Category: News
Tiger Woods turns 50. It’s the one time golf’s greats can relate to him.
Talk to any golfer who played against Tiger Woods and there is sure to be at least one story about one shot so sublime they were certain it could not be hit by them or anyone else.
He was just different. Better.
The 2-iron Woods hit into the par-5 10th hole at the TPC Sugarloaf led Stewart Cink to say, “This is a skill set I don’t have.” Padraig Harrington once saw Woods hit an 8-iron so majestic at Firestone that it got in his head and led to the Irishman making triple bogey.
Nick Price played the opening two rounds with Woods at St. Andrews in the 2000 British Open and felt the tournament already was over. Mark O’Meara played a practice round with him at Pebble Beach before the 2000 U.S. Open and told his wife before the championship started, “Tiger is going to win. And not only is he going to win, he’s going to blow away the field.” Woods won by 15.
For all those years, so many greats in the game could never relate to Woods. And now, finally, they can.
Not even Woods can beat time. He turns 50 on Tuesday.
It’s a milestone for anyone, but it’s different in golf because the sport can be played well after the age when athletes have long retired in other sports. Phil Mickelson won a major at 50. Jack Nicklaus made an early Sunday charge at the Masters when he was 58.
With Woods, it’s complicated.
He now is eligible for the 50-and-older PGA Tour Champions. He also has had more surgeries than the 15 majors he won. This is the first year he didn’t play a single tournament, the result of a ruptured Achilles tendon in March and a seventh back surgery in September.
“I’m probably going to play 25 events on both tours and I think that should cover most of the year, right?” Woods quipped in the Bahamas when asked about turning 50.
He won the U.S. Open just eight days before reconstructive surgery on his left knee. He won the Masters two years after surgery to fuse his lower back. But he hasn’t been the same since that 2021 car crash in Los Angeles. Woods has played 11 times the last five seasons, finished only four of those tournaments and hasn’t been closer than 16 shots to the winner.
“Come back to what point?” Woods said. “I’d like to come back to just playing golf again.”
And so this celebration is more about looking back than forward.
Ernie Els was most prescient in 2000 at Kapalua when he was on the losing end again — no one finished second to Woods more than the Big Easy. They matched eagles on the 18th in regulation, birdies on the 18th in a playoff and Woods got him with a 40-foot birdie putt on the second extra hole. Vintage Tiger.
“I think he’s a legend in the making,” Els said that day. “He’s 24. He’s probably going to be bigger than Elvis when he gets into his 40s.”
That’s up for debate, of course. Undeniable is the impact Woods has left on golf.
Popularity soared and prize money skyrocketed. Woods made golf look different and he made it cool. And perhaps his greatest legacy is he unwittingly trained a generation of players who wanted to be like him. Scottie Scheffler said nothing inspired him more than watching the intensity of Woods when he was out of contention at the 2020 Masters. Woods made a 10 on the 12th hole and followed with five birdies over his last six holes. He tied for 38th.
“Tiger was just different in the way he approached each shot. It was like the last shot he was ever going to hit,” Scheffler said. It was the only time they played together. Scheffler now is coming up on three years at No. 1 in the world, the longest stretch since Woods.
But it started with that skill set unlike any other.
“He’s the only guy I’ve ever known who continually exceeded expectations,” Tom Lehman said. “No matter how much you heaped on him, he found a way to exceed them.”
Lehman recalls one moment at the Memorial on the 17th hole, a green so rock-hard it felt impossible to get it close. Lehman hit 5-iron as high and far as he could and was pleased to see it roll out 25 feet from the cup.
“He hits this shot way up in the air and it was coming down like a parachute,” Lehman said. “Lands by the cup and bounces 2 feet and stops. I figure he must have hit a 7-iron. I said, ‘Tiger, what club was that?’ He said, ‘That was a little, three-finger 5-iron.’ He just filleted it in there.
“When I think of him, that’s what I think of. Only one guy could hit that shot. And he did it often.”
Woods had the career Grand Slam at age 24, the youngest of anyone. He had 50 wins worldwide and 10 majors before he turned 30.
It wasn’t as easy as he could make it look. The late Dan Jenkins once said when Woods was in peak form, “Only two things can stop Tiger — injury or a bad marriage.” Turns out it was both. His path was derailed at the end of 2009 by revelations of multiple extramarital affairs, and the injuries kept piling up. He still made it back to No. 1 in the world in 2013 and he ran his PGA Tour victory count to 82, tied with Sam Snead.
“If he never got injured, he’d have 25 majors and 125 wins,” Fred Couples said.
Matt Kuchar saw it differently. He felt the injuries contributed to the legend of Woods, particularly that 2008 U.S. Open win at Torrey Pines.
Woods was playing that week on shredded ligaments in his left knee and two stress fractures in his left leg. Often overlooked is that Woods had not walked 18 holes since the Masters until the opening round at Torrey Pines.
“The legacy is bigger because of the injuries,” Kuchar said. “What he did at Torrey Pines, what he did at the (2019) Masters is sort of Hoganesque. At some point I, like most everybody, counted him out. And then he wins again.”
Woods is keeping plenty busy outside the ropes. He was appointed to the PGA Tour policy board without a term limit in 2023 as the tour was in the midst of its battle with Saudi-funded LIV Golf. He now heads up the Future Competition Committee charged with reshaping the tour model.
The next question is when — and where — he plays. Woods is the only player to have won the U.S. Junior Amateur, U.S. Amateur and U.S. Open. The U.S. Senior Open is at Scioto, the Ohio course where Jack Nicklaus learned to play.
