Housing shortage

Polls

Occupy Democrats

  After forcing states to run nearly 50 million voter registrations through a federal immigration database, Trump’s own administration has delivered a devastating verdict: There is no widespread illegal voting by migrants. None. According to a New York Times investigation, only about 10,000 cases out of 49.5 million records were flagged for further review — roughly two-hundredths of one percent. And even that number is likely inflated, because the system has repeatedly mistaken U.S. citizens for noncitizens. In other words: Trump demanded the biggest voter “crackdown” in modern history — and it completely punctured his central conspiracy theory.

Zogby Poll - 2028 US presidential election matchups Kamala Harris 48.5% JD Vance 42.1% Not sure 9.4% — Kamala Harris 43.4% Marco Rubio 43.1% Not sure 13.5% — JD Vance 44.6% Gavin Newsom 41.0% Not sure 14.3% — Gavin Newsom 41.7% Marco Rubio 39.9% Not sure 18.4%

Republicans against Trump

New Reuters/Ipsos poll: Do you approve of U.S. efforts to acquire Greenland? No: 47% Yes: 17% Undecided: 36% Is it a good idea for the U.S. to take Greenland using military force? No: 71% Yes: 4% Undecided: 25%

Newsweek - A majority of those surveyed in Venezuela supported Trump and the U.S. "running" the country, with just 18 percent opposing it. 

The Guardian - Half of Americans believe that ICE is making American cities less safe, a new CNN poll has found. According to the survey which was conducted from 9 to 12 January, 51% of Americans said that ICE’s enforcement actions are making cities less safe rather than safer. Only 31% felt that ICE’s operations were making cities more secure.

ICE is even arresting native Americans

KTVB - The president of Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota on Tuesday called for the immediate release of tribal members who were detained at a homeless encampment by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota last week.

Three of the four Oglala Sioux Tribe members who were arrested in Minneapolis on Friday have been transferred to an ICE facility at Fort Snelling, President Frank Star Comes Out said in a statement released with a memorandum sent to federal immigration authorities.

“The Oglala Sioux Tribe's memorandum makes clear that ‘tribal citizens are not aliens’ and are ‘categorically outside immigration jurisdiction,’” ...

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Newsweek -  Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. raised question marks about President Donald Trump's diet during an interview.

Responding to a question from podcaster Katie Miller about who has "the most unhinged eating habits," Kennedy Jr. named Trump, adding: "I don’t know how he’s alive."

"The interesting thing about the president is that he eats really bad food, which is McDonald’s and then you know KFC and Diet Coke, but he has the constitution of a deity, I don’t know how he’s alive, but he is," Kennedy Jr. said on The Katie Miller Podcast in an episode released on Tuesday.

But Kennedy Jr. also went on to say that Trump only has these eating habits when is "on the road." He added that the president "does actually eat pretty good food usually" and that "he’s got incredible health."

Our prisons

Alex Duran, The Guardian -  The states that lock up the most people – Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama – are the places where watchdogs keep uncovering horrific conditions, from medical neglect that has killed at least 50 people, to jail systems like Mississippi’s where authorities literally cannot say how many people have died. Oversight is sometimes the only thing ensuring a prison sentence does not become a death sentence.

I know how easily cruelty becomes routine when no one is watching. I served 12 years in New York state prisons for a Bronx shootout that left one man dead.

Basic oversight is the exception, not the rule. A 2024 overview by the National Conference of State Legislatures found only 19 states have “fully independent, permanent” prison-oversight bodies that meet a basic standard of external accountability...

Nowhere is this violence more overwhelming than in Alabama, where close to 300 incarcerated people died in 2024. More than 100 perished in just the first half of 2025. Andrew Jarecki and Charlotte Kaufman’s new documentary The Alabama Solution, which I co-produced, uses this footage to reveal a system so lawless and predatory that the state fights harder to criminalize and block cellphones than to confront the cruelty they expose.

