Trump takes NORAD Santa calls with children, praises ‘clean, beautiful coal’ and ‘high-IQ’ person
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump spoke with several children on Christmas Eve as Santa Claus made his rounds across the globe, praising “clean, beautiful coal” and referring to one child as a “high-IQ person.” The pair joined the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) Santa Tracker hotline from Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, where they fielded calls from kids about what they hoped St. Nick would bring them for Christmas. One child spoke to Trump about wanting a Kindle, the e-reader designed and marketed by Amazon. INSIDE THE WHITE HOUSE CHRISTMAS CARD TRADITION – FROM COOLIDGE TO TRUMP “That’s pretty good. You must be a high-IQ person. We need more high-IQ people in the country,” he replied. One 8-year-old North Carolina girl asked if Santa would be upset if she didn’t leave him cookies. “I think he won’t get mad, but I think he’ll be very disappointed,” said Trump. “Santa tends to be a little on the cherubic side.” Trump asked one child in Kansas for a Christmas wish. “Um, not coal,” the child replied. MELANIA TRUMP GIVES UPLIFTING MESSAGE ABOUT SANTA TO YOUNG KIDS AT HOSPITAL “Not coal. No, you don’t want coal. You mean clean, beautiful coal. I had to do that, I’m sorry,” Trump said. “No, coal is clean and beautiful. Please remember that at all costs,” he added. “But you don’t want clean, beautiful coal, right? What would you like?” Trump has frequently referred to coal as “clean” and “beautiful” in an effort to boost its use. During a call with a child in Oklahoma, he said he was fond of the state, which he won in the 2024 presidential election. “Santa loves you. Santa loves Oklahoma like I do. You know, Oklahoma was very good to me in the election. So, I love Oklahoma. Don’t ever leave Oklahoma, OK?” he said. During the same call, Trump talked about tracking Santa. “We track Santa all over the world. … We want to make sure that he’s not infiltrated — that we’re not infiltrating into our country a bad Santa,” he said. “We found that Santa is Good!”
DOJ discovers more than 1M potential Epstein records, further delaying file release
The Department of Justice said Wednesday it may have more than a million more documents related to the late Jeffrey Epstein that it needs to review and that the process could take weeks to complete. The DOJ said two of its components, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, had just handed over the missing tranche of files, days after the Epstein Files Transparency Act deadline had passed. “We have lawyers working around the clock to review and make the legally required redactions to protect victims, and we will release the documents as soon as possible,” the DOJ wrote in a statement on social media. EPSTEIN FILE DROP INCLUDES ‘UNTRUE AND SENSATIONALIST CLAIMS’ ABOUT TRUMP, DOJ SAYS The “mass volume of material” could “take a few more weeks” to review, the DOJ said. “The Department will continue to fully comply with federal law and President Trump’s direction to release the files,” the department wrote. The DOJ has been sharing on a public website since Friday tens of thousands of pages of files related to Epstein’s and Ghislaine Maxwell’s sex-trafficking cases as part of its obligation under the transparency bill. President Donald Trump signed the bill into law Nov. 19, giving the DOJ 30 days to review and release all unclassified material related to the cases. The file rollout has stirred controversy as critics have blasted the DOJ for what they say are excessive redactions and the law’s lapsed deadline Friday. Initially, the DOJ said it would miss the deadline by a couple of weeks, but Wednesday’s announcement signals that might extend further into the new year than the administration had anticipated. SCHUMER ACCUSES DOJ OF BREAKING THE LAW OVER REDACTED EPSTEIN FILES Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said on “Meet the Press” Sunday there was “well-settled law” that supported the DOJ missing the bill’s deadline because of a need to meet other legal requirements, like redacting victim-identifying information. The transparency bill required the DOJ to withhold information about victims and material that could jeopardize open investigations or litigation. Officials could also leave out information “in the interest of national defense or foreign policy,” the bill said. The bill also explicitly directed the DOJ to keep visible any details that could be damaging to high-profile and politically connected people.
