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Hard Numbers: Israel arrests violent settlers, US House ends extended recess, Botswana eyes majority stake in diamond giant, & More

​An Israeli activist records illegal settlers driving past a village in Masafer Yatta in the West Bank, on October 28, 2025.

An Israeli activist is seen recording illegal settlers driving past a village in Masafer Yatta in the West Bank, on October 28, 2025.

Davide Bonaldo/Sipa USA

4: Israeli police arrested four Jewish nationalists Tuesday after dozens of them attacked Palestinians and set fire to property in the West Bank. The issue of settler violence in the region has grown over the last two years – in tandem with the war in Gaza – but has spiked further in recent weeks, as Palestinians have been taking to the fields to harvest olives.

54: Who wouldn’t enjoy an almost eight-week break? Well that’s just what members of the US House of Representatives have had, but they are finally returning from their 54-day recess to vote on a continuing resolution that will end the government shutdown. Expect a vote later today.


49: A Catholic mother in the Normandy town of Dozule claimed in the 1970s that she had seen Jesus (of Nazareth) not once, not twice, but 49 times. The Vatican disagrees, though, affirming today that reports of those sightings were not genuine. The last Vatican-confirmed Jesus sighting was in 2013, when his face reportedly appeared at a church in India.

14: Hungary has extended a profit-margin cap to 14 more consumer products, including apples and processed cheese, as inflation remains elevated. Ahead of next spring elections, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is increasingly under pressure from Peter Magyar, the popular Fidesz defector who is now leading him in some polls.

15%: Botswana is bidding to acquire a majority stake of the diamond giant De Beers, up from its 15% share of the firm. The southern African nation’s move is part of an effort to reverse the diamond industry downturn – read all about that here (and watch a video about it here).

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U.S. President Donald Trump holds a signed executive order on AI next to Sriram Krishnan, Senior White House Policy Advisor on Artificial Intelligence on December 11, 2025.

REUTERS/Al Drago
38: Large tech firms will be celebrating after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at undercutting the ability of states to introduce regulations on artificial intelligence. Thirty-eight states have adopted AI laws. Trump’s order aims to just have one federal law be the standard. [...]
Women work in the plastic container assembly area inside the El Oso shoe polish factory, located in Mexico City, Mexico, in its new facilities, after officers from the Secretariat of Citizen Security and staff from the Benito Juarez mayor's office arbitrarily and violently remove their supplies, raw materials, machinery, and work tools on January 17 of this year following a coordinated operation stemming from a private dispute. On August 27, 2025.

Women work in the plastic container assembly area inside the El Oso shoe polish factory, located in Mexico City, Mexico, in its new facilities, after officers from the Secretariat of Citizen Security and staff from the Benito Juarez mayor's office arbitrarily and violently remove their supplies, raw materials, machinery, and work tools on January 17 of this year following a coordinated operation stemming from a private dispute. On August 27, 2025.

Photo by Gerardo Vieyra/NurPhoto
50: Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum is taking a page out of US President Donald Trump’s book, implementing up to a 50% tariff on more than 1,400 products in a bid to boost domestic production. The tariffs are expected to heavily affect China, which has increased its shipping to Mexico as a way to bypass US tariffs, and come as the US has been [...]
​Buildings lie in ruins amidst the rubble in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on December 8, 2025.

Buildings lie in ruins amidst the rubble in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, on December 8, 2025.

REUTERS/Nir Elias
68 million: The ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is tentatively holding, but conditions on the ground in Gaza remain dire. Most Palestinians are pitching tents in overcrowded camps, atop 68 million tons of rubble that will take years, and billions of dollars to clear. The level of debris is the equivalent of 186 Empire State Buildings, or 162 [...]
​Israa Mukhtar, a witness of the RSF attack in April 2025 on a medical clinic, sits inside a tent in Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan, on June 13, 2025.

Israa Mukhtar, a witness of the RSF attack in April 2025 on Relief International's medical clinic in Sudan's Zamzam camp, uses a mobile phone as she sits inside a tent in Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan, on June 13, 2025.

REUTERS/Stringer
114: Drone strikes on a kindergarten and hospital in Sudan last Thursday left 114 people dead, including 63 children, according to the World Health Organization. The attack is just the latest atrocity in the Sahel State’s brutal two-and-a-half-year civil war. The Rapid Support Forces, the rebel group, was blamed for the assault. The attack took [...]