April at Augusta isn’t the same without Woods. He set the Masters record in 2024 by making the cut for the 24th consecutive time. How much more? How much longer?
“People want to see him,” Kuchar said. “And if he shoots 76, people still want to see him. He’s unique in our sport.”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/29/tiger-woods-turns-50/
Former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua involved in a car accident in Nigeria
LAGOS, Nigeria — Anthony Joshua, the Nigerian-British boxer and former world heavyweight champion, was involved in a car accident that killed two other passengers in Nigeria on Monday.
The Lagos state commissioner for information, Gbenga Omotoso, confirmed the accident in a post on X, adding that the government had sent ambulances to the crash site. Local media reports say the boxer has been transferred to a hospital. The cause of the crash remains unclear.
Photos on social media show the boxer being extricated from a wrecked vehicle while he was wincing in pain.
The accident occurred on a major thoroughfare linking Ogun state, a nearby city, to Lagos, the country’s economic center.
“Anthony Joshua is in an undisclosed hospital being treated for his injuries,” police chief of the local station in the jurisdiction the accident had occurred told the AP. He said he has no further information on the injuries.
Nigeria is the homeland of Joshua’s parents and where he briefly went to boarding school at the age of 11.
Joshua had recently beaten YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul nine days ago in a bout in Miami, which he was using to regain sharpness in the ring ahead of an attempt to reclaim the world heavyweight title, which he lost in 2021 to Oleksandr Usyk.
He has been in talks to fight fellow Briton Tyson Fury in 2026.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/29/anthony-joshua-car-accident-nigeria/
Did US Land Strikes On Venezuela Begin Last Week & No One Knew It?
Did US Land Strikes On Venezuela Begin Last Week & No One Knew It?
President Trump on Friday in a radio interview disclosed something which missed the attention of the US and global media. He let slip that a large land site had been knocked out by a strike from US forces in the Caribbean – however without specifying which country was hit (whether Venezuela or perhaps Colombia).
Trump may have actually assumed the attack which he disclosed publicly for the first time was already being reported on, but it had not. He was being interviewed by John Catsimatidis, the Republican billionaire who owns the WABC radio station in New York on his The Cats & Cosby Show, and the two were talking about the Venezuela campaign.
Illustrative: Venezuela coast, Wiki Commons
The United States had knocked out “a big facility” last week, Trump described somewhat vaguely, in apparent reference to a drug facility on the Latin American coast.
“They have a big plant or a big facility where the ships come from,” Trump said, though he did not explicitly identify the exact location or even country attacked. “Two nights ago we knocked that out.”
According to the full remarks in context, the president said:
“But every time I knock out a boat, we save 25,000 American lives. It’s very simple. And what’s happening is they’re having a hard time employment-wise, they can’t get anybody.
And we just talked out, I don’t know if you read or you saw, they [Venezuela] have a big plant or a big facility where the ships come from. Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard. But drugs are down over 97 percent. Can you believe it?”
Some unnamed American officials suggested to the New York Times that the Commander-in-Chief was referring to a drug facility in Venezuela:
Trump did not name the location of the facility, though American officials told the New York Times that the president was referring to a drug facility in Venezuela that was eliminated. The president’s comment is the only report of such an attack. No other Latin American government, including Venezuela, has disclosed a strike of this sort.
But information or confirmation other than that disclosure remains a mystery, as neither the CIA nor Pentagon have commented, as the NY Times notes:
If Mr. Trump’s suggestion that the United States had struck a site in the region proves accurate, it would be the first known attack on land since he began his military campaign against Venezuela. U.S. officials declined to specify anything about the site the president said was hit, where it was located, how the attack was carried out or what role the facility played in drug trafficking. There has been no public report of an attack from the Venezuelan government or any other authorities in the region.
Listen to the audio below:
Trump speaking on Venezuela appear to suggest the U.S. has already carried out land strikes. Listen for yourself.
“But every time I knock out a boat, we save 25,000 American lives. It’s very simple. And what’s happening is they’re having a hard time employment-wise, they can’t… pic.twitter.com/uySMAu23Bi
— Faytuks Network (@FaytuksNetwork) December 28, 2025
Speculation has quickly begun in an effort to identify which facility was hit and what damage was done. Some analysts have highlighted the below explosion reported by local Venezuelans, given the timing fits (Wednesday, Dec. 24).
The local reporter’s commentary reads according to (machine) translation, A new large explosion was reported from the Industrial Zone of the San Francisco municipality, Zulia state, in the early morning of this December 24.
#24Dic📹#Sucesos Una nueva gran explosión se reportó desde la Zona Industrial del municipio San Francisco, estado Zulia, la madrugada de este 24 de diciembre.
Vía: @Jhormancruz1#SanFrancisco pic.twitter.com/KM74H69lRH
— El Martillo Venezuela (@ElMartilloVen) December 24, 2025
This is in Venezuela’s second largest city, in the northwest corner of the country, and near the coast.
If the Pentagon did indeed take out a “large facility” on land, as Trump’s words indicate, it suggests the US may not initiate a major war in quick ‘shock and awe’ style, but will opt for sporadic strikes which limit military action to specified targets. So the ‘war’ might be a slow burn after all – which also means the Pentagon force build-up in the Caribbean is there to stay for a while.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/29/2025 – 09:20
Ilhan Omar’s Husband’s Venture Capital Firm Removes Names From Website Under Scrutiny
Ilhan Omar’s Husband’s Venture Capital Firm Removes Names From Website Under Scrutiny
Authored by Bryan Jung via PJMedia.com,
A venture capital firm run by Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) husband quietly scrubbed important names from its website, as the Minnesota congresswoman faces mounting questions on her sudden wealth amid a multi-billion Somali welfare fraud scheme in her district.
