Day: January 7, 2026
Rubio reportedly reveals Trump’s plan to acquire Greenland to bolster US defense
Secretary of State Marco Rubio reportedly told lawmakers that the Trump administration has aspirations to purchase Greenland from Denmark, tempering rumors that officials are considering forcibly seizing the island.
‘The United States is eager to build lasting commercial relationships that benefit Americans and the people of Greenland.’
During a closed briefing on Monday, Rubio and other administration officials briefed lawmakers about the operation to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and the plans for the country’s future, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Citing individuals said to be familiar with the recent briefing, the WSJ stated that Rubio “played down the idea that the U.S. could seize Greenland by force.” The report claimed that administration officials refused to rule out the possibility of an invasion.
However, the outlet noted that U.S. and European officials have reported no indications that the Trump administration is preparing for a military invasion of the self-governing Danish territory.
President Donald Trump told reporters on Sunday, “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and the European Union needs us to have it — and they know that.”
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Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images
“President Trump has made it well known that acquiring Greenland is a national security priority of the United States, and it’s vital to deter our adversaries in the Arctic region,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated. “The president and his team are discussing a range of options to pursue this important foreign policy goal, and of course, utilizing the U.S. military is always an option at the commander in chief’s disposal.”
Trump expressed interest in purchasing Greenland during his first term. He has insisted that controlling the island is essential for protecting the Arctic from Russia and China.
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Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images
“The United States is eager to build lasting commercial relationships that benefit Americans and the people of Greenland,” a State Department spokesperson told Blaze News. “Our common adversaries have been increasingly active in the Arctic. That is a concern that the United States, the Kingdom of Denmark, and NATO Allies share.”
The spokesperson added that Trump is committed to the United States’ relationship with Greenland, underscored by his decision to designate Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry (R) as special envoy.
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Infamous CIA officer turned Soviet spy dies in prison
After more than 30 years since pleading guilty to espionage that reportedly compromised several United States assets during the Cold War, an infamous Central Intelligence Agency officer has died in prison.
Aldrich Ames died on Monday, according to the Bureau of Prisons website.
Ames claimed he needed the money simply to pay debts and relieve ‘financial troubles, immediate and continuing.’
Ames was held in the Federal Correctional Institution in Cumberland, Maryland, where he was serving a life sentence without parole.
Ames, a career CIA agent, was arrested in 1994 on espionage charges years after he began cooperating with KGB agents in 1985. The information he provided to the Soviets is thought to have directly contributed to the compromising of several CIA and FBI sources, some of whom were executed after their discovery.
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Photo by Jeffrey Markowitz/Sygma via Getty Images
Over nearly a decade, Moscow paid him $2.5 million in exchange for betraying state secrets to the Soviets during and after the Cold War. Ames claimed he needed the money simply to pay debts and relieve “financial troubles, immediate and continuing.”
“Well, the reasons that I did what I did in April of 1985 were personal, banal, and amounted really to kind of greed and folly. As simple as that,” Ames said in an interview archived by the National Security Archive at George Washington University, according to Fox News.
“I knew quite well, when I gave the names of our agents in the Soviet Union, that I was exposing them to the full machinery of counterespionage and the law, and then prosecution, and capital punishment, certainly, in the case of KGB and GRU officers who would be tried in a military court, and certainly others, that they were almost all at least potentially liable to capital punishment,” he added. “There’s simply no question about this.”
Ames’ wife, Rosario, was sentenced to 63 months in prison on charges of assisting his espionage.
Ames was 84 years old at the time of his death.
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Journalist who exposed Minnesota day-care fraud says investigate THESE people now
Nick Shirley, a 23-year-old conservative YouTuber and independent journalist, gained national attention in late December 2025 after posting a viral 43-minute video titled, “I Investigated Minnesota’s Billion Dollar Fraud Scandal,” in which he visited several Minneapolis childcare centers — primarily Somali-run — and claimed they were empty or inactive despite receiving millions in federal and state government funding.
Shirley’s footage showed locked doors, blacked out windows, and no visible children during his visits despite public payment records, sparking national scrutiny, federal investigations by the FBI and DHS, a temporary freeze on childcare funding to Minnesota (and briefly nationwide), and political fallout — most notably Gov. Tim Walz (D) dropping his re-election bid.
On yesterday’s episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Shirley told Glenn that the Minnesota day-care fraud he exposed doesn’t even scratch the surface. If we want to see how deep the corruption really goes, there are several people who absolutely must be investigated.
