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https://www.cbsnews.com/news/house-wont-vote-on-health-care-tax-credit-extension-angering-gop-moderates/

Washington — The House won't vote this week on an extension to the Affordable Care Act's enhanced premium subsidies, which lapse at the end of the year.

An 11th-hour effort by moderate Republicans to put an extension on the floor for a vote failed Tuesday night, when the House Rules Committee blocked several of the amendments they were seeking to the attach to a GOP health care plan released last week. The GOP plan does not include an extension.

The committee advanced the bill to the floor late Tuesday. A vote is expected Wednesday.

Moderate Republicans are perplexed at the decision not to hold a vote on an extension ahead of the Dec. 31 deadline, and have warned of the political ramifications of allowing insurance premiums to soar in the new year for more than 20 million Americans who buy their insurance on Affordable Care Act marketplaces.

House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared to shut the door on any amendment votes earlier Tuesday, only to open it slightly after a heated meeting with moderates.

"We looked for a way to try to allow for that pressure-release valve, and it just was not to be. We worked on it all the way through the weekend," Johnson told reporters Tuesday morning.

The Louisiana Republican later said "there's some ideas on the table that could work."

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https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/17/climate/national-center-for-atmospheric-research-trump.html

The Trump administration said it will be dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, one of the world’s leading Earth science research institutions.
The center, founded in 1960, is responsible for many of the biggest scientific advances in humanity’s understanding of weather and climate. Its research aircraft and sophisticated computer models of the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans are widely used in forecasting weather events and disasters around the country, and its scientists study a broad range of topics, including air pollution, ocean currents and global warming.
But in a social media post announcing the move late on Tuesday, Russell Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, called the center “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country” and said that the federal government would be “breaking up” the institution.
Mr. Vought wrote that a “comprehensive review is underway” and that “any vital activities such as weather research will be moved to another entity or location.”
USA Today first reported on the White House plans.
Scientists, meteorologists and lawmakers said the move was an attack on critical scientific research and would harm the United States.
The National Center for Atmospheric Research was originally founded to provide scientists studying Earth’s atmosphere with cutting-edge resources, such as supercomputers, that individual universities could not afford on their own. It is now widely considered a global leader in both weather and climate change research, with programs aimed at tracking severe weather events, modeling floods and understanding how solar activity affects the Earth’s atmosphere.

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https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/childrens-pastor-joe-campbell-arrested-child-sex-abuse-charges-rcna210316

Joe Campbell, a Pentecostal preacher who for half a century ministered to thousands of children across four states, has been arrested on child sex abuse charges, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office said Wednesday.

Campbell was charged with one count of first degree rape and one count of lewd or indecent acts to a child under 16, according to the charging document. U.S. Marshals arrested him Wednesday morning at Camp Bell, his children's camp in Elkland, Missouri, and brought him to the Greene County jail in Springfield, where he was awaiting transfer to Oklahoma. If convicted, he faces up to life in prison.

It wasn’t clear if Campbell, 68, had an attorney. He couldn’t immediately be reached for comment. His arrest represents a long-delayed breakthrough in a 40-year effort by some of his alleged victims to seek justice.

The charges come seven months after an NBC News investigation revealed a pattern of child sex abuse allegations against Campbell and repeated failures by pastors, police and prosecutors to intervene. Five women said he sexually abused them as children in the 1970s and ’80s when he was an Assemblies of God minister; nine others, including four men, said he showed them pornography, made lewd comments or touched them inappropriately during the same period.

Campbell’s rape charge appears to be tied to the alleged abuse of one of those women, Kerri Jackson. Jackson, now 53, says he molested her for years in Tulsa in the early 1980s, beginning when she was around 9. The attorney general’s office presented the case to a multicounty grand jury in Oklahoma City last week and the panel returned the indictment — a milestone Jackson and some of the other women had pursued for most of their lives.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpvd81470v1o
US President Donald Trump has filed a multi-billion-dollar defamation lawsuit against the BBC over an edit of his 6 January 2021 speech in a Panorama documentary.