The Hobbesian world of Alabama prisons – men bleeding from stab wounds, others strung out on drugs, slumped against walls, convulsing, or lying totally still – was intimately familiar to me. After I was released in 2016, similar memories haunted my mind. Nights when a man’s screams ricocheted down the tier as he was beaten by guards. Mornings when we’d wake to someone dangling from a bedsheet after begging for mental health care that never came. Smells of Corcraft germicidal cleaner mixing with blood after a stabbing. Once home, I was often at a loss for words when asked what prison was like. How do you convey the terror of lying in your bunk, counting the footsteps of guards approaching? How do you explain the particular silence that follows watching a man get dropped to the concrete, coughing up teeth?

When I watched the cellphone footage from Alabama’s prisons, I recognized my own experiences. This is the achievement of fearless incarcerated men in the film like Melvin Ray and Robert Earl Council Jr, who weren’t just documenting harm, but imagining a different kind of system.

The brutality we see in many state prisons is a choice. This summer, on a visit to the Maine state prison, I witnessed men use email, Zoom and other digital tools as part of programs instituted by Randall Liberty, the forward-looking Maine corrections commissioner. When prison leadership has nothing to hide, incarcerated people have access to technology that would make it easy to document abuses.

New York has recently taken a step in the right direction. The governor, Kathy Hochul, signed a long-fought overhaul of the State Commission of Correction, the body charged with ensuring that jails and prisons are safe and humane. The new law expands the commission from three to five members and for the first time mandates that people with lived experience of incarceration and expertise in public and behavioral health be included. What happens next will determine whether this reform becomes real or simply another layer of bureaucracy designed to absorb outrage while leaving violence untouched.

The cruelty we see in New York and Alabama is fundamental to America’s very beginnings. After the revolution, early reformers declared the gallows barbaric and imagined prisons as a “civilized” alternative. But from the start, these cages were filled with people pushed to the margins of a new nation, and mortality rates rivaled the colonial punishments reformers claimed to leave behind. Two and a half centuries later, our prisons are still deadly, still in need of reform.

Trump halts visas for 75 countries

The Sun  - The State Department has banned processing visas from  (75) countries ...The pause will take effect on January 21 and continue indefinitely as officials audit screening and vetting procedures.

Countries affected by the change include Somalia, Russia, Afghanistan, Brazil, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Nigeria, Thailand, Yemen, and more, a memo seen by Fox News states.

Authorities honed in on the nations after determining that applicants from the countries are more likely to become primarily dependent on government assistance.

Greenland

Time -  President Donald Trump doubled down on his insistence that the U.S. annexes Greenland, arguing that any other alternative is simply “unacceptable.”  Repeating his stance that the annexation of the territory is needed for “national security” purposes, Trump on Wednesday morning insisted that NATO “should be leading the way for us to get it” claiming that “NATO becomes far more formidable and effective” with Greenland under the jurisdiction of the U.S.

Trump’s comments came hours before the Danish and Greenland foreign ministers, Lars Løkke Rasmussen and Vivian Motzfeldt, were set to engage in a high-stakes meeting with U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House.

NBC News -   Achieving President Donald Trump’s goal of buying Greenland could come with a price tag of as much as $700 billion, according to three people familiar with the cost estimate.

That figure is more than half of the Defense Department’s annual budget, but despite rebukes from officials in Denmark and Greenland, Trump says that the U.S. will acquire the 800,000 square-mile island "one way or another." 

Trump's push to "own" the territory stems in part from concerns that its residents could seek independence, and if successful, the island’s coastline could fall into the hands of Russia or China, according to some experts and congressional testimony from former U.S. officials. 

"Greenland does not want to be owned by, governed by or part of the United States," Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt said as she arrived in Washington on Tuesday to meet with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. 

The island currently hosts a small U.S. military footprint at Pituffik Space Base and has long been receptive to hosting more military assets or negotiating over its strategic resources, which include rare-earth minerals.

But Trump’s tone has changed dramatically in recent weeks and now his rhetoric is being taken more seriously inside the administration and among America’s allies. 

A less costly option would be a deal which would include financial assistance from Washington in exchange for the U.S. having a security presence there.

But Trump has repeatedly stated that he wants the U.S. to have more rights to the land, comparing it to owning versus leasing a property.

The Hill - President Trump said early Wednesday that anything less than U.S. control of Greenland would be “unacceptable."

