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Dec 25, 2025 - World

Pope Leo XIV made an "unexpected gesture" at his Christmas service that is being taken as a dig at Trump's key policy.The pope, who has been accused of making "pointed remarks" aimed at Trump in the past, gave a Christmas speech largely devoid of political references. But the issue of immigration crept in, as Reuters reports:"Leo, celebrating his first Christmas after being elected in May by the world's cardinals to succeed the late Pope Francis, has a quieter, more diplomatic style than his predecessor and usually refrains from making political references in his sermons. In a later Christmas blessing, the pope, who has made care for immigrants a key theme of his early papacy, also lamented the situation for migrants and refugees who 'traverse the American continent'," the report states. "Leo, who has in the past criticized U.S. President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown, did not mention Trump. In a Christmas Eve sermon on Wednesday, the pope said refusing to help the poor and strangers was tantamount to rejecting God himself."He also raised eyebrows when he reportedly stepped out of the church into bad weather to great those in attendance."Pope Leo’s Christmas celebrations began with an unexpected gesture of hospitality. Before the liturgy even started, the newly elected pontiff — the first American to lead the Church — walked out into St. Peter’s Square to welcome about 5,000 people standing under a cold downpour," according to another report. "The basilica was filled to its 6,000-person capacity, yet Leo made sure those stuck outside knew they weren’t forgotten. 'I admire and respect and thank you for your courage and your wanting to be here this evening,' he told them, praising their perseverance 'even in this weather'."It continued:"It was a small moment, but a telling one: the pope literally stepped beyond the comfortable confines of the church to be with people who had no room inside. That image set the stage for the message he would soon deliver in his homily."Christopher Hale, a ’20 Democratic nominee for Congress, connected it to immigration."Midnight Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica was standing-room-only — and thousands stood outside in the cold rain. Before the liturgy began, Pope Leo stepped away from the altar and walked into the square to greet them. It wasn’t just an act of kindness. It was a visible sign of the homily to come: a society that shuts out migrants and the poor shuts out Christ," according to Hale.That message was also shared by ex-GOP lawmaker and prominent Trump critic Barbara Comstock.

Dec 23, 2025 - World

“Terrorism for accelerationism, then we get the military supplies to everyone and start war,” a group chat leader wrote on the encrypted platform Signal in October 2024, to almost 150 members spread across Europe, the United States and Australia. “People need to see lone wolves acting to become empowered,” he continued. Using a slur, the chat leader added that the conspirators needed to set an example by carrying out acts of violence against Jews. He also suggested “attacking mosques” to “make Muslims more angry.” If Muslims were agitated, he reasoned, it would only serve to radicalize more white people.The screed also included a list of chemicals, with the advice that lye would work well for burning the faces of Jewish people.“Need to spray them with some water to dissolve the powder, but not too much to dilute it (so we want maximum flesh eating),” the post read.Promoting a longstanding white supremacist conspiracy theory that Jews control the governments of Western democracies, the chat leader wrote: “We must weaken them, spread them out, create chaos for them, destroy their infrastructure, their media, raid their military depots, bomb their banks, we must be smart and destroy them using the edges that we have.”The Signal group was named Black Sun Rising Militia. “Black Sun” refers to the sonnenrad, an ancient European symbol used by the Nazis during World War II.Written on Oct. 12, 2024, the Signal messages were meant to rally group members for what was described as a planned coordinated strike against targets across Western Europe and the United States, to take place four days later.A target list posted in the group shows that the leader was preoccupied with terrorizing Jewish people, while seeking to strike at institutions that underpin Western democracies. Target categories included “all synagogues”; “all Jewish centers and schools”; “all Israeli embassies and consulates”; “all mosques”; “all migrant centers/camps/housing”; “all big banks/finance companies”; “all big pharma companies”; “all big tech companies”; “all big media/news companies” and “all Western government buildings.”But on Oct. 14, after advising one group member that he would “basically be slicing necks,” the leader suddenly went quiet. With the planned attack only two days away, chat members grew nervous.