Rose Lake Capital, the $60 million dollar firm managed by Omar’s husband, political consultant Tim Mynett, deleted key officers from its website, including former Obama Administration officials, reported the New York Post in an exclusive.
The news comes as Somali communities across multiple states are currently facing scrutiny over dozens of similarly fraudulent schemes that have seen billions of taxpayer dollars flowing overseas, with some even going to jihadist terrorist groups in Somalia.
Nine billion dollars from Minnesota’s social services programs were illegally pocketed via scams mostly perpetrated by local members of the Somali community in Omar’s congressional district, according to an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.
The Minnesota congresswoman, a member of the “the Squad” who was born in Somalia, is an outspoken figure on the far-left wing of the House Democratic caucus
Omar suspiciously went from holding tens of thousands in debt to earning tens of millions in a single year, not long after taking office in 2019 on a congressperson’s annual salary of $174,000, the Washington Free Beacon reported in September.
Her critics have recently pointed to the fact that she was the prime mover in introducing the federal legislation that enabled what the DOJ has called the largest fraud committed in the United States during the pandemic.
Minnesota’s Democrat governor and failed vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz is continuing to face criticism for his part in the mismanagement and alleged complicity in the debacle, as calls for federal charges against him grow louder.
The Somalia-born Omar introduced in 2020 the MEALS Act, which severely weakened oversight of government-sponsored children’s meals programs during the pandemic.
This allowed criminals to fraudulently claim that they served millions of meals without verification, while pocketing millions of dollars in government subsidies, say critics.
The $9 billion stolen is nearly equivalent to the entire economy of Somalia, whose GDP was under $12 billion last year, according to the World Bank.
The total losses accounts for roughly half of the $18 billion in total federal funds provided to the Minnesota-run services since 2018, say federal prosecutors.
Meanwhile, while one of the largest government subsidies frauds in American history was underway, Mynett launched Rose Lake Capital, his venture capital management firm, in 2022.
Mynett’s firm saw its reported value skyrocket from less than $1,000 in 2023, to between $5 million and $25 million by the end of the year, despite its address remaining a WeWork office in Washington, D.C., according to its LinkedIn page.
Rose Lake Capital apparently was able to amass significant assets under management through its “deep global networks built from on-the-ground work in more than 80 countries,” an amount which is normally unheard of in the industry.
Her husband’s other business, eStCru, was a failed California winery venture that has also faced fraud allegations and, strangely enough, was also listed as operating out of a WeWork office.
Mynett’s winery, which was worth between $1 million and $5 million in 2024, agreed to an out-of-court settlement with a former investor in November who accused Omar’s husband of swindling him out of $900,000, as he “fraudulently misrepresented … that estCru, LLC was a legitimate company.”
The winery was only worth between $15,000 and $50,000 in Omar’s financial disclosure report in 2022, making its 9,900% earnings windfall the following year suspect, say critics.
About 90 Minnesotan Somalis have been arrested so far, including at least three suspects with direct ties to Omar, though she has not been charged.
“The magnitude cannot be overstated,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson told reporters last week.
“What we see in Minnesota is not a handful of bad actors committing crimes. It’s staggering, industrial-scale fraud,” continued Thompson.
One of those charged was Salim Ahmed Said, the co-owner of Safari Restaurant in Minneapolis where Omar held her 2018 congressional victory party. He was convicted in federal court in August of stealing more than $12 million, the DOJ stated on its website.
Said received $12 million in federal payouts to serve 3.9 million meals to hungry children during the 2020 pandemic, but instead spent it on a $2 million mansion in Minneapolis and a $9,000 shopping spree at Nordstrom, said the feds.
President Donald Trump asked on his Truth Social account when the news of the allegations first broke: “Does Ilhan Omar know these people? Are they from her wonderfully managed Home Country of Somalia?”
“Somali gangs are terrorizing the people of that great state, and billions of dollars are missing. Send them back to where they came from,” the president added.
There is even a video on X of Omar praising Said at his restaurant, during the height of his scam, in front of reporters .
“Every day Safari provides 2,300 meals to children and their families,” Omar said in Somali while handing out food in front of the news cameras.
Another friend, Guhaad Hashi Said, who worked on the congresswoman’s campaign in 2018 and 2020, also pleaded guilty in August for running a fake food site called Advance Youth Athletic Development, which was supposed to serve 5,000 meals a day to kids, but led to $3.2 million being diverted from the food program and into his pockets.
Omar’s campaign received $7,400 in direct donations from the three convicted fraudsters, but the congresswoman who has publicly claimed to represent the interests of the people of Somalia now claims that she returned those donations since the scandal broke.
After federal prosecutors charged eight more suspects, mostly of Somali descent, between September and October for their participation in the subsidies fraud schemes, several names and bios of Rose Lake Capitals’s nine officers and advisors were removed from the firm’s website.
They included lobbyist and former Obama ambassador to Bahrain Adam Ereli; former Sen. Max Baucus, who served as Obama’s ambassador to China; DNC finance chair associate Alex Hoffman; former DNC treasurer William Derrough; and former Amalgamated Bank CEO Keith Mestrich.
Mestrich once boasted that Amalgamated was “the institutional bank of the Democratic Party.”
None of these officers were charged in the fraud, according to the New York Post, which also noted that the Treasury and Justice Departments were already investigating alleged money laundering by Omar and Mynett.
