Heavily armed Australian police officers on Thursday detained seven men after receiving intelligence that the group, en route to Bondi Beach, might be planning a “violent act.” Police rammed a white hatchback reportedly traveling from the southern state of Victoria to Sydney’s Bondi Beach, the site of last weekend’s ISIS-inspired antisemitic terror attack. Videos published by The Sydney Morning Herald show authorities in camouflage gear, rifles in hand, zip-tying five of the men on a street in southwest Sydney. Sydney police arrested five men near Bondi Beach on suspicion of carrying weapons after a vehicle they were in collided with a police car, officials said. Authorities acted on specific intelligence linking the group to potential threats near the site of Sunday’s deadly attack. pic.twitter.com/9aHvHcPR6r — Open Source Intel (@Osint613) December 18, 2025 ?Breaking News? In Sydney five Muslims have been arrested as they were making their way to Bondi Beach for a copycat slaughter. They were being watched by the Australian Intelligence service. pic.twitter.com/CNpS6ahbyw — David Atherton (@DaveAtherton20) December 18, 2025 A second hatchback was stopped by police just a few blocks away, and two men inside were also arrested. While the precise reason for the dramatic arrests was not disclosed, the group had been flagged by authorities in Victoria, according to the Herald. New South Wales police said only that “Tactical Operations police responded to information received that a violent act was possibly being planned.” Christmas Sale – Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships A source told the Herald that authorities might have recovered a weapon in one of the vehicles, but police have not verified that claim. Authorities promised to release more information on the arrests and assured the public that “there is no ongoing risk to the community.” The arrests on Thursday came just days after suspected gunmen Sajid and Naveed Akram, a father and son, were accused of killing 15 people and wounding dozens more in an attack targeting Jewish people participating in a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach. Australian authorities said that 24-year-old Naveed was inspired by ISIS and was previously investigated over his ties to the terror group. Officials said they “have not identified any connection to the current police investigation of the Bondi terror attack.”

This past August in Aspen, Colorado, Charlie Kirk set his team an impossible goal.  Kirk was convinced high school was the most important outreach point, according to Josh Thifault, who spearheads the Club America initiative for Turning Point USA. It’s when young Americans decide what values they want to build their life on. By the time many reach college, where TPUSA has a massive footprint, it’s already too late. At the Colorado meeting for TPUSA leadership, Kirk told Thifault and his team that they weren’t close to where they needed to be. They had 1,200 Club America chapters. Kirk said that number needed to be 20,000.  That was the last conversation Thifault had with his longtime friend and boss. Since Kirk’s assassination weeks later on September 10, Thifault has made it his mission to get the 20,000 Club America chapters, honoring his friend’s final request. Thifault says there has already been a surge of requests to start Club America chapters, taking the number from 1,200 to 3,000. He now thinks the “almost impossible goal” can be a reality. “God has given us an opportunity to achieve Charlie’s almost impossible goal,” Thifault tells The Daily Wire. “His ways are not our ways, but it is our responsibility to see this through.”  The response to Kirk’s political assassination has been described as a political revival on the Right, with a surge of interest in the organization. It sold out tickets for its flagship convention this weekend, America Fest, cutting off registration weeks ago because the massive convention center hit capacity. Thifault says TPUSA has grown into more than just a conservative organization. “We’re watching Turning Point evolve from being more than just a conservative politically-themed organization,” Thifault says. “I’m watching our students care more and more about faith, I’m watching our students care more about the social aspects of our value system. They have a lot of questions about getting married, a lot of questions about having kids.” Thifault is capitalizing on TPUSA’s growing reach by working directly with states to put Club America chapters in every high school. The longtime TPUSA executive has secured partnerships with Florida, Tennessee, and Texas.  Florida Governor Ron DeSantis invited 150 TPUSA students to the Governor’s Mansion in Tallahassee after announcing the partnership. Texas Governor Greg Abbott held a large-scale press conference in Austin, where his Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick, announced a $1 million donation to the Club America and TPUSA expansion in the Lone Star State. In Tennessee, Senator Marsha Blackburn and Riley Gaines fired up the crowd of students on-site at the State Capitol to stand up for their values. “I watched these state leaders one by one catch that vision that Charlie instilled in us before he died,” Thifault says. “It’s very important for the people in charge of the state to catch that vision. They’re not just doing it to honor Charlie, they’re doing it because they understand the way that changes the social fabric of their state.” In Thifault’s speech at the Nashville event with Blackburn and Gaines, he predicted that it would have a permanent political impact on the state. “You cannot fundamentally change the fabric of a nation unless the heart of the nation turns back to God, and that starts in you,” Thifault said at the event. “We will look back on this day and say Tennessee was permanently a conservative state for 50 years, 100 years, because of the courage of our state leaders today.” READ MORE: Tennessee And Turning Point USA Team Up To Start Chapters At Every High School The partnerships ensure that Club America chapters can be formed at any school, no matter what administrators think about it. Thifault says every conservative governor in the nation should follow suit. “I’m calling on every conservative governor in the nation to do an event like this with us and make promises, and create a culture where a leftist teacher or administrator is scared to trample on the First Amendment rights of a 15-year-old.”   Photo by Aaron E. Martinez/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images Thifault has spent the last three months calling lawmakers, scheduling meetings with governors to make Kirk’s goal of 20,000 Club America chapters a reality.  “It’s just a lot of clipboard and tennis shoes-style activism right now.” The boots-on-the-ground work Thifault is doing reminds him of his early days with Kirk, when they worked together a decade ago to get TPUSA off the ground.  “Charlie was working 100 to 120 hours a week, he would be so busy that he wouldn’t have time to eat,” Thifault recalled. “He would get enough calories to stay alive by drinking a morning latte.”    Credit: Josh Thifault   Thifault says the surge to 3,000 chapters doesn’t even represent how much momentum is behind the initiative. “The demand is even greater than the growth. In the weeks following Charlie’s passing, we had 135,000 people reach out, saying they wanted to start or join chapters.” Thifault says TPUSA has been ready to respond to the demand because of Erika Kirk’s leadership. Erika took over for her husband as the leader of TPUSA and immediately went to work on doubling the infrastructure of the organization in 2026. “She’s very passionate about this,” Thifault said. “I am thrilled not just with that, but also with her focus on the spiritual — which you’ve seen in a lot of her speeches. The reason why we’re able to grow this quickly is because Erika has continued the visions Charlie put in place.” Erika has been praised for how quickly she stepped into the leadership role while still grieving her husband’s death. Thifault said Charlie left specific instructions on how he wanted his company to move forward in case something happened to him.  “It was because Charlie explicitly left wishes that she take over with the goal of continuing the set vision for the organization,” Thifault says. “He was keenly aware that something could happen to him, and he wanted the train to keep going in the same direction.” The fall tour, the biggest convention ever, and rapid expansion are all things Thifault said are because of Erika’s commitment to Charlie’s mission.  “I cannot overstate the importance of that,” Thifault said. TPUSA has come a long way from its first end-of-year conference in 2015, which Thifault attended. It was about 100 students, in a room with no windows, eager to hear Charlie Kirk’s message.  Ten years later, there are 30,000 people in a convention center. It’s the first conference without Kirk, but his message lives on — build a movement rooted in faith, freedom, and love of country, and bring it to the next generation. “What’s the best thing spiritually and culturally and politically for the nation? When a student is a teenager, show them the truth and let them build their lives on it,” Thifault said.  He said that’s possible through Club America. “The most efficient thing we can do as a society is to make sure that before students even become adults, they’re building their lives on the way, the truth, and the light.”

