Author: PolitCens

WASHINGTON — The 119th U.S. Congress will come into session Friday. After a contentious government funding battle last month, though, Republican Party control of both houses of Congress and presidency faces challenges.

The Senate enters the new session as Republicans take the majority from Democrats and Senator Mitch McConnell steps away from party leadership for the first time in 18 years. Republican Senator John Thune has already been selected to lead the Senate as majority leader.

Republicans will hold a 53-47 seat majority, well below the 60 votes needed to advance most legislation.

In the House, where Republicans hold a narrow 219-215 majority, the focus will be on votes for speaker. Current Speaker Mike Johnson’s position is in jeopardy after his deal last month with Democrats to keep the government funded and open.

It would take only as few as two Republicans to vote against Johnson to put his speakership in jeopardy.  Democrats are expected to nominate Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries for the speakership but are likely to fall short by a few votes.

President-elect Donald Trump posted his support for Johnson on social media Monday, saying the speaker was “a good, hard-working, religious man.”

But Republican representatives Chip Roy and Thomas Massie have already stated their doubts about his leadership and Trump ally and adviser Steve Bannon has called on Republicans to remove Johnson from leadership.

“Mr. Johnson caught a lot of fire from his GOP colleagues. And he has an extraordinarily limited margin for his majority, just a handful of people,” Kevin Kosar, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, told VOA via Zoom.

Two years ago, at the start of another Congress, Republican Kevin McCarthy faced similar challenges to his bid for the speakership. He was finally elected on the 15th round of voting.

If Johnson, or another Republican, is unable to garner enough votes for the speakership the chamber could be without a leader in time for the official certification of Trump’s electoral victory on Jan. 6. Whoever does lead the House will, at least temporarily, hold an even tighter majority after Trump takes office on Jan. 20, as he has picked two House Republicans to join his administration.

Traditionally, the first 100 days of a new presidency and Congress are a time for an ambitious legislative agenda.

“He’s going to hit tariffs very hard. He’s going to focus on the border, and executive orders related to immigration and immigrants, particularly from Mexico and Muslim countries. And then he’s going to work on any compromises he can to get through the legislative agenda on things affecting the economy, groceries, as he likes to call it,” Casey Burgat, a professor at The George Washington University in Washington, told VOA via Zoom.

Some information for this story came from Reuters. 
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NEW ORLEANS — Less than 48 hours after Wednesday morning’s attack on their city’s iconic French Quarter neighborhood, New Orleanians are trying to find a way forward.

It’s something they have had to do countless times in the Crescent City’s 307-year history. In the past two decades alone, residents and businesses have come back from a series of disasters including a record-breaking oil spill, the public health catastrophe of being one of the nation’s first coronavirus hotspots and, of course, Hurricanes Ida and Katrina.

This latest disaster — labeled a terrorist attack by the FBI — hit the city at 3:15 a.m. on New Year’s Day when 42-year-old U.S. citizen Shamsud-Din Jabbar plowed a white pickup truck through three blocks of Bourbon Street, killing 14 and seriously injuring many more.

As the city mourns, local restaurateur Ralph Brennan believes his fellow residents will react in their unique New Orleans way: with defiance in the face of a challenge and love for their shared home.

“We’ve been through this before with COVID and Katrina,” he said. One of Brennan’s restaurants, Red Fish Grill, was at ground zero of Wednesday’s attack. It was allowed to reopen with the rest of Bourbon Street on Thursday afternoon.

“Every time there is a disaster,” Brennan continued, “it is our goal to come back as quickly as possible. We want to show the world that New Orleans is safe, and that this tragedy is just a blip in the history of one of the most special cities on the planet.”

Processing grief

Go to the corner of Canal and Bourbon streets and the first thing you’ll notice are reporters, police officers, traffic barriers and caution tape. Look closer, and you’ll see a city cautiously determining how to proceed. A jazz trumpeter plays the national anthem nearby. Employees from a neighborhood restaurant hand out free meals to first responders. Visitors pass by on their way to the Sugar Bowl, postponed to Thursday because of the attack.

But it’s not just downtown. In every corner of New Orleans, residents are wrestling with trauma.

