News

The Associated Press reports: A powerful winter storm that dumped heavy snow and glazed roads with ice across much of Texas and Oklahoma lumbered eastward into southern U.S. states overnight, prompting governors to declare states of emergency and shuttering schools across the region. School was canceled Friday for millions of children across a wide tract of southern states from Texas …

NBC News reports: The Senate voted Thursday to begin debate on the Laken Riley Act, clearing a key hurdle to advance a Republican-led bill aimed at cracking down on illegal immigration that has garnered significant support from Democrats. With a vote of 84-9, the bill easily cleared the 60-vote threshold to advance in GOP-controlled Senate. But many Democrats have suggested …

ABC News reports: Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito spoke to Trump by phone Tuesday to recommend one of his former law clerks for a job in the new administration. “William Levi, one of my former law clerks, asked me to take a call from President-elect Trump regarding his qualifications to serve in a government position,” Alito said in a statement …

The Guardian reports: Pedro Sánchez has hit out at Elon Musk and his allies for “openly attacking our institutions, inciting hatred and openly calling for people to support the heirs of Nazism”, saying the politics of division, disinformation and hatred risk ushering in a new age of authoritarianism. Speaking in Madrid on Wednesday as Spain prepares to mark the 50th …

CNN reports: The Massachusetts State Police were called to Boston’s Logan International Airport Tuesday evening after a JetBlue passenger opened an aircraft door, deploying the emergency slide, the police and airline told CNN. At around 7:30 p.m., authorities responded to JetBlue flight 161 after a passenger “who wanted to deplane opened an aircraft door suddenly and without warning,” police said …

Los Angeles’s ABC affiliate reports: Tens of thousands of residents in the western Los Angeles area were under mandatory evacuation orders Tuesday evening as a wind-driven wildfire exploded in size and swept through communities in the Pacific Palisades. The Palisades Fire was first reported around 10:30 a.m. Tuesday in the 1100 block of North Piedra Morada Drive. By evening, the …

NBC News reports: Two prisoners who are among the 37 federal inmates whose death sentences were commuted last month by President Joe Biden — a move that spares them from the death chamber — have taken an unusual stance: They’re refusing to sign paperwork accepting his clemency action. Shannon Agofsky and Len Davis, both inmates at the U.S. Penitentiary in …

The New York Times reports: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau moved on Tuesday to ban medical debt from appearing on credit reports, potentially lifting the credit scores of about 15 million Americans and making it easier for them to obtain loans. The finalized new rule would effectively prohibit loan providers from using medical information while making lending decisions. It is …

NBC News reports: Two people were found dead in the landing gear compartment of a JetBlue plane in Florida during routine post-flight inspections on Monday, the company has said. “Tragically, both individuals were deceased. At this time, the identities of the individuals and the circumstances surrounding how they accessed the aircraft remain under investigation,” the company said in a statement …

The Washington Post reports: The widespread use of pharmaceuticals in America is introducing even more toxic “forever chemicals” into the environment through wastewater, according to a study released Monday, and large municipal wastewater treatment plants are not capable of fully filtering them out. The plants’ inability to remove compounds known as organofluorines from wastewater before it enters drinking water supplies …

The New York Times reports: A joint session of Congress is set to convene on Monday afternoon to certify President-elect Donald J. Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, a basic ritual of democracy that was brutally disrupted four years ago by a violent pro-Trump mob inflamed by his lie about a stolen election. There is no hint of a similar …

The Washington Post reports: The Vatican named one of the United States’ leading liberal Catholic prelates Monday to run the prominent D.C.-area archdiocese, sending to the nation’s capital, as a second Trump administration begins, a cleric known for a pastoral approach to migrants and for the “radical inclusion” of the LGBTQ+ community. San Diego Cardinal Robert McElroy, who for a …

Politico Europe reports: Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said Monday he found it “worrying” that a billionaire social media owner like Elon Musk is inserting himself into the politics of other countries. Musk has been on a social media rampage over the holidays, endorsing the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, repeatedly denouncing the U.K.’s Labour Prime Minister Keir …

The New York Times reports: The far-right Freedom Party of Austria gained a realistic chance this weekend of leading the country’s next government, after talks between three mainstream parties collapsed. The Freedom Party’s ascent would put its firebrand leader, Herbert Kickl, into the position of chancellor and signal a new high-water mark for the rise of the far right in …

ABC News reports: As a deep winter chill begins to take over the northern half of the country, a new major winter storm will move across the U.S. this weekend into early next week. Around 47 million Americans across 14 states were under winter weather alerts as of early Saturday morning, with many expecting the storm to be sustained into …

The Hill reports: Greenland Prime Minister Múte Egede announced a desire to obtain independence from Denmark in the wake of President-elect Trump’s comments about buying the island territory. “The Greenlandic people’s opportunity for independence has been adopted through the provisions of the Self-Government Act, thereby creating a legal basis for how independence can be achieved,” Egede said in a Wednesday …

The Associated Press reports: A highly decorated Army soldier who died in an explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck at the Trump hotel in Las Vegas left a note saying it was stunt to serve as “wakeup call” for the country’s ills, investigators said Friday. Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old Green Beret from Colorado Springs, Colorado, also wrote in the note that …

CBS News reports: The 119th Congress will convene on Capitol Hill on Friday, with Republicans in control of both the House and Senate for the first time since 2019. The House will meet at noon and hold its election for speaker, with current Speaker Mike Johnson hoping to hold onto his gavel. Johnson needs to win a majority of the …

AccuWeather reports: A massive storm is expected to bring both wintry and severe weather to millions of Americans as early as this weekend, AccuWeather meteorologists warn. “Over a dozen states are forecast to be impacted by one or more aspects of this storm,” said AccuWeather Meteorologist Brandon Buckingham. The storm emerging from the Rockies late on Saturday is forecast to …

NBC News reports: A judicial organization that sets national policy for federal courts has rejected a request from two Democratic lawmakers to refer Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to the Justice Department over free travel and gifts from wealthy benefactors that were largely omitted from his financial disclosure forms. The group, the Judicial Conference, sent identical letters Thursday to Sen. …