Upon taking office in 2019, Omar declared a net worth of between negative $25,000 and negative $65,000, with no assets and only carrying student and car debt.
Her personal assets are now between $6 million to $30 million, according to her latest financial disclosure, despite dismissing claims that she is a millionaire as “ridiculous” and “categorically false.”
“There’s a lot of strange things going on,” Paul Kamenar, counsel to the National Legal and Policy Center, told the New York Post.
“She was basically broke when she came into office and now she’s worth perhaps up to $30 million.…She needs to come clean on these assets,” said Kamenar.
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/29/2025 – 09:00
Futures Drop As Silver Slides From Record
Futures Drop As Silver Slides From Record
Stocks are extending their modest losses from their pre-Christmas record as another shortened trading week starts. As late last week, much of the market action is in precious metals, with silver first smashing through $80 for the first time before sliding while gold also retreated from Friday’s all-time high and platinum pulling back sharply after surging nearly 10%, and hitting limit down in China along with Platinum.As of 8:15am, S&P 500 futures were 0.3% lower while Nasdaq 100 contracts were down 0.4% as Tesla and Nvidia slid more than 1% to lead premarket losses among Mag 7. Europe’s Stoxx 600 was little changed following talks about a peace deal for Ukraine that yielded no breakthrough. Treasuries gained with 10Y yields down 0.2bps from Friday’s close to 4.11% while the BBG dollar index rose. Bitcoin briefly surged back over $90,000 before getting summarily slammed right back down. Trading is likely to be light again, accompanied by a threadbare economic calendar and the absence of major planned corporate events.
In premarket trading, Tesla and Nvidia underperform Mag 7, putting pressure on US stock futures (Tesla -1%, Nvidia -1%, Alphabet -0.5%, Meta -0.4%, Apple -0.2%, Microsoft -0.1%, Amazon +0.1%)
Silver stocks including Coeur (CDE) and Hecla (HL) fall as the precious metal retreated sharply after smashing through $80 an ounce for the first time. Coeur -4.5%, Hecla -4%
Coupang (CPNG) gains 2% after offering compensation worth more than $1 billion to all customers affected by South Korea’s biggest-ever data breach.
DigitalBridge Group (DBRG) soars 33% as SoftBank Group is said to be in advanced talks to acquire the private equity firm that invests in assets such as data centers.
Energy Fuels (UUUU) gains 3% after saying it exceeded 2025 uranium production and sales guidance.
Lululemon Athletica Inc. (LULU) rises 0.9% after the WSJ reported that founder Chip Wilson is launching a proxy fight at the retailer.
In corporate news, Japan’s SoftBank is in advanced talks to acquire DigitalBridge Group, a private equity firm that invests in assets such as data centers, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
With stock trading rather subdued, precious-metal price swings remained the overnight highlight, with silver spiking as much as 6% on Monday, before profit takers stepped in to send it back below Friday’s close. As a result, silver retreated sharply after smashing through $80 an ounce for the first time, halting a record-breaking rally powered by Chinese speculative demand.
The white metal fell by more than 6% as it took a roller-coaster ride Monday after earlier hitting $84 an ounce. Surging Chinese investment demand has pulled the metal higher, with premiums for spot silver in Shanghai rising above $8 an ounce over London prices, the biggest spread on record. Elon Musk fed the early momentum with his reply to a tweet about Chinese export restrictions due to start on Thursday, saying on X over the weekend: “This is not good. Silver is needed in many industrial processes.”
Silver, which had risen more than 40% since the start of the month through Friday, has been spurred like other precious metals this year by elevated central-bank purchases, inflows to exchange-traded funds and three rate cuts by the Fed. Lower borrowing costs burnish the attraction of commodities and traders are betting on more rate cuts in 2026. Frictions in Venezuela and strikes by Washington on Islamic State targets in Nigeria have also added to the haven appeal of metals. With silver inventories near their lowest on record, there’s a risk of supply shortages that could impact multiple sectors.
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said he expects the Trump administration to de-escalate trade tensions next year after tariffs sent shockwaves through the US economy in 2025. He said in an interview aired Sunday on CBS News that BofA now sees “de-escalation, not escalation,” with an average of 15% tariffs and higher rates for countries that won’t commit to US purchases or lowering non-tariff barriers.
Despite the market closing out 2025 at an all time high, tariffs and other curve balls made it a brutal year for stock pickers. About $1 trillion was pulled from active equity mutual funds over the year, according to estimates from Bloomberg Intelligence using ICI data, marking an 11th year of net outflows and, by some measures, the steepest of the cycle. By contrast, passive equity exchange-traded funds got more than $600 billion.
“The question of ‘is AI a bubble’ will remain front and center for investors in 2026,” wrote Richard Flax, chief investment officer at Moneyfarm. “The scale of current investment and the pace of innovation mean that even the sceptics cannot ignore its influence on both markets and the real economy.
In geopolitical news, President Donald Trump said he made “a lot of progress” in talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy over a possible peace deal, but that it might take a few weeks to get it done.
Europe’s Stoxx 600 was little changed following talks about a peace deal for Ukraine that yielded no breakthrough. Miners outperform, driven by surging metals prices, while industrial goods and services stocks are among the biggest laggards. Here are some of the biggest movers on Monday:
Fresnillo shares climb as much as 5.3% on Monday to the highest level on record, leading a rally in mining stocks driven by surging metals prices.
International Personal Finance rises as much as 6.8% in London trading after Basepoint agreed to buy the consumer finance company in a deal valuing IPF at about £543 million.
