'Because the teachers will be busy rioting'

For a pair of Maine dog owners, 2026 started with a dreadful scare after their naughty golden retriever ran out onto a frozen pond and broke through the ice. Without any means of rescuing their pooch or resisting the deathly chill of the frozen water, the owners called 911 and hoped that firefighters could arrive […] The post Naughty Golden Retriever Rescued After Falling Through Frozen Pond–No Bones for a Month appeared first on Good News Network.

Featured Essays aliens Where to Look for Evidence of Alien Visitors to Our Solar System Scientifically speaking, here’s where we should start digging… By James Davis Nicoll | Published on January 8, 2026 Comment 0 Share New Share I occasionally wonder if the Solar System has ever been visited by extraterrestrials. If so, would sufficient evidence remain to prove it? It wouldn’t need to be technological: no need for a busted radio or a fully-functioning interstellar drive. Even something akin to a busted Folsom point would have fascinating implications. The most convenient place for such an artifact to turn up would be on Earth. That’s not likely, for reasons of scale. Without going into tedious detail, the earliest that life-bearing planets could have formed was long before the Earth actually formed. Any visiting ETs could have shown up any time during the whole 4.5 billion years of the Solar System’s history—shown up, faffed about, and then buggered off. To get a rough idea of what the age distribution might look like, assume a dozen aliens have swung by in the last 4.5 billion years. Rolling a forty-five-sided die, we get visit times of (in chronological order, in billions of years before present, AKA BYBP) 0.1, 1.1, 1.2, 1.7, 2.7, 2.9, 3.1, 3.5, 3.7, 3.8, and two at 4.0 BYBP. All but one of those predate complex life on Earth. The Earth is a dynamic world. This is excellent news from the perspective of continued habitability (vital elements are not getting locked away forever) but it’s not so good for preserving evidence. In fact, there’s a vast span of time, up to a billion years of the first years of our planet, where little to no geological evidence would survive. Evidence of those visits in 1.1, 1.2, and maybe 1.7 BYBP could be victims of the Great Unconformity. As for the older visits, possibly in 2.7 to 4.0 BYBP, there was ample opportunity for any artifacts to be subducted, consumed by chemical reactions, or simply buried under a kilometer of lava during a flood basalt event1. Much the same objections apply to other planets and minor planets. Even the Moon, generally spoken of as a dead, eternally static world, is thoroughly “gardened” by a constant hail of micrometeors slamming into regolith at interplanetary speeds. Estimates of how long human artifacts will survive on the Lunar surface range up to 100 million years. That’s a very long time in human terms, but do note that evidence of all but the very latest of the hypothetical visitors would have been gardened away. Nevertheless, the Moon is conveniently next door and there is a logical place to look for artifacts. The permanently shadowed craters at the Lunar poles sequester light elements visitors might want to exploit2. Even better, those craters have been shadowed for billions of years. Shackleton crater, for example, has been at the pole for at least two billion years. If the artifacts of the most recent four visitors were buried deep enough to escape gardening, they might survive. What we need is somewhere artifacts can plausibly survive for billions of years. The asteroid belt might be a decent bet, since its continued existence argues that objects can remain there for billions of years. It wouldn’t be terribly surprising if the first alien artifact to turn up turned up in the main belt. Ideally, we need some sort of Solar oubliette, where crap accumulates without being destroyed in the process and has done so for most of the Solar System’s history. Happily, as you might guess from the fact this essay was written at all, the Solar System does have at least one of those. Two, actually. From an artifact preservation perspective, Jupiter might seem a dismal prospect. Jupiter itself is insanely dynamic, not to mention being bereft of any solid surfaces. Its moons are likewise subject to history-erasing processes. Surely, maybe some alien wrench got lucky and didn’t aerobrake into Jupiter, lithobrake on a moon, or get ejected, but how would you find it amid all the crap orbiting Jupiter? To quote Wikipedia, “the Lagrange points (/ləˈɡrɑːndʒ/), also called the Lagrangian points or libration points, are points of equilibrium for small-mass objects under the gravitational influence of two massive orbiting bodies.” Jupiter is massive. The Sun is massive. It follows that there should be Sun-Jupiter Lagrange points, which there are. It also follows that objects perturbed into the Sun-Jupiter L4 or L5 could stay there for a very long time. Unsurprisingly, both the L4 and L5 regions3 are populated. There are 9,694 known Jupiter trojans4 at L4 and 5,628 at L5, but estimates suggest there could be a million 1 km+ diameter trojans. Even more intriguingly, some estimates suggest that some of those trojans have been trojans for a very, very long time. As in billions of years. As in, Jupiter’s trojans have been hoovering up garbage from across the Solar System for most of the life of the Solar System. As you know, middens are a great place to commit archaeology and here we have a cosmic midden. Two cosmic middens. Of course, both the main belt and Jupiter’s trojans occupy vast volumes. Poking through them would be expensive and time-consuming, but quite possibly rewarding. Even negative results would have interesting implications. All we need is a hundred billion dollars or so to fund a thorough search. Is it Kickstarter time? Or would BackerKit be better?5 Assuming that “artifact” is the correct word. If the evidence is biological, if say the aliens were careless while dumping their toilets, then its descendants could be with us today. They could be us. Imagine the honour of being descended from a galaxy-spanning civilization’s fecal bacteria! ︎“But what about all the Lunar helium-three?” some might ask. My response is too vulgar to be printed. Beings stupid enough to fall for the helium-three nonsense won’t build starships. ︎They’re only points in an ideal three-body situation. Once you add more bodies, Lagrange points become more like volumes. ︎L4 and L5 asteroids are named for heroes of the Trojan war. ︎Can I buy space probes on Etsy? ︎The post Where to Look for Evidence of Alien Visitors to Our Solar System appeared first on Reactor.

