pelespirit

And oldie, but still funny.

.S. manufacturing activity contracted more than expected in December, extending its slump to 10 straight months as new orders fell again and input costs kept grinding higher as the sector continues to bear the imprint of President Donald Trump's import tariffs.

The Institute for Supply Management said on Monday its manufacturing PMI dropped to 47.9 in the final month of 2025 - the lowest since October 2024 - from 48.2 in November. A reading below 50 indicates contraction in manufacturing, which accounts for 10.1% of the economy. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the PMI would be little changed at 48.4.

A Wisconsin judge who was convicted last month of obstruction for helping a migrant appearing in her courtroom evade an immigration arrest submitted her resignation on Saturday, according to media reports.

Hannah Dugan, an elected judge on the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, faced threats of impeachment by the Republican-controlled state legislature since her conviction amid U.S. President Donald Trump's push to discourage interference with his hard-line immigration tactics.

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers’ office and a lawyer for Dugan did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Prosecutors alleged that Dugan intended to help a migrant from Mexico, Eduardo Flores-Ruiz, escape an immigration arrest when he was scheduled to appear before her on domestic violence charges.

Dugan had pleaded not guilty. Her lawyers had argued she was following a policy directing staff to alert a supervisor to the presence of ICE in the courthouse. She had been suspended from judicial duties by Wisconsin's top court while the case unfolded.

It's not that long, it seems to be doubled up and it's from social media, so this is the only video I could find.

Video from NY Post: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Iux161DZAA

Albany, Georgia's lone hospital is supposed to treat people regardless of ability to pay. Residents turn elsewhere

The Samaritan Clinic is a small, free clinic serving people without health insurance in Albany, Georgia. It was created in 2008 to provide care for people who couldn’t afford medical treatment. More than 15 years later, the need has changed little. Today, Albany has one of the highest poverty rates in the state. About 16% of residents are uninsured, nearly double the national average. And people here pay some of the highest commercial health insurance rates in the country.

Not far from the Samaritan Clinic is Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, Southwest Georgia’s largest hospital — a nonprofit founded on the principle that patients should be treated regardless of their ability to pay.

So why do some residents turn to a free clinic for care?

This short documentary is part of “Sick in a Hospital Town,” a five-part series about why people in Albany are so sick when the main institution is a hospital. You can read and listen to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia9pWMK9fDQ

The northern California students are part of a group of 12 who were charged with felony conspiracy to trespass and felony vandalism in connection to an hour-long, June 2024 occupation during which the group barricaded themselves inside the university president’s office to demand Stanford consider a student resolution to divest from Israel, among other requests.

On the heels of similar actions at other universities across the US, the students in question unofficially renamed the building after Adnan al-Bursh, a Palestinian surgeon who was reportedly tortured to death while in Israeli detention.

The university suspended the students immediately after their arrest and banned them from campus for two terms, until the conclusion of an internal disciplinary process which found they had violated university policy, but allowed them back on campus that fall.

Q: There's about $17 billion of oil reserves in Venezuela

TRUMP: You mean trillion. Did you say billion or trillion?

Q: I said billion

TRUMP: It's much more than that

Q: So what is going to happen to those reserves?

TRUMP: We're going to run everything

By the end of the year, with the plan’s co-authors installed in key roles across the federal government, more than half of the items inside the Heritage Foundation’s mammoth wishlist have been implemented.

The group’s 2026 agenda, published earlier this year as a plan for “Restoring America’s Promise,” pledges to “engage in Washington to dismantle the deep state and in the states to restore the family, rebuild American institutions, and restore opportunity for all” as the country heads into its 250th anniversary.

Annie Farmer, who spoke with the Herald this week, questioned why the DOJ was looking at her flights in 2019 — 20 years after she was sexually abused by Epstein and Maxwell. She told the Herald she was confused, but not surprised, since the Epstein files rolled out by the DOJ have often lacked context and are heavily redacted.

The July 2019 flight information also includes itineraries for Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s accomplice and ex-girlfriend. Maxwell is now serving a 20-year prison sentence for recruiting and grooming girls for Epstein to abuse and, in at least one instance, participating in the abuse herself. Annie Farmer was one of four women who testified against Maxwell at her 2021 trial.

Here at NPR, we like to ring in the new year by looking at new state laws taking effect on Jan. 1.

This year, states are enacting a slew of laws focused on wages, social media rules, restrictions on gender-affirming care, AI regulation and much more.

Here is a sampling of some of those changes, as reported by public media journalists across the country.