Good morning! Today is National Keto Day (apparently). For those of us not celebrating, this is a nice opportunity to know who to avoid in the future. Today is also National Whipped Cream Day. We all know which type of friend we prefer…

Sunday marks the end of the NFL regular season (before the playoffs). For the non-football fans out there, the end is nigh. For the football fans out there, the end is also nigh (but this time in a sad way).

 CONGRESS 

🏛️ A border story roundup

BORDER: U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson led a delegation of 64 Republican representatives (of 220) on a trip to the U.S.-Mexico border. They toured the border crossing at Eagle Pass, TX. Border officials encountered over 300,000 migrants at the southern border last month. As fate would have it, a group of migrants (with a child) crossed the river behind the lawmakers smack in the middle of their press conference.

CONGRESS: Funding for the Department of Homeland Security (they handle immigration) runs out February 2. Expect Congress to come up with some sort of policy or budget change by then. The Senate is working on a big bipartisan plan that combines stricter immigration policy with support for Ukraine.

TEXAS: The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sued the State of Texas over the state's new immigration law. The law gives local police (and judges) some power over illegal border crossings, migrants, and deportations. The DOJ says that’s unconstitutional because the Constitution gives the feds complete power over immigration law (and gives federal law supremacy over state law).

BUSES: Texas has a longer border with Mexico than any other state. As such, it gets a whole lot of illegal border crossings. What to do? Well, in 2022, Texas began hiring buses to drive those migrants to other (Democratic-run) cities and states. Since then, New York City has received over 30,000. Now the city is suing the 17 bus companies Texas used. The ask? Over $700 million — the cost the city says it’s paid to shelter them.

 CRIME 

⚖️ Epstein documents drop

A federal judge unsealed hundreds of pages of court documents related to (deceased) sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. The case they come from is a 2015 civil (non-criminal) lawsuit against Ghislaine Maxwell. She's the Epstein associate who, last year, got 20 years in prison for sex trafficking.

Importantly, being named in the documents doesn't mean a person did anything wrong. It’s not a cartoony list of bad guys. More than likely, they attended a party with him, met him, or were simply brought up during an interview with prosecutors.

Among the famous names appearing: Donald Trump, Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew (King George III's brother), Michael Jackson, David Copperfield, and Stephen Hawking.

As an example of what appearing on this list could mean, Hawking’s name was merely mentioned in an email once.

 POLITICS 

🔵 President Biden's campaign released its first video ad of 2024. The entire thing is one big anti-Trump attack on topics like voting rights, democracy, and the January 6 riots — all Biden strengths and Trump weaknesses. It's safe to assume this is a preview of Biden's campaign strategy for the year ahead should Trump win the Republican nomination.

🔵 A progressive group filed a complaint against Biden's (longshot) Democratic challenger, Rep. Dean Phillips. They filed it with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC). It claims Phillips' campaign illegally coordinated with a super PAC. Campaigns can only accept a few thousand dollars from each donor. Super PACs (outside groups that support candidates they like) have no limits. Federal law says the two groups can't coordinate strategy — doing so would violate those campaign donation limits. The Phillips camp denies the allegation.

⚪ Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. made the ballot in his first state — Utah. JFK's nephew criticized ballot access rules, saying they make breaking the two-party system nearly impossible. Each state sets its own requirements to get a name on the ballot. For independent candidates, hitting those marks can be a challenge. But Utah only requires 1,000 signatures. His campaign expects state #2 will be Arizona.

🔴 A few Trump updates:

1. House Democrats say he made ~$8 million from foreign governments while he was president (from his hotels, etc.). Eric Trump claims that cash was donated to the U.S. government.

2. Trump’s former Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin, isn’t exactly on board with his 2024 campaign. Mnuchin, who served for all four years of Trump’s presidency, helped design the 2017 tax cut bill. And, back in 2017, he had to spruce up his hideous signature before it could appear on money.

 QUOTE 

 BRIEFS 

• Alberto Musalem named head of St. Louis Federal Reserve, one of the Fed’s 12 regional branches

• A 16-year-old came in second place in the world dart championships (Brits gonna Brit)

• Pornhub blocks access in Montana and North Carolina due to age verification laws

• Windows keyboards will soon have a dedicated AI key

• Saudi Arabia's state-owned oil company (Aramco) is deepening its ties with China

 TRIVIA 

America’s 46 presidents have been born in just 21 states. And two of the most populous, California and Illinois, can claim only one each.

Questions: Which president was born in California? Which was born in Illinois?

 WORLD 

🇬🇧 United Kingdom: New doctors in the U.K. are on strike for six days. Thousands of appointments have been canceled as a result. The young docs are pushing for a raise from the National Health Service (NHS). Their current pay: an eye-popping $19.37 per hour.

🇮🇷 Iran: ISIS claimed responsibility for two explosions in Iran that killed almost 100 people and wounded nearly 300. The Wednesday attack came during a memorial marking the fourth anniversary of the killing of an Iranian military commander (by the U.S.).

🇹🇼 Taiwan: Remember the Chinse spy balloons? One of 2023’s wildest political stories is back (only in Asia this time). Taiwan said China sent four of those bad boys to its territory, including a sensitive area near an air base.

🇸🇪 Sweden: NATO's leader, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, is confident Sweden will join the alliance by July. Sweden and Finland ditched their neutrality and applied to join NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine. New members need approval from every current member. Finland got that recently but Hungary is still blocking Sweden's bid.

🇵🇱 Poland: Polish truckers and farmers are blocking several border crossings with Ukraine. In 2022, the European Union axed permit requirements for Ukrainian truckers and farm products as a method of helping Ukraine’s struggling economy. The Polish protesters want those permits back to fend off cheaper Ukrainian competition.

 SNACKS 

💩 Oops: Here’s a snack. A dog named Cecil ate $4,000. Over the next few days, his owners were able to retrieve the cash. You can imagine how that went down.

🥽 Metaverse: “Ready Player One” author Ernest Cline formed a company called ReadyVerse to make his virtual world reality via the metaverse (buzzword alert). And Warner Bros. is seemingly on board to lend its characters to the project.

🍿 Movies: Wired takes a look at some of the biggest movies coming out in 2024. Spoiler alert: most of them are sequels.

 ANSWER 

The only president born in California was Richard Nixon. One-time California Governor Ronald Reagan was actually born in Illinois. Despite spending his adult life in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln was from Kentucky.