Happy Wednesday Everyone! Today’s newsletter: 1,049 words…4 mins
🗞 Today’s Edition: Germany’s $35M Heist, The Rats Ate My Evidence, Assad’s Face Replaced By Olives, HHS Freezes Childcare Funds in MN, Russia Rolls Out The Oreshniks… & much more!
🚨 Watch For:
Times Square Double Ball Drop: Midnight + New Year’s (12:04 am)
Dear Readers,
As the clock ticks toward a brand-new year, we just want to say thank you to each and every one of you.
Thank you for reading, sharing and caring enough to show up in a world that often feels loud, chaotic, and divided.
As the year turns, may we remember: our shared hopes outnumber our differences, and our collective light can brighten any tomorrow. Let’s let go of everything that didn’t work out in 2025. It only means the best has yet to unfold!
Here’s to new beginnings, open hearts, and believing—again—that good things are always possible.
Happy New Year’s Eve! ✨
With love,
Sanaea
📜THE HIGHLIGHT
One killer insight to stash in your back pocket
Thieves drilled into the wall and stole millions
🥷 Germany’s €30M Christmas Heist — Ocean’s Eleven, but Make It Very Real
While Germany was busy mulled-wining its way through the Christmas holidays, thieves were drilling into history —a move straight out of a heist movie, minus the soundtrack.
Masked robbers breached a Sparkasse bank vault in Gelsenkirchen, drilling through a concrete wall from a neighboring parking garage.
By the time a fire alarm finally triggered, the crew was gone, reportedly fleeing in a black Audi RS6 with stolen plates.
The damage:
💥 ~€30 million ($35M) in cash, gold, and jewelry
🔓 3,000+ safe deposit boxes forced open
📉 Most boxes insured for just ~€10,000, far below actual losses
🪙 Many victims stored gold and valuables explicitly not covered by insurance
Why this matters: German police are calling it a highly sophisticated, non-violent operation—no suspects, no arrests, no recovered loot as of Dec. 31. Timing the strike during a holiday shutdown turned a regulated bank into a sitting duck.
💡Bottom line: The vault held. The wall didn’t. And for thousands of Germans, “safe deposit” just became a very expensive illusion.
♟️THE CHESSBOARD
Geopolitics Decoded In 3 Moves
🐀 The Rats Ate My Evidence
A court in Ranchi, India just acquitted a major narcotics suspect after police claimed rats ate ~440 lbs (200kg) of seized weed from a station storeroom.
The judge called it “gross negligence”—the chain of custody snapped, no physical evidence remained and all witnesses were police.
The pattern: This is India's third "rodents ate the evidence" excuse since 2022. Mathura cops blamed rats for 386kg of weed vanishing. Bihar? Rats apparently drank the confiscated booze.
Experts say rats would've died from toxicity—no rat corpses found.
What's really happening: Evidence likely got resold or "misplaced." (Argentina fired officers after a similar 540kg cocaine "mouse" cover-up in 2018.)
💡Bottom line: This is either a case of systemic corruption or running the world’s worst evidence locker. Either way, the criminals walk free.
🚀 Russia Rolls Out Oreshnik—Belarus Gets Front-Row Seats
Russia’s Defense Ministry dropped first-ever footage of the Oreshnik hypersonic missile, showing a mobile launcher deployed in Belarus, camouflaged and entering combat duty—likely near Krichev airbase.
The nuclear-capable IRBM, is claimed to fly at 10+ Mach, carry multiple warheads, and be intercept-proof (Putin says it hits like a nuke).
Belarus says up to 10 systems are in—putting Poland ~11 minutes and Brussels ~17 away from potential impact.
💡Bottom line: NATO’s blood pressure just spiked.
🫒 Assad’s Face Replaced By Olives
Syria unveiled redesigned banknotes—and Bashar al-Assad is officially off the money. The new series swaps dictator portraits for olives, wheat, roses, and oranges, signaling a “new national identity” after the Assad family’s 50-year rule.
The math: They're lopping off two zeros (100:1 exchange) to simplify transactions. Translation: Your 200,000-pound note becomes 2,000—same value, less embarrassing to count.
Central Bank's giving citizens 90 days to swap at 1,000+ outlets—no panic, just produce-themed redemption.
💡Bottom line: This is political erasure via monetary policy—reset the symbols, steady the economy, move forward.
🗽THE EMPIRE FILES
Political Drama From DC To NYC
🚫HHS Freezes Minnesota Childcare Cash
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) just froze ~$185M in federal childcare funding to Minnesota, citing “blatant fraud” at state-funded daycare centers.
The trigger: A viral video by YouTuber/independent journalist Nick Shirley, alleging fake or non-operational centers—often in Somali communities—were cashing checks.
HHS wants a full audit and is tightening nationwide proof rules.
⚡Minnesota’s Governor Tim Walz who recently appointed a “program integrity director,” as part of his anti-fraud program, calls this freeze Trump-era politics.
🎂 Washington Monument Glows Up For America’s 250th
On New Year’s Eve, the Washington Monument kicked off America’s 250th anniversary with its first-ever full-scale projection mapping show, turning the 555-foot obelisk into a glowing timeline of U.S. history.
Organized by America250’s Freedom 250, the free, unticketed National Mall event ends with a midnight countdown, fireworks, and the monument morphing into a giant birthday candle.
⚡DC is officially in semiquincentennial mode.
🤖 CODES & POWER
Tech Wars, Crypto Chaos, and AI’s Black Mirror Moments
💵 Nvidia Buys $5B of Intel—Here’s Why It Matters
Nvidia just bought $5 billion worth of Intel stock, picking up ~215 million shares at $23.28 each in a deal first announced in September.
U.S. regulators already cleared it.
Market reaction: Nvidia dipped 1.3%, Intel barely moved.
⚡Why now: Intel needs cash after years of expensive factory bets. Nvidia wants more control over U.S. chip supply as semiconductors turn geopolitical.
🤖 Nvidia Eyes Israeli Generative AI Firm
Nvidia is reportedly in advanced talks to buy AI21 Labs for $2–3B, snapping up the Israeli startup behind the Jurassic LLMs (a GPT rival).
Founded by Mobileye’s Amnon Shashua, AI21 employs ~200 AI specialists.
The play looks like a talent-and-tech grab, deepening Nvidia’s Israel footprint—its “second home”—as it plans a 10,000-person R&D hub near Haifa.
⚡Another brick in Jensen’s AI empire.
📺 FUN FACTS & TRIVIA
The original Times Square ball, 1907
New Year's Eve
The first-ever Times Square ball-drop began in 1907 with a 700-pound iron-and-wood ball, lowered from the tower flagpole.
The ball-drop was canceled only in 1942–1943 for WWII blackouts.
Across the U.S., towns drop quirky objects:
A glowing pickle in Mt. Olive, NC;
A live possum lowered in a plexiglass pyramid in Brasstown, NC; (stopped in 2019 after animal rights groups raised concerns)
A giant peach in Atlanta, GA;
And an 8-foot sardine in Eastport, ME.
"Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve" premiered in 1972 on NBC featuring Three Dog Night, with Dick Clark taking the helm on ABC from 1974.