Tom Ramsey is a former chef in the city who now supports mass-catering efforts following disasters and along the U.S.-Mexico border. He woke up on Wednesday morning to dozens of missed calls and text messages asking if he was OK.

“I didn’t know what they were talking about until I checked the news and saw what happened,” Ramsey said.

His first reaction was to contact everyone he knew was in the French Quarter that night. Anything, he said, not to let the news sink in.

“Then, eventually, everyone was accounted for,” Ramsey said. “I looked at my wife, I put my face in my hands, and I cried — the kind of crying where my chest was heaving, and I was making sounds. I hadn’t felt the kind of grief I felt for New Orleans in that moment since I was in New York on 9/11.”

Ongoing trauma

Mental health experts like Erin Stevens, executive director of Ellie Mental Health Louisiana in New Orleans, said she is worried that residents with so much past trauma may have difficulty dealing with this event.

“When you have already experienced significant trauma, it can cause you to feel new and future stressors more intensely,” she said. I’m especially worried about people who are isolated — who don’t have a support system.”

However, Stevens says if handled correctly, past trauma can equip you to handle future stressors more effectively, because resilience is something that is built.

Some New Orleanians seem to have taken lessons from past challenges. For example, several mental health professionals have decided to help their community by offering free mental health services. And Allison Bullach, a local photographer, is offering free headshots to anyone who gives blood to support the attack’s victims.

“I think we just want to find our way to help,” Bullach told VOA, “and I had read that donating blood for victims was a major need.”

“I’m only one person,” she continued, “but if I can find a way to encourage three or four or five more people to help, then I should do it.”

The show must go on?

The past year has been a massive one for New Orleans tourism. In addition to a successful Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest, 2024 visitor numbers were bolstered thanks to a three-day stop by Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour.

Early 2025 looked to be equally promising. The Sugar Bowl, Super Bowl LIX, and Carnival season culminating in Mardi Gras are all big news for a local economy so heavily reliant on tourism.

As a result, the timing of the attack is a worry for Crescent City businesses.

“Of course, it hurts to have to close during one of our busiest times of the year,” said Brennan, owner of Red Fish Grill. “We understand why it was necessary, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”

“But where I got really worried,” he added, “is how this impacts tourism moving forward for Carnival season and the Super Bowl. New Orleans businesses depend on tourism from these big events.”

For some businesses, however, every day matters. Coming off a challenging December, that is definitely the case for Tara Francolini, owner of Francolini’s, a popular sandwich shop.

“More than anything, I want to give our staff a day to grieve for their city,” she told VOA. “But the losses we suffered in December were tremendous, and we need … steady business so we can do basic things like pay our bills and our employees. I’m worried that staying open diminishes the atrocities that the families of the victims are feeling, and it all makes me feel like an awful human being.”

Resilience, a loaded word

On Wednesday night, less than 24 hours after the attack, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry ate dinner in the French Quarter, steps from Bourbon Street. He posted a photo from outside the restaurant, a message to would-be visitors that this “resilient city,” as he and so many others call it, was safe and “open for business.”

The word “resilient” seems to be attached to the city any time there is a disaster. Many residents identify with it, proof that they can bounce back from anything.

Increasingly, however, some say the term is allowing leaders off the hook for their failings. One such critic is Andrew Stephens, owner of Sports Drink, a coffee shop in New Orleans’ Irish Channel neighborhood.

“They call us resilient after they shirk their responsibilities to the public,” Stephens said, “It’s pandering. I don’t want us to be resilient. I want us to be safe.”
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WASHINGTON — The federal courts will not refer allegations that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas may have violated ethics laws to the Justice Department, the judiciary’s policymaking body said Thursday.

Thomas has agreed to follow updated requirements on reporting trips and gifts, including clearer guidelines on hospitality from friends, the U.S. Judicial Conference wrote to Democratic senators who had called for an investigation into undisclosed acceptance of luxury trips.

Thomas has previously said he wasn’t required to disclose the many trips he and his wife took that were paid for by wealthy benefactors like Republican megadonor Harlan Crow because they are close personal friends. The court didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

The Supreme Court adopted its first code of ethics in 2023 in the face of sustained criticism, though the new code still lacks a means of enforcement.

