium rallied last night for Zohran Mamdani and chanted “Tax the rich! Tax the rich!” over and over again. So when Hochul said, “I hear you, I hear you,” you can be sure that she actually heard them, though today she said she thought they were saying “let’s go Bills.” Sure. Either way, she got to where she is by knowing how to back a winner.  The rich, meanwhile, are in the process of moving their family photos to the Palm Beach town home or shopping for McMansions in suburban Dallas.

Police in Paris have arrested two men after the "heist of the century" at the Louvre museum. According to the French press, the pair were arrested separately as they prepared to leave the country on Saturday evening; both are in their 30s and from Seine-Saint-Denis, the sprawling suburb north of Paris. As yet there is no indication that police have recovered any of the crown jewels that were stolen from the museum in seven sensational minutes last Sunday. The search for them and the two other gang members goes on. The 88 million euros ($102m) heist has been deeply embarrassing for France, and the fact that those responsible appear to be local villains as opposed to the international criminal masterminds that some had suggested will only further redden the Republic's face.

Gaza was always going to be a hard lift, and it is proving to be exactly that. The two years of fighting were hard and deadly. Establishing a stable peace after the fighting ended is proving just as hard, despite the promising settlement negotiated by President Trump’s emissaries, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Looking forward, there is some good news and some major obstacles to success beyond Phase One of the peace deal. Let’s start with two pieces of very good news. First, Hamas has released all its living hostages. They are still holding some bodies of the dead, despite explicit promises to return them. Pause for a moment to consider the moral depravity of killing innocent people and then holding their bodies for ransom.

The FBI has arrested Chauncey Billups, NBA champion, Hall of Famer, and coach of the Portland Trail Blazers for his association in a rigged poker game operated by some of New York City’s most notorious crime family. “Why would Chauncey do it?” the world of sports is asking. He’s already worth tens of millions of dollars. That’s a question for Billups, his attorneys, his God, and, presumably, Blazers ownership to answer. But as someone who regularly plays a lot of low and micro-stakes poker, I have a pretty good idea. The games I play in are monitored by security cameras, with armed guards at the exits in case people get out of line. When I play in World Series of Poker or World Poker Tour events, there are a strict set of rules by which the vast majority of players abide.

New Yorkers received visits from two ghosts of Christmas past and one ghost of Christmas present at its last 2025 mayoral debate on Wednesday night. Republican nominee Curtis Sliwa and champion of himself Andrew Cuomo lobbed Grumpy Old Man insults across the stage at each other while Zohran Mamdani stood center stage, fresh and gleaming, deflecting blows and acting with all the confidence of a football team that has a three-touchdown lead at the two-minute warning. The historical turn, potentially tragic, that will lead to the Democratic Socialists taking over America’s largest city, is reaching its conclusion, and there won’t be a final twist.

The nationwide No Kings protest attracted, according to varying estimates, between 600,000 and 600 million Americans. Republicans either denigrated the protests as a kind of retirement-home activity for permanently terrified MSNBC boomers or as cover for bloodthirsty Antifa terrorists who want to destroy America and, in the words of House Speaker Mike Johnson, bring about “a rise of Marxism in the Democratic Party.” Or, you know, why not both?  Coverage of the protests reflected this schizo vibe. There were a lot of sad Boomer ladies in tie-dye T-shirts carrying Orange Man Bad posters, and some footage of grotesque, twisted far leftists mocking the murder of Charlie Kirk.