REUTERS–The United States could oversee Venezuela and control its oil revenue for years, President Donald Trump said in an interview published on Thursday. During what the New York Times described as a wide-ranging, two-hour interview, the paper said Trump also appeared to lift a threat to take military action against Venezuela’s neighbor Colombia. Trump invited Colombia’s leftist leader, whom he had previously called a “sick man”, to visit Washington. “Only time will tell” how long the United States will oversee Venezuela, Trump said. When asked by the newspaper if it would be three months, six months, a year or longer, Trump said: “I would say much longer.” “We will rebuild it in a very profitable way,” Trump said of Venezuela, where he sent troops to seize President Nicolas Maduro in a night raid on January 3. “We’re going to be using oil, and we’re going to be taking oil. We’re getting oil prices down, and we’re going to be giving money to Venezuela, which they desperately need.” Trump added that the U.S. was “getting along very well” with the government of the interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, a longstanding Maduro loyalist who had served as the ousted leader’s vice president. ‘MARCO SPEAKS TO HER ALL THE TIME’ The Times said Trump declined to answer questions about why he had decided not to give power in Venezuela instead to the opposition, which Washington had previously considered the legitimate winner of an election in 2024. Trump on Tuesday unveiled a plan to refine and sell up to 50 million barrels of Venezuelan oil that had been stuck in Venezuela under U.S. blockade. “They’re giving us everything that we feel is necessary,” Trump said, referring to the Venezuelan government. He declined to comment when asked if he had personally spoken to Rodriguez. “But Marco speaks to her all the time,” he said, referring to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “I will tell you that we are in constant communication with her and the administration.” COLOMBIA THREAT APPEARS TO DISSIPATE The Times said its reporters were permitted to sit in during a phone call between Trump and Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro, provided the contents of the call were off the record. In a post on social media, Trump said: “It was a great honor to speak with the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, who called to explain the situation of drugs and other disagreements that we have had. I appreciated his call and tone, and look forward to meeting him in the near future.” Petro described the call, his first with Trump, as cordial. On Sunday Trump had threatened to carry out military action against Colombia, calling Petro “a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States, and he’s not going to be doing it very long”. The Times said Trump’s phone call with Petro lasted about an hour and “appeared to dissipate any immediate threat of U.S. military action”. Trump’s use of force in Venezuela has made some members of his own Republican Party wary, after he long criticised U.S. military ventures abroad. The Senate is due to consider a resolution on Thursday to block Trump from taking further action without congressional authorization. Republicans, who control the Senate with 53 seats, have defeated several such measures since Trump began military action around Venezuela late last year, but the last vote in November was a close 49-51 after two Republicans backed it. Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican co-sponsoring the resolution, said he had spoken to at least two additional Republicans now “thinking about it”. MEETING PLANNED WITH OIL COMPANIES Trump has said the United States intends to “run” Venezuela. U.S. officials have indicated their plan for now is to exert influence without a military occupation. Venezuela, with the world’s biggest proven oil reserves, has become impoverished in recent decades, with eight million people fleeing abroad in one of the world’s biggest migration crises. Washington and the Venezuelan opposition have long blamed corruption, mismanagement and brutality by the ruling Socialist Party. Maduro blamed the economic damage on U.S. sanctions. Several senior U.S. officials said on Wednesday that the United States needs to control Venezuela’s oil sales and revenues indefinitely in order to restore the country’s oil industry and rebuild its economy. Trump is scheduled to meet with the heads of major oil companies at the White House on Friday to discuss ways of raising Venezuela’s oil production. Representatives from the top three U.S. oil companies, Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron, would be present, according to a source familiar with the planning. The companies, all of which have experience in Venezuela, have declined to comment. Originally published by Reuters The post Trump Says US Oversight of Venezuela Could Last Years appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Pardon a Vous? RUSSIA Wants Its 'Citizens' Back From Captured Rogue Tanker