It’s unclear whether the law allows the U.S. Judicial Conference to make a criminal referral regarding a Supreme Court justice, U.S. District Judge Robert Conrad wrote. He serves as secretary for the conference, which sets policy for the federal court system and is led by Chief Justice John Roberts.

A referral in this case isn’t necessary, Conrad said, because two Democratic senators called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to appoint a special counsel over the summer. No such appointment has been publicly made.

The group Fix the Court said the financial disclosure law is clear and should apply to justices. “The Conference’s letters further underscore the need for Congress to create a new and transparent mechanism to investigate the justices for ethics violations since the Conference is unwilling to act upon the one method we had presumed existed to do that,” Executive Director Gabe Roth said in a statement.

Conrad also sent a similar response to a separate complaint from a conservative legal group, the Center for Renewing America, in regard to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s reports on the source of her husband’s consulting income. Jackson has since amended her disclosures and agreed to updated reporting requirements, Conrad wrote.
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Washington — A U.S. appeals court ruled on Thursday the Federal Communications Commission did not have legal authority to reinstate landmark net neutrality rules.

The decision is a blow to the outgoing Biden administration that had made restoring the open internet rules a priority. President Joe Biden signed a 2021 executive order encouraging the FCC to reinstate the rules.

A three-judge panel of the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the FCC lacked authority to reinstate the rules initially implemented in 2015 by the agency under Democratic former President Barack Obama, but then repealed by the commission in 2017 under Republican former President Donald Trump.

Net-neutrality rules require internet service providers to treat internet data and users equally rather than restricting access, slowing speeds or blocking content for certain users. The rules also forbid special arrangements in which ISPs give improved network speeds or access to favored users.

The court cited the Supreme Court’s June decision in a case known as Loper Bright to overturn a 1984 precedent that had given deference to government agencies in interpreting laws they administer, in the latest decision to curb the authority of federal agencies. “Applying Loper Bright means we can end the FCC’s vacillations,” the court ruled.

The decision leaves in place state neutrality rules adopted by California and others but may end more than 20 years of efforts to give federal regulators sweeping oversight over the internet.

FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel called on Congress to act after the decision. “Consumers across the country have told us again and again that they want an internet that is fast, open, and fair. With this decision it is clear that Congress now needs to heed their call, take up the charge for net neutrality, and put open internet principles in federal law,” Rosenworcel said in a statement.

The FCC voted in April along party lines to reassume regulatory oversight of broadband internet and reinstate open internet rules. Industry groups filed suit and successfully convinced the court to temporarily block the rules as they considered the case.

Incoming FCC Chair Brendan Carr voted against the reinstatement last year. He did not immediately comment on Thursday.

Former FCC Chair Ajit Pai said the court ruling should mean the end of efforts to reinstate the rules, and a focus shift to “what actually matters to American consumers – like improving Internet access and promoting online innovation.”

The Trump administration is unlikely to appeal the decision but net-neutrality advocates could seek review by the Supreme Court.

The rules would have given the FCC new tools to crack down on Chinese telecom companies and the ability to monitor internet service outages.

A group representing companies including Amazon.com AMZN.O, Apple AAPL.O, Alphabet GOOGL.O and Meta Platforms META.O had backed the FCC net-neutrality rules, while USTelecom, an industry group whose members include AT&T T.N and Verizon VZ.N, last year called reinstating net neutrality “entirely counterproductive, unnecessary, and an anti-consumer regulatory distraction.”
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President-elect Donald Trump threatened recently to retake the Panama Canal because of what he called “exorbitant” rates and China’s influence. What threats could China pose to the U.S. if it were able to exert strategic control over the canal?

Click here for the full story in Mandarin.
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LAS VEGAS, Nevada — The person who authorities believe died in the explosion of a Tesla Cybertruck packed with firework mortars and camp fuel canisters outside President-elect Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel was an active-duty U.S. Army soldier, three U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Thursday. 

Two law enforcement officials identified the man inside the futuristic-looking pickup truck as Matthew Livelsberger. The law enforcement officials spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation. 

Three U.S. officials said Livelsberger was an active-duty Army member, who spent time at the base formerly known as Fort Bragg, a massive Army base in North Carolina that is home to Army special forces command. The officials also spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details of his service. 

