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The White House announced Thursday that Washington’s iconic John F. Kennedy arts center is to be renamed the “Trump-Kennedy Center” after President Donald Trump.The extraordinary naming of a major cultural venue after a living president is just the latest effort by the 79-year-old Republican to stamp his identity on the US capital in his second term.He has also demolished the White House East Wing in order to install a grand ballroom, and is seeking to construct a large triumphal arch.White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the Kennedy Center’s board — which Trump purged of Democrats earlier this year before installing himself as chairman — had “voted unanimously” for the change.She said it was “because of the unbelievable work President Trump has done over the last year in saving the building. Not only from the standpoint of its reconstruction, but also financially, and its reputation.””Congratulations to President Donald J. Trump, and likewise, congratulations to President Kennedy, because this will be a truly great team long into the future! The building will no doubt attain new levels of success and grandeur,” she added.The towering white monument is named after president John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in 1963. The center, which sits on the banks of the Potomac River, opened in 1971.Trump has made a number of references to renaming the center in recent months.Earlier this month at the opening of a peace institute that had also been renamed after him, Trump referred to it as the “Trump-Kennedy Center,” before adding: “Whoops, excuse me.”During his first term, billionaire Trump never attended the annual fundraising gala for recipients of the prestigious Kennedy Center Honors, as many of those artists vocally opposed his policies.This time, Trump moved quickly to make the center his own, ridding the board of trustees of its Democratic appointees and ousting its president, as part of a wider assault on federally funded cultural institutions he deemed too “woke.”Trump then presented the honors this year himself, giving awards to “Rocky” actor Sylvester Stallone, disco legend Gloria Gaynor and rock band KISS.A few days earlier, at the draw for the 2026 FIFA World Cup on December 5, Trump received a new peace prize from football’s governing body and made a speech on stage.

US House Democrats on Thursday published a fresh batch of photographs from Jeffrey Epstein’s estate, stepping up pressure on Donald Trump’s administration on the eve of its deadline to release federal files on the late financier and convicted sex offender.The 68 images — shared without added context — are part of a much larger cache that Congress obtained from Epstein’s estate and has been drip-feeding to the public in recent days, stoking political drama in Washington.Among the newly released photos are shots of passports and identity documents from multiple countries, most of the personal details redacted. Several documents are marked “female,” including passports from places such as Ukraine and Russia, and a number of faces in the images are obscured to protect identities.Other photographs include two images showing public intellectual Noam Chomsky seated with Epstein on what appears to be an aircraft, and pictures of Bill Gates posing beside a woman whose face is blurred. The cache also includes images of filmmaker Woody Allen and former Trump strategist Steve Bannon — both of whom featured in an earlier photo release.The latest batch of photographs do not appear to depict any unlawful conduct by any of the subjects.But one screenshot shows a snippet of a text exchange in which an unknown sender appears to discuss recruiting young women.”I have a friend scout she sent me some girls today. But she asks 1000$ per girl. I will send u girls now. Maybe someone will be good for J?” the post says.The screenshot includes a partially redacted physical description and the line “18 y old,” but provides no names or clear indication of who is speaking.A separate image shows a woman’s foot bearing a handwritten quote from Vladimir Nabokov’s “Lolita,” a novel about a man’s sexual obsession with a child — another detail released without explanation.Democrats say they are publishing material as it arrives while redacting identifying information for victims and anyone who could be a victim. Republicans, who control the Oversight Committee that is tasked with ensuring government transparency and accountability, have accused Democrats of “cherry-picking” to shape a narrative.The Justice Department (DOJ) has remained silent on whether it will meet Friday’s deadline, set by the Epstein Files Transparency Act, passed last month with bipartisan support. The law requires the DOJ to publish the most comprehensive set of Epstein-related materials yet, while safeguarding victims’ identities.Epstein, a convicted sex offender with ties to global elites, died in his New York jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. His death — ruled a suicide — fueled conspiracy theories and demands for accountability.”Oversight Democrats will continue to release photographs and documents from the Epstein estate to provide transparency for the American people,” the committee’s top Democrat, Robert Garcia, said, calling for the Justice Department to “release the Epstein files now.”

