Prepared for the Office of Public Affairs (OPA)
U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Editorial Note: The DHS Daily Briefing is a collection of news articles related to Department’s mission. The inclusion of particular stories is not intended to reflect their importance, nor is it intended to endorse the political viewpoints or affiliations included in news coverage.

The Washington Post [1/4/2025 6:00 AM, Ellie Silverman, 40736K, Neutral] reports local and federal law enforcement leaders in Washington said Friday they are on high alert heading into an unprecedented series of prominent events in D.C., after the New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans and a Cybertruck explosion in Las Vegas rattled the nation. In a span of 15 days, law enforcement will be providing security for three "national special security events," the highest federal protective status, for the electoral count on Monday, former president Jimmy Carter’s state funeral on Thursday and the inauguration on Jan. 20. In between, there will also be demonstrations and other events, such as President-elect Donald Trump’s rally at Capital One Arena on Jan. 19. "That has never happened before," William "Matt" McCool, the special agent in charge for the Secret Service’s Washington Field Office, said at a news conference Friday, referring to hosting three national special security events so close together. Authorities said this is the first time the electoral certification is designated a special security event. The request came from D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser and followed a recommendation by the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. This designation unlocks funds and law enforcement resources from across the federal government to protect members of Congress while they certify the election results. Residents can expect this increased security on Monday to "look and feel like a State of the Union address," McCool said. Officials said there are no known threats to the District. D.C. Police Chief Pamela A. Smith said there has been an increased presence of police officers throughout the city since New Year’s Day "out of an abundance of caution." All D.C. police officers will also be called upon to work beginning Sunday, and the department is close to reaching Smith’s goal of an additional 4,000 officers from across the country to assist with the inauguration. The New York Times [1/3/2025 5:19 PM, Mark Walker, 161405K, Neutral] reports that on Thursday, a state funeral for Mr. Carter will be held at the Washington National Cathedral. And Mr. Trump will be sworn in as President on Jan. 20. Federal law enforcement officials, speaking to members of the news media on Friday, emphasized that there was no credible intelligence suggesting a mass demonstration similar to the one that occurred on Jan. 6 four years ago. Matt McCool, special agent in charge of the Secret Service’s Washington field office, said that the agency will bring in agents from across the country to supplement their staffing for this month’s events. Additional measures, such as the use of drones, will be implemented during this time, Mr. McCool said, urging the public not to be alarmed if they encounter one. The National Guard will also be on standby to help with events in D.C. The Hill [1/3/2025 6:00 AM, Brett Samuels, 16346K, Neutral] reports that "While we cannot comment on protective means or methods, what we can say is that we will continue to work with our federal, state, and local law enforcement partners in assessing the ever-changing threat landscape and will adjust our security plans as needed," Matthew Young, assistant special agent in charge with the Secret Service, said in a statement. "Our mission is to provide a safe and secure environment for our protectees, and all individuals involved in these events," he added. All three upcoming events – the election certification, the Carter funeral and the inauguration – have been designated as national special security events by the Department of Homeland Security. That designation makes the Secret Service the lead agency for planning and implementing security efforts, and it frees up additional federal and local resources to ensure there is enough man-power and other safety measures in place. There is already fencing up around the Capitol in anticipation of the Jan. 6 certification. VOA News [1/3/2025 4:40 PM, Jeff Seldin, 2717K, Neutral] reports Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department said it has added to its ranks almost 4,000 officers from departments across the country. The capital’s National Guard Bureau confirmed it also has approved requests for additional support, including the provision of 500 guardsmen for the Jan. 6 election certification and liaison officers for the state funeral. An additional request for 7,800 National Guard soldiers and airmen to assist with security for the Trump inauguration is pending. Increased security measures, including barriers and fencing, are already up in parts of Washington and around the Capitol, but more are coming.

Reported similarly:
USA Today [1/3/2025 5:08 AM, Bart Jansen, 89965K, Neutral] Video: HERE

Reuters [1/3/2025 12:09 PM, Erin Banco, Jonathan landay, and Andrea Shalal, 48128K, Neutral] reports that U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies are concerned about copycat vehicle-ramming attacks following the New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans by a U.S. Army veteran, according to a U.S. law enforcement intelligence bulletin published on Friday. The bulletin was issued a day after the FBI said Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Texas native, was "100 percent inspired" by the Islamic State militant group to drive a truck into New Year’s Day revelers in New Orleans, killing at least 14 people and injuring dozens of others. Jabbar, who flew an Islamic State flag from the rear of the truck he had rented, subsequently was killed in a shootout with police. The FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center "are concerned about possible copycat or retaliatory attacks," said the intelligence bulletin published by the three agencies and reviewed by Reuters. Such attacks "are likely to remain attractive for aspiring attackers given vehicles’ ease of acquisition and the low skill threshold necessary to conduct an attack," said the bulletin issued to U.S. law enforcement agencies. The bulletin noted that as of Thursday, Islamic State had not claimed responsibility for the New Orleans attack. But the group’s online supporters celebrated it and a Dec. 20 vehicle-ramming in Germany even though that incident did not appear to have been Islamic State-inspired, it said.

Reported similarly:
CBS News [1/3/2025 7:25 PM, Staff, 52225K, Negative]
Newsweek [1/3/2025 4:55 PM, Mandy Taheri, 56005K, Negative]

The Hill [1/3/2025 10:09 AM, Filip Timotija, 16346K, Negative] reports that Tom Homan, tapped by President-elect Trump as his "border czar," stressed that the incoming administration has to keep an eye on potential extremism within the U.S. military and other agencies after the attacks in New Orleans and Las Vegas on New Year’s Day. "The incoming administration needs to look at insider threat — I mean insider threat analysis has been put on the back seat by this administration," Homan told Fox News on Thursday. "And we’ve got two people who served in the military that committed these terrorist acts," he said. "We need to really dig down into insider threat in our military, in our federal servants, whether it’s the FBI, whether it’s other agencies, whether it’s the military. Insider threats [are] a big issue, especially in our industry where they have infrastructure responsibilities." Homan’s remarks on the network come as it was confirmed that Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the 42-year-old Texas man who drove a Ford pickup truck into a crowd of people in New Orleans, killing at least 14 and injuring dozens more, served in the Army from 2007-20. Jabbar was then shot and killed by police. Law enforcement also noted an ISIS flag was found in the suspect’s vehicle, and he made posts on social media sympathizing with the U.S.-designated terrorist group.

Wall Street Journal [1/3/2025 9:00 PM, Vivian Salama and Alexander Ward, Neutral] reports President-elect Donald Trump had planned to prioritize operations aimed at protecting the southern border over traditional counterterrorism efforts, a strategy shift that faces fresh scrutiny after a U.S. Army veteran unleashed an attack in New Orleans. When a Ford pickup truck rammed into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing 14 people and injuring dozens more, federal officials initially believed that the driver had crossed the southern border shortly before the attack—providing potential fodder for Trump’s attacks on the Biden border policy. On Thursday, even after it was shown that 42-year old Shamsud-Din Jabbar wasn’t in the rented truck when it crossed the border, Trump still blamed the current administration. “With the Biden ‘Open Border’s Policy’ I said, many times during Rallies, and elsewhere, that Radical Islamic Terrorism, and other forms of violent crime, will become so bad in America that it will become hard to even imagine or believe,” Trump wrote Thursday. “That time has come, only worse than ever imagined.” Yet the attack in New Orleans and the explosion of a Cybertruck outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas demonstrate the difficulties Trump will face in trying to leverage the terrorism threat at the border amid what could signal a rising wave of domestic terrorism. While Jabbar appears to have been inspired by Islamic State, authorities believe the men alleged to be behind the incidents—both U.S.-born—acted alone, and neither appears to have had any contact with a foreign group. Matthew Alan Livelsberger, the driver of the Cybertruck that exploded, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound before the explosion. “This is impossible to ignore,” Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at the Council on Foreign Relations think tank, said of the recent incidents. “It will have repercussions that will indeed influence and shape the Trump administration’s approach to terrorism. There will be a different approach precisely because this attack occurred on the watch of the previous administration.” Some in government, however, say it is too soon to draw broader conclusions about the violent acts, let alone outline the need for broad policy shifts. Trump has given no indication that this week’s events might alter that course, but he may at least be forced to contend with the domestic terrorism threat. “It’s a couple of losers who chose the same day to act up,” a Senate staffer said. “They’re being looked at as isolated incidents for now.”

Washington Examiner [1/3/2025 6:30 AM, Anna Giaritelli, 2365K, Neutral] reports six of the dozen forthcoming pieces of legislation packed inside the House rules package would amend border and immigration laws, a focus of the incoming Trump administration. The majority of those six bills would make more illegal immigrants within the United States eligible for arrest and potentially deportation, likely expanding who could be removed from the country come Jan. 20 beyond just convicted criminals and those who an immigration judge has already ordered be removed. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX), whose district includes 40% of the 2,000-mile southern border, said the immigration focus of these bills showed that the GOP understands what the public wants from lawmakers at this point in time. "The American people demand a 180-degree clean-up of the mess that President Biden created at the border," Gonzales told the Washington Examiner in a statement Thursday. "That’s why Congress is taking immediate action this new session to ramp up deportations, especially for criminal aliens, and improve border security overall. This needs to be priority No. 1, 2, and 3.” The top priority for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Friday will be securing enough votes to retain the speakership, which will require near-unanimous support among his smaller House GOP majority. Once the speaker is chosen and new members are sworn in, the House will vote to approve the 36-page rules package for the new Congress. The provisions include raising the threshold to seek to oust the speaker from one vote to nine members and allowing House Republicans to subpoena Department of Justice officials to testify about ongoing congressional investigations into the Biden family. The package, released late Wednesday, also provides rules for 12 bills to come to the House floor separately for a vote in the coming weeks, jump-starting the process. The process would not allow for amendments, a provision that the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee blasted as bypassing regular order. "So much for openness & transparency," Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) said on X.

Newsweek [1/3/2025 12:50 PM, Staff, 56005K, Neutral] reports that President-elect Donald Trump’s mass deportation policy will wreck Mexico’s economy, experts have warned. Trump has vowed to conduct the largest mass deportation program in U.S. history, shut down the CBP One app, end the catch-and-release policy and reinstate the "Remain in Mexico" program as part of his immigration agenda. His flagship immigration policy is part of an effort to "secure the border" and curb migration figures as well as stop the flow of drugs entering the country. A key aspect of Trump’s immigration policy is the removal of millions of undocumented immigrants. He called for the deportation of individuals in the U.S. illegally, with a particular focus on those who had committed crimes. However, critics have pointed out that Trump’s mass deportation proposal will be a huge "blow" to Mexico’s economy, according to Ismael Plascencia López, a specialist with the Northwest Mexico Federation of Economists. Experts estimate that Mexico will need to invest millions of dollars to provide care, food, housing and transportation for deported migrants, as well as for those arriving from other countries.

Washington Post [1/4/2025 6:00 AM, Maxine Joselow, 40736K, Neutral] reports President Joe Biden will move Monday to block all future oil and gas drilling across more than 625 million acres of federal waters — equivalent to nearly a quarter of the total land area of the United States, according to two people briefed on the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the announcement is not yet public. The action underscores how Biden is racing to cement his legacy on climate change and conservation in his last weeks in office. President-elect Donald Trump, who has described his energy policy as "drill, baby, drill," is likely to work with congressional Republicans to challenge the decision. Biden will issue two memorandums that prohibit future federal oil and gas leasing across large swaths of the Atlantic Ocean, the Pacific Ocean, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska, the two people said. The oil and gas industry has long prized the eastern Gulf of Mexico in particular, viewing the area as a key part of its offshore production plans. Some details of the expected decision were first reported by Bloomberg News. The total acreage and the inclusion of the Northern Bering Sea have not previously been reported. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Trump transition team also did not reply to a request for comment. The move could have the biggest impact in the Gulf of Mexico, which accounts for about 14 percent of the country’s crude oil production, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Industry operations there focus on a small sliver of federal waters off Louisiana’s coast. The decision would have little effect on a stretch of the Atlantic from North Carolina to Florida, where no drilling is underway. There is weak industry interest in the region, and lawmakers from both parties have raised concerns about possible oil spills devastating local beaches and tourism. In fact, Trump imposed a 10-year moratorium on offshore oil exploration off the coasts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina when courting voters there during his 2020 campaign. "This protects your beautiful gulf and your beautiful ocean, and it will for a long time to come," Trump said as he announced the election-year reversal during an appearance at a lighthouse in Florida.