Shirley’s first thought when he uncovered that massive fraud scheme was, “If millions — quite literally billions — of dollars is being given to these day-care centers, how come the government doesn’t know that the money is being spent here?”
More digging revealed the answer: “They’re all in on it,” he says.
“They just announced today the U.N. ambassador of Somalia is involved in all of this,” adds Glenn.
But he’s certainly not the only one with blood on his hands.
Tim Walz’s exit is almost certainly an evasion of deeper scrutiny or accountability for the fraud scandals. Glenn and Shirley agree that he must be investigated regardless.
But a Walz probe is just the beginning. “Everyone involved over at the capital in Minnesota and the DHS who was cutting the checks [needs to be investigated],” says Shirley.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who’s known for her advocacy for childcare funding, tops his list of people who need to be immediately investigated. “She has photos of her outside of ‘Quality Learing Center,”’ he says.
This center, which has repeatedly been mocked for missing the “n” in what is supposed to say “Learning,” was one of the main day-care centers featured in Shirley’s exposé. Extensive video footage shows a nearly empty parking lot, locked doors, and no visible activity despite the center receiving millions in funding and being licensed for dozens of kids.
Another person who needs to be investigated, says Shirley, is Omar Fateh, the Somali-American Democratic Socialist and Minnesota state senator who snagged a shady DFL endorsement in Minneapolis’ mayoral race through a rigged convention, only to have it stripped over vote irregularities.
“[Fateh] had a brother-in-law or some family member who was in charge of one of the day cares that had also been receiving $2 million, and they actually had so many violations they shut down the day care; then the next day they reopened,” says Shirley. “That guy was about to become mayor.”
“And so all these people are in on the fraud. They all know it’s happening,” he reiterates.
“Well, somebody clearly had to. You can’t have that much money rolling around. A lot of people knew,” Glenn agrees.
To hear more of the interview, watch the video above.
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Global warming powered an empire that dwarfed the Vikings
Popular culture loves its image of Norsemen shivering in fur pelts, raiding British monasteries, and braving the icy North Atlantic. Yet while Vikings struggled to survive on the thawing margins of Greenland, a far richer and more formidable maritime power flourished thousands of miles away in the tropical warmth of southern India.
That power was the Chola Empire.
A modern golden age remains within reach — provided we do not cripple ourselves with fear of the very conditions that have so often underwritten human prosperity.
At its height between 985 and 1044 A.D., the Cholas projected force on a scale that made Viking longships look like backyard skirmishers. Their ships were technological marvels — floating fortresses capable of transporting cavalry, infantry, and weeks of provisions across vast distances.
The Cholas mounted a major naval expedition against the Srivijaya Empire, a dominant maritime power based in what is now Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula. This was an amphibious assault conducted thousands of miles from home ports, a logistical achievement comparable to modern naval operations. The Cholas toppled rulers, secured the vital Malacca Strait, and guaranteed safe passage for merchant guilds trading from the Middle East to China.
On land, they maintained a standing army that included thousands of war elephants.
Their wealth also found expression in stone. The Great Living Chola Temples — now recognized as UNESCO World Heritage sites — stretch across southern India and neighboring islands. Built without modern machinery, these monumental structures relied on elephants to haul massive stones from distances of up to 60 miles.
Chola society possessed abundant labor, food, and wealth. The question is why.
What enabled a civilization to generate the immense caloric and economic surplus required to build stone monuments and launch armadas across the Indian Ocean? A large part of the answer lies in climate — specifically, global warming.
The rise of the Chola Empire coincided with the Medieval Warm Period, which lasted roughly from 900 to 1300 A.D. This relationship between warmth and human flourishing is inconvenient for the modern climate-industrial narrative, which treats rising temperatures as an unqualified catastrophe.
Warmth strengthens tropical monsoons, the lifeblood of agrarian economies like the Cholas’. Recent scientific research confirms that fluctuations in the Indian summer monsoon shaped agricultural output and the rise and fall of major dynasties. Indian civilization flourished during the Roman Warm Period, fractured during the Dark Ages Cold Period, and reached new heights under the Cholas during the Medieval Warm Period.
The Chola Empire was sustained by the very kind of warming modern activists describe as an “existential threat.”
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ajijchan via iStock/Getty Images
In the Cauvery Delta — the empire’s heartland — this favorable climate transformed the region into the “Rice Bowl of the South.” Three harvests a year became common. Granaries overflowed. Revenues surged.