“The United States needs Greenland for the purpose of National Security. It is vital for the Golden Dome that we are building. NATO should be leading the way for us to get it. IF WE DON’T, RUSSIA OR CHINA WILL, AND THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!” Trump said in a Truth Social post ahead of Vice President Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s meeting with officials from the island and Denmark at the White House.

“Militarily, without the vast power of the United States, much of which I built during my first term, and am now bringing to a new and even higher level, NATO would not be an effective force or deterrent – Not even close! They know that, and so do I,” Trump continued.

“NATO becomes far more formidable and effective with Greenland in the hands of the UNITED STATES,” he said, adding that “anything less than that is unacceptable.”

The online post is the latest example of Trump’s intensifying rhetoric on the U.S. acquiring Greenland. On Tuesday, Trump hit back at the Danish territory’s prime minister, Jens-Frderik Nielsen, who said he and his people would choose Denmark over the U.S. if they had to make a decision.

ICE

Thom Hartmann  - Across 220+ years, during revolution, civil war, global war, and even the attack on Pearl Harbor, American presidents systematically avoided homeland-style language that implied ancestral ownership, ethnic belonging, or insiders versus outsiders.

Instead, they used words like: republic, nation, people, citizens, democracy, and country to describe America. This wasn’t accidental: it was the core distinction between American civic nationalism, and 19th century European whites-only ethno-nationalism...

ICE is now openly using white supremacist slogans, memes, and advertisements to recruit men who’re enthusiastic about chasing down Black and brown people. 

Trump did pick "my judges"

NY Times - President Trump promised to fill the appeals courts with “my judges.” They have formed a nearly united phalanx to defend his agenda from legal challenges.

Journalist's home raided by FBI

Washington Post -  The FBI executed a search warrant Wednesday morning at a Washington Post reporter’s home as part of an investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified government materials.

The reporter, Hannah Natanson, was at her home in Virginia at the time of the search. Federal agents searched her home and her devices, seizing her phone, two laptops and a Garmin watch. One of the laptops was her personal computer, the other a Washington Post-issued laptop.

It is exceptionally rare for law enforcement officials to conduct searches at reporters’ homes. Federal regulations intended to protect a free press are designed to make it difficult to use aggressive law enforcement tactics against reporters to obtain the identities of their sources or information.

Investigators told Natanson that she is not the focus of the probe. The warrant said that law enforcement was investigating Aurelio Perez-Lugones, a system administrator in Maryland who has a top-secret security clearance and has been accused of accessing and taking home classified intelligence reports that were found in his lunchbox and his basement, according to an FBI affidavit.

Both parties hurting

Shortlysts - American voters are fleeing both the Democratic and Republican parties in unprecedented numbers. According to a new Gallup poll released this month, independent voters have surged to a record high of 45% of the electorate. Meanwhile, Republican and Democratic identification have both fallen to just 27% each.

Combined, the two major parties now claim only 54% of Americans, marking a dramatic shift in how Americans view political affiliation.

This represents a stunning reversal from decades of relatively stable party loyalty. As recently as the early 2000s, roughly two-thirds of Americans identified with either the Democratic or Republican party. But for the first time in modern polling history, independents constitute an outright majority of the voting population.

The exodus has been gradual but relentless, accelerating particularly in recent years as growing frustration with Washington gridlock, broken campaign promises, and culture war battles has intensified across the political spectrum.

Political parties have historically served as the organizing structure for policy debates, candidate selection, and voter mobilization. When half the country refuses to affiliate with either party, that foundation starts to deteriorate, and candidates can no longer rely on automatic partisan support, and party platforms carry less weight with an electorate that views both options with skepticism.

The cost of smoking

WalletHub calculated the potential monetary losses — including the lifetime and annual costs of a pack of cigarettes per day, health care expenditures, income losses and other costs — brought on by smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke.
 

States with the Highest Smoking Costs	States with the Lowest Smoking Costs
1. District of Columbia	42. Georgia
2. Maryland	43. North Dakota
3. New York	44. South Carolina
4. Connecticut	45. West Virginia
5. Rhode Island	46. Kentucky
6. Massachusetts	47. Tennessee
7. Hawaii	48. Alabama
8. Washington	49. Missouri
9. Alaska	50. North Carolina
10. New Jersey	51. Mississippi

Key Stats

• The estimated lifetime cost of smoking is nearly $4.3 million per smoker.
   
