HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL🎄💫✨

FROM THE TREE HOUSE NEWS TO YOU🏡📰

NEWS AGGREGATION & COMMENTARY

Well, here it is 1:55 AM, and I'm just not sleepy. I have been feeling more like I did before all hell broke loose on me. Everything went down for the count, healthwise, either getting Covid, then some virus, like some stomach flu bug, then getting teeth pulled, then GERD acting up, and that's not counting since before the flu bug and the teeth, I also had my appendix taken out last year in October 2024. The first time around, I had Covid in 2020, then the flu in '20, then Covid again in '22. I guess it was 2018, the last time I remember feeling somewhat normal, seven years ago, 8 years in 2026.

About one year after we moved here to the Niagara Peninsula, we hadn't heard about all those killer bugs yet. The climate here is sufficiently hospitable that I could walk the trails 9 months of the year. Now that I feel well enough, I am looking forward to walking the trails again. I wish I had teeth to have a snack with. I never thought I would like food again. 😋 🥪 That is finding my peace, for now, as I sit here in contemplation, looking at the Christmas Tree all lit up and thinking of how fortunate I am.

It came so close to me not being here to spend Christmas with Paula. I did not get only one reprieve from withering away in illness, but three times? To still be alive one more day is a precious gift, especially if one can appreciate life while in full possession of their faculties, without suffering or pain. It's challenging to navigate through life with suffering and pain constantly nipping at your heels. It fills me with gratitude that the Great Spirit turned me away three times. It wasn't I fighting it; I had no further strength to fight it. I had surrendered, but I was turned back three times! And here I am.

I wish you all, friends and family, a happy holiday, and thank you for the opportunity to allow me to celebrate this day here with you.

TODAY'S DISCUSSION:

- Google Search -

GRATITUDE

Gratitude is the feeling of thankfulness and appreciation for the good things in life, recognizing blessings, kindness, or gifts from others, and affirming that life is worthwhile, which involves acknowledging goodness and its sources outside oneself, boosting well-being, strengthening relationships, and fostering resilience. It's both a momentary emotion and a lasting character trait, leading to more positive feelings and better health.

• Core Concepts:
• Types of Gratitude:
• Benefits of Gratitude:
• Mental Health:
• Physical Health:
• Well-being:

Raed More - Google Search:

My Prayer Of Gratitude for me this morning is being thankful for what I have learned. It is essential for the survival of body and spirit. What I have learned is that the light within, that part of me that makes who I am, can be taken away so quickly, leaving me lost in a void of darkness and despair, along with the pain and suffering so thick and dense that my consciousness only seeks to find escape, peace through the land of sleep, limbo, or nothing land. Over the last couple of days, my healing has progressed some, and so has my faith as I continue my way back up the path to the light.

Now I know it's not just an air sandwich; this one actually has baloney in it. 🥪

BREAKING NEWS:

'Nobody wants peace': The Ukrainian men risking death to avoid the front line

Maramures, Romania

—

Viktor Pinkhasov can't stop smiling. He has just managed to escape Ukraine after hiking alone for five days across the Carpathian Mountains. "I want to go and be free, to live," the 34-year-old told CNN in disbelief after arriving in neighboring Romania. He is one of dozens making the illegal crossing from western Ukraine every week. After nearly four years of pushing against Russia's full-scale invasion, Ukraine is facing a growing manpower crisis: Kyiv's forces are trying to hold a more than 600-mile front line against Russian troops who are pressing a relentless war of attrition.

CNN spoke to half a dozen draft evaders who didn't want to risk dying in a conflict with no end in sight – despite attempts by the Trump administration and foreign powers to negotiate one. Russia, meanwhile, can draw on a population more than three times larger than Ukraine's to fill its ranks, despite mounting casualties.

The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office has opened nearly 290,000 criminal cases into soldiers' absence without leave and desertion up to September, according to the Ukrainska Pravda media outlet. Martial law bars all men aged 23 to 60 who are eligible for military service from leaving the country...

• A deadly crossing:
• 'Our job is full of empathy for humanity':
• Smugglers guide draft evaders out of Ukraine:

Read More:

PUBLISHED Dec 23, 2025, 12:00 AM ET - Dec 23, 2025

- CNN -

Vivek Ramaswamy rebrands himself as a ‘conservative without being combative’

just about anyone. He declared America was in a “cold cultural civil war,” denied the existence of white supremacists, and referred to one of his rivals as “corrupt.”