“Surprising to see members here don’t know much about the owner and leader of this group,” one wrote on Oct. 15. “Meaning if he’s arrested or dead, black sun militia dies.”Another member waved off such concerns.“Why would it die?” they wrote. “The members keep it alive.”“No worries,” they added. “Tomorrow in the US will be some fun, but not for Jews. You can be sure you will hear from him tomorrow. That will be nice.”As it turned out, the leader — a man named Vincent Weidlich, in his mid-thirties, raised in America — had gone quiet for a reason. He had been arrested in Brazil.A double lifeWeidlich appeared to have led a double life. While assembling a network of violent Nazis preparing for a global race war, he was also pursuing a career as an academic researcher focused on artificial intelligence and neuroscience. Raised in California by parents from Germany and Brazil, Weidlich obtained a bachelor’s degree in business management from Kingston University in London in 2020, according to his Academia profile. Beginning around 2023, he began to intensify his work on artificial intelligence by enlisting contributors for an academic paper, forming a company and sharing ideas with global counterparts through the gaming platform Discord.Few if any of his research associates appeared to have known of his other life, which culminated in his arrest in Brazil.Michele Prado, a special advisor at the NUPVE-MPRS (Extreme Violence Prevention Unit) in the public prosecutor's office for the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul, confirmed to Raw Story that Weidlich was charged with terrorism following an investigation by Brazil’s Federal Police Cyber Hate Crimes Repression Unit, as first reported by the Swedish public broadcaster SVT Nyheter.Weidlich had previously been identified by freelance journalist My Vingren in a 2023 story for Expo, a Swedish organization that combats racism, after Vingren infiltrated an online group called the Nordic Federation that Weidlich organized while living in Norway. SVT Nyheter reported that Weidlich was convicted in São Paulo of “planning and preparation for acts of terrorism and for publicly inciting genocide.” Weidlich’s lawyer, according to the report, argued that he could not be held criminally liable on the basis of insanity. The outlet reported that Weidlich was sentenced to “forensic psychiatric care indefinitely.”Weidlich's legal proceedings are subject to a judicial secrecy order issued by the Brazilian courts, said Flávio Rolim, head of the Brazilian Federal Police Cyber Hate Crimes Unit, which handled the initial phase of the investigation. As a result of the secrecy order, Rolim told Raw Story he was unable to "provide information regarding the investigation or the status of the judicial proceedings."Raw Story reached out to Weidlich’s lawyer in Brazil, but did not receive a response.Reached by phone, Georg Weidlich, Vincent’s father, denied that his son was convicted on terrorism charges.“All slander,” he told Raw Story, before warning of “legal action” and cutting off the conversation.A thwarted attackVingren, the journalist, alerted the Swedish Security Service about the planned terrorist attacks before Vincent Weidlich was arrested in Brazil, SVT Nyheter reported. Raw Story also reviewed the Signal chats. Shortly before Oct. 16, 2024, Raw Story passed the information on to an intermediary believed to have contact with federal law enforcement and global security personnel. After Oct. 16 saw no reports of significant terrorist attacks, the Black Sun Militia chat descended into squabbling.One member suggested the leader’s disappearance showed the project had been nothing more than a charade. Others insisted everyone should feel empowered to carry out strikes on their own.“It’s true that he hasn’t been online for a while,” another member wrote, “but I don’t think we should go crazy over it. We just need to do our thing. And today is the day!”At least one splinter cell appears to have continued to plan. Three members set up a separate Hungarian “branch” with its own Signal group.