Pentagon to send 350 National Guard troops to New Orleans as violent crime surges ahead of major events
The Pentagon is deploying 350 National Guard troops in New Orleans through Mardi Gras in an effort to curb crime in the city. The troops will support federal authorities, including the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, enforcing federal law and helping to counter high rates of violent crime in New Orleans and other metropolitan areas in Louisiana, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Tuesday. “Operating under Governor Landry’s command and control, this mission will directly enhance the safety of Louisiana’s residents and the enforcement of federal laws, reaffirming the Department of Defense’s commitment to supporting our interagency partners and the safety and security of our nation,” he said. DHS LAUNCHING MASSIVE IMMIGRATION OPERATION IN LOUISIANA, MISSISSIPPI: ‘SWAMP SWEEP’ The soldiers will remain in the city through Feb. 28 and will assist with security in the French Quarter for New Year’s Eve, the Sugar Bowl and Mardi Gras events, Fox 8 Live reported. “We know how to make cities safe, and the National Guard complements cities that are experiencing high crime,” Landry said during an appearance on “The Will Cain Show.” “Look at what the president has done in Washington, D.C. When he wanted to send the National Guard into Washington, D.C., Louisiana was one of the first to raise its hand and say our troops will go there and help. And the city is so much better.” TRUMP’S WEEK SHAPED BY CRIME AGENDA, POTENTIAL GUARD DEPLOYMENT TO CHICAGO National Guard members serving in Washington, D.C., are expected to return to Louisiana, the news outlet reported. “Our Louisiana National Guardsmen are highly trained professionals. Many of them supported law enforcement efforts in Washington, D.C., and are ready to support our home state,” Maj. Gen. Thomas Friloux, the adjutant general of Louisiana, told Fox 8 Live. “We’ve mobilized multiple times this year to support efforts in New Orleans and are ready to do so again for the next two months.” Fox News Digital has reached out to the office of New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell and the Louisiana National Guard. New Orleans has reported 97 murders this year as of Nov. 1. In September, Landry asked President Donald Trump to deploy National Guard troops to Louisiana amid concerns about crime. In early 2025, a U.S. Army veteran driving a pickup truck bearing the flag of the Islamic State group slammed into New Year’s revelers before being shot and killed by police.
Alito rips Supreme Court majority as ‘unwise’ for blocking Trump’s National Guard plan
Justice Samuel Alito criticized the Supreme Court’s majority in a sharp dissent Tuesday after the high court decided 6–3 to temporarily block President Donald Trump from deploying the National Guard in Chicago. Alito said the high court’s majority made “unwise” and “imprudent” determinations to reach its decision. The majority also did not give enough deference to Trump after the president found that agitators were hindering immigration officers and other federal personnel from doing their jobs in Chicago and that the National Guard needed to step in to help. “Whatever one may think about the current administration’s enforcement of the immigration laws or the way ICE has conducted its operations, the protection of federal officers from potentially lethal attacks should not be thwarted,” Alito wrote. WHERE THE TRUMP ADMIN’S COURT FIGHT OVER DC NATIONAL GUARD STANDS IN WAKE OF SHOOTING The lawsuit stemmed from Trump invoking a rarely used federal law to federalize about 300 members of the National Guard and deploy them to protect federal personnel and buildings. The Trump administration argued that protesters were obstructing, assaulting and threatening ICE officers, and the National Guard was needed because Illinois’ resistant Democratic leaders and local law enforcement were not adequately addressing the matter, the administration said. Illinois sued, and the lower courts blocked the National Guard’s deployment, finding that Trump had not satisfied criteria in the law that said the president could only use the reserved forces when he was “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.” The Supreme Court’s decision upheld that finding while the case proceeds through the courts. The Supreme Court’s majority said in an unsigned order that “regular forces” meant the U.S. military, not ICE or other civilian law enforcement officers. The majority said that since Trump had not identified any justification for using the regular military for domestic purposes in Chicago, there was no way to exhaust that option before using the National Guard. JUDGE BLOCKS TRUMP NATIONAL GUARD DEPLOYMENT IN LOS ANGELES Alito, who was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, objected, saying the majority prematurely raised and accepted an “eleventh-hour argument” about the meaning of “regular forces.” Justice Neil Gorsuch issued a separate dissent. The majority also took issue with the statute’s language about executing laws, saying that if the National Guard soldiers were simply protecting federal officers, that would not amount to executing laws. And, if the National Guard were executing laws, that could violate the Posse Comitatus Act, which says the military cannot generally act as a domestic police force unless Congress authorizes it to, the majority said. Alito, an appointee of President George W. Bush, said he found it “puzzling” that the majority thought the Posse Comitatus Act was so relevant, saying the president could use the military for a “range of domestic purposes.” The Constitution allows the president to use the military to respond to war, insurrection or “other serious emergency,” Alito wrote. The conservative justice also warned of broader implications of the majority’s decision, as Trump has attempted to deploy the National Guard in other cities as part of a crackdown on immigration enforcement and street crime. The president has also been met with legal pushback in California and Portland, Oregon, but the Chicago case was the furthest along in the court system. Requiring Trump to exhaust the use of other military forces before using the National Guard would lead to “outlandish results,” Alito said. “Under the Court’s interpretation, National Guard members could arrest and process aliens who are subject to deportation, but they would lack statutory authorization to perform purely protective functions,” Alito wrote. “Our country has traditionally been wary of using soldiers as domestic police, but it has been comfortable with their use for purely protective purposes.” Illinois had argued that ICE protests were mostly peaceful and that local law enforcement had the unrest under control. The state would suffer irreversible harm if the courts did not block Trump from using the National Guard, state attorneys argued. “The planned deployment would infringe on Illinois’s sovereign interests in regulating and overseeing its own law enforcement activities,” the attorneys wrote, adding that Illinois’ “sovereign right to commit its law enforcement resources where it sees fit is the type of ‘intangible and unquantifiable interest’ that courts recognize as irreparable.”