The leaders of Brazil and Mexico on Thursday offered to step in to try and avert the risk of war between the United States and Venezuela.The Latin American heavyweights are looking on in dismay as Washington ramps up military and economic pressure on Nicholas Maduro’s government, raising fears of a direct effort to unseat the Venezuelan leader.The United Nations Security Council will meet next Tuesday at the request of Caracas — backed by China and Russia — which urged an urgent meeting over the “ongoing US aggression”.President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said he was “very worried” about the mounting crisis on Brazil’s doorstep.The 80-year-old leftist said he had told US President Donald Trump that “things wouldn’t be resolved by shooting, that it was better to sit down around a table to find a solution.”He said he had offered Brazil’s help to both leaders to “avoid an armed conflict here in Latin America.”Lula spoke to Trump by phone earlier in December and the Brazilian leader said he may reach out to Trump again before Christmas to reinforce this offer, “so that we can have a diplomatic agreement and not a fratricidal war.” “I am at the disposal of both Venezuela and the US to contribute to a peaceful solution on our continent.”Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum also offered to act as a go-between in talks between Washington and Caracas to find “a peaceful solution so that there is no US intervention.”Russia meanwhile said it was in constant contact with close ally Maduro and called for a “de-escalation”.Moscow’s foreign ministry said it hoped the White House will “not allow a fatal mistake and will refrain from further sliding into a situation that threatens unpredictable consequences for the entire Western hemisphere.”- Regime change? -Trump’s administration accuses Maduro of leading a drug trafficking cartel and has built up a major naval presence in the Caribbean Sea, despite Venezuela being a minnow in the global drug trade.US strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have left at least 99 people dead, with the latest strike Wednesday claiming four more lives.Trump this week declared a blockade of “sanctioned oil vessels” to and from Caracas.Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves although years of mismanagement and corruption have slashed production and hamstrung the economy in recent years.Trump told Politico last week that Maduro’s “days are numbered” and declined to rule out US ground attacks on Venezuela.Maduro says the United States is bent on regime change and wants to seize Venezuela’s oil reserves.The leftist this year began a third six-year term after a presidential election win last year that much of the international community did not recognize. Lula — who did not endorse Maduro’s victory — said he was concerned about what was behind the US campaign.”It can’t just be about overthrowing Maduro. What are the other interests that we don’t yet know about?” he said, adding he did not know if it was about Venezuela’s oil, or critical minerals, or rare earths.”Nobody ever says concretely why this war is necessary.”

Pope Leo XIV has accepted the resignation of New York’s conservative Archbishop Timothy Dolan and named a little-known, pro-migrant bishop from his native Chicago to replace him, the Vatican said Thursday.In a significant shift for the Catholic Church in the United States, Leo replaced Dolan, who stepped down after reaching the Church’s retirement age of 75, with Ronald Hicks, a 58-year-old bishop from Illinois.The New York archdiocese is among the largest in the US and the pick ends months of speculation about who would follow Dolan, widely regarded as being close to US President Donald Trump.This is the most important bishop appointment Leo has made since his election to head up the world’s Catholics in May and signals a desire to push back firmly on the US administration’s policies.Hicks shares several similarities with Leo including outspoken solidarity with migrants at a time when Trump is ordering mass deportations and portraying migrants and refugees as criminals.In November, the pope endorsed a rare statement from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops which heavily criticised the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policies toward undocumented migrants.He said the statement “affirms our solidarity with all our brothers and sisters as it expresses our concerns, opposition, and hopes with clarity and conviction.”It is grounded in the Church’s enduring commitment to the Catholic social teaching of human dignity and a call for meaningful immigration reform,” he said.In an event at Manhattan’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dolan said “I already love (Hicks) and appreciate him and trust him.””Is there sadness in my heart? Sure, because I love the Archdiocese in New York, that sadness is mitigated by the gift” of Hicks’s arrival.Hicks quipped that he has the necessary diplomatic skills to manage the culinary and sporting rivalry between his native Chicago and New York.”Potentially my first controversial statement I’m a Cubs fan, and I love deep-dish pizza,” he said.”That said, I want you to know that I’m going to remain a loyal Cubs fan. However, I am going to start rooting for the New York sports teams, and I already love your pizza,” he said.He noted that his childhood home was just 14 blocks from Leo’s, he said.”In my 31 years of priesthood, I was formed in Chicago,” he said.