“’Yesterday, children were bombed,’ Pope Francis said in his final Christmas message last December. ‘Children. This is cruelty, this is not war.’

Action Corps, a humanitarian advocacy group, and Peace Action, the nation’s largest grassroots peace network, just called for Congress to “introduce a War Powers Resolution to end U.S. military operations in Yemen, following disturbing new reports of civilian deaths and a second leak of sensitive war planning details by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The New York Times reported that the White House “has been hearing out a chorus of ideas in recent weeks for persuading Americans to get married and have more children, an early sign that the Trump administration will embrace a new cultural agenda pushed by many of its allies on the right to reverse declining birthrates and push conservative family values.” Trump has even called himself the “fertilization president.” What the early proposals lack is actual policy ideas that would make it easier for women and families to raise children––not just have them. 

The Revolving Door Project is updating resources that track public health crises and the Trump administration’s defiance of court orders as well as profiles of DOGE personnel. The trackers aid coverage of the Trump administration’s actions by providing additional context for breaking news.

According to the Pentagon, the military has at least 19–22 percent excess base capacity worldwide, imposing billions in unnecessary costs.

The petition adds: “The predatory, extreme and dictatorial actions of the Trump administration call for an all-out commensurate response, which so far has been terribly lacking from the Democratic Party.”

In “Top Houthi Official Tells Drop Site Yemen Will Cease Attacks on U.S. Ships if Trump Halts Bombing” Drop Site News reports: “A senior leader of Ansar Allah, commonly known as the Houthis, told Drop Site News that if the U.S. ends its campaign of air strikes against Yemen, Houthi forces will commit to halting all attacks on U.S. ships in the region.” 

The Department of Government Efficiency is eliminating the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, which has been in operation since 1996. One expert says MEPS is “probably the central source of data on healthcare use and spending in the U.S.” 

Two new lawsuits were filed against the National Institutes of Health, the NIH director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, the Department of Health and Human Services, and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for the cancellation of NIH research grants in the past month. More than 900 grants have been terminated so far. The newest lawsuit is being filed by 16 state attorneys general. The other suit, filed by NIH-funded researchers and other scientists, argues that the NIH and HHS failed to follow procedure when canceling research grants and that the grants were canceled for arbitrary and capricious reasons.

AFP reports: “A Palestinian official told AFP that Israeli forces shot dead a teenager holding US citizenship in the occupied West Bank Sunday, while the Israeli military said it had killed a ‘terrorist’ who threw rocks at cars.”