Washington Post [1/3/2025 12:47 PM, Maeve Reston, 40736K, Neutral] reports that President Joe Biden will travel to New Orleans on Monday to meet with families of the victims who were killed or injured in the early hours of New Year’s Day by a driver who rammed a truck bearing an Islamic State flag into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street.

Get the latest election news and results The White House said Friday that the president will head to the city to grieve with family members and meet with residents affected by the attack, as well as with officials who were involved in responding to the mass killing. Biden has taken his role as consoler in chief seriously throughout his presidency, traveling to sites as disparate as red states battered by hurricanes and Israel after a terrorist attack that killed some 1,200 people. He has repeatedly praised the courage and resilience of the people of New Orleans in recent days. Presidents often avoid the scene of violent incidents in their immediate aftermath so as to not impede the investigation, but in this case authorities have homed in on Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Army veteran from Texas, and concluded that he acted alone. Biden and FBI officials have said Jabbar posted videos on social media in the hours before the attack indicating that it was inspired by the Islamic State, a militant group that aims to create an Islamic caliphate in the Middle East. Jabbar, who had explosives in the truck and had planted others nearby, was killed at the scene in an exchange of fire that injured two police officers. USA Today [1/3/2025 10:33 AM, Joey Garrison, 89965K, Negative] reports that on the day of the attack, Biden offered condolences to the victims’ families in a national address from the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland. "I want you to know I grieve with you," Biden said. Biden said the suspect had a remote detonator in his truck that was meant to set off two explosive devices placed inside ice coolers along Bourbon Street. Biden said law enforcement officials "have not found any evidence" linking the New Orleans attack with an explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck outside a Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas. The suspect in both cases have U.S. military ties. Biden’s New Orleans visit will take place on Jan. 6 amid security concerns back in Washington, where Congress is scheduled to meet and count the electoral voters confirming President-elect Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.

Reported similarly:
Newsweek [1/3/2025 11:25 AM, Rachel Dobkin, 56005K, Neutral]
CBS Detroit [1/3/2025 1:17 PM, Melissa Quinn, 52225K, Negative]
Washington Examiner [1/3/2025 11:00 AM, Naomi Lim, 2365K, Neutral]
Yahoo! News [1/3/2025 12:36 PM, Clyde Hughes, 57114K, Negative]

The Hill [1/3/2025 11:04 AM, Filip Timotija, 57114K, Negative] reports that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas argued it is "not fair" to say that the city of New Orleans ignored the bulletin on the risks of attacks by drivers plowing cars into crowds of people. "I don’t think that’s fair … to say, Wolf, that wouldn’t be a fair conclusion to draw," Mayorkas told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in a Thursday evening interview. "That was not our first bulletin with respect to the threat of the lone offender, the perpetrator of the terrorist attack yesterday in New Orleans was an army veteran, a U.S.-born citizen." Blitzer asked Mayorkas about a Dec. 6 Department of Homeland Security bulletin and a "critical incident note," both obtained by CNN, that were sent out to federal, state and local law enforcement, warning them of threats of violence from lone offenders and the potential of using vehicles to ram into crowds. Officials warned in the memo, circulated among law enforcement agencies before the holidays kicked into full gear, that the risks are even higher during the winter to "soft" targets, according to CNN. "We have spoken now for about 10 years about the phenomenon of an individual resident in the United States radicalized to violence by a foreign terrorist ideology or other ideologies," Mayorkas said. "We’re speaking of a veteran here." "Local officials do the best they can in securing the well-being of their residents. We work very closely with our state and local partners," he added.

AP [1/3/2025 9:03 PM, Stephen Smith, Jim Mustian, Sara Cline and Jack Brook, 3419K, Negative] reports the man who rammed a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers in New Orleans had suspected bomb-making materials at his home and reserved the vehicle used in the deadly attack more than six weeks earlier, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press on Friday. Federal authorities searching the home of Shamsud-Din Jabbar in Houston found a workbench in the garage and hazardous materials believed to have been used to make explosive devices, according to law enforcement officials familiar with the search. The officials were not authorized to speak about the ongoing inquiry and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity. The FBI investigation also revealed that Jabbar purchased a cooler in Vidor, Texas, hours before the attack and gun oil from a store in Sulphur, Louisiana, the officials said. Authorities also determined Jabbar booked his rental of the pickup truck on Nov. 14, suggesting he may have been plotting the attack for more than six weeks. Authorities say 14 people were killed and about 30 were injured in the attack early Wednesday by Jabbar, a former Army soldier who posted several videos on his Facebook hours before the attack previewing the violence he would unleash and proclaiming his support for the Islamic State militant group. The coroner’s office listed the cause of death for all 14 victims as “blunt force injuries.” Jabbar, 42, was fatally shot in a firefight with police at the scene of the deadly crash on Bourbon Street, famous worldwide for its festive vibes in New Orleans’ historic French Quarter. Authorities found crude bombs that had been planted in the neighborhood in an apparent attempt to cause more carnage. Two improvised explosive devices left in coolers several blocks apart were rendered safe at the scene, officials said. Other devices were determined to be nonfunctional.

FOX News [1/3/2025 9:47 AM, Danielle Wallace, 49889K, Neutral] reports President Biden and first lady Jill Biden are expected in New Orleans on Friday, days after an alleged terrorist rammed a truck through New Year’s revelers, killing 14 people before he died during a shootout with police. The FBI and Department of Homeland Security on Friday issued a bulletin to approximately 18,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, including many local police and sheriff departments, warning those who wear the uniform to be hyper vigilant regarding copy cat attacks after the bloodshed seen on Bourbon Street. The bulletin speaks to how ISIS has promoted vehicle attacks for a decade and provides signs law enforcement should be on the lookout for. The bulletin does not include any specific intelligence regarding a specific copycat attack and serves as a general warning to keep people on alert. The FBI released new eerie surveillance images Thursday showing the now-deceased suspect – 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar – just about an hour before he allegedly sped a rented Ford pick-up through a crowd of Bourbon Street revelers in the attack that officials say was inspired by the Islamic State. More than 30 others were injured. Despite previously investigating the potential of accomplices in the attack, the FBI said Thursday the bureau is confident Jabbar acted alone. The investigation now turned to how Jabbar - a U.S. Army veteran who recently held a six-figure job – was radicalized. He grew up Muslim in Texas and most recently lived in Houston. "This investigation is only a little more than 24 hours old, and we have no indication at this point that anyone else was involved in this attack other than Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar," FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia from the Counterterrorism Division at FBI Headquarters said on Thursday. "The FBI is surging people and assets to this area from across the region and across the nation. Special agents in field offices across the country are assisting with potential aspects of this investigation and following up on leads. Additional teams of special agents, professional staff, and victim specialists continue to arrive to provide more investigative power and assistance to the victims and their families." "Let us be very clear—what happened here in New Orleans was an act of terrorism. It was premeditated and an evil act," he added.

New York Times [1/3/2025 6:00 AM, Michael Barbaro, Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Mike Baker, Christina Morales, Stella Tan, Shannon M. Lin, Diana Nguyen, Mooj Zadie, Brendan Klinkenberg, Leah Shaw Dameron, Marion Lozano, Pat McCusker, Chelsea Daniel, Dan Powell and Chris Wood, 161405K, Negative] reports a mere three hours into 2025, terrorism struck in downtown New Orleans. The Times journalists Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Mike Baker, and Christina Morales discuss what we know about the attack, the man who carried it out and the victims. [Editorial note: consult audio at source link]

ABC News [1/4/2025 3:21 AM, Aaron Katersky, Victoria Arancio, Kevin Shalvey, Pierre Thomas, Josh Margolin, Luke Barr, David Brennan, Jenny Wagnon Courts, Megan Christie, Sasha Pezenik, and Luis Martinez, 33392K, Negative] reports authorities investigating the suspect in the truck attack that killed 14 and injured dozens in New Orleans on New Year’s Day are probing when, where and how his alleged "radicalization" occurred, a local official said on Friday. Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Army veteran and U.S.-born citizen from Texas, posted several videos online hours before the Bourbon Street attack "proclaiming his support for ISIS" and mentioning he joined ISIS before this summer, according to the FBI. On Friday, Jabbar’s half-brother told ABC News the suspect traveled to Egypt in 2023 for around a month, telling his family he was going "because it was cheap and beautiful." Jabbar’s foreign travel is a part of the ongoing investigation, law enforcement officials told ABC News. Investigators are working to determine what he did during his travel in Egypt, why he went and who he interacted with while there, multiple sources said. Critical to the probe is whether he had been radicalized prior to the travel or if the travel marked the start of his radicalization. "This next most important phase of the investigation is to find out how that radicalization happened and if it happened on that trip," Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams told ABC News. Jabbar was shot dead in the midst of Wednesday’s attack in New Orleans, after driving a pickup truck onto a sidewalk and around a parked police car serving as a barricade to plow into pedestrians over a three-block stretch on Bourbon Street, police said. Jabbar then exited the damaged vehicle armed with an assault rifle and opened fire on police officers, law enforcement said. Officers returned fire, killing him. Officials said the first 24 hours after the ramming attack were occupied by a feverish effort to determine whether there were additional suspects on the loose or if Jabbar worked with accomplices.

AP [1/3/2025 6:38 PM, Ryan Foley and Michael Kunzelman, 47097K, Negative] reports steel columns known as bollards were installed to restrict vehicle access to Bourbon Street. The posts retracted to allow for deliveries to its bars and restaurants, until - gummed up by Mardi Gras beads, beer and other detritus - their tracks stopped working reliably. So when New Year’s Eve arrived, the bollards were gone. They were being replaced ahead of the Super Bowl, which New Orleans will host on Feb. 9. That left a critical security gap as thousands of New Year’s revelers crowded Bourbon Street. Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S. Army veteran inspired by the Islamic State group, exploited that gap when he drove a truck onto a sidewalk early Wednesday and sped around a police car stationed as a temporary barricade, killing 14 people. City officials were removing the Heald-designed barriers and replacing them with a different system of stainless steel bollards before the upcoming Super Bowl. Michael Rodriguez, vice president at California-based 1-800-Bollards, said his company recently shipped 106 stainless steel bollards to New Orleans for its Bourbon Street project. He said the city requested part of the shipment be expedited so installation could be completed before the Super Bowl, and the company put the order on a fast track.

Reported similarly:
FOX News [1/3/2025 2:54 PM, Audrey Conklin, Garrett Tenney, Ashley Papa, 49889K, Neutral]

Houston Chronicle [1/3/2025 12:26 PM, Octavia Johnson, 2315K, Negative] reports that Houston federal agents returned to the property believed to be the home of Shamsud-Din Jabbar, the man who drove a truck into a crowd of people on New Year’s Day in New Orleans. This comes after federal law enforcement officials initiated a search at the mobile home in the 12000 block of Crescent Peak Drive in north Harris County Wednesday. The officials confirmed to the Chronicle that "precursor chemicals" were found at the property. FBI officials did not say what chemicals were found nor their suspected purpose. Precursor chemicals can refer to chemicals used to make explosives, according to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency website. FBI Houston and Harris County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday morning that they concluded the first search. The search was initiated Wednesday after Jabbar drove into a crowd celebrating on Bourbon Street, killing 14 and injuring more than 30 people. CBS News [1/3/2025 6:28 PM, Kerry Breen, Negative] reports Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old U.S.-born citizen from Texas, was living in Houston. It’s not clear what types of materials the investigators found at the Houston home. They took inventory of the materials and returned the home back to its owner. Officials say Jabbar drove from Houston to New Orleans in a rented pickup truck and plowed through a crowd of revelers at around 3 a.m. on New Year’s Day, killing 14 people and injuring dozens. Officials said he was shot dead by police. The attack is being investigated as an act of terrorism. Investigators also searched the Airbnb where Jabbar stayed in New Orleans and detonated materials they described as concerning to them at the location of the Airbnb on Wednesday afternoon. The building caught fire on Wednesday morning.