“You don’t have to worry about Hungarians bro,” one member posted in the general group. “We are doing what we want. Relax.” Black Sun Rising Militia members discuss plans for a coordinated attack on Oct. 16, 2024, in Signal posts obtained by Raw StoryOne week after Oct. 16, six Hungarian “young people” armed with “airsoft and deactivated weapons” were detained by authorities, suspected of planning an attack targeting “protected persons,” according to Index, a Hungarian news outlet. It’s not clear that the planned Budapest attack was linked to the neo-Nazi terror plot, but at least one member of the Black Sun Rising Militia seemed to think so.“It seems that the Hungarian group is quiet for a reason,” a member posted on Oct. 23, adding a link to a story about the arrests.Index reported that Hungarian authorities had received a notice from the U.S. Secret Service about two weeks earlier, warning of an attack on Oct. 23, the anniversary of the 1956 Hungarian uprising against the Soviet Union. Russia linksAt the time he launched a neo-Nazi Signal group rife with talk about radicalizing white people and driving people of color out of Europe and the U.S., Weidlich was also cultivating a community of scientific researchers that included individuals from India and at least two Asian students studying at American universities.In both the Black Sun Rising Militia Signal group and a Discord channel where he convened researchers, Weidlich posted cryptic messages about plans for operations in Russia. According to Vingren’s report, police who searched Weidlich’s phone at the time of his Oct. 14, 2024 arrest found “a Russian-language land agreement.” In his home, they discovered a stash of chemical precursors for explosives.Prior to Weidlich’s arrest, Vingren reported, Weidlich had written in the Black Sun Rising Militia Signal group: “We have bought a large piece of land in Russia, and we are building our village now.”Raw Story found evidence of Weidlich’s interest in Russia in his efforts to build a professional network around AI and neuroscience research.In September 2023, after Weidlich relocated to Brazil from Norway, the Unlimited Research Cooperative Discord server launched. At least two members — a college student in the U.S. and a high school student in India — would be listed as co-authors with Weidlich and his father on an academic paper. There is no suggestion any of the other co-authors were aware of or endorsed Vincent Weidlich’s neo-Nazi activities.Entitled “AI-Driven Physics-Informed Bio-Silicon Intelligence System,” the paper describes a project that matches the mission of Synthetic Intelligence Labs, a company Vincent Weidlich incorporated in summer 2024 in Sheffield, U.K. and Palo Alto, California. On the paper and on the articles of incorporation, Weidlich used a pseudonym: Vincent Jorgsson.“Envision connecting a rat’s brain to a computer to form an integrated system capable of playing a complex game like Doom,” an AI-generated narrator says in a video on the company’s TikTok channel. “It’s not science-fiction. It’s the reality we’re building.”A screengrab from the Unlimited Research Cooperative Discord server obtained by Raw Story indicates that in the same month Weidlich incorporated Synthetic Intelligence Labs, he discussed a project in Russia.“For legal purposes, the off-grid lab community will be under another company that we don’t do business with, due to Russian-western political stuff,” the post reads. “There will be open communication between Synthetic Intelligence Labs and the other company in Russia.” Vincent Weidlich. Picture: Academia.eduOn Sept. 11, 2024, though, Weidlich said he was leaving the Unlimited Research Cooperative Discord server.“Things are progressing very well, but the workload is increasing for me,” he wrote. “I will no longer be able to be regularly using Discord, so I am passing the server ownership and running to our assistant. “Farewell to all, and if you need to contact me for collaboration and research, feel free to send an email. It was great to meet everyone!”Only two days earlier, a Telegram channel appeared with an invitation to the Black Sun Rising Militia Signal group.The goal of the militia, an introductory message explained, was to “kill every single Jew in the world” and to send all Black people and people of color “back to where they came from (or kill them if they refuse).“Attacks start on October 16, and will not stop until we destroy the Jewish infrastructure and every [Jew] that exists on earth.”