Inside the White House Christmas card tradition – from Coolidge to Trump
Few White House traditions are quite as time-honored or cherished as the annual Christmas celebrations it hosts – which stretch back more than a century and transcend partisan politics, imbuing the president’s official residence with a feeling of continuity and warmth. But the sense of togetherness and cheer need not stop at the gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Like most families, U.S. presidents and first ladies have long used annual Christmas cards to share their holiday greeting to friends both near and far – communicating well-wishes, gratitude and, at times, subtle political statements. Here’s a look at how the tradition of the White House Christmas card began, and how it has evolved throughout the years. FIRST LADY MELANIA TRUMP DECORATES THE WHITE HOUSE FOR CHRISTMAS: ‘HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS’ Historians aren’t quite sure when presidents began sending out Christmas cards, though many acknowledge that the practice probably began in an unofficial capacity in the late 1800s, with the recipients likely limited to a smaller group. In fact, it was not until 1927 that President Calvin Coolidge wrote what would become the first “official” Christmas card to the American people. Coolidge, in response to multiple requests for a holiday greeting, penned a short, simple message, “Season’s Greetings,” by hand in the distinctive, elegant form of cursive he was known for. The missive was published by every major newspaper in the country, kicking off what would become a larger, more elaborate tradition that continues to this day. In the years that followed, the Christmas greetings took the form of individual cards, and the list of recipients grew longer and more expansive. Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon each sought to make it a more formal tradition, with Eisenhower adding Cabinet secretaries, members of Congress, and U.S. ambassadors overseas to the list of recipients. MELANIA TRUMP GIVES TOUR OF 2018 WHITE HOUSE CHRISTMAS DECOR Under Nixon, the cards were mass printed for the first time, and sent to a much broader audience – some 40,000 people – an undertaking that would have been unimaginable in Coolidge’s time, when the hand-printed “Season’s Greetings” message was drafted by hand with painstaking care and detail. Today, the Republican and Democratic national parties are responsible for printing the Christmas cards; as a result, the lists include (but are not limited to) party donors and campaign supporters, among others. WHITE HOUSE UNVEILS CHRISTMAS DECOR WITH ‘SPIRIT OF AMERICA’ THEME While neither party has released an official count of the cards it has sent out on behalf of recent presidents, the RNC is estimated to have printed some 1.5 million White House Christmas cards during George W. Bush’s presidency – a number that grew under Presidents Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Trump in his first term and this year. Other technological advances allow even those without deep pockets to share in the Christmas joy. The White House social media accounts have embraced the rise of social media in recent years to share the official Christmas photos, expanding the reach and message of the commander in chief, and often the rest of his family. The White House accounts on Tuesday shared the official 2025 Christmas portrait of President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump. This year’s printed White House Christmas card expands on Melania Trump’s 2025 White House Christmas theme, “Home Is Where the Heart Is,” which she said was inspired by the “joys, challenges, and frequent motion derived from motherhood and business.” “This Christmas, let’s celebrate the love we hold within ourselves, and share it with the world around us,” she said in a statement announcing the theme. “After all, wherever we are, we can create a home filled with grace, radiance, and endless possibilities.”