Trump accused the broadcaster of defamation and of violating a trade practices law, according to court documents filed in Florida. He asked for $5bn (£3.7bn) in damages on each of the claims.

The BBC has apologised to Trump, but rejected his demands for compensation and disagreed there was any "basis for a defamation claim".

Trump's legal team accused the BBC of defaming him by "intentionally, maliciously, and deceptively doctoring his speech". The BBC has not yet responded.

Trump said last month that he planned to sue the BBC for the documentary, which aired in the UK ahead of the 2024 US election.

"I think I have to do it," Trump told reporters of his plans. "They cheated. They changed the words coming out of my mouth."

In his speech on 6 January 2021, before a riot at the US Capitol, Trump told a crowd: "We're going to walk down to the Capitol, and we're going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women."


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https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/briefs/attorney-general-sues-pornographic-websites/

Attorney General Todd Rokita is suing about 50 sexually explicit websites, alleging they have violated Indiana’s age-verification law.

The lawsuits allege that the content made available to children by the defendants — all of whom are associated with a multinational pornographic conglomerate known as Aylo — includes sexual violence, choking, rape fantasies, sex slavery and sex with teen girls.

“We know for a fact, from years of research, that adolescent exposure to pornography carries severe physical and psychological harms,” Rokita said. “It makes boys more likely to perpetrate sexual violence and girls more likely to be sexually victimized. Yet, despite such realities, these defendants seem intent on peddling their pornographic perversions to Hoosier kids.”

Lawmakers in 2024 passed the law requiring websites that host pornography to verify that users are at least 18 years old. As a result, Pornhub, which is owned by Aylo, blocked access to the site in Indiana.

Challenges to the law were ultimately unsuccessful.

“Rather than implement any form of reasonable age verification for its websites, Defendants represented to Indiana consumers, including Hoosier parents, that they had ‘completely disable[d] access to our website[s] in Indiana.’ However, Defendants have publicly admitted they know that Virtual Private Networks (VPNs), proxies, and location spoofing software may be used to continue to access Defendants’ websites in Indiana,” the lawsuit said.

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https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/rob-reiner-murdertrump-derangement-syndrome-b1262675.html
Donald Trump appeared to suggest that the fatal stabbing of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, was due to “Trump Derangement Syndrome”.

In a post on Truth Social, the US President said that the “once very talented movie director and comedy star,” had died “reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease” called TDS - or Trump Derangement Syndrome.

TDS is said to refer to a feeling of disdain for the president, which Trump supporters in the US have used to describe negative reactions to the president that are characterized as irrational and disconnected from Trump's actual policy positions

In his post the president went on: “He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession with President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness”

This is not the first time that the president has taken aim at a public figure after their death – with Trump also mocking the late John McCain and General Colin Powell after their deaths.

Reiner, a 78-year-old celebrated director and actor, was outspoken in his support of liberal causes and the Democratic Party.

He even went as far as minimising concerns about Joe Biden’s age, saying “Look, he's old!” in an interview in February 2024 before Biden dropped out.


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https://couriernewsroom.com/news/leaked-epstein-files-talking-points-instruct-republicans-how-to-point-blame-away-from-trump/

A leaked memo that circulated through Congress Tuesday details talking points Republicans are expected to use when talking about the Epstein Files as a way to protect President Donald Trump, conveying an image of a party resigned to the fact that those files will indeed be published on Friday and that their leader will be implicated in one of the most extensive international sex trafficking operations in recent history.

The memo, first published by Fox News, outlines how congressional Republicans should direct any discussion surrounding the contents of the Epstein Files away from Trump, and outlined a list of accusations to allege against journalists and Democratic lawmakers. In essence, the memo gives step-by-step instructions on how to utilize a psychological manipulation tactic known as DARVO (deny, attack, reverse victim and offender) in order to brush aside any alleged wrongdoing by the president, while villainizing his opposition and framing Trump as the victim.