BioGaia shares gain as much as 4.2% as DNB Carnegie lifts its price target on the Swedish probiotics firm and says the stock may break out on the upside from its five-year trading range in 2026 as margins improve.
Bonesupport shares advance as much as 4.5% on Monday as DNB Carnegie repeats its positive stance on the Swedish medical equipment firm and says valuation seems attractive given potential for growth.
Leonardo shares fall as much as 4.7% after US President Donald Trump said he made “a lot of progress” in talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy over a possible peace deal.
Earlier in the session, Asian equities extended gains for a seventh day, the longest winning streak in three months, buoyed by advances in tech firms. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index climbed as much as 0.6%, boosted by TSMC, SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics. South Korea led gains in the region, while benchmarks in Taiwan and Tokyo also rose. China’s markets reversed earlier gains despite Beijing’s pledge to broaden its fiscal spending base in 2026. Meanwhile, mining shares across Asia climbed after silver rallied to a new peak, before sliding.
Elsewhere in commodities, copper, fueled by concerns over tighter supply, pushed hard toward $13,000 a ton, setting a fresh record on the London Metal Exchange. Oil also rose as the US-led talks failed to yield a breakthrough and as China vowed to support economic growth next year. Brent crude is still on track for a fifth monthly drop in December, which would be the longest losing streak in more than two years.
Bitcoin topped $90,000 before erasing the gain. A gauge of the dollar was steady. US Treasuries strengthened across the curve, with the 10-year yield falling one basis point to 4.12%.
In rates, treasuries hold small gains on lower-than-average futures volumes to begin the year’s final week, amid similar price action in most European bond markets where trading resumed after Friday’s holiday. Yields are lower by about 1bp-2bp across tenors with the curve slightly flatter; 10-year declined as much as 2.5bp to 4.10%, lowest level since Dec. 18. Treasuries remain headed for a small monthly loss amid signs of US economic resilience, yet still on pace for their best annual performance since 2020 following three Fed interest-rate cuts in response to weakening labor-market conditions
The US economic data calendar includes November pending home sales (10am) and December Dallas Fed manufacturing activity (10:30am); no Fed speakers are scheduled until Jan. 3
Market Snapshot
S&P 500 mini -0.3%,
Nasdaq 100 mini -0.4%,
Russell 2000 mini little changed
Stoxx Europe 600 little changed,
DAX -0.2%,
CAC 40 little changed
10-year Treasury yield -2 basis points at 4.11%
VIX +1.2 points at 14.82
Bloomberg Dollar Index little changed at 1200.67,
euro little changed at $1.1777
WTI crude +2% at $57.89/barrel
Top Overnight News
Ukraine Seeks 50-Year U.S. Security Guarantee, Trump Offers 15: WSJ
China stages record drills designed to encircle Taiwan: RTRS
Chinese Military Drills Send ‘Stern Warning’ After U.S. Arms Sales to Taiwan: WSJ
Why a Chinese Attack on Taiwan Would Be Japan’s Problem: WSJ
China Swipes at Trump in Move to Be Thai-Cambodia Peacemaker: BBG
Netanyahu Meets Trump as Gaza Ceasefire Approaches Crossroad: BBG
US pledges $2 billion in humanitarian support to UN, State Department says : RTRS
Justice Department Using Fraud Law to Target Companies on DEI: WSJ
Every Wall Street Analyst Now Predicts a Stock Rally in 2026: BBG
Xi’s Triumphant Year Staring Down Trump Belies Woes in China: BBG
Lululemon Founder Launches Proxy Fight to Change Board: WSJ
Copper Rallies to Record Near $13,000 in London on Supply Fears: BBG
Ph.D.s Can’t Find Work as Boston’s Biotech Engine Sputters: WSJ
Publicly Traded Private-Credit Funds Set for Worst Year Since 2020: BBG
Canada Pensions Overseeing $1.2 Trillion Revamp Private Equity Model: BBG
SoftBank Nears Deal for Data Center Investment Firm DigitalBridge: BBG
How a Reclusive Ex-Glencore Trader Became Indonesia’s Nickel King: BBG
US Event Calendar
10:00 am: Nov Pending Home Sales MoM, est. 0.96%, prior 1.9%
10:30 am: Dec Dallas Fed Manf. Activity, est. -6, prior -10.4
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/29/2025 – 08:42
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/futures-drop-silver-slides-record
Ube is in high demand. Philippine farmers are struggling to keep up.
BENGUET PROVINCE, Philippines — In New York City, people line up outside a bakery before it opens to buy a brioche doughnut whose glaze shines a startling purple. In Paris, people sip purple-colored lattes with a mellow, nutty scent. In Melbourne, Australia, a purple tinge gives hot cross buns a gentle sweetness.
The common ingredient in these items is ube, or the Philippine purple yam, and the world’s new hunger for it is starting to strain the people who farm it. The country grows more than 14,000 tons of it a year and is considered to be the world’s top producer.
Up a hill and among the trees in Benguet, a mountainous province in the Philippines, Teresita Emilio scanned the ground and found a stump almost invisible to the naked eye. She slowly dug around it with a metal rod before using her gloved hands.
“I need to be careful. I might injure it,” said Emilio, 62, reaching into the narrow hole. She tugged.
Snap. Cradled in her arms, she pulled out what looked like a pudgy tree branch the size of a newborn. At the base of its head, where the root connected to the stem, radiated the color purple. Raw ube.
“It’s not a lot,” Emilio said.