Reported similarly:

Newsweek [1/3/2025 5:02 PM, Monica Sager, 56005K, Negative]

Yahoo! News [1/3/2025 5:00 AM, David Montgomery, 57114K, Neutral] reports Starr County, Texas, resident Bernardo Garcia, 89, looks across the highway toward a border wall rising on thousands of acres of land owned by the state. Texas officials have offered the land to the incoming Trump administration for a migrant deportation center. (David Montgomery/Stateline) RIO GRANDE CITY, Texas — The letter to President-elect Donald Trump, sent to his Mar-a-Lago Club estate in Florida just two weeks after his resounding victory in the Nov. 5 election, came straight to the point. “Subject: Texas offering 1,400 acres of land adjacent to the Texas-Mexico Border for construction of deportation facilities,” read the opening line of Texas Land Commissioner Dr. Dawn Buckingham’s eye-grabbing missive to the incoming president. As Trump moves closer to reclaiming residency at the White House on Jan. 20, the vast Texas acreage at the edge of the Rio Grande promises to become a centerpiece of the get-tough immigration policies he plans to unfurl under recently named “border czar” Tom Homan. Republican governors from across the country have expressed their eagerness to help Trump’s deportation efforts. In a joint statement issued last month by the Republican Governors Association, 26 of the 27 members (all except Vermont Gov. Phil Scott) declared that they “stand ready to utilize every tool at our disposal — whether through state law enforcement or the National Guard — to support President Trump in this vital mission.” But Texas, the only Republican-controlled state on the U.S.-Mexico border, is poised to play a particularly vital role. In the past several years, the state has dispatched thousands of Texas National Guard troops to the border; enacted a law (which is on hold pending legal challenges) authorizing police officers to engage in immigration enforcement; and set up a string of floating buoys to block migrants from crossing the Rio Grande. The Biden administration has fought those efforts in court, but the incoming Trump administration is expected to stand down. Now it appears likely that a well-secured federal deportation center will be taking root in impoverished Starr County, on a huge patch of level farmland that now yields onions, grain sorghum, corn and soybeans.

Bloomberg [1/3/2025 6:01 PM, John Gittelsohn, 57114K, Neutral] reports a decorated US Army Green Beret who died in a New Year’s Day explosion outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and had no apparent ties to terrorism, according to law enforcement officials. Matthew Livelsberger, 37, died by suicide after shooting himself and detonating explosives inside a rented Tesla Cybertruck, authorities said on Friday. The blast injured seven people. The explosion occurred just hours after a separate attack in New Orleans, where an Army officer drove a truck into a crowd, killing 14 people, sparking initial fears of a coordinated terrorist spree. The driver, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, 42, was killed in a shootout with police after the rampage. An investigation by the FBI and local law enforcement has since confirmed there’s no link between the two incidents. In Las Vegas, "although this incident is more public and more sensational than usual, it ultimately appears to be a tragic case of suicide involving a heavily decorated combat veteran who is struggling with PTSD and other issues," FBI Special Agent Spencer Evans said at a press conference. Authorities haven’t determined why Livelsberger stopped the truck outside the Trump International Hotel. Tesla CEO Elon Musk, an ally of President-elect Donald Trump, manufactures the Cybertruck. In notes recovered by police, Livelsberger called his actions a wake-up call to "fellow service members, veterans, and all Americans," claiming the country was being led by "weak and feckless leadership who only serve to enrich themselves," according to Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. "This was not a terrorist attack. It was a wake-up call," Livelsberger said in his notes. "Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives? Why did I personally do it now? I need to cleanse my mind of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.” Police released more excerpts from Livelsberger’s writings late Friday, including comments signaling support for Trump, Musk and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services. "Consider this last sunset of ‘24 and my actions the end of our sickness and a new chapter of health for our people," Livelsberger wrote. "Rally around the Trump, Musk, Kennedy, and ride this wave to the highest hegemony for all Americans! We are second to no one.”

AP [1/3/2025 7:50 PM, Staff, 2717K, Neutral] reports A highly decorated Army soldier who fatally shot himself in a Tesla Cybertruck just before it blew up outside the Trump hotel in Las Vegas left notes saying the New Year’s Day explosion was a stunt to serve as a “wake up call” for the country’s ills, investigators said Friday. Matthew Livelsberger, a 37-year-old Green Beret from Colorado Springs, Colorado, also wrote in notes he left on his cellphone that he needed to “cleanse” his mind “of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.” Livelsberger served in the Army since 2006 and deployed twice to Afghanistan. “This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives,” Livelsberger wrote in one letter found by authorities and released Friday. The explosion caused minor injuries to seven people but virtually no damage to the Trump International Hotel. Authorities said that Livelsberger acted alone. Livelsberger’s letters covered a range of topics including political grievances, societal problems and both domestic and international issues, including the war in Ukraine. He said in one letter that the U.S. was “terminally ill and headed toward collapse.” Tesla engineers, meanwhile, helped extract data from the Cybertruck for investigators, including Livelsberger’s path between charging stations from Colorado through New Mexico and Arizona and on to Las Vegas, according to Assistant Sheriff Dori Koren. “We still have a large volume of data to go through,” Koren said Friday. “There’s thousands if not millions of videos and photos and documents and web history and all of those things that need to be analyzed.” The new details came as investigators were still trying to determine whether Livelsberger sought to make a political point with the Tesla and the hotel bearing the president-elect’s name. Livelsberger harbored no ill will toward President-elect Donald Trump, law enforcement officials said. In one of the notes he left, he said the country needed to “rally around” Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

Reported similarly:
CBS News [1/3/2025 6:18 PM, James LaPorta, Dan Ruetenik, Rhona Tarrant, 52225K, Negative]

Washington Examiner [1/3/2025 6:53 PM, Elaine Mallon, 2365K, Negative] reports authorities have ruled out a connection between the Las Vegas Tesla Cybertruck explosion and the New Orleans pick up truck attack on New Year’s Eve, which killed at least 15. The Las Vegas Cybertruck explosion outside of a Trump International Hotel occurred just hours after the attack in New Orleans. "Why don’t we consider what happened in New Orleans and what happened in Las Vegas?" Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Kevin McMahill said. "The simple answer to that is we don’t find anything to actually point us in that direction. There are those coincidences that we have spoken very openly about, but we have not found throughout this entire investigation anything that ties the two attacks directly together.” Authorities began investigating a possible link between the man behind the Cybertruck explosion — 37-year-old active Army service member Matthew Livelsberger — and the driver of the pickup truck in New Orleans — Shamsud-Din Jabbar – as they both were stationed in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and they were both deployed to Afghanistan in 2009. However, there is no evidence that the men knew each other. McMahill shared during a Friday press conference that Livelsberger suffered from PTSD and that he did not give any indication that he disliked President-elect Donald Trump. "Although this incident is more public and more sensational than usual, it ultimately appears to be a tragic case of suicide involving a heavily decorated combat veteran who is struggling with PTSD and other issues," McMahill said. Authorities have two phones and one laptop belonging to Livelsberger, and they gained access to one phone but only began to scratch the surface. Dori Koren, an assistant sheriff with the Clark County Las Vegas Metropolitan Police, shared that they uncovered two different letters on one of the phones addressing the attack. One of the notes told "fellow service members, veterans, and all Americans" that it is time to "wake up" because the country’s leadership is "weak" and "only serves to enrich themselves.”

Reported similarly:
FOX News [1/3/2025 6:00 AM, Michael Ruiz, 49889K, Negative]

FOX News [1/3/2025 12:17 PM, Michael Dorgan, 49889K, Neutral] reports that two new videos have been released in relation to Wednesday’s Cybertruck explosion outside the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas as investigators try to piece together what caused an active-duty U.S. Army soldier to kill himself and then blow up the electric pick-up truck. The first video shows the Tesla Cybertruck slowly leaving the hotel’s valet area earlier in the morning, while the second video is taken from inside the hotel and shows the truck exploding, sending flames and fireworks into the air. Investigators believe Matthew Livelsberger, 37, shot himself in the head before blowing up the futuristic-looking truck outside the iconic hotel, sending flames, fireworks and shrapnel upward just steps away from the hotel’s glass doors. Livelsberger was the only fatality, although seven bystanders reported having minor injuries. A motive has yet to be established. The cause of death was suicide by gunshot, according to the Clark County coroner. The first video is surveillance footage and shows who police say is Livelsberger driving the rented Cybertruck slowly out of the hotel’s valet area. Clark County Sheriff Kevin McMahill says Livelsberger then visited several places along the Las Vegas Strip, including the parking lot of a business near the Flamingo Hotel.

The Washington Post [1/3/2025 7:00 AM, Trisha Thadani and Shannon Najmabadi, 40736K, Neutral] reports Tesla chief executive Elon Musk is directly assisting investigators in the New Year’s Day Cybertruck explosion outside of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas, highlighting both the trove of information the company has on its customers and Musk’s ability to access and share it at his own discretion. Musk sent a team to Las Vegas to help investigators extract data and video from the charred remains of the car on Thursday and provided footage from Tesla’s charging stations that tracked the suspect as he drove from Colorado to Las Vegas, officials said. Las Vegas Sheriff Kevin McMahill applauded Musk for his assistance and said the Cybertruck contains a “tremendous number of cameras” that may help officials piece together the suspect’s final moments before the explosion. “The evil knuckleheads picked the wrong vehicle for a terrorist attack,” Musk posted Wednesday on X, the social media site he owns. The explosion is being investigated by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force. Officials said the suspect — believed to be Matthew Livelsberger, an active-duty soldier in the U.S. Army — likely died by suicide before the Cybertruck filled with gas canisters and fireworks exploded Wednesday morning. While authorities can subpoena companies that have information critical to an investigation, Musk’s public involvement in the high-profile case — and his frequent updates and commentary on the case to his more than 200 million followers on X — is unusual for a CEO of a major company. Lawyers with active lawsuits against Tesla drew a contrast between Musk’s eagerness to assist in this case and what they say is Tesla’s far more reluctant stance in sharing the full scope of its data when its vehicle design or technology is alleged to have contributed to a fire or crash. Brett Schreiber, a personal injury and wrongful death attorney who has several cases pending against Tesla related to its technology and design, said Musk did the right thing by willingly assisting authorities in the Las Vegas investigation. But, Schreiber said, he has repeatedly found himself in discovery battles with the company to obtain the full breadth of information it has on vehicles involved in his cases. Newsweek [1/3/2025 5:43 PM, Staff, 56005K, Neutral] reports that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has dismissed a conspiracy theory that suggests Matthew Livelsberger, the suspect behind the Las Vegas Cybertruck incident, was framed.

AP [1/3/2025 4:41 PM, Staff, 2212K, Neutral] reports that Mexico opened the possibility Friday of receiving non-Mexican migrants deported by the United States after initially saying they would push President-elect Donald Trump to return other nationalities directly to their countries of origin. President Claudia Sheinbaum said during her daily press briefing that in cases where the U.S. would not return migrants to their countries "we can collaborate through different mechanisms." She did not offer details, but Mexico could limit it to certain nationalities or request compensation from the U.S. to move the deportees from Mexico to their home countries. "There will be time to speak with the United States government if these deportations really happen, but we will receive them here, we are going to receive them properly and we have a plan," she said. Sheinbaum had prefaced her comments by saying Mexico is not in favor of them. Trump has promised to begin massive deportations. Critics have observed that there will be logistical challenges to significantly ramping up from the already high deportation numbers. The deportations would be immediately felt in northern Mexico’s border cities, which struggle with high levels of organized crime and where non-Mexican migrants would make easy targets for kidnapping and extortion.