The truck explosion came hours after a driver, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter early on New Year’s Day, killing at least 15 people before being shot to death by police. That crash was being investigated as a terrorist attack and police believe the driver was not acting alone. 

Jabbar, a U.S. Army veteran, also spent time at Fort Bragg but one official said so far there is no overlap in their assignments there.
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U.S. President Joe Biden is set to award the nation’s second highest civilian honor to 20 people at a White House ceremony Thursday.

The recipients of the Presidential Citizens Medal include Congressman Bennie Thompson and former Congresswoman Elizabeth Cheney, who led a congressional investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob seeking to disrupt the certification of Biden’s 2020 election win over Donald Trump.

Trump, who won the 2024 election for a new term starting later this month, has said Thompson and Cheney should be jailed.

A White House statement about Thursday’s honorees said Cheney, a Republican, “raised her voice—and reached across the aisle—to defend our Nation and the ideals we stand for: Freedom. Dignity. And decency.”

The statement said Thompson was “at the forefront of defending the rule of law with unwavering integrity and a steadfast commitment to truth.”

Created in 1969, the Presidential Citizens Medal honors citizens “who have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or their fellow citizens.”

“President Biden believes these Americans are bonded by their common decency and commitment to serving others,” the White House said.  “The country is better because of their dedication and sacrifice.”

Also being honored Thursday are Mary Bonauto and Evan Wolfson, who worked to legalize same-sex marriage in the United States.

Frank Butler is another medal recipient, with the White House highlighting his effort to set standards for the use of tourniquets and saying he “transformed battlefield trauma care for the United States military and saved countless lives.”

Mitsuye Endo Tsutsumi is being honored for her successful legal challenge against the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Biden is honoring Eleanor Smeal for her work in leading women’s rights protests and fighting for equal pay for women.

Medals are being awarded to a former congresswoman, Carolyn McCarthy, and a group of former U.S. senators: Bill Bradley, Chris Dodd, Nancy Kassebaum and Ted Kaufman.

Other honorees include Diane Carlson Evans, founder of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Foundation, war correspondent Joseph Galloway, civil rights advocate Louis Redding and photographer Bobby Sager.

Judge Collins Seitz, Fulbright University Vietnam founder Thomas Vallely, breast cancer research advocate Frances Visco and Savannah College of Art and Design founder Paula Wallace are also receiving the Presidential Citizens Medal.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press
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TOKYO — Asian shares mostly slipped Thursday, as the region’s main stock market in Tokyo stayed closed for the New Year’s holidays. 

Investors remained cautious amid worries about what incoming U.S. President Donald Trump might mean for policy changes, while the political uncertainty in South Korea added to a wait-and-see mood. 

Australia’s S&P/ASx 200 rose 0.4% in early trading to 8,193.90. South Korea’s Kospi declined nearly 0.1% to 2,397.54. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng shed 1.3% to 19,807.19, while the Shanghai Composite lost 0.8% to 3,325.56. 

Wall Street trading was closed on Wednesday for the New Year’s Day holiday. 

On Thursday, investors will get an updated snapshot of U.S. construction spending for November, while U.S. manufacturing numbers for December will be released Friday. 

Markets pause to mourn Carter

The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq will close their equity and options markets on January 9 in observance of a National Day of Mourning for former President Jimmy Carter, continuing a longtime Wall Street tradition of mourning the nation’s leaders. The 39th U.S. president and global humanitarian died on Sunday at his home in Plains, Georgia. He was 100 years old. 

U.S. stock indexes closed mostly lower Tuesday as the market delivered a downbeat finish on the final day of another milestone-shattering year on Wall Street. 

The S&P 500 gave up an early gain to finish down 0.4%. The benchmark index, which set 57 record highs in 2024, racked up a 23.3% gain for the year. This was its second straight year with a gain of more than 20%. The last time the index had as big a back-to-back annual gain was 1998. 

The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 0.1%, and the Nasdaq composite lost 0.9%. 

Big Tech stocks led this year’s rally, pushing the Nasdaq to a yearly gain of 28.6%. The Dow, which is far less heavily weighted with tech, rose 12.9% for the year. 

All told, the S&P 500 fell 25.31 points to 5,881.63 on Tuesday. The Dow lost 29.51 points to close at 42,544.22, and the Nasdaq slid 175.99 points to finish at 19,310.79. 

