https://apnews.com/article/trump-national-guard-withdrawal-cities-6b7b02b832b24e17e6db483eb6c74425

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump said he’s dropping — for now — his push to deploy National Guard troops in Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon, a move that comes after legal roadblocks hung up the effort.

Trump said in a social media post Wednesday that he’s removing the Guard troops for now. “We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again - Only a question of time!” he wrote.

Troops had already left Los Angeles after the president deployed them earlier this year as part of a broader crackdown on crime and immigration. They had been sent to Chicago and Portland but were never on the streets as legal challenges played out.

The president has made a crackdown on crime in cities a centerpiece of his second term — and has toyed with the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act to stop his opponents from using the courts to block his plans.

He has said he sees his tough-on-crime approach as a winning political issue ahead of next year’s midterm elections.

In November, U.S. Northern Command had said it was ” shifting and/or rightsizing ″ operations in Portland, Chicago and Los Angeles, but there would be a “constant, enduring and long-term presence in each city.”

Trump’s push to deploy the troops in Democrat-led cities has been met with legal challenges at nearly every turn.

The Supreme Court in December refused to allow the Trump administration to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area as part of its crackdown on immigration. The order was not a final ruling but was a significant and rare setback by the high court for the president’s efforts.

In the nation’s capital, District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb sued to halt the deployments of more than 2,000 guardsmen.

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/zohran-mamdani-new-york-city-mayor-takes-oath-of-office-old-city-hall-subway-station/

Zohran Mamdani officially took the oath of office as the clock struck midnight on New Year's Eve, becoming the 112th mayor of New York City.

In a private ceremony at the abandoned Old City Hall subway station, Mamdani was sworn in by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

The 34-year-old democratic socialist, who served in the 36th Assembly District representing the Queens neighborhood of Astoria, is now the city's first Muslim mayor and its first of South Asian descent.

"This is truly the honor and the privilege of a lifetime," Mamdani said in a brief speech.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-issues-1st-vetoes-2nd-term-including-bipartisan/story?id=128801089

President Donald Trump issued vetoes for the first bills of his second term, including a bipartisan bill intended to provide funding for a water infrastructure project in Colorado, a measure that passed the House and Senate unanimously.

The Finish the Arkansas Valley Conduit Act was set to provide clean water to rural parts of Colorado.

"Enough is enough. My administration is committed to preventing American taxpayers from funding expensive and unreliable policies," Trump wrote in a veto letter sent to Congress. "Ending the massive cost of taxpayer handouts and restoring fiscal sanity is vital to economic growth and the fiscal health of the nation."

Trump also vetoed the Miccosukee Reserved Area Amendment Act, a bipartisan bill that aimed in part to optimize water flow into part of Everglades National Park designated for the Miccosukee Native American tribe and to incorporate the Osceola Camp into the Miccosukee Reserved Area to improve the governing structure of the tribe.

https://apnews.com/article/election-2026-trump-voting-doj-interference-22e2313f98e354fa31f277d3a1dc67d3

If history is a guide, Republicans stand a good chance of losing control of the House of Representatives in 2026. They have just a slim majority in the chamber, and the incumbent party usually gives up seats in midterm elections.

President Donald Trump, whose loss of the House halfway through his first term led to two impeachments, is trying to keep history from repeating — and doing so in ways his opponents say are intended to manipulate next year’s election landscape.

He has rallied his party to remake congressional maps across the country to create more conservative-leaning House seats, an effort that could end up backfiring on him. He’s directed his administration to target Democratic politicians, activists and donors. And, Democrats worry, he’s flexing his muscles to intervene in the midterms like no administration ever has.

Democrats and other critics point to how Trump has sent the military into Democratic cities over the objections of Democratic mayors and governors. They note that he’s pushed the Department of Homeland Security to be so aggressive that at one point its agents handcuffed a Democratic U.S. senator. And some warn that a Republican-controlled Congress could fail to seat winning candidates if Democrats reclaim the House majority, recalling Trump’s efforts to stay in power even after voters rejected him in 2020, leading to the violent attack by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol.

Regarding potential military deployments, Ken Martin, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told The Associated Press: “What he is going to do is send those troops there, and keep them there all the way through the next election, because guess what? If people are afraid of leaving their house, they’re probably not going to leave their house to go vote on Election Day. That’s how he stays in power.”