Democrats warn Trump greenlighting Nvidia AI chip sales could boost China’s military edge
Congressional Democrats are voicing alarm at the fact that the U.S. might soon begin selling cutting-edge chips to one of its greatest geopolitical adversaries. Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., joined by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., wrote a letter to Under Secretary for Industry and Security Jeffrey Kessler on Monday, demanding answers as to why the Trump administration had green-lit the sale of the H200 Chip to China. “The President directing you to approve licenses of the H200 falls within a deeply concerning pattern that undercuts our nation’s security,” the pair of Democrats wrote. TRUMP SAYS EVERY AI PLANT BEING BUILT IN US WILL BE SELF-SUSTAINING WITH THEIR OWN ELECTRICITY Meeks said the basis of his request is found in the Export Control Reform Act (ECRA), the 2018 law governing the federal government authority over technology-related exports. The ECRA states that the Department of Commerce must supply Congress with answers to concerns raised by the ranking member of the foreign affairs and armed services committees. “In ECRA, Congress stated the policy of the United States is ‘to restrict the export of items which would make a significant contribution to the military potential of any other country,’” Meeks wrote. “Approving licenses for items like NVIDIA’s H200 chips, which the Justice Department recently described as ‘integral to modern military applications,’ would be deeply at odds with the policy that Congress articulated in ECRA.” CHINA RACES AHEAD ON AI —TRUMP WARNS AMERICA CAN’T REGULATE ITSELF INTO DEFEAT The H200 chip, one of the world’s most advanced computational devices, is NVIDIA’s crème of the crop. It plays a key role in the processing needed for increasingly sophisticated AI. The company was first ordered to halt sales to China in 2022 under the Biden administration. “The [government] indicated that the new license requirement will address the risk that the covered products may be used in, or diverted to, a ‘military end use’ or ‘military end user’ in China,” the company said in a filing. Like Meeks, several lawmakers worry that allowing their sale to China will only further empower an adversary that has had no qualms weaponizing technology. In recent years, Congress has banned the use of Chinese-made Huawei devices for government employees and, last year, passed a law forcing the divestment of TikTok, fearing China’s far-reaching insight through the data collected by the popular social media app. To Meeks, the decision to resume sales of the H200 chip — to China and to other potential rivals — seems incongruent with that past wariness. “Just last month, you approved the export of tens of thousands of advanced AI chips, worth an estimated $1 billion, to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, despite significant concerns about these countries’ human rights records and their close relationships with the [People’s Republic of China],” Meeks wrote. KEVIN O’LEARY WARNS CHINA ‘KICKING OUR HEINIES’ IN AI RACE AS REGULATORY ROADBLOCKS STALL US While some Republicans share Meeks’ hesitation, others have said that the Trump administration’s reversal fits into a larger plan to ensure American competitiveness in future years. Meeks and Warren have requested answers from the administration about what factors led to the decision by Jan. 12, 2026.
Prominent Rhode Island Democrat caught on video telling officer, ‘You know who I am?’ during DUI stop
A prominent Rhode Island Democrat was captured on police bodycam video asking an officer, “You know who I am?” before her arrest during a recent traffic stop. Maria Bucci, 51, who is the chairwoman of the Democratic committee in Cranston – the second-largest city in the state – is now facing a misdemeanor DUI charge following a traffic stop on Dec. 18 in East Greenwich, according to media reports. “You know who I am right?” Bucci is heard telling an East Greenwich police officer just moments after he said he smelled alcohol in her breath and described her driving as erratic. “I don’t know who you are miss,” the officer responds, before adding, “You can start throwing out names and start doing out what you need to do, it’s not going to work with me, I’m telling you right now, I’m not the guy for that.” RHODE ISLAND PROSECUTOR IN VIRAL ARREST VIDEO PLACED ON UNPAID LEAVE The bodycam footage shows the officer trying to lead Bucci through a series of sobriety tests. Bucci, a former Cranston mayoral candidate, previously served on the City Council from 2004 to 2008 and also launched an unsuccessful bid for a Rhode Island House of Representatives seat last year, the Cranston Herald reported. At one point during the traffic stop, Bucci is heard saying, “Call my husband right now, and call the attorney general and everybody else in town, cause this is disgusting, God forbid I was a Black person, I’d be arrested.” WATCH: FOOTAGE SHOWS BLUE STATE PROSECUTOR WARNING OFFICERS THEY’LL ‘REGRET’ ARRESTING HER: ‘I’M AN AG!’ The officer eventually takes Bucci into custody. As she is placed in handcuffs, she says “you’re a d—” and looks towards the body camera. “Like I am not drinking, you’re a loser,” she adds. At the beginning of the video, Bucci told the officer she had a glass of wine and had attended a Christmas party. Bucci, who is expected to be arraigned on Jan. 5, was released on a $1,000 personal recognizance, according to WPRI. Bucci and the Rhode Island Democratic Party did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Fox News Digital.
Bengaluru woman allegedly assaulted, dragged publically after rejecting Instagram friend’s proposal: Report
The video further showed the man repeatedly hitting the woman on her head and back and dragging her along the road.
Delhi Pollution: Restrictions under GRAP-4 lifted in national capital as air quality improves
Actions under stage I, II and III of the extant GRAP will remain invoked.
Aravalli row: Centre’s BIG order to states, asks to impose complete ban on…
The ongoing mining activities in the Aravallis are to be regulated stringently to ensure environmental protection.