Growth helps drive US market

U.S. markets’ stellar run was driven by a growing economy, solid consumer spending and a strong jobs market. 

Skyrocketing prices for companies in the artificial-intelligence business, such as Nvidia and Super Micro Computer, helped lift the market to new heights. 

After three interest rate cuts in 2024, the Fed has signaled a more cautious approach heading into 2025 with inflation remaining sticky as the country prepares for Trump to transition into the White House. Trump’s threats to hike tariffs on imported goods have raised anxiety that inflation could be reignited as companies pass along the cost of tariffs. 

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude rose 36 cents to $72.08 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, added 34 cents to $74.98 a barrel. 

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar inched down to 157.28 Japanese yen from 157.24 yen. The euro cost $1.0373, up from $1.0361. 
…

The FBI said late Wednesday authorities were conducting search warrants in New Orleans, Louisiana, and states outside Louisiana as they investigate the attack in which a driver crashed a pickup truck into a crowd and opened fire, killing at least 15 people and injuring at least 30.

Investigators were still working late Wednesday to gather evidence at the scene of the early morning New Year’s Day attack on New Orleans’ popular Bourbon Street.

So far, the FBI has identified the suspect as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar. The agency said it was investigating the attack as an act of terrorism, and that authorities do not believe the driver acted alone.

“The killer was an American citizen born in Texas,” U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday night. “He served in the United States Army in active duty for many years. He also served in the Army Reserve until a few years ago.”

Hours earlier, the suspect indicated in videos posted on social media that the attack was inspired by the Islamic State terror group. The FBI said an Islamic State flag was found in the vehicle after the attack.

Biden said law enforcement and the intelligence community were searching for any potential “connections, associations or co-conspirators.”

“So many people around the world love New Orleans because of its history, its culture, and above all, its people,” Biden said. “So, I know while this person committed a terrible assault on the city, the spirit of our New Orleans will never, never, never be defeated. It always will shine forth.”

Early morning attack

The attack occurred at 3:15 a.m. on Wednesday at the intersection of Canal and Bourbon streets in the city’s lively French Quarter. The historic tourist destination filled with bars and music is also known for its large New Year’s Eve celebrations.

After the vehicle crashed, the driver got out of the car and opened fire on responding officers, police said. Officers returned fire, killing the suspect, according to police. Two officers were wounded but are in stable condition, police said.

“This is not just an act of terrorism. This is evil,” New Orleans Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick told reporters at a press conference earlier Wednesday.

Investigators found weapons and a potential explosive device in the vehicle, the FBI said, along with the other potential explosive devices found in the French Quarter. The vehicle appeared to have been rented, the FBI said.

“My heart goes out to the victims and their families who were simply trying to celebrate the holiday. There is no justification for violence of any kind, and we will not tolerate any attack on any of our nation’s communities,” Biden said in a statement on the social media platform X.

President-elect Donald Trump condemned the attack in a post on his social media platform Truth Social.

“Our hearts are with all the innocent victims and their loved ones,” Trump said. “The Trump Administration will fully support the City of New Orleans as they investigate and recover from this act of pure evil!”

In a statement on X, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry urged people to stay away from the site of the attack, calling the incident “a horrific act of violence.”

Crowds were also out partying in New Orleans because the city was set to host college football’s Sugar Bowl game Wednesday night. Officials confirmed that the game would be postponed until Thursday night.

Additionally, New Orleans is set to host the NFL’s Super Bowl on February 9.

VOA national security correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this report. Some information in this report came from Reuters and The Associated Press.
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Quantum computing is emerging as a revolutionary technology capable of solving complex problems that traditional computers cannot address. The U.S. leads in quantum innovation, driven by companies like Google and IBM, robust government funding and top-tier research institutions. China, however, has rapidly advanced through massive state-led investments, dominating global quantum patents and establishing specialized research centers. 

Click here for the full story in Mandarin.
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The Tournament of Roses Parade is an annual New Year’s Day tradition with lavishly decorated floats brightening the streets of Los Angeles. Genia Dulot shows us a float highlighting efforts to give military veterans second careers in computer coding and cybersecurity.
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las vegas — One person died and seven others were injured Wednesday when a Tesla Cybertruck that appeared to be carrying fireworks caught fire and exploded outside President-elect Donald Trump’s Las Vegas hotel, authorities said.