As ube has gained ground globally, Filipino farmers like Emilio are barely keeping up. At home, the tuber — which is native to the country and grown mostly on small, seasonal plots — has long been turned into jams, ice creams and cakes. Now its photogenic hue and subtle flavor have helped fuel a viral craze — putting pressure on the Philippines to supply more, even as climate change ravages harvests and producers in China and Vietnam ramp up their own purple yams.
“It’s the new matcha,” said Cheryl Natividad-Caballero, an undersecretary of the agriculture department in charge of the country’s high-value crops, which includes ube. “Given the increasing requirement from the increasing demand, we have to now improve the system.”
The main U.N. food and agriculture databases do not break out ube exports from other yams, but officials and scientists say it’s safe to assume the Philippines is the world’s leading producer. The country, which has a long tradition in using ube for sweets, is virtually alone in growing the fragrant variety used for desserts.
“We are still the top producer,” said Natividad-Caballero. “For a long time, other countries didn’t even know what ube was and they would even confuse it for the purple varieties of sweet potato. But they’re completely different.”
Annual ube production has slipped from more than 15,000 tons in 2021 to about 14,000 tons in the past two years, with most of that for local consumption, according to government data. However, exports have quadrupled in recent years to more than 200 tons annually, with more than half of that bound for the United States. The Philippines has even been forced to import some ube from Vietnam to meet local demand.
“The gross supply barely meets the demand,” Natividad-Caballero said.
All of this fuss over ube is new to Emilio. She learned to farm it as a girl in the Benguet hills, trailing her mother through rows of pineapples, turmeric and pandan. The tubers she dug up were for neighbors and buyers who made the trek up the mountain. It was nothing like the world’s appetite she feeds now.
“I had so much ube then,” Emilio said. “I would even throw them away.”
“Now, they’re on the way to being gone,” she said.
One reason for the ube shortage is a lack of “planting material,” the cut-up ube pieces that farmers bury to grow new ones.
Emilio said farmers like her were selling almost all of their ube yields because of the higher price. By the end of the harvest season, there is little left to cut up and plant. While it can be grown from seed, that method is extremely slow and unreliable.
About 12 hours south by car, Jenelyn Bañares, an ube grower in the rural town of San Francisco in Quezon province in southern Luzon, had the same conundrum. “I’ve tried to buy from other farmers, but they also don’t have planting material,” she said.
Then there is the threat of climate change.
Ube is considered one of the most resilient crops in the Philippines. It thrives in the equatorial archipelago’s dry and wet seasons, said Grace Backian, the leading ube researcher at Benguet State University.
Dry soil and strong sunlight push ube to root and leaf out. Rain then makes the tubers swell, sometimes up to 30 pounds. But that meteorological order has been upended due to climate change.
“Now, you never know when it’s going to rain and when it’s going to be sunny,” Bañares said.
The traditional “dry” months now bring showers, as stronger typhoons slam the islands more often. In November, at the start of ube harvest, two typhoons hit the archipelago in a week.
If there’s too much rain, ube suffocates, rotting back into the soil. If strong winds shred too many leaves, plants absorb too little sunlight and wither. When whole acres are wiped out, farmers have no quick fix. They wait for the next planting season to start again.
As ube farmers need more help, the Philippine government is offering less. Congress has trimmed the agriculture department’s already tiny budget for ube by about 10% to 10 million pesos (about $170,000) for 2026, Natividad-Caballero said. The department plans to use the money to grow ube specifically for more planting material that it could give out to farmers.
Most of the department’s money goes to rice, corn and vegetables — a response to the fact that nearly one-third of children under 5 are physically stunted due to malnutrition, according to national health data. About one-third of adults show at least one sign of undernutrition, according to a 2021 paper.
There is also concern about a lack of support for a food that is important to the country’s cultural heritage.
The Philippines could watch its signature tuber slip away, said Jam Melchor, a Filipino chef who founded the advocacy group, the Philippine Culinary Heritage Movement. Ube is a main ingredient in halo-halo, a popular shaved-ice dessert layered with fruit, jellies and ice cream, often served at parties.
“Can you imagine a Philippine Christmas without ube? It feels like there’s something missing,” Melchor said. “And it feels like there’s something wrong.”
In the Benguet hills, Emilio set the ube she had extracted from the ground on a mossy rock outside her house, then leaned over a plastic basin to wash it. The water ran brown as she scrubbed the tuber with the side of her hand.
She said she started growing ube after pineapple season was over because it fed her during the rainy season. But ube also kept her close to her mother’s memory and to other farmers in town. At their meetings, she no longer felt alone on the hill.
She gave the ube a final splash and a pat.
“I think I will plant this,” she said.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/29/ube-philippines-farmers/
Silver pulls back from record after historic rally above $80
Silver retreated sharply after smashing through $80 an ounce for the first time, halting a record-breaking rally powered by Chinese speculative demand.
The white metal fell by more than 6% as it took a roller-coaster ride Monday after earlier hitting $84 an ounce. Surging Chinese investment demand has pulled the metal higher, with premiums for spot silver in Shanghai rising above $8 an ounce over London prices, the biggest spread on record.
The blistering rally has provoked extreme measures in China’s investment landscape, with the country’s only pure-play silver fund turning away new customers after its repeated risk warnings went unheeded. The fund’s manager announced the unusual step Friday after multiple actions — from tighter trading rules to cautionary advice about “unsustainable” gains — failed to quell an eruption of interest fueled by social media.
UBS SDIC Fund Management Co. had become increasingly concerned that investors could be exposed to heavy losses should the bull market suddenly turn. The fund’s premium ballooned last week to more than 60% over the value of its underlying assets — silver contracts on the Shanghai Futures Exchange.