Dec 22, 2025 - World

As the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) looks to shed as many as 35,000 mostly vacant health-care jobs this month — having already cut nearly 30,000 since President Donald Trump returned to office — a disabled Vietnam veteran has gone public, railing against the administration.Ronn Easton, 76, is the face of a new video calling out the Trump administration for its attacks on veterans and produced by Home of the Brave, a nonprofit focused on portraying what it calls “catastrophic harm” under Trump.“This is not what I intended my retirement years to be like,” Easton told Raw Story.“I've only taken one oath in my life, and there is no expiration date on that oath, and that oath says that I am to defend this country against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and right now, as I have said many, many times, Donald John Trump is the biggest threat to democracy that this country will ever see. “I'm duty-bound to do whatever I can to fight against it, and I will do that until the day I die.”‘Veterans' lives at risk’Last week, Trump announced a $1,776 “veterans dividend” — its value symbolizing the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the Revolutionary War against Great Britain.Analysts pointed out that Trump misrepresented the source of the cash, implying it was raised by tariffs when in fact it was money already approved by Congress for a one-time housing allowance.In his new video, Easton said Trump’s latest VA moves are “killing soldiers,” particularly as veterans need access to VA health care and suicide hotline resources.Easton served as an armorer in the Vietnam War, enlisting after two childhood friends were killed in action. He said he has used the Veterans Crisis Line himself.Following his service, Easton became 100 percent disabled, diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), tinnitus, neuropathy and Type 2 diabetes due to exposure to Agent Orange, the cancer- and neurological disease-causing herbicide used in Vietnam to clear enemy hiding spots.“There have been times where I have had a gun in my mouth, but I made a promise to my daughter, to my bride, that I would never do something like that,” Easton said. “That's not an option for me anymore, so that's why I do what I do now. I fight.”With the Trump administration cutting billions of dollars in medical research funding, including cancer research, veterans end up suffering as many have cancer due to exposure to chemical agents like Agent Orange, Easton said.“All they're doing is putting veterans’ lives at risk again,” Easton said.Easton puts a lot of the responsibility on Elon Musk, who led the now-sunset Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which took a sledgehammer approach to cutting government funding and employees in the first months of Trump’s second term.“People like that, who come in and make little of veterans, and they do all of these cuts to the VA, where they fired thousands of people, and all that does is affect the health care [for] people who have served this country,” Easton said.‘Pattern of callousness’Easton first got fired up about speaking out against Trump when he watched the then-2016 presidential candidate imply that veterans with PTSD weren’t strong enough, during an address at the United States Military Academy, at West Point.Trump, 79, has long attracted skepticism and anger among veterans, given his own record of avoiding service during the Vietnam War.Trump received five draft deferments — four educational and one medical, over a diagnosis of bone spurs in his heels that has been widely questioned.He famously said avoiding sexually transmitted diseases in Manhattan nightclubs in the 1970s was his “personal Vietnam.”On entering politics, Trump also courted controversy with attacks on John McCain, the late Republican presidential candidate and Arizona senator who suffered torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam."He's a war hero because he was captured,” Trump famously said of McCain in 2015. “I like people that weren't captured."Easton said Trump had continued a pattern of “callousness and the lack of caring” toward veterans over the years, including recent controversy over photo opportunities at Arlington National Cemetery.Easton, a former epidemiologist with the Minnesota Department of Health, started a new podcast this fall focused on current events, where he frequently hosts veterans. Called Cover Your Six — a military term for “I’ve got your back” — the podcast is the latest of Easton’s efforts to speak out against racism and injustices, which he said he learned from his grandmother, a civil rights activist with the NAACP who hosted figures including late icons John Lewis and Martin Luther King, Jr. in her Memphis living room. “I've been a warrior all my life,” Easton said.