Las Vegas Metropolitan Police and Clark County Fire Department officials told a news conference that a person died inside the futuristic-looking pickup truck, and they were working to get the body out. Seven people nearby had minor injuries, and several were taken to a hospital.

The fire in the valet area of the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas was reported at 8:40 a.m., a county spokeswoman said in a statement.

According to a law enforcement official, the truck was rented via the Turo app and appeared to have a load of fireworks. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Law enforcement officials have not ruled out terrorism as a possible motive, a person familiar with the matter said. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss details of the investigation.

“I know you have a lot of questions,” Jeremy Schwartz, acting special agent in charge of the FBI’s Las Vegas office, told reporters. “We don’t have a lot of answers.”

President Joe Biden was briefed on the explosion. The truck explosion came hours after a driver rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter early on New Year’s Day, killing at least 10 people before he was shot to death by police.

“The whole Tesla senior team is investigating this matter right now,” Tesla CEO Elon Musk wrote in a statement on X, adding: “We’ve never seen anything like this.”

In Las Vegas, witness Ana Bruce, visiting from Brazil, said she heard three explosions.

“The first one where we saw the fire, the second one, I guess, was the battery or something like that, and the third was the big one that smoked the entire area and was the moment when everyone was told to evacuate and stay away,” Bruce said.

The 64-story hotel is just off the Las Vegas Strip and across the street from the Fashion Show Las Vegas shopping mall.

Eric Trump, a son of the president-elect and executive vice president of the Trump Organization, posted about the fire on the social media platform X. He praised the fire department and local law enforcement “for their swift response and professionalism.”
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BAYAMON, PUERTO RICO — Power was restored to nearly all electrical customers across Puerto Rico on Wednesday after a sweeping blackout plunged the U.S. territory into darkness on New Year’s Eve. 

By Wednesday afternoon, power was back up for 98% of Puerto Rico’s 1.47 million utility customers, said Luma Energy, the private company supplying power to the archipelago. Lights returned to households as well as Puerto Rico’s hospitals and water and sewage facilities after the massive outage that exposed the persistent electricity problems plaguing the island. 

Still, the company warned that customers could still see temporary outages in the coming days. It said full restoration across the island could take up to two days. 

“Given the fragile nature of the grid, we will need to manage available generation to customer demand, which will likely require rotating temporary outages,” Juan Saca, president of Luma Energy, said in a statement. 

The lights went off in Puerto Rico at 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, darkening almost the entire archipelago as people prepared to ring in the New Year. Authorities are still investigating the cause of the outage, but Luma Energy said a preliminary review pointed to a failure in an underground electric line in the south of the territory. 

Governor-elect Jenniffer Gonzalez-Colon, who is set to take office Thursday, warned that customers might experience interruptions in the coming days, with power plants not yet operating at maximum capacity. 

“These days, I urge you to be moderate with your energy consumption to help reduce load shifting, so that more people can have access to electricity and the system can start up without any major setbacks,” Gonzalez-Colon said on the X social media platform.  

On the campaign trail, Gonzalez-Colon promised to appoint an “energy czar” to oversee the operation of the power grid, which has long been fragile and faulty due to years of neglect. 

The island’s power lines were ravaged in September 2017 by Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm. 

Unreliable electricity remains frustratingly common, hindering daily life for Puerto Ricans. In June, over 340,000 customers were left without electricity as people reeled from soaring temperatures. In August, at the peak of Hurricane Ernesto, over half of all utility customers lost power. Tens of thousands of people remained without electricity a week after the storm. 

The New Year’s Eve outage came as clients brace for a hike in electricity rates. Last month, Puerto Rico’s Energy Bureau approved an increase of 2.2 cents per kilowatt hour for residential customers from January through March, causing electric bills for the average household to jump by nearly $20, the Energy Bureau said.
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PALM BEACH, FLORIDA — U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday that he’s planning to attend the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter.

Asked about it as he walked into a New Year’s Eve party at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, Trump responded, “I’ll be there.” Pressed on whether he’d spoken to members of Carter’s family, Trump said he’d rather not say.