Last week NewsBusters published a study which found ABC's World News Tonight had spent just 25 seconds covering the widespread Minnesota fraud scandal involving allegedly sham businesses set up by Somalians. As of this morning, Wednesday, January 7, that number has climbed to a still-pitiful 35 seconds. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS: ABC's World News Tonight remained almost silent on the story. They have mentioned this scandal just twice, for a total of 35 seconds, and they have spent about three and a half times more airtime portraying Minnesota's Somalian population as the victims of ICE and the Trump administration. NBC Nightly News was initially disinterested in the story until late December, when YouTuber Nick Shirley uploaded a video allegedly showing daycare fraud in the state. Since then, the vast majority of their coverage has revolved around his own independent reporting. They're up to 364 seconds, or just over six minutes. CBS Evening News has diligently covered this scandal, with their total attention paid amounting to 12 minutes and 44 seconds. MRC analysts examined every edition of the big three broadcast networks’ flagship evening newscasts from December 1, 2025 through January 6, 2026, for any discussion of the Minnesota social-services fraud scandal. Through the 6th, ABC still has spent just over half a minute on the story on the evening news. Until this past week all of their coverage was limited to a single 25-second mention during a December 3 report about ICE “sowing fear” among Somalian neighborhoods in the Twin Cities. Anchor David Muir also briefly alluded to the scandal on January 6, 2026, bringing the total up to 35 seconds. Before December 29, NBC’s total coverage amounted to 65 seconds across three different broadcasts. Since then, however, their coverage has climbed to a much more respectable 364 seconds, or just over six minutes. Their more recent reporting has focused almost entirely on the investigative work of journalist Nick Shirley, who uploaded a video in late December which purported to show a throng of fraudulent Somali-run daycares. NBC’s reporters initially seemed credulous of Shirley's investigation, but in a January 5 report they adopted a more skeptical tone, citing a denial by Democratic Governor Tim Walz's administration of any day-care fraud. CBS continued to far outperform its counterparts, granting nearly thirteen minutes of airtime (766 seconds) to the scandal, across six full-length reports and several additional news briefs. CBS remains the only of the three networks to report on the sheer extent of the fraud, which has since allegedly reached as high as $19,000,000,000. ABC spent significantly more time attempting to defend the Somali population in Minnesota and scoffing at President Trump’s harsh criticism of Somalians during a cabinet meeting. This vicarious outrage outpaced their coverage of the actual fraud by approximately 3.5-to-one (122 seconds vs 35 seconds).  Before December 29, NBC’s sympathetic framing of Somalians in Minnesota got over twice as much airtime as the scandal (148 seconds vs 65 seconds). Since then, however, their coverage has become much more focused on the fraud aspect of the story, and they only spent an additional 25 seconds explicitly defending the accused fraudsters. While CBS Evening News co-anchors John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois routinely adopted this same Somalians-as-the-real-victims framing, the detailed reporting by Jonah Kaplan instead focused primarily on the scandal itself. As a result, CBS was the only network to offer more coverage of the actual fraud allegations than the resulting backlash against the alleged perpetrators (496 seconds vs 103 seconds). While NBC’s sudden interest in this scandal is a positive development, it’s likely they would not have paid it nearly as much attention if not for the work of independent journalists like Nick Shirley, who's been routinely dismissed as a "conservative YouTuber." CBS deserves credit for consistently giving this story its due. In fact, correspondent Jonah Kaplan is the only broadcast reporter who appears to have done real investigative work on this topic, given he’s uncovered and broken new details about the scandal, rather than simply rehashing the work of others. ABC, meanwhile, remains the most journalistically bankrupt of the three big broadcast networks. As of January 7, 2026, anyone who primarily relies on World News Tonight for their news likely has no idea that anything is going on in Minnesota at all – or what exactly is behind Governor Walz's resignation.

