People gathered outside Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's home in Ra'anana. They beat drums, sang songs, and held candles, with signs reading, "We have no trust in Ministry of Health."

"I'm not against vaccination. Everybody who wants to be vaccinated - fine," a man attending the protest told Ruptly video agency. "I'm against forcing. There is no way that any human being can force anybody else [into] vaccination."

Another protester said the government should not interfere in decisions regarding people's own health. "In order to live in a free country, we have to let people decide for themselves about their medical conditions," he said, adding that the Health Ministry must be more transparent and explain its recommendations better, instead of "hiding information."

New data suggesting Omicron may be less likely to lead to serious illness than the Delta variant of coronavirus offers a "glimmer of Christmas hope", a senior health official has said.

But UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) chief executive Dr Jenny Harries warned that it is too early to downgrade the threat from the new strain, which is still spreading rapidly across the UK.

Dr Harries told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that more information is needed, particularly about the impact on elderly and more vulnerable patients.

She added: "There is a glimmer of Christmas hope in the findings that we published yesterday, but it definitely isn't yet at the point where we could downgrade that serious threat."

After the Conejo Guardian's report on alarming trends in Ventura County hospitals, more nurses have come forward to affirm the rise in unexplained heart problems, strokes and blood clotting in local vaccinated patient populations. They also say doctors refuse to consider that these could be adverse reactions to Covid shots.

Sam, a critical care nurse at an ICU in a Ventura County hospital, came forward because, "I'm tired of all the B.S. that's going on," he told the Guardian.

"It's crazy how nobody questions anything anymore.

"NONE [OF THE DOCTORS] QUESTION WHETHER THE VACCINE CAUSES MYOCARDITIS, PERICARDITIS AND THE STROKES THAT ARE COMING IN. IF THEY DON'T TOE THE LINE, THEY COULD LOSE THEIR MEDICAL LICENSE."

Sam has witnessed a surge in numbers of young people experiencing severe health problems after receiving Covid shots.

"We've been having a lot of younger people come in. We're seeing a lot of strokes, a lot of heart attacks."

One 38-year-old-woman came in with occlusions (blockages of blood flow) in her brain.

"They [doctors] were searching for everything under the sun and documenting this in the chart, but nowhere do you see if she was vaccinated or not. One thing the vaccine causes is thrombosis, clotting. Here you have a 38-year-old woman who was double-vaccinated and she's having strokes they can't explain. None of the doctors relates it to the vaccine. It's garbage. It's absolute garbage."

State officials in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania who sought to block transparency and accountability over the 2020 election were handed a defeat on Thursday, according to the non-profit legal foundation The Amistad Project. The group stated in a press release:

"The Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania has ruled in favor of The Amistad Project and Fulton County, Pennsylvania, allowing the county to send its Dominion voting machines to the State Senate for inspection on January 10."

Phill Kline, director of The Amistad Project, said:

"The court recognized that it was improper to demand that the county - which owns the machines, and has the responsibility of running the election along with the legislature - can't determine whether the machines worked properly. As the judge noted, there's no justification for preventing the county from looking at their own machines."

Pennsylvania's attorney general and secretary of state had sued to prevent the inspection, the press release notes. It was originally scheduled for December 22, but the judge determined that it must be allowed to proceed, "with a short delay to allow experts from both sides to come up with a formal protocol for the inspection."

The state of New Jersey has agreed to pay a nearly $53 million settlement to the families of 119 residents of the state's military veteran facilities who died during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to reports.

Each of the families will receive an average of $445,000, to be determined in future arbitration proceedings, according to an administrative official who confirmed the payout to NJ.com. The total amount of the settlement is $52,955,000.

"The families of those who have lost their lives to COVID-19 have gone through so much. This settlement will hopefully allow them to move forward without years of protracted and uncertain litigation."

Nearly 200 veterans died at two of the state's veterans homes in Paramus and Menlo Park after the pandemic erupted in 2020.

A suspected illegal alien with ties to a "well-known Mexican cartel" was arrested in Culpeper, Virginia, last Friday, prompting authorities to warn Americans that President Joe Biden's southern border crisis is endangering citizens across the country. Culpeper Sheriff Scott Jenkins said via Facebook:

"Virginia citizens should realize the extent that Mexican cartels have continued to increase their activity nationwide. Our detectives have purchased kilos of drugs as well as firearms in our region for many months. I often say every county is a border county and our southern border has been much more wide open since the end of January this year."

Jenkins' comments came after "Detective J. Vazquez conducted a two-month investigation, as a member of the Blue Ridge Narcotics Task Force, into the illegal sale of firearms by Dulier Jimenez Barrera, 41, of 517 1st St. in Culpeper, near Yowell Meadow Park," the Culpeper-Star Exponent reported.

"During the investigation, several firearms, high-capacity magazines, and ammunition were purchased from Barrera. Task force members also seized $11,700 from the suspect's home."

Celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson spent Christmas Eve attempting to debunk Santa Claus with facts, taking aim at his reindeer, sleigh, and North Pole workshop in a series of mood-killing tweets.

Tyson made several viral posts attempting to debunk the mythology of Santa Claus using science on Christmas Eve, Friday.

"Since the Northern Arctic is just ocean, Santa's North Pole workshop has only ever existed on a floating sheet of ice. Images that portray Santa's workshop with pine trees and snow-capped hills on the horizon are geographically underinformed," claimed Tyson in one tweet, while in others he suggested that Santa's reindeer would not have antlers in winter and that his sleigh would be vaporized if he traveled at hypersonic speeds.

A group of demonstrators in the French territory of Guadeloupe have stormed the island's legislative chamber, holding an extended protest over a series of Covid-19 vaccine requirements imposed by the government.

The protest kicked off on Thursday and extended into the next day, with activists seen hoisting banners and chanting slogans denouncing the pandemic measures after pushing their way into the legislature.

Following the incursion on Thursday - which at some points got heated, with activists destroying a Christmas tree in the building's lobby - regional president Ary Chalus said he had agreed to meet with 10 protest leaders, though only after denouncing the "invasion of the chamber" as an act of "intimidation and unworthy violence." It's unclear whether the meeting took place, or if any agreements were made to amend the controversial policies fueling the protests.

Churches across the U.S. have cancelled their traditional Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services amid the surge of coronavirus cases, disappointing churchgoers for the second straight year.

The Washington National Cathedral, in Washington, D.C., cancelled its popular in-person Lessons and Carols service Thursday night and all Christmas services.

"Unfortunately, as the omicron variant takes hold across the world, our city seems to be leading the nation in infections," the Rev. Randolph Marshall Hollerith, the cathedral's dean, said in an open letter Thursday. "As a result, we have made the sad but necessary decision to shift all Christmas services online and close the building to worshippers and visitors."

A federal judge has refused to block the mask mandate imposed by school administrators in the Las Vegas area, dismissing a lawsuit that two parents filed claiming the requirement infringed on their right to make decisions for their kids.

In the lawsuit, the parents argued the mandates violated their right to make medical decisions for their children and argued against the process by which the Clark County School District adopted the policy.

The ruling comes as schools and businesses prepare for another variant-fueled surge and fights over coronavirus measures in schools continue to provoke spirited responses from parents and teachers on both sides of the issue.