Funeral services honoring Carter, who died Sunday at 100, will be held in Georgia and Washington, beginning Jan. 4 and concluding Jan. 9.

Trump was a frequent and fierce critic of Carter on the campaign trail ahead of November’s election, using the rising inflation rates of the 1970s to unfavorably compare President Joe Biden to Carter and his administration.

The president-elect was gracious about the former president, though, in posts on his social media site after Carter’s death Sunday, writing that the nation “owed him a debt of gratitude.”

“While I strongly disagreed with him philosophically and politically, I also realized that he truly loved and respected our Country, and all it stands for,” Trump wrote of Carter. “He worked hard to make America a better place, and for that I give him my highest respect.”

Wearing a tuxedo as he entered the festivities, Trump took a few minutes of questions from reporters on various topics. He was asked about the possibility of a ceasefire in Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza but said only, “We’re going to see what happens.”

Of hostages seized more than a year ago by Hamas, the president-elect said, “I’ll put it this way: They better let the hostages come back soon.”

Trump also said he thought 2025 would be a “great year” and “we’re going to do fantastically well as a country.”

“There’s a whole light over the whole world, not just our country. They’re a lot of happy people,” Trump said of recent weeks.

Asked about his resolutions for the new year, Trump said, “I just want everybody to be happy, healthy and well.”

Trump later took the stage to briefly address the crowd ringing in the new year at Mar-a-Lago and promised “to do a great job as your president.”

Biden, for his part, spent New Year’s Eve celebrating the wedding of his niece Missy Owens in Greenville, Delaware, followed by the reception in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Biden and first lady Jill Biden cut short their traditional holiday trip to the U.S. Virgin Islands to attend the ceremony.
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HONOLULU — Harry Chandler, a Navy medic who helped pull injured sailors from the oily waters of Pearl Harbor after the 1941 Japanese attack on the naval base, has died. He was 103. 

Chandler died Monday at a senior living center in Tequesta, Florida, according to Ron Mahaffee, the husband of his granddaughter Kelli Fahey. Chandler had congestive heart failure, but Mahaffee said doctors and nurses noted his advanced age when giving a cause of death. 

The third Pearl Harbor survivor to die in the past few weeks, Chandler was a hospital corpsman 3rd class on Dec. 7, 1941, when waves of Japanese fighter planes dropped bombs and fired machine guns on battleships in the harbor and plunged the U.S. into World War II. 

He told The Associated Press in 2023 that he saw the planes approach as he was raising the flag that morning at a mobile hospital in Aiea Heights, which is in the hills overlooking the base. 

“I thought they were planes coming in from the states until I saw the bombs dropping,” Chandler said. His first instinct was to take cover and ”get the hell out of here.” 

“I was afraid that they’d start strafing,” he said. 

His unit rode trucks down to attend to the injured. He said in a Pacific Historic Parks oral history interview that he boarded a boat to help pluck wounded sailors from the water. 

The harbor was covered in oil from exploding ships, so Chandler washed the sailors off after lifting them out. He said he was too focused on his work to be afraid. 

“It got so busy you weren’t scared. Weren’t scared at all. We were busy. It was after you got scared,” Chandler said. 

He realized later that he could have been killed, “But you didn’t think about that while you were busy taking care of people.” 

The attack killed more than 2,300 U.S. servicemen. Nearly half, or 1,177, were sailors and Marines on board the USS Arizona, which sank nine minutes after it was bombed. 

Chandler’s memories came flowing back when he visited Pearl Harbor for a 2023 ceremony commemorating the 82nd anniversary of the bombing. 

“I look out there, and I can still see what’s going on. I can still see what was happening,” Chandler told The Associated Press. 

Asked what he wanted Americans to know about Pearl Harbor, he said: “Be prepared.” 

“We should have known that was going to happen. The intelligence has to be better,” he said. 

After the war Chandler worked as a painter and wallpaper hanger and bought an upholstery business with his brother. He also joined the Navy reserves, retiring as a senior chief in 1981. 

Chandler was born in Holyoke, Massachusetts, and lived for most of his adult life in nearby South Hadley, Mahaffee said. In recent decades he split his time between Massachusetts and Florida. 

An avid golfer, he shot five hole-in-ones during his lifetime, his grandson-in-law added. 