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel and CBS’s Stephen Colbert were the only late night comedy hosts to address the shooting involving an ICE agent and a driver in Minneapolis on their Wednesday shows. While Colbert saw hypocrisy in Second Amendment supporters, Kimmel hailed Mayor Jacob Frey’s profanity-ridden response so much that he put it on a shirt. Speaking of shirts, Kimmel portrayed the day’s news as a dueling T-shirt campaign. After a clip of Sen. Lindsey Graham hailing Trump threatening Iran if they continue to kill their own people, Kimmel brought out a red shirt, “They’re trying out a new slogan: ‘Donald J. Trump is gonna kill you!’ Pretty good, right?”     Moving on to Minneapolis, Kimmel retorted, “This maniac, he isn't just killing people overseas. An ICE agent today shot and killed an unarmed 37-year-old woman during an ICE operation in Minneapolis, who were there under the guise of protecting us.” Kimmel then condemned Trump’s response, “Of course, our president weighed in with compassion. He wrote, ‘I have just viewed the clip of the event which took place in Minneapolis. It is a horrible thing to watch. The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car’—this is the woman who was killed—‘Was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer who seems to have shot her in self-defense.’ Technically, the agent was not run over but feared he was about to be. It is not a distinction worth freaking out over, but Kimmel still tried to exploit it, “Now, I saw this video, and it didn't look like anyone got run over to me. It looked like a woman got scared and tried to drive away, and they shot her. That'll be for the courts to decide, but the mayor of Minneapolis, though, said this.” In the clip, Frey huffed claims of self-defense were “bull[bleep]” and “I have a message for ICE, to ICE, get the [bleep] out of Minneapolis.” For his second shirt of the segment, Kimmel hyped, “Now that is the shirt I want to see, to ICE, ‘Get the [bleep] out of Minneapolis.’ Get the [bleep] out of all these cities.” Kimmel did seem to care that an SUV is a possible weapon in its own right. The agent had a split second to decide whether or not his life was at risk. Media people can slow down the footage or even pause it, but that is not how the real world works. ABC Jimmy Kimmel Live! 1/6/2026 11:43 PM ET JIMMY KIMMEL: You know what? Maybe they’re trying—I know what they’re doing. They’re trying out a new slogan: “Donald J. Trump is gonna kill you!” Pretty good, right? This maniac, he isn't just killing people overseas. An ICE agent today shot and killed an unarmed 37-year-old woman during an ICE operation in Minneapolis, who were there under the guise of protecting us. And of course, our president weighed in with compassion. He wrote, "I have just viewed the clip of the event which took place in Minneapolis. It is a horrible thing to watch. The woman screaming was, obviously, a professional agitator, and the woman driving the car"—this is the woman who was killed—"Was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully and viciously ran over the ICE officer who seems to have shot her in self-defense." Now, I saw this video, and it didn't look like anyone got run over to me. It looked like a woman got scared and tried to drive away, and they shot her. That'll be for the courts to decide, but the mayor of Minneapolis, though, said this. JACOB FREY: They are already trying to spin this as an action of self-defense. Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly, that is bull[bleep]. This was an agent recklessly using power that resulted in somebody dying, getting killed [jump cut] and I have a message for ICE, to ICE, get the [bleep] out of Minneapolis. KIMMEL: Now that is the shirt I want to see, to ICE, "Get the [bleep] out of Minneapolis.” Get the [bleep] out of all these cities.

While most MAHA-minded Americans are cheering in light of the CDC’s latest alteration to the U.S. childhood immunization schedule — which dropped from 17 to 11 diseases — BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales believes it’s “not enough.”“I don’t want that to distract you from applauding what is happening now, because it’s all good changes. He can’t just like totally just bust up the entire system immediately. He’s got to get there,” she explains.The new schedule also doesn’t recommend against getting your children vaccinated for certain diseases but instead breaks a longer list of diseases down into three categories.In the category that’s recommended for all children, there are 11 diseases: diphtheria, tetanus, acellular pertussis, haemophilus influenzae type B, pneumococcal conjugate, polio, measles, mumps, rubella, HPV, and varicella.RSV, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, and meningococcal are now in the group that’s “recommended for certain high-risk groups or populations,” and rotavirus, COVID-19, influenza, hep A, hep B, and meningococcal are in a third group titled “recommended based on shared clinical decision-making.”“I don’t agree with any of these,” Gonzales says.“So there is still work to be done. However, if they want to stair-step this, the way that they have stair-stepped everything else, they would do it in this way,” she adds.And while Gonzales doesn’t believe the Trump administration has gone far enough, the left of course is claiming it's gone too far.“There’s always the fearmongering. ‘Oh my God, RFK is taking away our right to vaccines. How many children, how many beautiful children are going to be killed because RFK didn’t give them their precious chickenpox shots?’ Well, actually, spoiler alert, zero probably,” Gonzales says.“But let’s just be clear ... no vaccine has been eliminated. OK. The CDC is still requiring insurance companies to cover the vaccines if people want them,” Gonzales says, before playing a clip of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) claiming otherwise.“You promised that you would not take away vaccines from anyone who wanted them,” Warren yelled at RFK Jr.“I know you’ve taken $855,000 from pharmaceutical companies, senator,” he responds.“I’m not taking them away,” he added, while she continued to argue.“Elizabeth Warren,” Gonzales comments, annoyed, “has to be the most insufferable on the Senate side.”“Just the shrill, just like the Karen energy of like her voice makes me want to jump off a building,” she adds.Want more from Sara Gonzales?To enjoy more of Sara's no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.