Reported similarly:
Newsweek [1/3/2025 2:47 PM, Matthew Impelli, 56005K, Neutral]

New York Times [1/3/2025 7:08 PM, Annie Correal, 161405K, Neutral] reports Honduras’s president threatened to push the U.S. military out of a base it built decades ago in the Central American country should President-elect Donald J. Trump carry out mass deportations of undocumented immigrants from the United States. The response by President Xiomara Castro of Honduras, in an address broadcast on television and radio on Wednesday, was the first concrete pushback by a leader in the region to Mr. Trump’s plan to send back millions of Latin American citizens living in the United States. The threat came as foreign ministers were set to meet later this month to address the deportation issue. “Faced with a hostile attitude of mass expulsion of our brothers, we would have to consider a change in our policies of cooperation with the United States, especially in the military arena,” Ms. Castro said of Honduras. “Without paying a cent for decades,” she added, “they maintain military bases in our territory, which in this case would lose all reason to exist in Honduras.” Honduras’ foreign minister, Enrique Reina, said afterward in a radio interview that Honduras’s leader had the power to suspend without the approval of the country’s Congress a decades-old agreement with the United States that allowed it to build the Soto Cano air base and operate America’s largest military task force in Central America from there. The move would present grave risks for the small country, which depends on the United States as its largest trading partner and a source of humanitarian aid. Will Freeman, a fellow in Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said of the Honduran president’s statement: “I’m surprised a bit by the boldness of it.” A spokesman for the Trump transition team, Brian Hughes, responding to Ms. Castro’s warning, said in a statement, “The Trump administration looks forward to engaging our Latin American partners to ensure our southern border is secure and illegal immigrants can be returned to their country of origin.”

Reported similarly:
AP [1/3/2025 5:09 PM, Marlon González, Negative]
Newsweek [1/3/2025 6:37 AM, Billal Rahman, 56005K, Negative]

Wall Street Journal [1/3/2025 5:53 PM, Staff, Neutral] reports President Biden’s order on Friday blocking Nippon Steel’s acquisition of U.S. Steel is an act of economic masochism that will harm U.S. manufacturing and security. It is also a corruption of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (Cfius) for raw political favoritism that will harm the U.S. reputation as a destination for capital. Nippon Steel’s friendly $15 billion takeover bid sought to reinvigorate the foundering U.S. Steel, but it fell victim to election politics and economic nationalism. After Donald Trump came out against the deal, Mr. Biden pledged to kill it to curry favor with the United Steelworkers. The economics of the deal make overwhelming sense for both U.S. Steel and its workers. The Japanese company promised $2.7 billion in fresh capital to modernize U.S. Steel’s aging plants and honor collective-bargaining agreements. It offered workers $5,000 bonuses, made job guarantees, and agreed to let Cfius block reductions in production capacity at U.S. Steel plants, among other political sweeteners. None satisfied United Steelworkers boss David McCall, who favors a tie-up with Cleveland-Cliffs, which was outbid by Nippon Steel in 2023. Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves lobbied the White House to block the Nippon deal because he wants to create a steel-making cartel shielded from foreign competition by tariffs and Buy America rules. A Cleveland-Cliffs-U.S. Steel combo would control 100% of U.S. blast furnace production, 100% of domestic steel used in electric-vehicle motors, and 65% to 90% of other domestic steel used in vehicles. But Cleveland-Cliffs—currently valued at $4.7 billion with $3.8 billion in debt—will struggle to find the money even to buy U.S. Steel, much less to invest enough to revitalize its factories.

The Hill [1/3/2025 1:00 PM, Nolan Rappaport, 16346K, Neutral] reports that Democrats have introduced 20 versions of a DREAM Act that would make lawful status available to undocumented immigrants who were brought here by their parents when they were young children. None of their DREAM Acts got the Republican support needed to make it through the legislative process. Was the problem that Republicans didn’t want to help DREAMers? I don’t think so. Democrats could have passed a DREAM Act without a single Republican vote during Barack Obama’s first term in office, and they didn’t do it. From January 2009 to January 2011, they held a large majority in the House, and until Scott Brown’s special election in 2010, they had enough votes in the Senate to stop a GOP filibuster. Even then, they only needed one Republican vote to stop a filibuster. They have a new opportunity now. Donald Trump wants to help the DREAMers, and he will be sworn in as our president later this month. Trump offered a legalization program for 1.8 million DREAMers during his first presidency. And in a recent "Meet the Press" interview, he said he is open to working with Democrats on legislation that would permit DREAMers to remain in the United States. The DREAM Acts the Democrats have been introducing have had little, if any, chance of being passed. They go too far and don’t include meaningful border security measures. Republicans historically have opposed legalization bills that don’t include effective border security provisions.

Washington Examiner [1/3/2025 12:32 PM, David Harsanyi, 2365K, Negative] reports that not long ago, a Texas native named Shamsud-Din Jabbar pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group on Facebook. Now, perhaps if he had been an election-denying vaccine skeptic, Jabbar might have gotten himself noticed by law enforcement. Instead, Jabbar was free to ram his rented Ford pickup truck into a crowd on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, murdering 15 people. Jabbar, who had guns and explosive devices in his truck, was killed in a shootout in which he wounded two police officers. Law enforcement officials and media, as is their wont, reflexively downplayed the Islamic aspects of mass murder. The lead agent in the investigation initially declared that the FBI did not consider the attack a "terrorist event." There was a small problem, however, as Jabbar had flown not an Appeal to Heaven or Gadsden flag, but one of those black ones favored by Sunni terrorist groups such as al Qaida and the Islamic State group on his truck. The FBI was quickly compelled to walk back its claim. It is perhaps understandable why the Justice Department, which has spent years obsessing about white supremacists, allegedly the greatest threat to our way of life; orthodox Catholics; pro-lifers; parents who oppose COVID-19 restrictions imposed by school boards; and candidates of the opposition party, somehow missed this man. But the prevarications about the nature of Islamic terrorism are not.

Yahoo! News [1/3/2025 4:23 PM, Brigham Tomco, 57114K, Neutral] reports Utah Gov. Spencer Cox called on the Trump administration to replace the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement director in Salt Lake City in a letter that proposed reforms to make the detention and removal of migrants convicted of crimes easier. Cox joined the five-member leadership team of the Utah Sheriff’s Association in sending the letter, dated Jan. 2, to former ICE director Tom Homan, who is President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming border czar. The letter, obtained by the Deseret News, made three requests: new ICE leadership in Utah, less obstacles to house ICE detainees in Utah and more funding to remove migrants who should be deported from Utah. The letter was signed by Cox, Utah Sheriff’s Association president Tracy Glover of Kane County, Jared Rigby of Wasatch County, Travis Tucker of Duchesne County, Steve Labrum of Uintah County and Mike Smith of Utah County. It was addressed to Homan, who will be tasked with implementing Trump’s program of mass deportations, and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security. Cox said the letter aims to be a "starting point" to address problems that reached their peak under the Biden administration’s immigration policies, which Cox labeled "an unmitigated failure that continues to place humanitarian, public safety, and public health burdens on state and local leaders.” One of the challenges Utah faced under President Joe Biden was a lack of cooperation from federal partners at ICE, according to Cox. Over the last few years, the Biden administration issued a slate of burdensome regulations that pressured county sheriffs to terminate their contracts with ICE to house migrant detainees. Instead of working with local law enforcement to rent space that could meet the new requirements, Salt Lake City Field Office Director Michael Bernacke published a now-retracted statement inaccurately labeling Utah a "sanctuary state.”

FOX News [1/3/2025 8:50 PM, Staff, 49889K, Neutral] reports incoming ‘border czar’ Tom Homan details the Trump administration’s plans to stop illegal immigration on ‘Jesse Watters Primetime.’ [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Washington Examiner [1/3/2025 12:53 PM, Luke Gentile, 2365K, Negative] reports that an illegal immigrant in Massachusetts is facing drug and firearm trafficking charges after he was taken into custody following a bust that found him possessing an AR-15 rifle and kilograms of drugs, including fentanyl, authorities said. Dominican national Leonardo Andujar Sanchez, 28, was arrested on Dec. 27 following the bust at a state-run emergency family shelter in Revere that led to the discovery of the illegal immigrant at a Quality Inn, according to a report. Authorities discovered Andujar Sanchez had at least five kilograms of fentanyl and cocaine packaged for sale along with the AR-15 rifle and large-capacity magazines, the report noted. The estimated street value of the drugs in Andujar Sanchez’s possession is upwards of $750,000. "This individual was preying upon vulnerable people while threatening the safety and well-being of our entire community," according to Revere Mayor Patrick Keefe Jr. "The City of Revere and the Revere Police Department will continue to uphold the laws of the Commonwealth and work to protect every person that calls Revere home.” Following his arrest, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations Boston assisted the Revere Police Department in identifying the illegal immigrant, and it was determined he had unlawfully entered the United States in the past year through an unknown location, according to ICE.

Reported similarly:
CBS Austin [1/3/2025 5:57 PM, Jackson Walker, 581K, Negative]

The Virginian-Pilot [1/3/2025 2:53 PM, Eliza Noe, Neutral] reports police in Virginia Beach seized more than 150 pounds of methamphetamine, and officials say it’s the largest seizure of the drug in the department’s history. A public information officer for the department said in early November, officers with VBPD and officials with the Homeland Security Investigations "approached" 54-year-old Alonzo Harden Jr., of Minnesota, as part of an ongoing investigation. Officers deployed a drug canine during the traffic stop at the 4400 block of Bonney Road. Officers said they found "two large bags" in the trunk, and police said the bags contained about 156 pounds of methamphetamine. Virginia Beach Police Chief Paul Neudigate said in a statement that the bust was a "major" step in disrupting drug trafficking in Hampton Roads. Harden has been charged with several drug and firearms crimes in relation to the bust, including possession with intent to distribute.

CBS Austin [1/3/2025 12:35 PM, Jackson Walker, 581K, Negative] reports that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials on Thursday announced the arrest of an illegal Dominican migrant accused of sex crimes and kidnapping in Massachusetts. Dominican national Emilio Jose Pena-Casilla, 46, illegally entered the U.S. near Eagle Pass, Texas in January 2023, according to ICE. He was placed in the agency’s "alternatives to detention" program before Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) released him. ERO Boston then terminated the migrant from the program in February 2023. Pena-Casilla was arraigned by the Dorchester District Court in Massachusetts in July for "assault to rape, kidnapping, two counts of indecent assault and battery on a person 14 years or older and intimidating a witness/juror/police/court official," ICE wrote. ERO Boston issued an immigration detainer for Pena-Casilla, which asks authorities to hold a migrant past their release date as ICE weighs deportation. The Nashua Street Jail of the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office ignored that request, ICE wrote, and released the migrant on bail. The Dorchester District Court later dismissed its charges against the migrant after he was indicted on the same charges by the Suffolk County Superior Court. He was ultimately arrested by ERO Boston on Dec. 17 and is now in ERO custody, according to the agency.

FOX News [1/3/2025 1:08 PM, Christina Coulter, 49889K, Negative] reports that a Honduran gang member "giggled" and "smirked" as he confessed to kidnapping a young Texas woman at gunpoint and threatening to pimp her out and harvest her organs on Christmas Eve, according to police. Illegal immigrant Eduardo Javier Ordonez Godoy, 35, allegedly forced the 22-year-old Haltom City woman into the back seat of her car at gunpoint as she was leaving for work around 4:45 a.m. on Christmas Eve. After making her withdraw cash from an ATM, he drove her 22 miles away to the town of Grapevine, according to charging documents obtained by Fox 4 News. There, Godoy allegedly tied his victim to a tree with her shoelaces and threatened to "prostitute her" or "sell her organs," Haltom City Police Sergeant Rick Alexander told Fox 4. The woman was able to escape and ran to a nearby resident for help, according to the department, and was not physically harmed in the abduction. Haltom City Police reported the victim’s car stolen. Less than 24 hours later, police in Oklahoma City found the vehicle and arrested Godoy. Godoy appeared to have no remorse for the attack that left the woman fearing for her life, Haltom City police said. Godoy is currently being held at Oklahoma County Detention Center and has an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer because of his immigration status, police said.