Chandler had one biological daughter and adopted two daughters from his second marriage, to Anna Chandler, who died in 2004. He is survived by two daughters, nine grandchildren, 17 great-grandchildren and five great-great-grandchildren. 

Military historian J. Michael Wenger has estimated that there were some 87,000 military personnel on the island of Oahu on the day of the attack. With Chandler’s death, only 15 are still living, according to a tally maintained by Kathleen Farley, the California state chair of the Sons and Daughters of Pearl Harbor Survivors. 

Bob Fernandez, who served on the USS Curtiss, also died this month, at age 100, and Warren Upton, 105, who served on the USS Utah, died last week.
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NEW ORLEANS — New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell is calling the New Year’s Day mass casualty incident that killed 10 people and injured 30 a “terrorist attack.” 

The FBI is investigating what occurred early Wednesday, when a vehicle drove into a crowd on New Orleans’ famed Canal and Bourbon Street in the first hours of New Year’s Day. 

Alethea Duncan, an assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s New Orleans field office, said officials were investigating the discovery of at least one suspected improvised explosive device at the scene. 

Earlier, the New Orleans Police Department said it was responding to a mass casualty incident Wednesday that included fatalities. NOLA Ready advised people to stay away from the area. 

It said the injured had been taken to five local hospitals. 

The incident came at 3:15 a.m. toward the end of New Year’s celebrations in New Orleans and hours before the kickoff of the Sugar Bowl, a college football quarterfinal held in the city’s Superdome, with thousands expected to be in attendance. 

Earlier this week, the police department said security would be beefed up ahead of New Year’s Day celebrations. The department said it would be staffed at 100% capacity with 300 officers from partner agencies and a strong presence of marked and unmarked vehicles. 
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U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday warned about a rising number of threats to the judiciary’s independence, including calls for violence against judges and suggestions by elected officials to disregard court rulings they disagree with.

Roberts in an annual year-end report on the judiciary released just weeks before Republican President-elect Donald Trump takes office did not directly address what polling suggests has been a decline in public confidence in the judicial system broadly.

But Roberts said he felt compelled to highlight several areas of “illegitimate activity” that went far beyond informed criticism and debate concerning judicial rulings, which he said, “threaten the independence of judges on which the rule of law depends.”

Those areas of threats, he said, include a significant uptick in violent threats and online intimidation directed at judges, disinformation about court cases magnified by social media, and cyberthreats posed by foreign state actors.

In the past five years, the U.S. Marshals Service has investigated more than 1,000 serious threats against federal judges, Roberts wrote. In some extreme cases, judicial officers have been issued bulletproof vests, he said.

He cited the risks of hackers stealing confidential information and of hostile foreign state actors spreading disinformation online, including by using bots to distort judicial decisions and “foment discord within our democracy.”

Roberts also highlighted what he said were instances in the past few years in which “elected officials from across the political spectrum have raised the specter of open disregard for federal court rulings.”

“These dangerous suggestions, however sporadic, must be soundly rejected,” Roberts wrote.

Roberts, a member of the court’s 6-3 conservative majority, did not specify what cases he was referring to, nor did he reference recent Supreme Court rulings that have set off political firestorms.

Those include its 2022 decision rolling back abortion rights or its July ruling granting Trump substantial immunity for actions taken in office in the now-dismissed 2020 election subversion criminal case he faced.

The abortion ruling prompted protests outside of several justices’ homes, and an armed man was charged in 2022 with attempting to assassinate conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh after being arrested near his home.

Roberts’ report also did not discuss recent ethics controversies concerning gifts and travel received by members of the Supreme Court that have prompted investigations by Democratic lawmakers and calls for reforms.

Roberts acknowledged court rulings can “provoke strong and passionate reactions” and said criticism was not a threat, and that “public engagement with the work of the courts results in a better-informed polity and a more robust democracy.”

But he said public officials “regrettably have engaged in recent attempts to intimidate judges — for example, suggesting political bias in the judge’s adverse rulings without a credible basis for such allegations.”

“Public officials certainly have a right to criticize the work of the judiciary, but they should be mindful that intemperance in their statements when it comes to judges may prompt dangerous reactions by others,” he wrote. 
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