• The average out-of-pocket cost per smoker is $179,745 over a lifetime. Smokers in New York will pay the most, shelling out 1.8 times more than smokers in North Carolina, who pay the least.
   
• Each smoker will lose an average of $675,601 income over a lifetime. Smokers in the District of Columbia will lose the most income – 1.9 times more than in Mississippi, where smokers will lose the least income.
   
• Each smoker will incur an average of $232,498 in smoking-related health care costs over a lifetime. Smokers in the District of Columbia will pay the highest amount – 2.9 times more than in Tennessee, where smokers will pay the lowest amount.
• Full report

Health

NBC News -   Air quality inside aircraft cabins is drawing new attention as travelers, pilots, and flight attendants report health concerns possibly linked to unusual fumes onboard. Morgan & Morgan is investigating these alleged reports and helping those affected understand their options.

Bloomberg - Alcohol consumption may be declining as drinking culture changes, but people still want a buzz.

• The number of drinkers has declined, with a Gallup poll showing the lowest share of alcohol-consuming adults in its 90-year history, with Dry January in full swing.
• Many are still drinking, but their habits are changing—with some opting for low-or no-alcohol alternatives, or drinking at home as costs of a night out have shot up.
• Also having an impact: Weight-loss medications are altering some people’s appetite for booze, as well as food. Others are swapping a drink for a THC edible, as cannabis is legalized in more places.

Climate change

The Guardian - As this Guardian’s interactive feature shows, over the past 24 years wildfires have erased 1.5m sq kilometres of forest, an area the size of Mongolia. Experts warn that climate change is making wildfires bigger, longer and more destructive – as 2023 and 2024 saw the most forest area burned by wildfires on record.

Somalis

The Guadian - The homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, said on Tuesday the administration was terminating temporary protected status for Somalis in the US, giving hundreds of people two months to leave the country or face deportation.

Trump later said his administration was going to revoke citizenship for any naturalized immigrant from Somalia or any other country who is convicted of defrauding what he referred to as “our citizens”.

What is the context? The administration has used Minnesota’s issues with fraud as a pretext to send a surge of immigration officers into the state. Trump has called Somalis “garbage” and referenced unverified reports, amplified by Republican lawmakers, suggesting the militant group al-Shabaab in Somalia benefited from fraud committed in Minnesota, though these claims have not been substantiated.

How are critics responding? The Council on American-Islamic Relations criticized the latest rollback of rights as a “bigoted attack” that would send some Somalis back to a war-torn nation. On Monday, Minneapolis and St Paul filed a lawsuit against the administration, alleging Minnesota was being politically targeted.

2025 second hottest year

The Guardian - Last year was the third-hottest on record, scientists have said, with mounting fossil fuel pollution behind “exceptional” temperatures. The EU’s Copernicus climate agency said 2025 had been marginally cooler than 2023 at the end of a scorching three-year run during which surface air temperatures averaged 1.52C above preindustrial levels.

The new old age

 Time -  Today, life expectancy in the U.S. stands at 79 years, compared with 68 in 1950. The upshot: 60 million Americans are now 65 or older—which is roughly equal to the combined populations of Spain and Portugal. A similar trend is playing out globally, with an estimated 2.1 billion people—or 1 in 5—projected to be 60 or older by 2050. Already, a third of all people in Japan are in that older age range; 60 more countries are expected to hit that ratio in the next 25 years....

“What we have is a fundamental change in the age structure of society,” says John Rowe, professor of health policy and aging at Columbia University’s Aging Center, referring to the way we’re aging—and also the way we’re creating young people, with birth rates plummeting in most countries. Globally, fertility levels have dropped below the so-called population replacement rate of just over two births per woman.

It is a sea change—and one that raises big questions about how we both individually and collectively navigate what, in a sense, is our new old age. How, for example, should we spend our extra time? Should employment still be confined to a finite number of years, or instead ebb and flow throughout an entire lifetime? And where, in a world of acute housing shortages, will everyone live?