Dec 21, 2025 - World

A third oil tanker in the Caribbean was boarded and seized Sunday by the U.S. military as the Trump administration’s military threats against Venezuela continue to escalate, Bloomberg reported.The vessel is known as the “Bella 1,” a sea vessel sanctioned by the United States that was headed to Venezuela to be loaded up with oil, according to a person “with knowledge of the matter” who spoke with Bloomberg on the condition of anonymity. The seizure comes just one day after the administration seized another sea vessel in the Caribbean, and less than two weeks after the administration’s first seizure of an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. President Donald Trump ordered a blockade on all sanctioned oil tankers coming from and leaving Venezuela last week.Trump has ramped up military threats against Venezuela in recent months, launching a number of deadly strikes on suspected drug-carrying vessels that have killed at least 95 people, closed the nation’s airspace, deployed an aircraft carrier strike group to Venezuela’s coast, and suggested U.S. land operations in the South American “very soon.” Trump has also considered assassinating its president, Nicolas Maduro.

Dec 20, 2025 - World

Donald Trump is ready to launch an illegitimate war against a nation that did us no harm in a cynical bid to make America love him again.I think it’s that simple.No, his war-mongering isn’t about the midterms. If the president cared about politics, he would act politically. He would, for instance, prevent his supporters from being emmiserated by skyrocketing health insurance premiums. As it is, he allows the House Speaker to suggest in front of television cameras that some Trump voters are expendable.If Trump cared about politics, he would care about his public image — and the effect of that image on the GOP’s fortunes. He wouldn’t p--- on the still-warm bodies of Rob Reiner and his wife, who seem to have been killed by their troubled son. He wouldn’t suggest that the creator of beloved films like This Is Spinal Tap, Stand by Me and The Princess Bride had it coming. He wouldn’t hint at wanting more of the same.If Trump cared about politics, he would do what every single president has done in the face of economic crises. He would say something to the effect of, “I get it. Things are bad right now and I’m gonna do something about it.” Lots of presidents can’t live up to their promises, or don’t bother to follow through on them, but no president in our lifetimes has said to the American people that their hardship is “a hoax” and anyway, kids don’t need that many Christmas presents.Some say the president’s saber-rattling over Venezuela is a bid to revive his party’s chances before the midterms. Others say it’s just another distraction from issues that are dogging him (eg, “the Epstein files”). But I think the reasons are dumber. Consider Harry Enten:"The report card is negative. Every single day since March 12, Trump has been in the red. Two hundred and twenty-eight days in a row. The bottom line is Americans don't like what Trump is doing and they haven't liked what Trump's been doing for a long period of time."To Trump, for whom “ratings” are everything, this is certainly evidence of America falling out of love with him. What can he do? Oh, America loves a war president! They are strong. They are tough. They look good on TV! If Donald Trump can become a war president, no matter how much he’s failing otherwise, America will love him again!What we’re seeing isn’t the behavior of a politician.It’s the behavior of a man drunk on power.In understanding this, let’s thank Susie Wiles. Trump’s chief of staff told Vanity Fair that JD Vance has “been a conspiracy theorist for a decade.” She said Elon Musk is “an avowed ketamine” user and “an odd, odd duck.” She said Russ Vought is “a right-wing absolute zealot.” And she said Pam Bondi “completely whiffed” at handling “the Epstein files.”But her greatest unintentional insight was reserved for Trump.He “has an alcoholic’s personality,” she said.In characterizing him that way, Wiles brings forward the idea that there’s no higher-order thing — not morality, decency or honor — that can rival Trump’s insatiable need. In his case, it’s not a need for booze. It’s a need for power, attention, validation, and, I would suggest, love.Everyone must love him or everyone must pay. The president might turn desperate in order to make that happen, even launching a war against a nation that did us no harm. But he won’t succeed. Drunks, or in his case dry drunks, can’t get enough. They can only hit bottom.In threatening war to force us to love him, Trump illustrates something Jen Mercieca told me. A communications and journalism professor at Texas A&M, she said autocrats “try to project strength, masculinity and virility, because they believe that those are the characteristics of strong leaders. Yet scholars who study leadership find that those autocratic