THE WAR ROOM: The Russians say they are going to get tougher with Ukraine after an attempted drone attack on one of Vladimir Putin’s residences, which the Ukrainians deny. Ukraine accused Russia of inventing a pretext to avoid reaching a peace deal. President Volodymyr Zelensky called the Russian accusation a “complete fabrication.”

  President Trump said he was informed of the attack by Putin himself during a phone call yesterday and told reporters, “I was very angry about it,” even though he had no independent confirmation.

  The Russians have always dragged their feet in peace talks. Foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said that, “Russia’s position regarding a number of previously reached agreements and emerging solutions will be revised” and that, “The Americans must treat this with understanding.”

  President Trump claimed on Sunday appearing with Zelensky that Russia wants Ukraine to succeed. He said, “President Putin was very generous in his feelings toward Ukraine succeeding, including supplying energy, electricity and other things at very low prices.”  Russia occupies Ukraine’s biggest nuclear power plant and destroyed a major hydroelectric plant.

DRUGGED OUT: The Pentagon announced the destruction of another suspected drug boat … this one in the western Pacific … shortly after President Trump revealed a few more details about the previously unannounced air strike in Venezuela more than a week ago. The boat attack was the 30^thsince September, killing two men, and bringing the total dead in these strikes to 107.

  Trump said the attack on Venezuelan territory hit a warehouse in a dock area believed to have been a drug transit site. “There was a major explosion in the dock area, where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said.” Several news outlets report that it was carried out by the CIA, but Trump declined to confirm that.

  The NY Times reports that the scorched wreckage of a 30-foot boat, mangled bodies, gas cans, and empty packages with traces of marijuana washed up on a Colombian beach, evidence of a US air strike on November 6^th. 

  A local woman heard the explosion and recorded video of the smoky aftermath on the ocean horizon, the paper reports. The Trump administration claims to be knocking out boats that carry killer addictive drugs … not marijuana.

  The Times reports that, “A wide range of legal experts say the U.S. strikes are illegal because the military is prohibited from deliberately targeting civilians, even if they are believed to have committed a crime, unless they pose an immediate threat.”

CHINA SYNDROME: The Chinese military has been carrying out live-fire exercises near Taiwan demonstrating the ability to take over the Democratic island country. Today, long-range artillery fired 27 rockets into waters to the north and southwest of Taiwan. 

THE REGIME: 

— Donald Trump said yesterday that without Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister and himself as President of the United States Israel might not exist anymore. The two met at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club yesterday.

  Trump said “there’s very little difference in what we’re looking at and where we want to be” regarding Gaza although … here’s a new one … he said there are countries other than Israel that are willing to go in and “wipe out” Hamas if it doesn’t fulfill its agreement to disarm. No country has openly waved a hand to volunteer.

— More performers have cancelled appearances at the Kennedy Center in Washington following the Christmas Eve concert that was to have hosted by jazz musician Chuck Redd until Donald Trump put his name on the building. The Cookers, promoted as an “all-star jazz septet that will ignite the Terrace Theater stage with fire and soul,” cancelled two New Year’s Eve performances. They did not give a reason, but issued a statement saying, “Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice.” 

  Doug Varone and Dancers, a New York dance company, pulled out of an April performance at a cost to themselves of $40,000. Varone told The NY Times in an email that, “It is financially devastating but morally exhilarating.” 

THE SPIN RACK: New York mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani plans to be sworn in symbolically in a small ceremony to be held in the abandoned ornate Gilded Age City Hall subway stop. He intends for the backdrop of tiled arches, chandeliers, and vaulted ceilings to be emblematic of his ambitions for the city. “When Old City Hall Station first opened in 1904 — one of New York’s 28 original subway stations — it was a physical monument to a city that dared to be both beautiful and build great things that would transform working peoples’ lives,” Mamdani said in a statement. “That ambition need not be a memory confined only to our past, nor must it be isolated only to the tunnels beneath City Hall.” — A second pilot in the collision of two small helicopters over New Jersey on Sunday has died of his injuries. The two men were friends who had breakfast together before flying and having a fatal accident for both.

BELOW THE FOLD: Actor George Clooney and his family have been granted French citizenship after he expressed concern about raising his children in Hollywood. Clooney and his wife, Amal, have eight-year-old twins. 

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