Yahoo! News [1/3/2025 5:35 PM, Brooke Williams, 57114K, Negative] reports U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Enforcement and Removal Operations Denver officers took 22 “unlawfully present noncitizens” into custody within 11 days last month. According to a press release from ICE, the 22 people who were apprehended between Dec. 9 to Dec. 20 all have either criminal convictions or pending criminal charges. The arrests were part of an operation “focused on public safety threats residing in the city and county of Denver,” ICE said in the release. According to ICE, the arrests include: 15 Mexican nationals, 2 El Salvadoran nationals, 2 Honduran nationals, 1 Guatemalan national, 1 Colombian national, 1 Venezuelan national. ICE said the people who were arrested have been convicted of or are facing charges for a range of crimes, including but not limited to: Contributing to the delinquency of a minor (felony) – sex offense, Child abuse, Burglary of a building, Gang-related offenses, Drug-related crimes, Vehicular assault, Driving under the influence. “These cases demonstrate the critical need for continued vigilance and enforcement to ensure public safety and uphold the rule of law,” ERO Denver acting Field Office Director Kelei Walker said in the press release.

Bloomberg [1/3/2025 11:11 AM, Alexandra S. Levine, 21617K, Negative] reports that TikTok has long known that its popular video livestreams encourage sexual content, including streams exploiting and "grooming" minors, according to a lawsuit from the state of Utah that was unredacted on Friday. TikTok also discovered through an internal investigation that the feature, called TikTok Live, facilitated money laundering and allowed users to sell drugs and fund terrorism, the lawsuit alleges. [Editorial note: consult extended commentary at source link]

CBS Austin [1/3/2025 9:51 AM, Jordan Elder, 581K, Neutral] reports that a federal judge in Texas made a big ruling about funding for the border wall and what the Biden Administration can and cannot use it for. This latest ruling says the Biden administration can’t sell any materials intended for the border wall and can’t assign funds that Congress dedicated to border wall construction for any other purposes. This lawsuit was originally filed by Texas and Missouri in 2021, and a judge sided with them in May. In December, both Attorneys General filed a complaint after pictures of border wall pieces up for auction went viral. Screenshots of the government surplus website GovPlanet showed wall materials up for auction with bidding starting at five dollars. Those listings have since been taken down. The Department of Defense told media outlets that it must use, transfer, or donate all excess wall construction materials because of the National Defense Authorization Act. An official said that the materials were divided up, with 60% going to authorized recipients like Texas, California, or U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The other 40% was sold to GovPlanet back in June, so the pieces that were up for auction no longer belong to the government. The DoD says Texas did request some of those materials and later received them.

Border Report [1/3/2025 2:50 PM, Veronica Salinas, 153K, Neutral] reports the U.S. Border Patrol Union of the Rio Grande Valley has issued a statement on an incident of what appears to be an agent kneeing a Border Patrol K-9. The incident occurred on Wednesday at the Falfurrias checkpoint and was caught on video, which has now become viral on social media. The statement says the agent was using proper corrective techniques she was trained to do by canine handler instructors. An investigation is being conducted into the incident, according to the agency.

CBS News [1/3/2025 6:31 AM, Staff, 52225K, Negative] reports a second Department of Homeland Security agent has been charged in federal court with using a confidential informant to sell illicit drugs that were seized as evidence. Nicholas Kindle, a special agent in Utah tasked with investigating illegal narcotics trafficking, was arrested three weeks after his alleged co-conspirator, special agent David Cole. Both face a felony drug distribution conspiracy charge, and Kindle faces an additional charge of conspiracy to convert property of the U.S. government for profit. On Thursday a magistrate judge set Kindle’s initial court appearance for Jan. 21 in Salt Lake City. If convicted he faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison. An attorney has not yet been listed for Kindle in court records. Unlike Cole, who was indicted last month by a grand jury, Kindle was formally charged in an information document from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, which does not require grand jury approval to initiate criminal proceedings. Federal prosecutors say Kindle and Cole abused their positions to acquire illegal drugs known as "bath salts" from Homeland Security evidence and from other law enforcement personnel, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers, under the false pretense that they would use them for legitimate investigations. Prosecutors say Kindle and Cole began stealing drugs from evidence and lying to fellow agents about their purpose in 2021. They are also alleged to have stolen thousands of dollars in cash, a diamond ring and a Peruvian antiquity from evidence. From 2022 to 2024, the agents allegedly sold the drugs to a person identified in court documents only as a "source of information" for the department, prosecutors. They let that person resell the drugs and did not arrest the customers, according to charging documents. Cole and Kindle "sold bath salts to HSI confidential human sources for thousands of dollars and allowed those sources to resell the bath salts on the streets of Utah for a profit," prosecutors allege. The FBI says the scheme brought in between $195,000 and $300,000.

Reported similarly:
Yahoo! News [1/3/2025 2:06 PM, Simon Druker, 57114K, Negative

Redding Record Searchlight [1/3/2025 3:44 PM, Michele Chandler, Neutral] reports a Redding father who abducted his two children and took them to Mexico has been arrested, the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office said on Friday. The children were recovered from Mexico and are being reunited with their mother, authorities said. Mexican law enforcement officers recovered the children on Thursday and said they were in good health. Palavicini was later arrested at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection – San Luis Port of Entry on his outstanding felony arrest warrant. Authorities said he was booked into the Yuma County Jail in Arizona on suspicion of parental abduction, with his bail set at $500,000. The Shasta County Sheriff’s Office said it is coordinating Palavicini’s extradition back to Shasta County.

The Hill [1/3/2025 1:19 PM, Filip Timotija, 16346K, Positive] reports that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) said it screened almost 39 million passengers in about two weeks during the winter holidays, bringing the total to more than 900 million nationwide for 2024. "For the entire year of 2024, TSA officers screened a record 904M individuals at airport checkpoints around the country," the agency said in a Friday post on social platform X. The TSA added that it screened 39 million individuals from Dec. 19, 2024, to Jan. 2, 2025, calling it the agency’s "busiest end of year holiday travel period ever.” The TSA said last month that it was expecting to screen nearly 40 million people between Dec. 19 and Jan. 2, nearly matching the actual number it shared Friday. The record number of individuals who were screened at airports in the U.S. comes as the auto club AAA projected that around 119.3 million people were expected to travel 50 miles or more between Dec. 21 and Jan. 1, potentially representing a 3 million increase from 2023. "This year, with Christmas Day falling on a Wednesday, we’re anticipating record-breaking travel numbers the weekend before and the weekend after the holiday," AAA Travel Services Vice President Stacey Barber said in a statement at the time. TSA Administrator David Pekoske praised the agency’s employees and thanked the airlines and airports for their "continued partnership." "We closed out winter holiday travel with record-breaking numbers. I commend the @TSA workforce for their teamwork and vigilance in the midst of challenges they face each day," he wrote in a Thursday post on X. "Thank you, #TeamTSA for an incredible job well done and thanks to our airport and airline partners for your continued partnership."

CNN [1/3/2025 12:56 PM, Alexandra Skores, 987K, Negative] reports that the US Department of Transportation has penalized JetBlue Airways $2 million over delayed flights, the first time the department has penalized an airline for delays. According to the DOT, $1 million of the fine will go to JetBlue customers affected by delays or disruptions within the next year. The other half will go directly to the U.S. Treasury, with $500,000 due within 60 days and the other half due within one year after the first payment. The department also said it has investigations into other airlines for "unrealistic flight schedules," which do not reflect actual flight departure and arrival times. "The department will enforce the law against airlines with chronic delays or other unrealistic scheduling practices in order to protect healthy competition in commercial aviation and ensure passengers are treated fairly," Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement. Under DOT rules, a flight is chronically delayed if it has been flown at least 10 times a month and arrives more than 30 minutes late more than 50% of the time. Cancellations are also included as delays in the DOT’s calculation. The DOT found JetBlue to have operated four chronically delayed flights at least 145 times between June 2022 through Nov. 2023, with each flight delayed for five months in a row or more.

Reported similarly:
New York Times [1/3/2025 9:43 AM, Christine Chung, 161405K, Neutral]
FOX News [1/3/2025 9:03 AM, Daniella Genovese, 10861K, Negative]

New York Times [1/3/2025 7:43 PM, Amy Graff, 161405K, Negative] reports a strong winter storm accompanied by Arctic cold is poised to bring “significant wintry weather” this weekend to about a dozen states across the middle of the country, from the Central Plains to the Mid-Atlantic, according to the Weather Prediction Center, with forecasters warning that some places may get their heaviest snowfall in a decade or more. The storm is expected to bring a nasty mix of sleet, snow and freezing rain that is expected to disrupt travel and daily life with road closures, flight delays and power outages beginning Saturday and lasting through Monday. As the storm moves on, Arctic air is predicted to settle in its wake, as some of the most frigid temperatures of the season are expected to linger for days. Some state officials were already gearing up for the worst on Friday. In Missouri, the governor put the National Guard on standby, and Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia declared a state of emergency, days ahead of the storm’s arrival, and urged people to avoid traveling on Sunday. Cities from Cincinnati to Chicago to St. Louis began the work of pretreating their roads and preparing warming centers. The low-pressure system will push into Denver on Saturday evening with up to an inch or two of snow projected to fall in the metro area overnight. The storm is forecast to strengthen quickly as it exits Colorado and moves into the Central Plains by late Saturday. “We’re on the weaker side of it, and then it quickly wraps into a much more potent storm as it gets into Kansas and Nebraska,” said Zach Hiris, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Denver. Heavy snowfall whipped up by wind gusts over 35 miles an hour could bring blizzard conditions to the Central Plains by Sunday morning. Whiteout conditions could make driving “dangerous to impossible” in some areas, the Weather Service warned.

Reported similarly:
CNN [1/3/2025 7:59 AM, Mary Gilbert, 987K, Negative]

ABC News [1/4/2025 2:23 AM, Daniel Amarante, David Brennan, Ahmad Hemingway , and Melissa Griffin, 33392K, Neutral] Video: HERE reports that, 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 45 million Americans were under winter weather alerts as of late Friday, with many expecting the storm to be sustained from Saturday night into Monday, spreading from Kansas to the East Coast. The storm kicks off on Saturday as a mix of rain, snow and ice developing over the central Plains. The Kansas City, Missouri, area will likely see dangerously slick travel on Saturday evening as a wintry mix moves in. The storm then follows Interstate 70 to St. Louis, where heavy snow and ice may strike from Saturday night through Sunday. By Sunday, a number of cities from the Ohio Valley to the mid-Atlantic could be facing hazardous travel as the ice and snow moves east. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin declared a state of emergency late Friday ahead of the storm’s expected arrival. "Given the current projected size of the storm, if your post-holiday travel plans have you leaving Sunday, I encourage you to adjust those plans to leave on Saturday," Youngkin said. "If you find yourself needing to be on the roadways, please heed any warnings and make sure you are keeping yourselves and others safe," the governor added. "Our pre-treating preparations are underway and substantial state and local resources will continue to actively monitor the forecast and respond through the weekend." Meanwhile, in the South, thunderstorms with damaging winds and scattered tornadoes are possible from Houston to Memphis, Tennessee, on Sunday afternoon. By Sunday night, snow could move into Washington, D.C., causing a dangerous Monday morning commute across much of the mid-Atlantic.