That surplus freed labor from subsistence farming and redirected it toward imperial ambition. Chola trade guilds thrived, exporting textiles, spices, and grain to the Chinese Song Dynasty — another civilization that prospered during this warm epoch.
Today, we find ourselves in another warming phase, emerging from the depths of the Little Ice Age that ended in the mid-19th century. Global crop yields have repeatedly reached record highs. India has re-emerged as a major grain exporter. The planet is experiencing a measurable “greening” effect as higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels fertilize plants and warmer temperatures expand cultivable land.
Yet, we are told to feel guilty.
Coal, oil, and natural gas — fuels that protect humanity from the elements and power modern economies — are vilified. Environmental extremists implicitly argue for a colder world, despite the historical record showing that colder periods brought famine, disease, and social collapse.
The Chola Empire stands as a reminder of what human ingenuity can achieve when the climate cooperates. Its ships sailed on prosperity sustained by warmth. Its temples rose from a society rich in calories and confidence. Its civilization commanded respect across continents.
We face a similar opportunity today. A modern golden age remains within reach — provided we do not cripple ourselves with fear of the very conditions that have so often underwritten human prosperity.
‘Shameful revisionist history’: America250 faces scrutiny after posting ‘progressive propaganda’
As America celebrates its 250th year, the very organization planning the celebration has now been accused of spreading “progressive propaganda.”
On Tuesday, America250 made a post praising former President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his novel list of “freedoms.”
‘Celebrating the socialist campaign positions of FDR as fundamental to American history was not what I expected when I hit the follow button.’
In a graphic, the post says, “On this day in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt outlined four universal freedoms people the world over ought to enjoy.”
“Spoken during a moment of uncertainty, the Four Freedoms helped define what America stood for — and continues to stand for,” the post reads.
While the list starts with freedoms generally familiar to all Americans, specifically freedom of speech and freedom of worship, FDR also added a couple of novelties: “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear.”
RELATED: Soros-tied No Kings protesters plot to sabotage US Army’s 250th anniversary parade
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images
The Federalist’s Brianna Lyman called out what she called America250’s “progressive propaganda”: “‘Freedom from Want’ is not a constitutional freedom nor a natural right. It was invented by FDR and his socialist cohort to justify welfare expansion and redefine rights as government grants — flying directly in the face of what America *actually* stands for.”
“Making up a right like ‘Freedom from Want’ — and then pretending like this is a core American value, is shameful revisionist history from America250,” Lyman added.
At the end of the series of graphics, the America250 post says, “President Roosevelt spoke them. Norman Rockwell painted them. We will strive to live them.”
The Tennessee Star’s Tom Pappert commented, “Celebrating the socialist campaign positions of FDR as fundamental to American history was not what I expected when I hit the follow button.”
According to the America250 website, the “nonpartisan” U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission was established by Congress in 2016 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
While it is not clear who runs the social media accounts, notable figures on the commission include several members of Trump’s Cabinet, Democrat and Republican congressmen and senators, and 16 private citizens.
The chair of America250, Rosie Rios, was appointed by President Joe Biden and previously served in both the Obama and Biden administrations in some capacity, according to her biography.
Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and their spouses are listed as “honorary national co-chairs” of America250.
America250 did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.
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Jacque Esteves, umaasang makakasama sa ‘rAWnd 3’ ng SexBomb concert
Sinisikap ni SexBomb Jacque Esteves na makakasama na siya sa pangatlong pagtatanghal ng “Get, Get, Aw!” concert ng iconic Pinoy dance group na SexBomb Girls sa Pebrero.
Kokoy de Santos, sinagot ang tanong kung bakit wala pa siyang girlfriend
Inihayag ni Kokoy de Santos na hindi siya naghahanap ng lovelife ngayong 2026, ngunit hindi rin naman niya tatanggihan kung may darating.
‘I don’t’: AI wedding vows fall foul of Dutch law
A Dutch court broke the hearts of a couple after ruling that their marriage, whose wedding vows were drafted with the help of artificial intelligence, was not valid.
DMW chief to fly to Abu Dhabi to look into death of OFW
DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – Migrant Workers Secretary Hans Leo Cacdac will go to Abu Dhabi this week to personally look into the death of an overseas Filipino worker (OFW) there.
DSWD chief sends 100k more food packs to Bicol amid Mayon unrest
Social Welfare Secretary Rex Gatchalian on Wednesday ordered the release of an additional 100,000 family food packs (FFPs) to the Bicol Region for the families affected by Mayon Volcano”s ongoing unrest.