As the Trump administration continues to meet resistance from blue-state governors across the nation, California is now reaping what it sowed by illegally issuing trucker licenses to foreigners.On Wednesday, Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy announced that it was "reckoning day" for the state of California and its Democrat governor, Gavin Newsom.'Gavin refused. So now I am pulling nearly $160 MILLION from California.'In a social media post, Duffy explained the Trump administration's "demands": "Follow the rules. Revoke the unlawfully-issued licenses to dangerous foreign drivers. Fix the system so this never happens again." Duffy's post comes after months of demanding that California revoke commercial driver's licenses illegally issued to foreigners. Duffy provided a short video showing that Newsom had many opportunities to comply with federal law.RELATED: Illegal alien truckers with California licenses accused of hauling $7M in cocaine across state lines Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesHowever, "Gavin refused," Duffy said. "So now I am pulling nearly $160 MILLION from California. Under @POTUS, federal dollars won’t fund this CHARADE."The funding will be withheld from California beginning in fiscal year 2027. California agreed in November to revoke every illegally issued license within 60 days. As of the January 5, 2026, deadline, California has failed to follow through on this agreement, leading to the major withholding of federal funding. At least 17,000 licenses were expected to be revoked on Monday, per the original agreement. According to a Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration audit reviewed by Fox News, more than 20,000 active non-domiciled CDLs were issued in violation of federal rules. The FMCSA reportedly described the situation in California as a "systemic collapse" of the commercial licensing program. "Federal regulations are clear: states must correct safety deficiencies on a schedule mutually agreed upon by the agency, and California failed to meet its commitment to rescind these unlawfully issued licenses by January 5," FMCSA Administrator Derek Barrs said, according to Fox News. "We will not accept a corrective plan that knowingly leaves thousands of drivers holding noncompliant licenses behind the wheel of 80,000-pound trucks in open defiance of federal safety regulations," Barrs added. California DMV spokesperson Eva Spiegel responded to the loss of federal funding in a statement: “We strongly disagree with the federal government’s decision to withhold vital transportation funding from California — their action jeopardizes public safety because these funds are critical for maintaining and improving the roadways we all rely on every day.”Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Nine Republicans voted to advance the Democrat-led health care bill Wednesday, defying the GOP to extend Obamacare subsidies. Republican Reps. Nick LaLota of New York, Thomas Kean of New Jersey, Mike Lawler of New York, Ryan Mackenzie of Pennsylvania, David Valadao of California, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Max Miller of Ohio, Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania, and Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida joined Democrats to bring a vote on the health care subsidies that expired at the end of 2025. 'DEMOCRATS have increased health care costs exponentially.'Notably Lawler, Fitzpatrick, Bresnahan, and Mackenzie also signed onto House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries' (D-N.Y.) discharge petition last month that would have forced a House vote to extend the subsidies. A final vote on the bill is now expected to take place Thursday. RELATED: Senate tanks GOP solution to Obamacare subsidy problems Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty ImagesLawler defended his vote aiding Democrats, saying the solution to fix the "broken" health care system is "through a bipartisan approach.""Republicans and Democrats can agree that our healthcare system is broken and must be fixed through a bipartisan approach," Lawler wrote. "Enough of the blame game on both sides. Let’s focus on actually delivering affordable healthcare for Americans."RELATED: California Republican suddenly dies at age 65 Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty ImagesSpeaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has maintained that the Affordable Care Act, especially the COVID-era subsidies, are responsible for skyrocketing premiums. "Obamacare was created and passed entirely by DEMOCRATS," Johnson said in a post on X during the 2025 government shutdown. "Since Obamacare took effect, health insurance premiums have SKYROCKETED. The Obamacare COVID-era subsidies were also passed entirely by DEMOCRATS, and set to expire at the end of this year.""DEMOCRATS have increased health care costs exponentially, and are now shutting down the government — as they try to cover up THEIR OWN FAILURES and somehow blame Republicans."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!