“We have to re-engineer our society, because the fundamental institutions of our society—education and work and retirement—are not designed to support a population with the age distribution we are going to have,” says Rowe, who chaired the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Successful Aging. “We need a fundamental redesign.”

What’s Happening in Iran Right Now, Explained

Trump plan to close San Francisco immigration court

NPR - The Trump administration plans to close the San Francisco Immigration Court by the end of the year. The announcement comes as immigration judges have spent the last year facing pressure to expedite their caseloads and streamline deportations. Teresa Riley, the chief immigration judge, sent an email about the closure to court employees and judges last week. The email also explained that all personnel will now transfer to the Concord Immigration Court, approximately 30 miles away. San Francisco's immigration court has been among those hit by the Trump administration's push to fire judges.

➡️ The Trump administration fired nearly 100 judges in 2025, according to an NPR count cross-referenced with the judges' union and several individual courts.
➡️ The U.S. is starting this year with fewer than half the judges from a year ago. At least two courts — in Aurora, Colo., and in Oakdale, La., — have no judges left, just the court supervisor.
➡️ With fewer judges and courts, immigrants are seeing their cases pushed back as far as 2030. Lawyers say the delays make their clients more susceptible to arrests and deportations.

Trump's war on Minnesota

NPR - At least six federal prosecutors in Minnesota have quit after Justice Department leaders pressured them in the investigation into the fatal shooting of Renee Macklin Good. Rather than focusing on the federal agent who shot Good last week in Minneapolis, political leaders wanted the prosecutors to find dirt on her widow. The resignations have disrupted other federal investigations, including one into social services fraud.

The resignations amount to a big loss of career DOJ talent who prosecuted several major cases, Minnesota Public Radio’s Matt Sepic says. The DOJ leaders pressured the prosecutors to look into Good’s widow, Becca Good, for ties to activist groups, which is not illegal, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. This source also informed Sepic that they are concerned that Trump’s focus on immigration has drawn resources away from the fraud investigation.

• Joe Rogan criticizes ICE tactics: ‘Are we really going to be the Gestapo?’
• Mayer Jacob Frey emerges as the city’s ‘emotional voice’ following ICE shooting

Money

NPR - The Department of Labor’s latest inflation report showed that inflation, overall, neither improved nor worsened from November to December. 

 Natural gas prices have risen more than 10% over the last year, the Labor Department reports. This affects nearly half of the U.S., which uses natural gas for heating, resulting in higher heating bills, NPR’s Scott Horsley says. A significant amount of natural gas is used to generate electricity, which in turn drives up prices. Grocery prices were also up sharply last month. Most forecasters believe the Fed will hold interest rates steady when policymakers meet later this month, as inflation remains higher than the central bank’s target. 

Health

Newsweek  -  A batch of chocolate is being recalled nationwide due to concerns that it may have been contaminated with Salmonella. 

According to a company announcement, Spring & Mulberry is voluntarily recalling its Mint Leaf Date Sweetened Chocolate Bar (2.1 oz) due to the potential presence of the bacterial infection, which can cause symptoms like diarrhea, fever, and stomach cramps.

The recall, announced on January 12, 2026, affects lot #025255 and was posted as a public service by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). 

There have been no reports of illness linked to the recalled product as of the recall date, according to the company announcement.

Axios - Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s ideas have made their deepest inroads at the state level, where lawmakers have introduced dozens of bills targeting vaccines, fluoridated water and "forever chemicals." (KFF Health News)

Health.com -   More than 1 million pounds of tater tots have been recalled across 26 states, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The frozen products were initially recalled on Dec. 3 because they may contain "clear hard plastic fragments," which pose a safety hazard if consumed. On Jan. 6, the FDA gave the recall the second-highest risk level, Class II, which means the risk of serious health consequences is low, but there is a potential for temporary or reversible effects.

Health.com -   On Jan. 6, the Food and Drug Administration gave the highest risk level, Class I, to a nationwide recall of Pecorino Romano cheese. The cheese, produced by the Ambriola Company, was initially recalled in late November after routine testing found Listeria contamination. Listeria infections are relatively rare, but the bacteria are a leading cause of death from foodborne illness. To date, no infections have been reported in connection to the recalled cheese