- ‘Great affinity’ -Hicks spent five years of ministry in El Salvador in Central America, heading a church-run orphanage programme that operated across nine Latin American and Caribbean countries. Leo spent two decades in service in Peru.The outgoing bishop of Joliet, Illinois, also served in several parishes in the Archdiocese of Chicago, the city where Leo was born — though the pair only met for the first time in 2024.Dolan, a ruddy-faced extrovert with Irish-American roots, has served in New York since 2009.A theological conservative fiercely opposed to abortion, Dolan sparked controversy in September by comparing the conservative political activist and Trump supporter Charlie Kirk to a “modern-day Saint Paul”.- Abuse challenge -Dolan oversaw the fallout from a major sexual abuse scandal in the diocese.Just a couple of weeks ago, the archdiocese announced the creation of a $300 million fund to compensate victims of sexual abuse who had filed complaints against the Church.At the time, Dolan said that a “series of very difficult financial decisions” were made, including layoffs within the archdiocese and a 10-percent reduction of its operating budget.Hicks is no stranger to managing the fallout of the abuse scandal. The Joliet diocese he now leaves was criticised under his predecessors for its handling of pedophile priests.The scandal was “something that is never going to be behind us”, Hicks told Vatican News.

US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff will hold talks with senior officials from Qatar, Egypt and Turkey in Miami on Friday on the next phase of the Gaza ceasefire deal, a White House official told AFP.Under the second stage, Israel is supposed to withdraw from its positions in Gaza, an interim authority is to govern the Palestinian territory instead of Hamas, and an international stabilization force is to be deployed.But progress has so far been slow in moving to the following phase of October’s agreement between Israel and Hamas, which was brokered by Washington and its regional allies.Turkey said Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan would attend the talks. Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman al-Thani and Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty would also be there, the Axios news outlet reported.”Turkey will continue to fight determinedly on every front to ensure that what is happening in Gaza is not forgotten, that justice is served,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during a speech on Wednesday.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to meet Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on December 29, Axios said, as the US president pushes for a longer-term deal.Trump said in a televised address to the nation on Wednesday that the Gaza truce had brought peace to the Middle East “for the first time in 3,000 years.”But the ceasefire remains fragile with both sides alleging violations, and mediators fearing that Israel and Hamas alike are playing for time.Israel said it had struck and killed the head of weapons production in Hamas’s military wing in the Gaza Strip last weekend, a move that reportedly sparked Trump to warn of jeopardizing the truce.Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner played a key role in the shuttle diplomacy that led to the deal to end the Gaza war, which was sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel.The US pair are also involved in talks to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and will meet Russian officials in Miami over the weekend.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said Thursday he was willing to mediate between the United States and Venezuela to “avoid armed conflict.”Lula, one of Latin America’s most influential leaders, told reporters that Brazil was “very worried” about the mounting crisis between Venezuela and the United States.The 80-year-old leftist said he had told US President Donald Trump that “things wouldn’t be resolved by shooting, that it was better to sit down around a table to find a solution.”He said he had offered Brazil’s help to both leaders to “avoid an armed conflict here in Latin America” and may speak to Trump again before Christmas to reinforce this offer “so that we can have a diplomatic agreement and not a fratricidal war.” “I am at the disposal of both Venezuela and the US to contribute to a peaceful solution on our continent.”Trump’s administration accuses Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro of leading a drug trafficking cartel.Washington has carried out deadly strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats, seized an oil tanker and slapped sanctions on Maduro’s relatives.Trump has also overseen a major military deployment off the coast of Venezuela, and this week declared a blockade of “sanctioned oil vessels” to and from Caracas.Maduro claims the US seeks regime change instead of its stated goal of stopping drug trafficking.Lula said he was concerned about what was behind the US campaign.”It can’t just be about overthrowing Maduro. What are the other interests that we don’t yet know about?” he said, adding he did not know if it was about Venezuela’s oil, or critical minerals, or rare earths.”Nobody ever says concretely why this war is necessary.”