“Democrats have demonstrated a sustained pattern of misconduct,” the memo reads. “To fabricate yet another politically motivated hoax targeting President Trump. As a result, nothing Democrats post or leak on this matter can be taken at face value. Equally troubling, much of the Legacy Media has uncritically amplified these falsehoods, acting as a willing conduit rather than performing basic due diligence.”

Missing from the document are any points that refute the accuracy or legitimacy of the actual contents of the Epstein Files, or any calls for accountability for the alleged co-conspirators. Instead, Republicans have been given marching orders to endlessly litigate to the press how the information has been released — and then attack the press for not sugarcoating the contents of the files.

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https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/realestate/palantir-ceo-alex-karp-pays-record-120-million-for-colorado-monastery/ar-AA1StL46

"Palantir CEO Alex Karp has paid a record $120 million for a ranch outside Aspen, Colo., that was used for decades as a monastery, according to a source with knowledge of the deal.

Located in Snowmass, about 30 minutes from Aspen, St. Benedict’s Monastery was listed for $150 million last year, said Ken Mirr of Mirr Ranch Group, one of the listing agents. The deal is the priciest residential sale to date in Colorado’s Pitkin County, Mirr said.

Spanning about 3,700 acres, the property had been owned for about 70 years by an order of Trappist monks, Mirr said, although only about five still live there.

Mirr declined to comment on the identity of the buyer, but said the purchaser does plan to use the property as a home.

Karp is the co-founder and chief executive of Palantir, a data-analysis firm best known for working with the U.S. military and intelligence agencies. The company, which was founded in 2003 by a group of entrepreneurs including Silicon Valley heavyweight Peter Thiel, has made Karp a billionaire many times over. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index estimates his net worth at about $18 billion. Karp is also known to be an avid skier.

Nine-figure home sales are a new phenomenon in the Aspen area. The first took place last year, when former casino mogul Steve Wynn and financier Thomas Peterffy teamed up to pay $108 million for an estate at the base of Red Mountain. And the monastery deal, Mirr said, isn’t “your typical sale of a property in Aspen with a 20,000-square-foot home on it.”"

A 74-acre property in Aspen is currently on the market for $300 million.

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So far under trump, mass shootings have plummeted with the sharpest year over year decline in a decade, and the fewest since any year on record
But experts are totally and completely befuddled given that no new gun control laws were passed, meaning gun control laws had nothing to do with this
https://www.newsweek.com/mass-shooting-dropped-2025-school-violence-gun-control-11198530
Mass Killings Plummeted in 2025, Despite No New Gun Control Laws

Mass killings in the United States dropped to their lowest level in two decades in 2025, even as Congress failed to enact any new federal gun control laws.

Seventeen incidents met the threshold for mass killing this year, down from 42 in 2023 and the fewest since national tracking began in 2006, according to recent data from the Mass Killing Database, a project led by Northeastern University in collaboration with USA Today and the Associated Press.

“This is not a victory lap for gun reform—it’s a return to a more typical level,” said James Alan Fox, a research professor of criminology, law, and public policy at Northeastern who oversees the database, in an interview with Newsweek.

Researchers say the drop is less about federal legislation — or the lack thereof — and more about a statistical "settling" after pandemic-era volatility. The decline, they argue, reflects a regression to the mean following several years of elevated violence, paired with localized policy shifts and evolving patterns in how mass killings occur.

“We had a spike after the pandemic, and we’re now back at pre-COVID levels,” Fox said. “But that doesn’t mean we’re safe. These events are still tragic, and they can still happen.”


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https://www.axios.com/2025/12/15/israel-violate-ceasefire-gaza-strike-trump

The White House sent a stern private message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressing that the killing of a top Hamas military commander over the weekend constituted a violation of the ceasefire agreement brokered by President Trump, two U.S. officials tell Axios.