Yahoo! News [1/3/2025 7:47 AM, Greg Jordan, 57114K, Neutral] reports Mercer County residents impacted last September by Hurricane Helene’s high winds and torrential rain are still getting help at a FEMA Disaster Recover Center as they work to get their lives back on track. The FEMA Disaster Recovery Center opened Monday morning at the Lifeline Princeton Church of God at 250 Oakvale Road near Princeton. It’s open today from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., then closed Sunday. On Monday, Jan. 6, the FEMA Disaster Recovery Center will go back to its previous location at the Maple View Church of Christ next door to the Mercer Mall. It will be open Monday at 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., then on the Tuesday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, then Saturday 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and closed Sunday. The amount of FEMA assistance being processed so far is approaching $1 million. "Yes, at the close of business on Jan. 1, FEMA has approved $955,798.46 for individual assistance which breaks down in $582,612.27 for housing assistance, $373,186.19 for other need assistance and there have been 604 accumulative registrations in Mercer County," said Janet Gaume-Wakefield, disaster recovery manager. Gaume-Wakefield thanked the public for telling friends, family and neighbors about the disaster recovery center. "We’re having a good response and that’s important," she said. There have been 389 home inspections issued with 27 of them being completed and another 62 are pending, Gaume-Wakefield said. A total of seven inspectors are conducting them. People who have applied for FEMA assistance are encouraged to visit the disaster recovery center again for updates after getting a home inspection, said Julio Rivera, FEMA disaster recovery center coordinator. "We told them after you get your inspection, please come back," he said. "We can see the results and we can tell you what are your next steps. As I’ve spoken with different people, some of them have said ‘Oh, I thought I was done,’ because when they come back, some parts of the process require documentation, others don’t and are automated." The applicant may need to take additional action to get parts of their home repaired.

Government Executive [1/3/2025 5:18 PM, Jake Bittle, 342K, Neutral] reports Donald Trump owes a lot to his adopted home state of Florida. The state, which is the third-largest in the Electoral College, has delivered him increasingly large majorities in each of the past three elections. Since his victory in November, the president-elect has announced plans to remake the federal government in Florida’s image: His nominees for secretary of state, attorney general, chief of staff and national security advisor are all from the Sunshine State. But Florida may also present Trump with one of his thorniest political challenges. He’ll have to oversee the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has spent the past four years bringing down the hammer on Americans who live in disaster-prone regions like Florida’s populous coasts, rolling out a series of insurance hikes and enforcement actions that make it more expensive to live and rebuild in risky areas.

Oregon Capital Chronicle [1/3/2025 3:13 PM, Alex Baumhardt, Negative] reports five counties in eastern Oregon will get federal help paying for recovery from historic wildfires that destroyed rangeland, homes and other structures in central and eastern Oregon, hitting five counties the hardest. President Joe Biden announced Thursday that he is granting major disaster declarations for Gilliam, Grant, Umatilla, Wasco and Wheeler counties, allowing them to access federal funding through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA will provide funds on a cost-sharing basis for response and recovery related to wildfires that occurred between July 10 and Aug. 23. Money will be available to tribes, as well as local, state and federal agencies working with the counties and eligible nonprofits. The approval follows a disaster declaration request from Gov. Tina Kotek and Oregon’s congressional delegation in October at the end of Oregon’s historic season. Wildfires last year burned a record of nearly 2 million acres in Oregon, destroyed at least 42 homes and 132 other structures along with hundreds of thousands of acres of rangeland used for livestock grazing.

San Francisco Chronicle [1/3/2025 8:49 PM, Jordan Parker, Anthony Edwards, 4368K, Negative] reports a tornado touched down in Northern California on Friday afternoon, prompting the National Weather Service to issue a warning to residents to seek shelter. “At 5:22 p.m. a confirmed tornado was located near Paynes Creek (Tehama County), or 11 miles southwest of Shingletown (Shasta County), moving northeast at 20 mph,” the weather service said in its warning. “Flying debris will be dangerous to those caught without shelter. Mobile homes will be damaged or destroyed. Damage to roofs, windows and vehicles will occur.” Before Friday, the most recent tornado in Tehama County occurred on April 25, 2021 in Kirkwood, an unicorporated community, according to Golden Gate Weather Services. Two homes in the county sustained minor damage during the event, according to records from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Two tornadoes also touched down in Tehama County in January 2021, causing tree and power line damage but no fatalities, the Chronicle reported. The warning was issued for northern central Tehama County and southern central Shasta County — and expired about 40 minutes later at 6 p.m. only to be followed by a special weather statement from the weather service cautioning residents about funnel clouds. A “strong thunderstorm” was expected in the areas of Shingletown, Lyonsville, Paynes Creek and Manton. The weather service said at 6:08 p.m. that radar indicated the thunderstorm was moving east at 10 miles per hour near Paynes Creek. “Conditions are favorable for the development of weak, brief funnel clouds,” the weather service said. “This type of funnel cloud is harmless but on rare occasions can briefly touch down, producing wind gusts over 50 miles per hour.” Officials said residents should seek shelter indoors if they see a funnel cloud. It was immediately unclear whether the tornado caused damage in the area. It had been expected near Shingletown at 5:40 p.m. along with quarter-sized hail. Several lightning strikes were also observed with the storm.

Reported similarly:
New York Times [1/3/2025 11:42 PM, John Yoon, 161405K, Negative]

Atlanta News First [1/3/2025 3:36 PM, Staff, 770K, Neutral] reports the U.S. Secret Service released a statement remembering Jimmy Carter, the nation’s 39th president. As a former president, Carter was entitled to lifetime protection by the agency. The Secret Service protected Carter for 48 years, which the agency called "the longest standing protectee in the agency’s history." The Secret Service will serve the former president one final time Saturday when agents carry Carter’s remains to a hearse at Phoebe Sumter Medical Center in Americus. That will kick off Carter’s official state funeral.

Yahoo! News [1/3/2025 7:31 AM, Lohr McKinstry, 57114K, Negative] reports a Ticonderoga man who allegedly tried to pass poor-quality counterfeit $100 bills is due back in court this month after his arrest. Gerald G. Maye, 59, of Ticonderoga and Moriah was arrested for felony second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, misdemeanor fourth-degree criminal solicitation and misdemeanor attempted petit larceny. Ticonderoga Town Police said they received multiple reports that Maye was going around town trying to use counterfeit money at businesses. None of the establishments accepted the bills. While being taken into custody, Maye was found in possession of a counterfeit $100 bill and he was charged with a second count of felony second-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument, police said. Maye was processed at the Ticonderoga Police Station and released with an appearance ticket to appear in Ticonderoga Town Justice Court later this month.

WTOP [1/3/2025 4:20 PM, José Umaña, 1695K, Neutral] reports as D.C. prepares to host the certification of the presidential election and the state funeral of former President Jimmy Carter next week, security officials plan to be on high alert. David Sundberg of the FBI Washington Field Office said in a news conference Friday while there are no specific or credible threats associated with either event, law enforcement officials will be operating at a heightened threat environment to ensure everyone’s safety. Both events will be classified as "national special security events," which allows the federal government, alongside any state and local partners, to use additional resources as part of the security plan. That will include the use of drones, Matt McCool of the Secret Service said, adding the public should not alarmed to see them flying around the National Mall. While state funerals in D.C. always receive the treatment, it will be the first time the certification of the electoral votes qualifies for the high-profile designation. D.C.’s National Guard will be providing additional support for both events, including using 500 soldiers on standby to assist officers for the certification and escort officers for the state funeral Jan. 9, Maj. Gen. John Andonie said. McCool said the Secret Service’s Washington Field Office currently has the most staffing it’s had "in three years" and its ready to "fulfill the mission."

AZ Central [1/3/2025 11:06 AM, Eric Lagatta, 6018K, Neutral] reports that the FBI has released new information about an unknown suspect who planted two pipe bombs nearly four years ago near the headquarters of the Republican and Democratic national committee headquarters in Washington, D.C. The devices were discovered and disarmed on the eve of the Jan. 6 Capital assault in 2021, but the suspect has so far managed to elude identification and capture. Now, the FBI has announced it is renewing its investigation. The federal law enforcement agency on Thursday released new video of the suspect placing one of the bombs near the Democratic National Committee in the hopes that the public can help identify who the person is. A reward of up to $500,000 remains available for information leading to the suspect’s arrest and conviction. The FBI’s announcement was made within hours of a report from congressional Republicans condemning investigators for having yet to make an arrest in the planned attack. The report also criticized alleged "security failures" associated with the pipe bombs. Authorities have said the pipe bombs were placed at the DNC and RNC headquarters on the night before a mob of Donald Trump’s supporters breached the Capitol in a deadly attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. [Editorial note: consult video at source link]

Yahoo! News [1/3/2025 5:06 AM, Staff, 57114K, Positive] reports the New Hampshire Department of Safety’s Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) is reminding boaters that, starting in the new year, all boats registered in the State must now display a secondary decal indicating payment to boat on New Hampshire’s waterways. Beginning with the 2025 season, registrants will receive two sets of decals that must be displayed on each side of the bow. The new decals are reflective and round. Registration decals remain reflective and square. Due to a recent Coast Guard audit finding, the new method of boat fee collection requires a yearly boat decal to accompany registration decals, therefore requiring each boat registered in the State of New Hampshire to display two separate decals. The addition of a secondary decal is a requirement of House Bill 1304, which became effective Jan. 1, 2025. HB 1304 modifies the procedure for registration of vessels by requiring the issuance and display of a boat decal for the payment of boat fees. Both decals can be purchased at the time of registration. Renewal notices for the 2025 season have already been sent via U.S. mail. Boaters who are interested in renewing by mail should follow the instructions contained within the notices. Boaters can also obtain new or renewal registrations in person at any DMV branch location. Appointments can be made online. Boaters may also visit an authorized boat agent, including many city and town halls and local marinas, to process boat registrations. Boaters who are renewing in person should bring their signed renewal notice, along with their photo identification. Additional fees may apply.

Cape Cod Times [1/3/2025 2:53 PM, Eric Williams, Positive] reports a fishing vessel ran aground on the beach approximately one mile north of Newcomb Hollow Beach in Wellfleet, according to a release from the Wellfleet Fire Department. Fire personnel were dispatched to the area shortly before 9 a.m. on Friday. The U.S. Coast Guard Sector Southeastern New England identified the boat as the Guardian, a 70-foot fishing vessel. According to a release from the Coast Guard, the "vessel did not incur any damage, and no pollution has resulted or been at the site of the grounding." Five crew members were aboard the boat at the time. According to the Coast Guard, a tug boat was heading to the area to attempt to pull the vessel back out to sea at high tide, slated for approximately 2 p.m. on Friday. Wellfleet fire personnel used a utility task vehicle to travel to the scene, according to the fire department release. No injuries were reported.

Newsweek [1/3/2025 7:48 PM, Monica Sager, 56005K, Negative] reports that a Texas-based U.S. Army soldier has been charged with selling confidential phone records, including alleged materials stolen from President-elect Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. Newsweek reached out to the Trump and Harris campaigns over email. Newsweek also reached out to the Department of Justice for comment through the department’s webform. The two indictment charges are against Cameron John Wagenius for "knowingly and intentionally" selling and transferring "confidential phone records information of a covered entity, without prior authorization from the customer to whom such confidential phone records information related." The court document does not detail the hacked material, but security news blog KrebsOnSecurity reported that Wagenius seemed connected to a series of high-profile breaches through the online alias "Kiberphant0m." In November, Kimberphant0m posted that they had the AT&T call logs for Trump and Harris. While it is unclear if this data was truly secured, AT&T did face a major theft of consumer data as part of a Snowflake hack breach last year. KrebsonSecurity spoke with Wagenius’ mother who confirmed her son’s connection to the alleged Snowflake hacker. Wagenius was charged in the Western District of Washington, but court documents note that his actions took place "elsewhere," including with "foreign commerce." The indictment is dated December 18 but was just unsealed.