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/jack-smith-historical-analog-trumps-actions-2020-election/story?id=128819035

Former special counsel Jack Smith defended his decision to bring charges twice against President Donald Trump -- telling lawmakers in a closed-door deposition earlier this month that his team "had proof beyond reasonable doubt in both cases" that Trump was guilty of the charges in the 2020 election interference and classified documents cases.

And Smith fervently denied that there was any political influence behind his decision -- contrary to what the Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, who requested the testimony, alleged -- such as pressure from then-President Joe Biden or Attorney General Merrick Garland.

"No," Smith responded continuously.

Just over an hour before the closed testimony on Dec. 17, the Department of Justice sent an email to Smith's lawyers preventing him from discussing the classified documents case, according to the 255-page transcript of the deposition, released Wednesday by the Judiciary Committee along with a video of the hearing.

This meant Smith was unable to answer most questions on that case and the deposition -- intended to ask questions about the alleged weaponization of the DOJ against Trump and his allies -- mainly focused on the 2020 election case instead.

Smith's counsel said the DOJ also refused to send a lawyer to advise Smith on whether his statements were in line with their determination of what he could or could not say regarding the cases, according to the deposition. Smith did say, however, that Trump "obstructed" the classified documents investigation "to conceal his continued retention of those documents."

https://youtube.com/watch?v=r8AulCA1aOQ

Quality "Learing" Center.
Independent YouTube journalist uncovers a daycare inside a warehouse in Minnesota with no children, and it's fraudulently receiving millions yearly.
He also discovered a second warehouse with 22 shell health companies, no daytime employees, also fraudulently receiving millions in government funding every year.

https://fortune.com/2025/12/30/did-minnesota-lose-federal-funding-youtube-somali-daycare-fraud/

YouTuber’s viral ‘Somali day care’ video spurs sweeping federal fraud probe in Minnesota as Walz defends oversight of $18 billion

A viral video alleging fraud at several Minnesota day-care centers has triggered intensified federal and state scrutiny of how public money is spent. At the same time, officials stress that the claims remain unproven and are under active investigation.

The clash between online allegations and official audits has put Gov. Tim Walz’s administration and the state’s oversight systems under a national spotlight. It comes against the backdrop of a federal prosecutor’s allegation earlier in December that half or more of approximately $18 billion in federal funds allocated to Minnesota since 2018 may have been stolen. Authorities stress that the day-care sites in conservative YouTuber Nick Shirley’s footage are now part of an expanded investigative map. Still, they have not publicly alleged a specific dollar figure of confirmed fraud tied to those particular centers.

Shirley posted a roughly 40‑minute video late last week, documenting visits to nearly a dozen day-care centers in Minnesota that appear largely empty or inactive despite, as Shirley claims, receiving public funds. The video, shared on YouTube and X, has amassed nearly 2 million direct views in three days, as well as tens of millions of impressions across platforms, and has rapidly circulated under hashtags referencing “day-care fraud” and “Somali” centers.

>https://nypost.com/2025/12/31/us-news/minnesota-somali-run-daycare-bizarrely-says-all-their-important-documents-about-child-care-were-stolen-in-mystery-break-in/

A Somali-run day care in Minneapolis is claiming somebody broke in and stole “important documents,” but cops say the facility didn’t report anything was actually taken.

The alleged burglary comes as the national spotlight shines on the unfolding multibillion-dollar fraud scandal involving Minnesota human services, with particular scrutiny on day care facilities run by Somali immigrants after dozens of people from the community have been busted for pilfering state funds.

Nasrulah Mohamed, manager of Nakomis Day Care Center, told reporters that a suspect entered through the kitchen at the rear of the facility, damaging a wall and breaking into the building’s office, sometime on Tuesday.

He said the alleged prowler stole “important documentation” including children’s enrollment information, employee documentation and checkbooks.

However “no loss was reported to officers,” according to a preliminary report by the Minneapolis Police Department.

MPD noted that the center later reached out with additional information, but the updated police report was not immediately available.

Video of the purported break-in shared by Nakomis Day Care showed a hole in the wall in what appeared to be a utility closet with nearly stacked piles of cinder blocks behind the drywall.

Mohamed blamed last week’s viral video by YouTuber Nick Shirley, in which he visited nearly a dozen day care facilities looking for evidence of fraud, for the incident.

“This is devastating news, and we don’t know why this is targeting our Somali community as one video made by a specific individual made this all happen,” he said, claiming they’ve received “hateful” and “threatening” messages over the last several days.

