Winter storm gets closer
A massive winter storm is set to impact large swaths of the U.S. this weekend, moving into the New York Metro area for all-day Sunday and dumping up to foot or more of snow on Westchester and the Hudson Valley and Fairfield. More than 230 million people are under severe weather alerts as the storm begins today. By the time it ends on Monday, it will have dropped snow and destructive amounts of ice over its 1,500-mile path from Texas to the Northeast. At least 10 states have already declared a state of emergency, and over 1,300 flights scheduled for Saturday have been canceled as the storm approaches. Widespread power outages are also expected across multiple regions as the system barrels through the country.
Questions of possible conflicts of interest raised
Three Democratic senators are questioning lucrative contracts and loans they say the Pentagon provided to companies linked to Donald Trump Jr. In a letter sent Thursday to Secretary of Defense Hegseth, the lawmakers – Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Andy Kim and Richard Blumenthal – requested information on whether Department of Defense decisions to hand out loans and contracts to companies “associated with the president’s son may have been affected by conflicts of interest. If this is the case, it could mean that the Trump family is profiting from funds appropriated by Congress to keep Americans safe, raising both ethics and national security concerns,” Warren, Kim and Blumenthal wrote in the letter, which was shared first with CNN.
Ukraine talks now involve U.S., Russia and Ukraine
Negotiators from Ukraine, the U.S., and Russia are holding talks in the United Arab Emirates today, marking the first known meeting attended by all three countries since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The talks come after Donald Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday and said there’s still “a ways to go” toward ending Russia’s war. Separately, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with a U.S. delegation and said afterward that a “long-term settlement” would not be reached without first resolving territorial issues, according to a Kremlin official.
Five-year-old taken by ICE
A five-year-old has become one of the latest children caught up in the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign after he was taken from the driveway of his Minneapolis-area home by federal agents. The boy, Liam Coneio Ramos, is now being held with his father at an immigration facility in Texas. The family’s attorney says they came to the U.S. from Ecuador legally and presented themselves to border officers in 2024 to apply for asylum. Ramos is one of four students in the Minneapolis-area Columbia Heights school district who have been taken into ICE custody in recent weeks.
Maduro operation was riskier than first disclosed
A new CNN analysis shows extraordinary risks were taken to seize Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3. Experts say there was a critical two-minute window in which U.S. forces were especially vulnerable while landing at and lifting off directly from Maduro’s heavily fortified compound. During that period, the aircraft were moving slowly at low altitude, making them easy targets for even relatively simple weapons. Video footage shows U.S. attack helicopters providing overhead cover and fighting Venezuelan air defenses as U.S. transport helicopters extracted Maduro. Venezuelan authorities claim at least 100 people were killed in the overall operation. The Trump administration says no American lives were lost.
TikTok deal finalized
The deal to secure TikTok’s future has been finalized after a yearslong effort to address concerns that the platform posed a national security risk. The agreement is welcome news for TikTok’s more than 200 million American users, many of whom rely on the app for entertainment, news and, in some cases, their jobs. Under the deal, control of TikTok’s U.S. user data and most of its U.S. operations is being transferred to a new joint venture, half of which will be owned by a consortium of investors including tech company Oracle headed by Trump supporter Larry Ellison, private equity firm Silver Lake and Emirati-backed investment firm MGX.
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