aacj

Top 5 US news stories

December 29 2025

Greg Loving

29 Dec 2025 • 5 min read

Surveillance footage in January 2021 showed the man authorities identified as Brian Cole Jr. He told investigators he felt relieved that the bombs had not exploded and that no one was hurt.Credit...F.B.I., via Reuters

Surveillance Evidence Spurs Jan. 6 Suspect To Confess To Planting Bombs

Justice Department Using Fraud Law To Target Companies On DEI

Shift To Street-Based Enforcement Strategy Drives Massive Surge In Federal Immigration Arrests

UPenn Research Finds Receiving Phones At Age 12 Significantly Increases Odds Of Teen Sleep Issues And Obesity

Trump And Zelensky Advance Revised Peace Framework At Mar-a-Lago

1. Surveillance Evidence Spurs Jan. 6 Suspect To Confess To Planting Bombs

The Virginia man arrested this month on charges of placing two pipe bombs in Washington on the night before a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, has given a detailed confession, according to court papers released on Sunday night. In the public first hint at a motive in the case, the documents said that the man, Brian J. Cole Jr., felt he needed to “speak up” after he began to suspect that the 2020 election…had been “tampered with.” The papers, filed by the Justice Department in Federal District Court in Washington, gave an extensive description of Mr. Cole’s initial interview with the F.B.I. after his arrest. At first, the government’s filing said, Mr. Cole denied planting the bombs outside the Republican and Democratic Party headquarters on the eve of the Capitol attack. But the filing said he admitted to doing so after agents displayed an image captured from surveillance cameras that they said showed him in a hooded sweatshirt carrying a backpack on the same route the bomber took that night.

NYT

2. Justice Department Using Fraud Law To Target Companies On DEI

WASHINGTON—The Trump administration has launched investigations into the use of diversity initiatives in hiring and promotion at major U.S. companies, built on the novel use of a federal law meant to punish businesses that cheat the government. The civil probes are proceeding under the umbrella of the False Claims Act, which has traditionally been used to go after contractors who bill the government for work that was never performed or inflate the cost of services rendered. Now the Justice Department is embracing the theory that holding a federal contract while still considering diversity when hiring is in effect fraud against the government that entitles it to recoup potentially millions of dollars. Alphabet’s Google and Verizon Communications are among a list of companies that have received Justice Department demands for documents and information about their workplace programs, according to people familiar with the investigations.

WSJ

3. Shift To Street-Based Enforcement Strategy Drives Massive Surge In Federal Immigration Arrests

The Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign has led to a significant change in strategy, as federal officers shift away from focusing on arresting immigrants already held in local jails to tracking them down on the streets and in communities, according to a Washington Post analysis of government data. The result has been a huge surge of such at-large arrests, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement tallying about 17,500 in September and on pace to exceed that in October. (The data The Post examined had been updated through the middle of that month.) That was far more than any other month included in the data, which dated back to October 2011. Before this year, the highest number of at-large arrests came in January 2023, when the Biden administration made more than 11,500. ICE is making more than four times as many at-large arrests per week as it did in President Donald Trump’s first term, the analysis found.

Washington Post

4. UPenn Research Finds Receiving Phones At Age 12 Significantly Increases Odds Of Teen Sleep Issues And Obesity

University of Pennsylvania researcher Ran Barzilay is a father of three. His first two children received cellphones before they turned 12. But this summer, as early results from his own study on screens and teen health rolled in, he changed course. His youngest? Not getting one anytime soon. Barzilay’s analysis of more than 10,500 children across 21 U.S. sites found that those who received phones at age 12, compared with age 13, had a more than 60 percent higher risk of poor sleep and a more than 40 percent higher risk of obesity.

Washington Post

5. Trump And Zelensky Advance Revised Peace Framework At Mar-a-Lago

President Trump said while hosting President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine on Sunday that he believed Russia and Ukraine were “maybe very close” to ending a nearly four-year war, even as Russia rejected some terms sought by Ukrainian negotiators. Mr. Trump met with Mr. Zelensky at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida to discuss a revised 20-point peace plan. Mr. Zelensky said that the latest proposal developed by Ukraine and the United States was nearly complete, and both leaders stressed that the lengthy peace talks would continue. Significant obstacles remain, chief among them the willingness of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to sign on to the peace framework pushed by Kyiv and Mr. Trump’s top negotiators.

President Trump hosted President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine at Mar-a-Lago on Sunday. “In a few weeks, we’ll know one way or another,” Mr. Trump said of a peace deal. Credit...Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times

NYT

December 29 1851: first YMCA in the US opens at the Old South Church in Boston

Today, there are almost 2,700 locations nationwide.

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