A Florida man who committed five murders while a teenager is to be put to death by lethal injection on Thursday, the 19th execution in the southern US state this year.Frank Walls, 58, was convicted of the 1987 murders of Edward Alger, 21, and his girlfriend Ann Peterson, 20, during a robbery of their home.Walls also confessed to committing three other murders.He is to be executed at 6:00 pm (2300 GMT) at a state prison in Raiford.Florida has carried out 18 executions this year, more than any other US state. There have been five each in Alabama and Texas.There have been 46 executions in the United States this year, the most since 2010, when 46 inmates were also put to death. There were 52 executions in the United States in 2009.Thirty-eight of this year’s executions have been carried out by lethal injection.Three have been by firing squad and five by nitrogen hypoxia, which involves pumping nitrogen gas into a face mask, causing the prisoner to suffocate.The use of nitrogen gas as a method of capital punishment has been denounced by United Nations experts as cruel and inhumane.The death penalty has been abolished in 23 of the 50 US states, while three others — California, Oregon and Pennsylvania — have moratoriums in place.President Donald Trump is a proponent of capital punishment and, on his first day in office, called for an expansion of its use “for the vilest crimes.”

US consumer inflation slowed unexpectedly in November, delayed government data showed Thursday, although levels remained higher than earlier in the year before President Donald Trump’s tariffs flowed through the economy.Analysts warned that disruptions to data collection during the record-long US government shutdown, which ended in mid-November, had likely distorted the figures.The consumer price index (CPI) climbed 2.7 percent from a year ago in November, the Department of Labor said, notably below analysts’ predictions of a 3.1 percent uptick.The figure was also down from a 3.0 percent rise in September, the most recent month for which fuller data was available due to the shutdown.White House National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett was quick to laud the figures, calling this “an astonishingly good CPI report” in a Fox Business interview.But inflation has ticked up this year as Trump launched new tariffs on US trading partners, with many firms flagging elevated business costs.The impact on consumers has been more muted, as companies rushed to stock up on inventory before steeper import prices kicked in. Many opted not to fully pass on the cost increases.Americans nonetheless continue to voice concerns over affordability, with Democratic victories in off-year elections last month seen as a clear sign of the issue’s ongoing importance.Food prices were 2.6 percent higher from a year ago in November, with the index for meats, poultry, fish and eggs up 4.7 percent over the period.Energy costs jumped 4.2 percent over the past 12 months.Excluding the volatile food and energy sectors, “core” CPI was up 2.6 percent in November from a year ago. Overall figures are still above the Federal Reserve’s longer-run target of two percent.- Budget ‘squeeze’ -There were few month-on-month comparisons in Thursday’s report, as the shutdown from October to mid-November hampered data collection.Heather Long, chief economist at the Navy Federal Credit Union, cautioned that with the 43-day government shutdown hitting data collection, “it’s hard to read too much into the November inflation data.””What stands out from the data that is in the report is utilities, home furnishings and used cars and trucks are driving some of the ongoing inflation pressures. This is the result of tariff pressures and the AI boom,” she said.”Americans continue to feel the squeeze in their monthly budgets,” Long added.The White House Council of Economic Advisers pointed to airfares and groceries as areas of improvement in a series of social media posts.Yet, economist Samuel Tombs of Pantheon Macroeconomics flagged that a skew in data collection towards the end of November likely explained why airline fares were seen to slump.”A higher proportion of price quotes than usual for November likely were sourced during the Black Friday discount period,” he cautioned.Similarly, while housing inflation was “unusually weak in the two months leading into November,” this could be “more noise than signal due to the disruptions from the shutdown,” said Bernard Yaros of Oxford Economics.- Fed vigilance -While the latest figures will be scrutinized for their potential bearing on the Federal Reserve’s interest rate decisions, missing October data means an incomplete economic picture.Even as the numbers are “encouraging” for the Fed, central bank chief Jerome Powell “has already warned against reading too much into the latest data due to distortions from the shutdown,” Yaros said in a note.”The central bank will remain most vigilant about the labor market, as a continuation of real wage growth will allow households to fully recover from the hit to their purchasing power since the pandemic,” he added.Fed policymakers have voted for three consecutive meetings to lower rates amid apparent weakening in the jobs market, but some cite risks of persistent inflation in urging caution before further reductions.