The Washington Post [1/3/2025 5:51 PM, Cate Cadell, 40736K, Negative] reports the Treasury Department announced sanctions Friday against a prominent Shanghai-listed Chinese network security company for its role in a global attack affecting at least 260,000 internet-connected devices, roughly half of which were located in the United States. The sanctions target Beijing Integrity Technology Group, which U.S. officials say employed workers responsible for the Flax Typhoon attacks which compromised devices including routers and internet-enabled cameras to infiltrate government and industrial targets in the United States, Taiwan, Europe and elsewhere. The group behind the attacks was active since at least 2021, but U.S. authorities only managed to wrest control of the devices from the hackers in September, after the FBI won a court order that allowed the agency to send commands to the infected devices. The announcement comes just days after the Treasury Department revealed it had been targeted by Chinese state-backed hackers who managed to breach a highly sensitive office responsible for administering sanctions on foreign governments and individuals. The new sanctions on Beijing Integrity Technology are notable due to the company’s public profile and outsize role in servicing China’s police and intelligence services via state-run hacking competitions. CyberScoop [1/3/2025 5:53 PM, Tim Starks, Neutral] reports Flax Typhoon hackers made use of infrastructure at Integrity Technology Group to exploit victims, according to the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control. The firm builds cyber ranges to test cybersecurity tools and defenses and is reportedly one of the leading companies to do so in China. “Between summer 2022 and fall 2023, Flax Typhoon actors used infrastructure tied to Integrity Tech during their computer network exploitation activities against multiple victims,” Treasury’s Friday announcement reads. “During that time, Flax Typhoon routinely sent and received information from Integrity Tech infrastructure.” The Flax Typhoon hackers targeted Internet of Things devices, such as cameras and video recorders, FBI Director Christopher Wray said in September when announcing the takedown operation. It’s the second time this week that the department has taken aim at Chinese hackers. Treasury notified Congress that they had hit its workstations. Friday’s sanctions are designed to constrain the company’s ability to do business in the United States, and to limit U.S. business dealings with the firm. Beyond the takedown operation and sanctions, Western government agencies also issued an advisory on Flax Typhoon last year. “These multi-agency efforts reflect our whole-of-government approach to protecting and defending against PRC cyber threats to Americans, our critical systems, and those of our allies and partners,” Matthew Miller, State Department spokesman, said Friday. “The United States will continue to use all the tools at its disposal to safeguard U.S. critical infrastructure and the American people from irresponsible and reckless cyber actors.” Although Integrity Technology Group presents itself as an information security company, Wray said that its “chairman has publicly admitted that for years his company has collected intelligence and performed reconnaissance for Chinese government security agencies.”

Reported similarly:
New York Times [1/3/2025 3:15 PM, Zach Montague, 161405K, Neutral]
The Hill [1/3/2025 1:37 PM, Miranda Nazzaro, 16346K, Negative]
AP [1/3/2025 11:37 AM, Fatima Hussein, 30936K, Neutral]
Reuters [1/3/2025 11:35 AM, Staff, 2717K, Neutral]

AP [1/4/2025 12:34 AM, Eric Tucker, 33392K, Negative] reports that, after Hamas launched the deadly assault on Israel that triggered retaliatory airstrikes on Gaza, FBI Director Christopher Wray said he feared the Middle East violence could embolden individuals or groups to carry out attacks inside the United States. Months later, after extremists with the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate killed more than 140 people at a Russian concert hall, Wray sounded the alarm about the potential for a similar coordinated attack closer to home. Following these months of warnings about a resurgent terrorism threat, an Army veteran inspired by IS slammed a pickup truck into crowds celebrating New Year’s in New Orleans. But the culprit did not coordinate with international operatives, nor was he part of any broader plot. Instead, he embodied a longstanding concern that snapped into focus in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks and never evaporated: the threat from homegrown extremists who radicalize on their own before committing mass violence in the name of foreign groups. “I have never seen the threat landscape this worrying, not just from a counterterrorism perspective but from state-sponsored threats,” said Christopher Costa, a former career intelligence officer and senior director for counterterrorism at the White House National Security Council in the first Trump administration. He said the “grab-bag of grievances” that may have driven 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar to act — he had multiple divorces and financial pressures and noted in a video posted before the rampage that he thought of killing his family — was consistent with the profile of other attackers. And it coincided with a climate of global instability that has given extra incentive to troubled people prone to violence, from the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks that launched the war in Gaza to the dramatic overthrow last month of Syrian President Bashar Assad. “You pick the grievance, and then you’ll find the ideology to act on it,” Costa said. “Now it includes Oct. 7, it includes IS — and why IS is so important right now is because it is resurging as a result of what IS could perceive as a victory in Syria.”

NBC News [1/4/2025 5:00 AM, Adiel Kaplan and Kenzi Abou-Sabe, 50804K, Neutral] reports the ISIS-inspired attack in New Orleans underscores how extremism online and political divisions at home have created “a perfect storm” for radicalization in America, experts say, with law enforcement struggling to track an increasingly fractured threat. Finding and accessing extremist communities online has never been easier, the threat has never been higher, and the ideology of those carrying out attacks has never been more splintered, according to the experts. “What the FBI and law enforcement in general are dealing with right now is a threat landscape that is both diverse and complicated,” said Seamus Hughes, a senior researcher and policy associate with the National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology, and Education Center at the University of Nebraska Omaha. “That makes things a little harder for law enforcement.” “We have a level of polarization in the U.S. that’s an important factor,” he said. “The online environment has algorithms that are set up to make you angry. And all that is playing into a perfect storm of factors that are leading to an increase in radicalization.” According to the federal government, the main terror threat to the U.S. now is lone actors inspired by extremism ideology. Those ideologies range widely. The majority of attackers are on the far right, as in the 2022 Buffalo supermarket shooting. But sometimes, as in the New Orleans attack, the driving ideology is radical Islamism. Occasionally, it’s far-left or anti-Trump, as in the 2017 attack on Republican members of Congress and staffers at a baseball practice outside Washington and the apparent assassination attempt of Trump in Florida last year, or at other times a mix of ideologies, what FBI Director Christopher Wray has called “salad bar extremism.”

FOX News [1/3/2025 6:32 AM, Caitlin McFall, 49889K, Neutral] reports the threat posed by the Islamic State has once again hit the headlines following the New Year’s Day attack on a crowded street in New Orleans on Wednesday by a man who may have ties to the terrorist network. Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a U.S.-born citizen who lived in Texas and an Army Veteran, drove a pickup truck with an ISIS flag into a crowd of people on Bourbon Street, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens of others. However, the FBI has not confirmed his direct "affiliation" or "association" with the infamous terrorist network which has been expanding across the globe in recent years, particularly in regions like the Sahel in Africa, despite the 2019 assertion that the terrorist network had been "defeated." "Claims of the Islamic State defeat, just like claims of the defeat of al Qaeda, are premature," Bill Roggio, senior fellow with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and editor of the Long War Journal, told Fox News Digital. "These groups may have setbacks, but they’re persistent. "The Islamic State poses a threat from Afghanistan. It has a significant network in Africa, particularly in the Sahel and in East Africa, in Somalia. And its network in Iraq and Syria persists," he added. While the FBI has not confirmed that the New Orleans attacker was directly involved in ISIS, reports have suggested he was apparently sympathetic to the terrorist network and "pledged allegiance to ISIS" in a series of videos posted to his Facebook page, according to New York Times. The FBI has not yet released a motive for the attack, and Roggio explained that this incident is unlikely to indicate there is a "resurgence" of ISIS, though the security expert did highlight that increasingly the terrorist network is finding itself up against less resistance in areas where it was previously opposed. The 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan and the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria last month to the al Qaeda-derived organization dubbed Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham left security vacuums in the Middle East and South Asia – similar to what contributed to the rise of ISIS following the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq. Security experts have warned ISIS and other terrorist networks could use these power gaps.

Reported similarly:
NPR [1/3/2025 3:31 PM, Jaclyn Diaz, 35747K, Neutral]

New York Times [1/4/2025 12:01 AM, Alissa J. Rubin, 161405K, Negative] reports the Islamic State has lost thousands of fighters to death or prison and suffered the demise of its self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria. But the global reach of the group, also known as ISIS, is still vast, in part because of its sophisticated media output and the people around the world who consume it. On New Year’s Day, a man with an Islamic State flag killed at least 14 people when he drove into a crowd in New Orleans. Authorities say there was no evidence that the man, Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, had active connections to the terrorist group. But the F.B.I. said “he was 100 percent inspired by ISIS.” It is not yet clear which specific online content Mr. Jabbar may have seen or how else he may have been radicalized. Experts noted that the placement of the flag on the truck resembled one depicted by ISIS in a media campaign urging followers to “run them over without mercy.” And, authorities said, he posted several videos to his Facebook account before his attack in which he pledged allegiance to ISIS. From online videos to social media platforms — and even a weekly Islamic State newsletter — the group that wants to force all Muslims to adhere strictly to the faith’s earliest teachings has a very modern media strategy. “Terrorism is essentially communications,” said Hans-Jakob Schindler, a former United Nations diplomat who is the senior director of the Counter Extremism Project, a think tank with offices in New York and Berlin. “It is not warfare, because obviously, ISIS cannot militarily defeat the West, right? They tried and it didn’t exactly end well.” How did the Islamic State keep its influence alive? In part, by transforming its movement into a global franchise beyond the Middle East, with active chapters in Afghanistan, Somalia, Mali, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Caucuses and Turkey, among other places. But the glue that holds the disparate branches together — and also helps to inspire “lone wolf” terrorists like Mr. Jabbar who carry out their own attacks — is the Islamic State’s sophisticated media operation. Experts say that while it is doubtful that the media operation has a physical headquarters, it is highly centralized and controlled by its media directorate. Much of its output appears to come from affiliates in Africa, which have recently been the most active in terms of attacks.

Reuters [1/3/2025 2:31 PM, Eric Banco, Jonathan Landay, and Idrees Ali, 48128K, Negative] reports that a U.S. Army veteran who flew a black Islamic State flag on a truck that he rammed into New Year’s revelers in New Orleans shows how the extremist group still retains the ability to inspire violence despite suffering years of losses to a U.S.-led military coalition. At the height of its power from 2014-2017, the Islamic State "caliphate" imposed death and torture on communities in vast swathes of Iraq and Syria and enjoyed franchises across the Middle East. Its then-leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, killed in 2019 by U.S. special forces in northwestern Syria, rose from obscurity to lead the ultra-hardline group and declare himself "caliph" of all Muslims. The caliphate collapsed in 2017 in Iraq, where it once had a base just a 30-minute drive from Baghdad, and in Syria in 2019, after a sustained military campaign by a U.S.-led coalition. Islamic State responded by scattering in autonomous cells, its leadership is clandestine and its overall size is hard to quantify. The U.N. estimates it at 10,000 in its heartlands. The U.S.-led coalition, including some 4,000 U.S. troops in Syria and Iraq, has continued hammering the militants with airstrikes and raids that the U.S. military says have seen hundreds of fighters and leaders killed and captured. Yet Islamic State has managed some major operations while striving to rebuild and it continues to inspire lone wolf attacks such as the one in New Orleans which killed 14 people.