Why it matters: The angry message from the White House comes amid growing tensions between the Trump administration and the Netanyahu government around the next phase of the agreement to end the war in Gaza and over Israel's broader regional policy.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner have become very frustrated with Netanyahu, according to the two U.S. officials.
Netanyahu is expected to meet Trump in Mar-a-Lago on December 29.

Driving the news: On Saturday, Israel killed Raed Saad, the deputy commander of Hamas' military wing and one of the alleged architects of the Oct. 7 attacks. The attack in Gaza City killed four people in total.

U.S. officials said the Israeli government didn't notify or consult the U.S. ahead of the strike.

Behind the scenes: "The White House message to Netanyahu was: 'If you want to ruin your reputation and show that you don't abide by agreements be our guest, but we won't allow you to ruin President Trump's reputation after he brokered the deal in Gaza," a senior U.S. official said.


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https://edition.cnn.com/2025/12/15/politics/us-military-strikes-three-boats-pacific
The US military conducted strikes against three alleged drug-trafficking boats in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Monday, killing 8 people, according to US Southern Command.

“On Dec. 15, at the direction of @SecWar Pete Hegseth, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted lethal kinetic strikes on three vessels operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations in international waters,” SOUTHCOM wrote on X. “Intelligence confirmed that the vessels were transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and were engaged in narco-trafficking.”

At least 95 people have now been killed in strikes on suspected drug boats as part of a campaign, dubbed Operation Southern Spear, that the Trump administration has said is aimed at curtailing narcotics trafficking. The US military most recently struck a suspected drug boat on December 4 in the Eastern Pacific, killing four people on board, according to another social media post from US Southern Command.

The latest strikes come as questions about the Trump administration’s offensive on the alleged drug boats continue to mount.

The Trump administration has told Congress that the US is in an “armed conflict” against drug cartels that began with its first attack on September 2. The US military carried out a follow-up strike on the suspected drug vessel operating in the Caribbean that day, after an initial attack did not kill everyone on board, CNN previously reported, which some Democratic lawmakers and legal experts said could amount to a war crime.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat, said Monday there will be an all-senators briefing Tuesday on the strikes, featuring Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“The American people deserve oversight. We intend to deliver it,” he said in a post on X.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/12/15/military-command-plan-caine-hegseth/
Senior Pentagon officials are preparing a plan to downgrade several of the U.S. military’s major headquarters and shift the balance of power among its top generals, in a major consolidation sought by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, people familiar with the matter said.

If adopted, the plan would usher in some of the most significant changes at the military’s highest ranks in decades, in part following through on Hegseth’s promise to break the status quo and slash the number of four-star generals in the military. It would reduce in prominence the headquarters of U.S. Central Command, U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command by placing them under the control of a new organization known as U.S. International Command, according to five people familiar with the matter.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Dan Caine is expected to detail the proposal, which has not previously been reported, for Hegseth in the coming days. Such moves would complement other efforts by the administration to shift resources from the Middle East and Europe and focus foremost on expanding military operations in the Western Hemisphere, these people said. Like others interviewed for this report, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the effort before it is conveyed to the secretary.

Hegseth’s team said in a statement that they would not comment on “rumored internal discussions” or “pre-decisional matters.” Any insinuation that there is a divide among officials over the issue is “completely false — everyone in the Department is working to achieve the same goal under this administration,” the statement said.

The Pentagon has shared little to no details with Congress, a lack of communication that has perturbed members of the Republican-led Senate and House Armed Services committees. Top officers at the commands involved are awaiting more details as well, officials said.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/12/16/trump-executive-orders-second-term/
President Donald Trump has signed more executive orders in less than a year of his presidency than he did in his entire first term — repeatedly bypassing Congress and forcing the courts to grapple with the constitutional bounds of his power.