Trump Media & Technology Group, the struggling company that owns the US president’s Truth Social platform, announced Thursday a $6 billion merger with fusion power company TAE Technologies, in an unexpected pivot into energy technology.The all-stock transaction will see shareholders of each company hold approximately 50 percent of the combined entity, which plans to begin construction of what it calls the world’s first utility-scale fusion power plant in 2026.Trump Media’s share price has slumped by about 70 percent in the past year but was up nearly 25 percent after the announcement.Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes, a former Republican congressman, said the deal represents “a big step forward toward a revolutionary technology that will cement America’s global energy dominance for generations.”Fusion power plants would generate electricity through the same process that powers the Sun, a goal long pursued by researchers, though no commercially viable project has yet been built despite decades of research.The unusual tie-up comes as the Trump administration pushes power-hungry AI technology that will require a massive build-out of energy sources.AI data centers are posing an increasing burden on US power grids, and the White House is encouraging the fast-tracking of energy projects to meet demand.TAE Technologies, founded in 1998, says its fusion technology could provide abundant electricity to power AI infrastructure. The California-based company has built five fusion reactors and employs over 400 people, including 62 Ph.D. holders, a statement said.The company has raised more than $1.3 billion from investors including Google, Chevron and Goldman Sachs. Trump Media has agreed to provide up to $300 million in cash to TAE.Trump Media has launched several projects in recent months, including cryptocurrency-related financial products and a video streaming platform, but generated only $1.7 million in revenue in the first half of 2025.Nunes and TAE CEO Michl Binderbauer will serve as co-CEOs of the combined company, while Michael Schwab of Big Sky Partners is expected to chair a nine-member board that will include Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son.The transaction requires shareholder and regulatory approval and is expected to close by mid-2026.

Pope Leo XIV has accepted the resignation of influential New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan, a leading figure of the US church’s conservative wing, the Vatican said Thursday.The first US pope replaced Dolan, who stepped down after reaching the Church’s retirement age of 75, with a little-known 58-year-old bishop from Illinois, Ronald Hicks.The appointment ends months of speculation about who Leo would pick to follow Dolan, widely regarded as being close to US President Donald Trump.This is the most important bishop appointment Leo has made since his election to head up the world’s Catholics in May and signals a desire to take a firmer stance on the US administration’s decisions, particularly on human rights.Hicks shares several similarities with Leo including solidarity with migrants, in contrast with Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policies.He spent five years of ministry in El Salvador in Central America, while Leo spent two decades in service in Peru.Hicks also served shortly after joining the priesthood in 1994 in several parishes in the Archdiocese of Chicago, the city where Leo was born.Dolan, a ruddy-faced extrovert with Irish-American roots, has served in New York since 2009, tackling shrinking Church membership by reaching out to embrace the growing Hispanic population, which is predominantly Catholic.A theological conservative fiercely opposed to abortion, he oversaw the fallout from a major sexual abuse scandal in the diocese.Just a couple of weeks ago, the archdiocese announced the creation of a $300 million fund to compensate victims of sexual abuse who had filed complaints against the Church.At the time, Dolan said that a “series of very difficult financial decisions” were made, including layoffs within the archdiocese and a 10-percent reduction of its operating budget.