Now, he says he wants to be “conservative without being combative.” Ramaswamy is rebranding himself both for the Ohio governor’s race, where he hopes to succeed the conservative but mild-mannered Gov. Mike DeWine, and to establish a clear lane for himself in the ongoing Republican Party debate over racial and political identity.

He took the stage at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest this month to criticize Nick Fuentes and the so-called “groyper right.” He’s denounced what he called the “rising prevalence of the blood-and-soil view” within his party...

• He’s seeking to replace a different kind of conservative:
• Ramaswamy enters a fight well outside Ohio:

Read More:

PUBLISHED Dec 27, 2025, 6:01 AM ET - 2 hr ago

- CNN -

A reform-minded mayor is taking over New York at a time of progress and stability for the NYPD:

A reform-minded mayor is taking charge of New York City at a time when the largest police department in the country is finding its stride in its stability, touting a drop in gun violence and homicides while its current leadership stays intact.

New York Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch is staying at the helm under progressive Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, providing nearly 35,000 uniformed members sustained leadership after she became the fourth police commissioner to serve in the scandal-scarred Adams administration...

• Shootings, homicides decline:
• More officers join, but they leave, too:
• ‘We’re trying to exploit a situation’:
• A steadying hand as top cop:

Read More:

PUBLISHED Dec 27, 2025, 7:01 AM ET - 1 hr 7 min ago

- CNN -

Hundreds of thousands of ‘Epstein files’ have been released — and there’s a lot more to come

The “Epstein files” saga will spill into 2026, despite a deadline last week to release all of the records. Congress passed a law last month — with near-unanimous support — requiring the Justice Department to release all of its files about Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender who was accused of abusing dozens of underage girls. Epstein died by suicide in 2019.

The so-called “Epstein files” are made of over 300 gigabytes of data, papers, videos, photographs and audio files that live within the FBI’s main electronic case management system and largely originate from the FBI’s two major investigations into Epstein, in Florida and New York, spanning decades. Kennedy Center president rebukes performer who called off Christmas Eve show over addition of Trump’s name...

Read More:

• How many records have been released so far?:
• What has been released so far?:
• How much more is out there?:
• What still hasn’t been released?:

Read More:

PUBLISHED Dec 27, 2025, 5:00 AM ET - 3 hr ago

- CNN -

CANADIAN NEWS:

Zelenskyy to meet Carney in Halifax today before Ukraine president’s talks with Trump in Florida

Zelenskyy seeing Canadian PM ahead of talks with U.S. president aimed at ending Russia-Ukraine war

Volodymyr Zelenskyy will meet with Prime Minister Mark Carney in Halifax today during a stopover before Ukraine’s president heads to the U.S. News of Zelenskyy's Canadian visit comes after he spoke with Carney by phone Friday. The Prime Minister’s Office released an advisory early Saturday confirming the meeting, scheduled to start around 1 p.m. AT.

The wartime leader said in a statement that he updated the prime minister "on the status of our diplomatic efforts with the United States" to bring the Russian war in Ukraine to an end...

WATCH | Consensus reached between U.S.-Ukraine on ending

• Security guarantees on agenda with Trump:

WATCH | The 20-point peace plan laid out by Zelenskyy:

Read More:

Posted: Dec 27, 2025 6:15 AM EST | Last Updated: 33 minutes ago

- CBC -

Navy ponders concept of Canadian-built amphibious landing ship for Arctic operations

Canada's defence establishment entering an era of bigger ambitions and budgets

The commander of the Royal Canadian Navy is floating the idea of an ice-capable amphibious landing ship to move troops and equipment around the country’s Arctic — and perhaps elsewhere. But Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee is quick not to get his hopes up — and has even, occasionally, taken pains to downplay it.

At various times, Topshee has described the notion as “a conceptual thing" and even told a podcaster last fall that it is “a thought exercise” — part of the imagining that’s going on as the navy and the defence establishment writ large wraps their heads around an era of bigger ambitions and bigger budgets...

• Canada's growing profile in Antarctic research may get a boost with expedition in 2026
• New funding will allow military to dream big:

WATCH | Canada's navy examining adding an amphibious landing ship in the Arctic:

• Countries tie amphibious ships to national security:
• NATO deterrence mission in Latvia drains the Canadian Army's fleet of vehicles

Read More:

Posted: Dec 27, 2025 4:00 AM EST | Last Updated: 5 hours ago

- CBC -

1 Minute Ago: JUST IN Carney Shuts Down Trump, “Canada Stands Strong Without You” | George Conway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Sd4M1Hu6k8