Trump on Monday signed an order instructing fentanyl to be designated as a “weapon of mass destruction,” the 221st executive order of his second term. Since his inauguration, Trump has used the orders to impose sweeping tariffs, seek retribution against his perceived enemies and weigh in on cultural issues big and small, from challenging immigration laws to regulating water pressure from showerheads.

One third of Trump’s executive orders have been explicitly challenged in court as of Dec. 12, a Washington Post analysis of data from nonprofits CourtListener and JustSecurity found.

American presidents have consolidated executive power to skirt Congress since the beginning of the 20th century. But Trump has accelerated the trend that intensified in recent decades amid a decline in legislative activity and rising partisan brinkmanship.

Trump supercharged that trajectory by repeatedly bypassing a Congress that his party controls. The approach has allowed for swift results in a way legislating rarely affords, but it has also left some of his most prized achievements vulnerable to court challenges and potential reversals by future administrations.

Among the 11 orders aimed at punishing Trump’s political enemies, almost three-quarters have been challenged.

“While President Trump brilliantly took immediate action to quickly reverse Joe Biden’s catastrophe causing Americans four years of pain, many of these policies are expected to be codified by Congress, ensuring the President’s popular policies keep America great for future generations,” said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers.

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https://www.reuters.com/world/china/hong-kongs-last-opposition-party-vote-disbandment-under-china-pressure-2025-12-14/
HONG KONG, Dec 14 (Reuters) - Hong Kong's last major opposition party disbanded on Sunday after a vote by its members, the culmination of Chinese pressure on the city's remaining liberal voices in a years-long security crackdown.

The Democratic Party has been Hong Kong's flagship opposition since its founding three years before the financial hub's return to Chinese rule from Britain in 1997. It used to sweep city-wide legislative elections and push China on democratic reforms and upholding freedom.

However, mass pro-democracy protests in 2019 against a perceived tightening of China's grip on the city prompted Beijing to enact a sweeping national security law to stifle dissent.
On Sunday, members of the Democratic Party voted to disband the party and to enter liquidation, Chairman Lo Kin-hei told reporters after an extraordinary general meeting.

"To have journeyed through these three decades, shoulder to shoulder with the people of Hong Kong, has been our greatest honour. Throughout these years, we have always treated the well-being of Hong Kong and its people as our guiding purpose," Lo said.

Of 121 votes cast, 117 voted to disband while 4 abstained.
Senior party members previously told Reuters they had been approached by Chinese officials or middlemen and told to disband or face severe consequences, including possible arrest.

There was no immediate response to a request for comment from the Hong Kong Liaison Office, China's main representative body in Hong Kong.


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https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/how-a-trump-business-deal-with-a-crypto-firm-exposes-potential-conflicts-of-interest

WASHINGTON (AP) — Crypto.com was under siege.

For more than a year, the firm had been investigated by President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, part of an aggressive push to regulate the largely unregulated cryptocurrency industry. Financial regulators had told the company that enforcement action was likely.

Then Donald Trump won the 2024 election, and the company’s legal peril dissipated.

Crypto.com ramped up spending to a lobbyist close to Trump and donated $11 million to political committees tied to the Republican president, records show. Within months, the investigation was dropped. By August, Crypto.com announced it was plunging roughly $1 billion worth of assets into a venture with a new partner — Trump’s social media company.

Legal and ethics experts say Crypto.com’s journey from investigative target to Trump business partner provides a case study of the conflicts of interest that have arisen in Trump’s second presidency. Unlike any of his predecessors in the modern era, Trump has allowed his family businesses to enter lucrative arrangements with companies regulated by the federal government, some of which have benefited from action taken by his administration.

In this instance, the deal struck with Crypto.com was favorable for the president’s social media company, which has lost hundreds of millions of dollars since its 2021 launch. Trump Media and Technology Group put up little cash yet received a substantial ownership stake in the new treasury for Crypto.com’s Cronos token.