Federal prosecutors in Massachusetts have charged two Haitian immigrants with orchestrating a nearly $7 million food stamp fraud operation, exposing yet another glaring failure in America’s welfare oversight and raising familiar questions about how large-scale schemes thrive inside government programs billed as humanitarian. According to federal authorities, Antonio Bonheur, a 74-year-old naturalized American citizen from Haiti, and Saul Alisme, a 21-year-old lawful permanent resident, ran two tiny bodegas in Boston’s Mattapan neighborhood that bore little resemblance to legitimate grocery stores. Despite sparse shelves and minimal foot traffic, one store alone redeemed up to $500,000 in SNAP benefits in a single month — levels consistent with major supermarkets, not neighborhood corner shops. Undercover investigators say the stores openly exchanged SNAP benefits for cash, skimmed profits through secondary bank accounts, and even sold liquor and overseas charity food packages meant for starving children abroad — all paid for with taxpayer-funded benefits. Bonheur alone allegedly redeemed $6.8 million starting in 2022. U.S. Attorney Leah Foley called the case evidence of a serious breakdown in oversight, blasting states like Massachusetts for refusing to share recipient data with federal investigators under the Trump administration’s renewed push to crack down on welfare fraud. Foley warned that fraud is not isolated, but widespread. Christmas Sale – Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships The case echoes an even more massive scandal uncovered in Minnesota, where dozens of individuals — largely from the Somali immigrant community — have been charged in sprawling fraud schemes targeting federally funded child nutrition, Medicaid housing, and autism programs. In that case, prosecutors allege hundreds of millions of dollars were siphoned through fake nonprofits and shell companies. Law enforcement sources have further claimed that some of the stolen funds were routed overseas, including to Al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group — allegations now under federal investigation. While the alleged Haitian SNAP fraud is far smaller in scale, the pattern is disturbingly similar: small storefronts, minimal services, lax state oversight, and political resistance to federal scrutiny — all enabling fraud networks to thrive. Together, the cases highlight a systemic problem: massive welfare programs with weak controls, administered by states unwilling to cooperate with enforcement, become magnets for abuse. Meanwhile, taxpayers foot the bill, and legitimate recipients are left under suspicion as politicians and media downplay the scale of the fraud. As SNAP spending approaches $100 billion annually, these cases raise an unavoidable question: how many more schemes remain hidden — and who is protecting the system that allows them to continue?