ways of leading are actually weaknesses.”That weakness could be hastening Trump’s descent to the bottom, she said. “According to recent polling, this government is very unpopular. If the elections are fair and free in 2026, we would expect to see what they called an 'electoral purification' in 1816. That's when the majority of Congress were kicked out for the self-dealing Compensation Act.”A president drunk of power is in need of purification.Here’s my conversation with Jen.JS: After the election, you wrote: "The fascists won temporarily, but fascism is for losers. They'll fail. They are con men and swindlers. And when they do lose, we make a real democracy. The kind they hate. Their ‘creative destruction’ will be democracy rising." How are we doing now?JM: The only way forward is through it. And we're going through it. The rule of law does not constrain autocrats. Rather, they "rule by law" — using the law as a cudgel to punish enemies and outsiders.Autocrats are not "cognitively responsible" leaders. They don't want to explain why they do things. They act first and make up reasons later.This is the way Trump's second term has operated and so problems like the economy and affordability are only getting worse. That's the way it works when all accountability is stripped from government.According to recent polling, this government is very unpopular. If the elections are fair and free in 2026, we would expect to see what they called an "electoral purification" in 1816. That's when the majority of Congress were kicked out for the self-dealing Compensation Act.Before Trump returned, he presented himself rhetorically as macho. His campaign regularly featured the song "Macho Man" (without being aware, seemingly, that it's a gay anthem.) Yet now, the long macho man con is slipping. What should his opponents do with that?It's almost cartoonish to think about what autocrats think is leadership and what actually constitutes good leadership. Autocrats try to project strength, masculinity and virility, because they believe that those are the characteristics of strong leaders. Yet scholars who study leadership find that those autocratic ways of leading are actually weaknesses. The best leaders are empathetic, inclusive and dialogic – the very opposite of the autocratic projection. Trump's opponents should hold him accountable to the rule of law, the Constitution of the US, and the basic American values of dignity, decorum and decency.Marjorie Taylor Greene seemed to signal to QAnon believers that Trump isn't the hero of the story about the battle between good and evil. What's going on? Did Trump take believers for granted?Trump is a lame duck, so lots of people are trying to figure out how to take over after he is out of power. Greene seems to be making a play to inherit the maga movement and it appears as though she's decided to make that play by attempting to erode Trump's base of support.She would like to drive a wedge between Trump and his followers, which would position her for 2028 as an outsider. Essentially, Greene has argued that she knows exactly why America is still corrupt, even after Trump promised that he would end corruption. Politicians typically run on a hero narrative that argues that they are the right hero for the moment and only their election can save the nation.In 2016, Trump argued that he had been a corrupt insider himself and because of that, only he knew how to fix corruption and make America great again. Based on recent polling, most Americans don't think that Trump has made America any greater, so it is perhaps politically expedient to separate Trump from the maga movement – though it's unclear if that movement can survive without Trump.You have said that the public square is dominated by conspiracy theory. Everyone knows at least one person who's been indoctrinated. It's like Sen. Joe McCarthy never died. What can we do?Conspiracy is incredibly enticing and most of us have succumbed to conspiratorial ways of thinking. A conspiracy theory is a narrative that is "self-sealing," meaning evidence is not allowed to count against it. The narrative can never be proven, but it can also never be disproven.Conspiracy rhetoric is like a “self-sealing” tire that has magic goo in it to prevent it from popping when you run over a nail. Conspiracy rhetoric is a “self-sealing” narrative that prevents it from popping when confronted by facts, logic or evidence. We're all vulnerable to conspiracy narratives, because believing in them makes us heroes.We're vulnerable because of basic cognitive biases like motivated reasoning and confirmation bias. We're also vulnerable because our information environment is designed to spread conspiracy. And we're vulnerable because we've lost trust in institutions, the political process, the media and each other. We're quite vulnerable to conspiracy, which makes it a profitable way to engage in the public sphere for people who like to exploit our vulnerabilities.