During the weekend, Elon Musk highlighted the growing investor frenzy around precious metals, replying to a tweet on Chinese export restrictions by saying on X: “This is not good. Silver is needed in many industrial processes.”
Indeed, unlike gold, silver is a valuable component in a range of products, particularly in solar photovoltaics. With inventories near their lowest on record, there’s a risk of supply shortages that could affect multiple industries.
The Chinese measures are effectively a rollover of previous policies and were first announced by the Ministry of Commerce on Oct. 30. Although the country ranks among the top three global producers of silver — largely as a byproduct of industrial metals — it’s also the world’s largest consumer and therefore not a major exporter.
“The speculative atmosphere is very strong,” said Wang Yanqing, an analyst with China Futures Ltd. “There’s hype around tight spot supply, and it’s a bit extreme now.”
Some exchanges are moving to rein in risk. The margins for some Comex silver futures contracts will be raised from Monday, according to a statement from CME Group Inc. — a move that Wang said would help reduce speculation.
Last week’s rally came just two months after the London silver market suffered a full-blown squeeze as flows into exchange traded funds and exports to India eroded inventories that were already critically low. London’s vaults have seen significant inflows since then, but much of the world’s available silver remains in New York as traders wait for the outcome of a US probe that could lead to tariffs or other trade restrictions.
Technical indicators show the rally may have run too hard, too fast. The metal’s 14-day relative strength index showed a reading of about 75, above the 70 that is considered to be overbought.
Spot silver traded down 5.5% at $74.95 an ounce as of 12:19 p.m. in London, having hit a record $84.01 earlier in the session. Gold fell 1.7% to $4,454.74, after peaking at $4,549.92 on Friday. Platinum dropped 6.7% and palladium sank 13%, the biggest decline since 2022.
With assistance from Winnie Zhu, Ruth Carson, Rob Verdonck and Preeti Soni.
Jack Ryan and Robin Paxton
US offers Ukraine 15-year security guarantee as part of peace plan, Zelenskyy says
KYIV, Ukraine — The United States is offering Ukraine security guarantees for a period of 15 years as part of a proposed peace plan, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday, though he said he would prefer an American commitment of up to 50 years to deter Russia from further attempts to seize its neighbor’s land by force.
U.S. President Donald Trump hosted Zelenskyy at his Florida resort on Sunday and insisted that Ukraine and Russia are “closer than ever before” to a peace settlement.
Negotiators are still searching for a breakthrough on key issues, however, including whose forces withdraw from where and the fate of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, one of the 10 biggest in the world. Trump noted that the monthslong U.S.-led negotiations could still collapse.
“Without security guarantees, realistically, this war will not end,” Zelenskyy told reporters in voice messages responding to questions sent via a Whatsapp chat.
Ukraine has been fighting Russia since 2014, when it illegally annexed Crimea and Moscow-backed separatists took up arms in the Donbas, a vital industrial region in eastern Ukraine.
Details of the security guarantees have not become public but Zelenskyy said Monday that they include how a peace deal would be monitored as well as the “presence” of partners. He didn’t elaborate, but Russia has said it won’t accept the deployment in Ukraine of troops from NATO countries.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump were expected to speak in the near future but there was no indication the Russian leader would speak to Zelenskyy.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Kyiv’s allies will meet in Paris in early January to “finalize each country’s concrete contributions” to the security guarantees.
Trump said he would consider extending U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine beyond 15 years, according to Zelenskyy. The guarantees would be approved by the U.S. Congress as well as by parliaments in other countries involved in overseeing any settlement, he said.
Zelenskyy said he wants the 20-point peace plan under discussion to be approved by Ukrainians in a national referendum.
However, holding a ballot requires a ceasefire of at least 60 days, and Moscow has shown no willingness for a truce without a full settlement.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/29/us-ukraine-peace-plan/
European Defense Stocks Slide As Trump-Zelensky Peace Talks Show Progress
European Defense Stocks Slide As Trump-Zelensky Peace Talks Show Progress
European defense stocks moved lower on Monday after President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made progress in talks aimed at ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
On Sunday evening, after the talks, Trump told reporters, “I do think we’re getting a lot closer, maybe very close.”
Zelensky told reporters the peace talks were a “really great discussion” in which U.S.-Ukraine security guarantees were “100% agreed” upon. He added, “We agree that security guarantees are a key milestone in achieving lasting peace.”
Zelensky said Trump will host another meeting next month with Ukrainian and European officials to advance a peace deal that is nearing completion. Trump confirmed that he spoke with Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of the Zelensky talks and plans to hold another call with Putin.
The full summary of the Trump-Zelensky “great meeting” is available here.
The Goldman Sachs European Defense Index fell by roughly 2% on Monday following overnight developments.
Larger timeframe.
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in early 2022, the GS European Defense Index has delivered outsized annual returns.
UBS analyst Tricia Wright commented on the moves:
“Defense stocks were among the top fallers in Europe after the Trump-Zelensky meeting. The Italian defense group Leonardo declined by 4.4%, topping the STOXX Europe 600 fallers list, while Germany’s Rheinmetall and Hensoldt were both down by about 3%. Talks to end the Ukraine war on Sunday spurred fresh optimism from U.S. President Trump, yet there are no clear signs that the two sides have reached a breakthrough, as Russia continues to push for land gains and reject a ceasefire,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
Even as a potential peace deal in Eastern Europe nears, we expect defense stocks to remain elevated given record defense spending.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres recently wrote in a report on the rise in military expenditure: “The world is spending far more on waging war than on building peace.”
