January 1, SENATE TO REBUKE TRUMP ON BORDER WALL

(Wall Street Journal) – The Senate is set to pass a resolution Thursday rejecting President Trump’s emergency declaration to build more of the border wall, after the president poured cold water on a bill that could have peeled off some Republican votes.

Congress Wants to Know Why FAA Waited So Long to Ground Boeing 737 Jets

(Reuters) – Congress plans to scrutinize why the United States waited so many days to ground all Boeing Co 737 MAX jets involved in Sunday’s crash in Ethiopia as other countries and airlines acted more quickly.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the order on Wednesday was the result of “new evidence collected at the site and analyzed today” and “newly refined satellite data” that Canada had cited earlier in its decision to halt flights.

The FAA did not disclose the new evidence at the scene but said it was “the missing pieces” that aligned the track of the two fatal Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashes since October.

Judge Sentences Manafort to 3-1/2 More Years in Prison

(AP) – A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to an additional three and a half years of prison as she questioned his remorse and criticized him for his crimes and years of lies.

The sentence is on top of the roughly four-year prison sentence Manafort received last week in a separate criminal case in Virginia.

“It is hard to overstate the number of lies and the amount of fraud and the extraordinary amount of money involved,” U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson told Manafort Wednesday before sentencing him on conspiracy charges related to his foreign lobbying work and witness tampering.

Gambino Crime Family Leader Shot Dead Outside Home

(NBC NY) – A man believed to be a leader in the Gambino crime family was shot to death outside his home on Staten Island, police and sources close to the investigation said.

Police responding to a 911 call around 9:20 p.m. Wednesday found Francesco Cali, 53, with several gunshot wounds to his torso outside his home on Hilltop Terrace in Todt Hill, the NYPD said. 

NYPD’s Hate Crime Unit Probes Anti-Semitic Graffiti on Ginsburg Poster

Police in New York City are investigating the defacing of a poster featuring Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a hate crime.

According to the New York Post, the graffiti was discovered in a Brooklyn subway station. The words “Die; Jew B**ch!” were scrolled on Ginsburg’s face in black marker. Covering her mouth was a black swastika.

2,245 Mexicans Arrested at US-Canada Border in 2018

More than half of the 4,316 illegal immigrants apprehended by Customs and Border Protection at the U.S.-Canada border last year were Mexican citizens, reports the Washington Examiner.

Total arrests at the northern border jumped 43 percent, reaching its highest level since 2011, according to CBP.

The Examiner also cited CBP data in its report on the arrests of 23,034 illegal immigrants over the past six months at the Southern border with the help of National Guard troops.

Wolf-Dog Hybrid ‘Yuki’ Gains National Attention

A wolf-dog hybrid housed in a Florida sanctuary has gained quite the following, reports The Miami Herald.

“Yuki The Giant Wolfdog” was rescued by Shy Wolf Sanctuary in Naples in 2008 after his owner couldn’t care for him anymore due to health issues.He’s 87.5 percent gray wolf, 8.6 percent Siberian Husky and 3.9 percent German Shephard, according to the sanctuary.