Republicans now intend to hold mail in ballots hostage until after election day to void legal votes and steal the upcoming elections.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/12/30/us-postal-service-changes-postmark-rules-what-to-know/87960162007/

The U.S. Postal Service is making new changes in 2026, including adjustments to the postmark process, which could result in late fees and penalties for anyone mailing time-sensitive documents such as tax returns or bill payments.

For decades, the postmark – an official mark that shows where and when mail was accepted by the Postal Service – has been used in law as proof that an individual met a deadline, such as submitting a ballot by Election Day.

A USPS postmark used to indicate the date when mail was dropped in a mailbox or submitted at the post office counter. Now, USPS is clarifying in a new rule that the postmark will reflect the date an envelope is first processed by an automated USPS sorting machine, potentially days after it was dropped off – not the actual drop-off date.

Changes to USPS are part of its Delivering For America initiative that includes consolidation of mail processing and modernizing infrastructure to fit a time when the volume of paper letters is dropping and the number of packages is increasing.
How does the new postmark rule affect your mail?

For a long time, Americans have assumed that mail will be postmarked the day it is mailed and may not be prepared to account for the extra days.

Tax payments, charitable contributions, legal filings, rent payments and other bills or items that rely on postmark dates for deadlines can be impacted by later postmarks and risk late fees, penalties, or delinquency.

Many states also accept ballots that are postmarked by Election Day.

Time-sensitive mail should be mailed several days before the deadline. People can also go inside their local post office and ask for a hand-stamped "manual postmark" on the date, or use certified mail.

The December 16, 2025, jobs report confirms that the stall observed since spring has hardened into a structural contraction. While the public narrative remains anchored to the headline “resilience,” a closer interrogation reveals that 2025 was the year we sub-primed our own workforce.

While headlines celebrated a soft landing, the underlying labor market was experiencing a phantom jobs reversal. January 2025 began with a surplus of 751,000 job openings; by December, the market moved into a deficit of 131,000 jobs—an 882,000 swing in labor-market balance. With Chair Powell’s December 10 admission of a 60,000 monthly overcount, the labor market has actually been contracting by 20,000 jobs per month since April.

We are also watching the real-time collapse of household solvency. The backbone of the American economy is being pushed from stable, professional roles into low-tier service work, resulting in an immediate 49% drop in income, and then financing their children’s basic nutrition with shadow debt. This isn’t just a failure of equity; it is a strategic economic blunder. You cannot stabilize a 2026 economy if you refuse to look at the demographic where the insolvency is actually occurring.

When workers are erased from the labor force, they don’t just leave empty desks; they leave empty tax rolls, and increasingly, unpaid debts. In 2025, we witnessed the early stages of an institutional bank run that fractured the financial system from both ends.

On December 12, 2025, the Federal Reserve validated this instability by initiating a $40 billion monthly liquidity injection to stabilize the banking system. This solvency crisis is inextricably linked to labor force erasure.

The results are in. Fixing the cracks in the economy is to stop erasing the people who hold it together. The bill is due and we will either pay it with investment or with stagnation.

https://fortune.com/2025/12/31/soft-landing-economic-narrative-wrong-black-women-unemployment/

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5665887-trump-greene-epstein-coverup-claims/
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) claimed in a New York Times profile that President Trump said his “friends will get hurt” by exposing abusers connected to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

According to the story told by Greene, she received a call from Trump after she said at a news conference that she would expose the names of men who abused victims of Epstein. The news conference came after a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee closed-door meeting with women victimized by Epstein.

Greene said Trump called her after the news conference to express his unhappiness. The Times reported that people could hear Trump yelling at Greene as she talked to him over a speakerphone.

Greene said she told Trump she didn’t understand his intransigence, per the Times.

“My friends will get hurt,” the president said in response to Greene, she said to the outlet.

When reached for comment about Greene’s claims in the Times profile, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle noted that Greene is leaving her position in Congress halfway through her term.

Ingle said Greene “is quitting on her constituents in the middle of her term and abandoning the consequential fight we’re in — we don’t have time for her petty bitterness.”

Greene, once a staunch supporter of the president, has been feuding with Trump in recent months. In mid-November, Trump announced he was dropping his endorsement of Greene and would support a primary challenger.

Shortly after Trump declared her a traitor, Greene said she would be leaving Congress effective Jan. 5.