Washington Post [1/3/2025 9:56 AM, Souad Mekhennet and Joby Warrick, 40736K, Negative] reports that, by the time he came up with the idea of bombing a Taylor Swift concert, Beran Aliji’s young life had completely broken down. In July, amid a self-described mental crisis, the 19-year-old Austrian abruptly quit his job as a factory apprentice and isolated himself in his apartment, obsessing, as he later told police, about his own death. With no money or prospects, and in lieu of close friendships, he began to immerse himself in a virtual world of violent videos and secret chatrooms devoted to the Islamic State. According to phone records seized by police, he began looking to the extremist group first for inspiration and then for practical advice about planning an attack. “My operation is to take place at a big concert,” he wrote in a text message to a stranger he believed to be a member of the Islamic State, according to Austrian records exclusively obtained by Washington Post. “I will try to get a gun and bombs. If that doesn’t work, I will use big knives. Or I will kill a police officer and take his rifle.” The planned attack on Taylor Swift’s Aug. 9 concert in Vienna was foiled when police arrested Aliji, whose online messages were being monitored by at least one foreign intelligence agency. Months later, hundreds of text messages and multiple police reports offer insight into that plot, while also shedding light on how the group continues to inspire violence five years after its self-proclaimed caliphate was destroyed. The trove, details of which have not been previously reported, reveal a path toward radicalization that bears striking similarities to what police have observed in other recent terrorism cases, including the New Year’s Day rampage in New Orleans that killed at least 14 people. Like the Austrian suspect, the man accused of ramming a vehicle through crowds of New Year’s revelers on Bourbon Street appears to have self-radicalized after a string of personal crises, including divorces, a job loss and financial insolvency. Like Aliji, Houston resident Shamsud-Din Jabbar was described as being “inspired” by the Islamic State and pledged allegiance to the group in a self-made video. Whether the extremist group was directly involved in either plot is as yet unclear.

Newsweek [1/3/2025 2:44 PM, Hugh Cameron, 56005K, Negative] reports that the New Year’s Day attack in New Orleans, which claimed the lives of 15 people and left dozens more injured, has given rise to a new wave of anti-Islamic sentiment in the U.S. On Wednesday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) identified the perpetrator as Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old Army veteran born in Texas. The bureau said that an ISIS flag was located inside the vehicle used and that Jabbar posted videos declaring his support for the organization only moments before driving into a crowd of revelers on Bourbon Street in the city’s French Quarter. Exemplifying a trend that followed other instances of Islamic extremism—from 9/11 to Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack on Israel—prominent voices have jumped on the incident, using the attacker’s reported radical religious affiliations to criticize not only Islam, but also decry the presence of Muslims in the U.S. "Cruel, merciless, bottom-feeding extremist groups want us all to turn on one another and be afraid," Corey Saylor, research and advocacy director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), told Newsweek. "The best response is to stand together and rally around New Orleans, showing all such extremists that their vision of the world is garbage."

New York Times [1/3/2025 1:16 PM, Carol Rosenberg, 161405K, Negative] reports that a military judge has delayed proceedings in the Sept. 11 case until late next week, giving government lawyers time to decide whether to try again to upset a plea deal that permits three men accused of plotting the attacks to serve life in prison rather than face a possible death-penalty trial. Col. Matthew N. McCall, the judge, said Friday that he and other court officials would travel to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, on Saturday, but postponed the plea-taking proceedings at the war court there until Jan. 10. He cited three reasons, according to lawyers who have seen the order: A snowstorm coming to the Washington area that could complicate communications between a courtroom annex in Virginia and the courtroom itself; the federal holiday on Jan. 9 for Jimmy Carter’s funeral; and time required to meet with prosecution and defense lawyers to discuss the mechanics of a question-and-answer session between the judge and the accused plotters of the attack. The plea hearing, originally scheduled for Jan. 6, is for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is accused of being the mastermind of the hijacking attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon. Hearings will follow in the next week for two other defendants: Walid bin Attash, an accused deputy in the plot, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi, who is accused of helping some of the hijackers with finances and travel.

New York Times [1/4/2025 5:01 AM, Edgar Sandoval, Eduardo Medina, Adam Goldman and Rukmini Callimachi, 161405K, Negative] reports his electric truck was already headed toward New Orleans, traveling from his trailer home outside Houston and past the twinkling oil refineries to the east, when Shamsud-Din Jabbar began capturing a video on his phone in the dark. “I wanted to record this message for my family,” Mr. Jabbar said. “I wanted you to know that I joined ISIS earlier this year.” Mr. Jabbar then added a chilling addendum. “I don’t want you to think I spared you willingly,” he said, according to details of the video reviewed by New York Times. He told his family that he had previously conceived of organizing a “celebration” for them and then making everyone “witness the killing of the apostates.” The words were among Mr. Jabbar’s last before he plowed his rented pickup truck through early morning New Year’s crowds on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, killing 14 people before dying in a shootout with the police. He carried with him in the truck the flag of the Islamic State terrorist group, better known as ISIS. The devastating violence revealed a secret radicalization that confounded his loved ones, who knew him as a decorated Army veteran who held a $120,000-a-year job as a “senior solutions specialist” focused on government and public services at the international accounting firm Deloitte. Days later, investigators were still trying to trace exactly how Mr. Jabbar had managed to descend into such a murderous state without detection. But new details from recordings, interviews and public records trace Mr. Jabbar’s growing discontent with American society and a shift toward what was at first a more conservative version of Islam, and then something much darker.

Washington Examiner [1/3/2025 11:48 AM, Brady Knox, 2365K, Positive] reports that President-elect Donald Trump hinted that he won’t ban TikTok due to his popularity on the app. Trump’s first administration wrestled with a TikTok ban due to national security concerns, with the former president voicing support for the measure. His position has since vacillated, with a Truth Social post on Friday hinting that he would not ban it. "Why would I want to get rid of TikTok?" Trump said, with an infographic illustrating his popularity on the app attached. The infographic showed that Trump and his surrogate accounts garnered 3.8 billion views, greatly outnumbering his 2024 competitor, Vice President Kamala Harris, who garnered just 1.3 billion views. According to the infographic, Trump’s surrogate account, @teamtrump, garnered an average of over eight times more views per post on TikTok than Instagram. Trump’s personal account garnered an average of five times more views per post on TikTok than Instagram. The #trump received 36 billion views, while the average post on Trump’s account on TikTok received 24 million views. Trump recently appealed to the Supreme Court to delay a law that would effectively ban TikTok with a Jan. 19 deadline. Trump’s nominee for solicitor general, John Sauer, said the deadline should be pushed back so the new president could have an input.

Newsweek [1/3/2025 8:13 AM, Ryan Chan, 56005K, Neutral] reports a Chinese Coast Guard ship, known as the "monster ship" due to its size, which is one of the two largest law-enforcement vessels in the world, was deployed to a disputed South China Sea reef in the maritime zone of the Philippines, a security ally of the United States. Newsweek has contacted the Chinese and the Philippine military for comment by email. China claims nearly all maritime features in the South China Sea, clashing with those of other regional nations, including Scarborough Shoal, the deployment location of the 5901. It is known in China as Huangyan Island and in the Philippines as Bajo de Masinloc. The reef, a fishing ground within the 230-mile Philippine economic zone, was seized by China in 2012 following a standoff between two nations. It is 140 miles west of Luzon Island in the Philippines and 700 miles from China’s nearest province of Hainan. The 12,000-ton and 541-foot-long Chinese ship, which has a hull number of 5901, is also armed with guns. It and its sister ship, the 2901, have advantages over other nations’ coast guard ships in endurance, collision resistance, seaworthiness, and speed. The 5901 arrived at Scarborough Shoal on Wednesday, according to Ray Powell, director of the Stanford University-affiliated maritime monitoring group Sealight. It joined three other Chinese Coast Guard ships, as well as at least seven Chinese maritime militia ships. The Pentagon says that China’s Coast Guard has the largest maritime law enforcement fleet in the world, with over 150 vessels that are more than 1,000 tons, while the Chinese maritime militia assists the country’s navy and Coast Guard in asserting maritime claims. Throughout 2023, China sent its navy, Coast Guard, maritime militia, and civilian ships to advance its illegal maritime claims in the South China Sea, including Scarborough Shoal, the Pentagon said in its Chinese military power report, which was released in December 2024. This was not the first time the 5901, stationed in its assigned area of responsibility in the South China Sea, was sent to the disputed waters in the region. In August last year, it encountered a Canadian warship during the latter’s patrol near China’s artificial islands. The deployment of the Chinese "monster" Coast Guard ship came after the Chinese military on Sunday deployed its naval and air forces for "combat readiness patrols" at Scarborough Shoal, following its Coast Guard counterpart’s "law enforcement patrols" in the same area.

Newsweek [1/3/2025 8:13 AM, Micah McCartney, 56005K, Neutral] reports a suspected Chinese underwater drone has been discovered in waters off the Philippines, according to local law enforcement, against a backdrop of tense territorial disputes between the neighbors. Newsweek reached out to the Chinese Foreign Ministry and Philippine Armed Forces with written requests for comment. China claims control over nearly all the South China Sea, which includes the exclusive economic zones of several neighbors, including the Philippines. Since President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. took office in 2022, Manila has increasingly pushed back, prompting Chinese maritime forces to step up their presence in Philippine waters. This has led to clashes over disputed features, such as the Spratly Islands’ Second Thomas Shoal and Sabina Shoal, with Chinese coast guard vessels deploying aggressive tactics, including ramming and water cannons, to drive off Philippine government ships. An unmanned underwater drone was discovered in waters near San Pascual in the province of Masbate, at approximately 6 a.m. on December 30, Police Brig. General Andre Dizon of the Bicol Region Philippine National Police told The Manila Times. The yellow device, marked HY-119, was identified as Chinese-made. Dizon noted that such vehicles are used by China for communication and navigation. The drone was sent to Philippine navy forces on Luzon Island for further examination. While unarmed, the police report on the drone cited potential national security implications, The Daily Tribune reported. The discovery comes after China’s CCG 5901, the world’s largest coast guard ship, reportedly appeared at Scarborough Shoal, a contested reef and traditional fishing ground within the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone. The 12,000-ton vessel, nicknamed "the Monster," was tracked there on Wednesday by Ray Powell, director of the Stanford University-affiliated SeaLight project.

Reuters [1/3/2025 8:17 AM, Alexandra Alper, 48128K, Neutral] reports U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday followed through on his pledge to block Nippon Steel’s $14.9 billion bid for U.S. Steel citing concerns the deal could hurt national security. The move, long expected, cuts off a critical lifeline of capital for the beleaguered American icon, which has said it would have to idle key mills without the nearly $3 billion in promised investment from the Japanese firm. It also represents the final chapter in a high profile national security review, led by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which vets investment for national security risks and had until Dec. 23 to approve, extend the timeline or recommend Biden block the deal. The proposed tie-up has faced high-level opposition within the United States since it was announced a year ago, with both Biden and his incoming successor Donald Trump taking aim at it as they sought to woo union voters in the swing state of Pennsylvania, where U.S. Steel is headquartered. Trump and Biden both asserted the company should remain American-owned. The two companies had sought to assuage concerns over the merger. Nippon offered to move its U.S. headquarters to Pittsburgh, where the U.S. steelmaker is based, and promised to honor all agreements in place between U.S. Steel and USW. The merger appeared to be on the fast-track to be blocked after the companies received an Aug. 31 letter from CFIUS, seen by Reuters, arguing the deal could hurt the supply of steel needed for critical transportation, construction and agriculture projects. But Nippon Steel countered that its investments, made by a company from an allied nation, would in fact shore up U.S. Steel’s output, and it won a 90-day review extension. That extension gave CFIUS until after the November election to make a decision, fueling hope among supporters that a calmer political climate could help the deal’s approval. But hopes were shattered in December when CFIUS set the stage for Biden to block it in a 29-page letter by raising allegedly unresolved national security risks, Reuters exclusively reported.

Reported similarly:
New York Times [1/3/2025 9:14 AM, Andrew Ross Sorkin, Ravi Mattuet al., 161405K, Neutral]
The Hill [1/3/2025 8:22 AM, Brett Samuels, 16346K, Negative]
AP [1/3/2025 8:30 AM, Fatima Hussein and Josh Boak, 47097K, Neutral]
NPR [1/3/2025 8:49 AM, Staff, 35747K, Negative]
CBS News [1/3/2025 8:42 AM, Kathryn Watson, 52225K, Neutral]
NBC News [1/3/2025 8:17 AM, Steve Kopack, Megan Lebowitz and Rob Wile, 50804K, Neutral]

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