Tyler Durden
Mon, 12/29/2025 – 08:05
Inside the Chicago Bears’ 15-play, 58-yard nail-biting final series that came up short: ‘We had a shot’
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The final drive was likely as familiar a feeling to the San Francisco 49ers as it was for the Chicago Bears – even though Sunday night was their first meeting this season.
The Niners had to have seen that script on tape: 2 minutes and 15 seconds to go, the Bears down 4 points, with 85 yards between them and yet another fourth-quarter comeback. The Bears had done such a feat a league-high six times already.
But the 49ers did what those other teams couldn’t do: They bottled the genie by cutting off all avenues for Caleb Williams to pull off another magical throw on the final play.
And by doing so, they preserved a 42-38 win on “Sunday Night Football,” a primetime shootout at Levi’s Stadium.
For Bears tight end Colston Loveland, it was another familiar feeling.
“Green Bay a couple of weeks ago,” he said, referring to another Bears’ would-be rally dying on Williams’ 4th-and-1 interception in the end zone to seal a 28-21 defeat at Lambeau Field on Dec. 7.
“Just been in that position before, coming up short. When you’re always seeming to be on the other side of it, it feels some type of way, for sure.”
Bears coach Ben Johnson had similar sentiments.
“That’s a tough one for our guys,” he said. “It’s somewhat similar there to the Green Bay game a few weeks ago, just in terms of coming down to the last minute and the last play of the game, and just coming up one play short there.”
And like that game, in which Williams slightly underthrew Cole Kmet on a ball that Keisean Nixon picked off for the Packers, the Bears felt like the final play against the 49ers came down to small failures in execution that led to missed opportunities.
“We ended up getting lined up with not much time, and we were slightly lined up wrong, and I didn’t have enough time to be able to fix it – having the motion and things like that,” Williams said. “So we just had to try to make something out of nothing.
“We had a shot.”
Rookie wide receiver Luther Burden III, who caught six passes for a career-high 119 yards and a touchdown, figured prominently on the last drive.
“We’re not there,” Burden said. “Everyone battled. We came up short, man, and everybody in this locker room expects us to finish. So we’ve got to finish.”
Here’s a look at some key plays from the 15-play, 58-yard final series for the Bears — with some different perspectives on how it all unfolded.
The start
First-and-10 at the Chicago 35-yard-line with 2:15 left
D’Andre Swift kicked off the drive for the Bears with a 5-yard run.
Swift: They all shared the same mindset at the start of the series: “Go score.”
The drive extender
Bears wide receiver Luther Burden III is tackled after a reception in the fourth quarter against the 49ers at Levi’s Stadium on Dec. 28, 2025, in Santa Clara. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)
Third-and-10 at the San Francisco 45 with 1:09 left
Williams came up empty on passes to Loveland and Kmet. So on a do-or-die third down, he looked to the rookie Burden. Williams’ completion to Burden was good for 4 yards, then Burden faked out the 49ers’ Chase Lucas to gain another 10 yards — and a critical first down.
Burden was inactive last week during the Bears’ 22-16 win over the Packers at Soldier Field.
Williams: “It’s good to have Luther back, let’s put it that way. … It’s a problem when you get the ball in his hands. Just giving him a shot. Let him go make plays.”
Burden: “Somebody gotta step up and make a play. I got confidence in everybody. Whoever gets the ball is going to make a play.”
The hook and ladder
Bears running back D’Andre Swift runs after a reception for a first down in the final drive of the fourth quarter against the 49ers at Levi’s Stadium on Dec. 28, 2025, in Santa Clara. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)
Second-and-10 at the San Francisco 13 with 21 seconds left
Williams threw 2 yards to Loveland, who tossed a lateral to Swift, who ran an additional 9 yards but was 2 yards short of the goal line.
Williams had to spike the ball on the next play to preserve the remaining 4 seconds.
Loveland: “They pursued the ball well on defense. Thought maybe they would bite on that one a little harder. Still a good play; got us to the 2-yard line. I mean, we had a chance.”
Johnson: “Yeah, I am (OK with calling a play where the player can be tackled inbounds with the clock running). There’s plenty of time, and we have plenty of good plays.”
Williams: “We were going for it. That’s who we are. That’s how Coach likes to call it, it’s how I like to play. We go for it, we go for the win.”
The final play
49ers players celebrate after Bears wide receiver Jahdae Walker failed to make a game-winning catch in the end zone during the final seconds of the fourth quarter at Levi’s Stadium on Dec. 28, 2025 in Santa Clara. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
Second and goal from the San Francisco 2 with 4 seconds left
Williams was flushed from the pocket and rolled left. He desperately scanned the field looking for an angle that wouldn’t be cut off by a defender or risk a pass catcher being caught short of the goal line.
With 49ers defensive end Yetur Gross-Matos bearing down on him, the quarterback had a few options and threw to Jahdae Walker in the end zone as Williams was backpedaling.
The pass was too low for the receiver to catch it.
Johnson: “We didn’t quite get aligned in the formation we wanted to. It’s on me. I didn’t give Caleb the call fast enough, so he’s trying to piecemeal it together.”
Williams: “I haven’t gone back and watched it yet, but I think I ended up dirting the ball, didn’t get my legs into it. Just put the ball in the end zone in that moment. … Can’t dirt the ball.”
Loveland: “We could take some good out of this. Clean up the tape. It’s a good slap in the face, kind of a reality check to get back on track, tighten up the little things a little more.”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/29/chicago-bears-nailbiting-finish-week-17/