The U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear program in June inflicted significant damage, creating critical bottlenecks across the country’s weapons-building supply chain that pushed Tehran’s nuclear ambitions into a period of uncertainty and disruption, according to post-strike assessments. Before the attacks, Iran was widely viewed as a nuclear threshold state, only months away from being able to assemble a nuclear weapon if its leadership chose to do so. It reportedly possessed sufficient enriched uranium — once further refined to weapons grade — to fuel as many as 22 nuclear weapons within five months, with enough material for roughly half that number available within weeks. Iranian scientists were reportedly accelerating work on weaponization, laying the groundwork for a final political decision by the supreme leader. The June strikes, carried out by the United States and Israel, targeted multiple layers of Iran’s nuclear enterprise. Analysts describe the damage in system-level terms: not only to individual facilities, but to the interconnected steps required to enrich fuel, fabricate weapon cores, and assemble a bomb. The attacks destroyed or severely damaged machinery, processing facilities, and stockpiles essential for producing highly enriched uranium. Iran’s route to weapons-grade plutonium was eliminated entirely. Equally consequential was the blow to Iran’s weaponization effort. Israeli strikes crippled facilities linked to bomb design and fuel-core production, struck administrative centers overseeing the program, and killed more than a dozen nuclear scientists. Even damage to a single element of this complex system, experts say, can dramatically slow progress; taken together, the losses represent a major setback. Yet the long-term impact remains uncertain. Iran has refused inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the only body capable of verifying what assets survived or could be recovered from underground sites. Tehran may attempt to rebuild, reconstituting capabilities over time. Christmas Sale – Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships Complicating matters further, Iran formally declared in October that all obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action had expired, ending international oversight of its nuclear activities. Since the strikes, Iran’s program appears to have entered a new phase marked by secrecy, disarray, and internal anxiety. Satellite imagery shows little activity at the bombed sites — Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan — where power systems were destroyed, and debris still blocks access. Still, concerns persist. Intelligence officials say Iran may retain a stockpile of 60% enriched uranium and could be seeking new underground enrichment sites, signaling that while the program has been battered, it has not necessarily been extinguished. According to FDD, regarding Iran’s centrifuge manufacturing, TABA/TESA Karaj and Esfahan tunnel sites have been destroyed, but the Natanz Pickaxe Mountain site is under construction. As for the testing and development of centrifuges, the Tehran Nuclear Research Center and the Kalaye Electric site have been destroyed. Vis-à-vis uranium production and mining, the Saghan 11 & 2 sites are still operational, but for uranium conversion, production of UF6, the Esfahan Uranium conversion facility was destroyed. As for uranium enrichment, the Natanz Pilot Fuel Enrichment plant was destroyed, and the Fordow Fuel Enrichment plant was deeply buried, so any intact highly enriched uranium would need to be excavated. Russia is still supplying enriched uranium fuel. Iran’s capacity for weaponizing uranium and plutonium has been severely degraded.

Christmas is a week away, and we’re all getting ready to celebrate. This weekend will be filled with last-minute shopping, baking, wrapping, and probably a party or two. And if you haven’t gotten out those Christmas cards yet, it’s totally fine to post a family photo on social media and call it a day. We’re taking our lead from the royal family this year and their lovely Christmas portrait. Prince William and Kate Middleton shared a photo of themselves with Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis sitting in a beautiful field of flowers. It’s a lovely modern take and shows that, at the end of the day, they’re a family just like us. View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Prince and Princess of Wales (@princeandprincessofwales) The Royal Family Looks So Happy in Their Christmas Portrait The royal family’s Christmas portrait looks like many of the Christmas cards we get in the mail every year. It’s a sweet family picture that lets all their personalities shine. They have big, happy smiles. We couldn’t help but start humming a familiar Christmas tune when we saw little Louis’ toothless grin. The photo received more than 375,000 likes on Instagram, where holiday wishes poured in. “What a beautiful picture!! I absolutely love it thank you so much for this wonderful surprise today! I love you guys so much! Merry Christmas,” someone wrote. “Such a beautiful family photo – I can feel the love you have for each other. From our house to yours, Merry Christmas – hope you have a lovely time,” another person agreed. “What a wonderful lovely family! So happy to see you all. May your holidays be merry and bright!” A royal enthusiast shared. We love the royal family’s new Christmas portrait and hope their holiday season is filled with love and joy. This story’s featured image is by Chris Jackson / POOL / AFP via Getty Images

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