January 3, 2026 - Short News

ICE Shouts in a Supermarket - How Racism Forces Its Way In and Investigative Journalists Give Up More and More!

A man wearing a MAGA cap insulted female customers at Costco as “invaders,” called ICE, and shouted: “You ran in here… you don’t adapt to the USA!” When a woman replied, “You are just racist for no reason,” he screamed back: “I’m racist for every reason - you are all the same.” He then declared: “My people have had roots here for generations, yours haven’t… we are the founders!” The incident took place between aisles full of household goods, but the tone sounded more like a street hate rally. No one intervened. Security personnel remained silent as well. This is what everyday life looks like when origin becomes an accusation. Racism is not only spreading in the United States, it is also increasing noticeably in Germany. Standing up against racist tendencies often becomes a lonely path - many who engage receive no backing. While right wing networks rely on broad support and implement their agendas with structure and funding, education and critical journalism struggle with the opposite. Investigative reporting often goes unnoticed, many journalists give up because they can no longer sustain the work with their own resources. This development endangers democratic oversight.

ICE Officer Shoots Attacker on New Year’s Eve

In California, a deadly incident occurred on New Year’s Eve in which an off duty ICE officer shot and killed an armed man. The man had previously fired a rifle into the air several times, alarming residents. When the ICE officer confronted him, the attacker pointed the weapon at him and refused to drop it. A gunfight followed. The officer briefly withdrew, equipped himself with body armor, and called the police. When LAPD officers arrived, the attacker was dead. The ICE officer was unharmed and was not arrested. The investigation is ongoing. The shooting is currently being treated as self defense.

Death on the Mountain Trail

On New Year’s Day, the body of a woman was found on a remote hiking trail in Colorado, with signs pointing to an attack by a mountain lion. Only weeks earlier, on the same trail, a man had fought off an attacking cougar with his bare hands. He threw his phone, struck with a stick, and survived. Two of the big cats have since been shot, a third animal is still being sought. Mountain lion attacks on humans are rare, with the last fatal case in Colorado more than 25 years ago. But the area is considered a retreat for the animals - remote, forested, steep. Authorities had put up warning signs weeks ago, but later removed them. Now it is too late.

Restructuring in Wartime - Kyiv Draws Lessons from the Past Year

In Kyiv, a deep restructuring of state institutions is underway. The government has begun implementing internal changes to make the country more resilient. Experiences from the past year play a central role: where state institutions have functioned, successes are to be expanded. Where things faltered, there is to be no carryover into the new year. A first wave of personnel decisions is already underway, further steps have been announced. The process continues without pause, without delay. At the same time, a meeting of national security advisers is planned - Europe together with the United States. Coordination is taking place at the highest level. The tone is sober, the goal clear: remain capable of action.

Trump Wants to Redesign the Presidential Golf Course - He Has Never Played There

Donald Trump spends almost every weekend on the golf course, preferably at one of his own resorts. But now he has set his sights on the military golf course at Joint Base Andrews - a place he has never played. Barack Obama used the course more than a hundred times, and Bush, Clinton, and Reagan also played there. Trump took a helicopter tour with Jack Nicklaus before Thanksgiving and now wants to carry out a major redesign. The course has “fallen apart over the years,” Trump said. The White House speaks of a historic renovation project, but has not yet named any costs. In addition to new fairways, a multifunctional event center is planned. At the same time, Trump is also remodeling the East Wing of the White House, planning a new airport terminal at Dulles, and wants to build a triumphal arch at the Lincoln Memorial. Golf is not just leisure for him - it is self promotion. Andrews, it seems, is the next prestige project.

Judges Out, Rights Gone

Since Trump took office, more than 100 immigration judges have been dismissed nationwide, 21 of them in San Francisco alone. Many without any explanation. Their “mistake”: they applied existing US law and granted due process. That seems to be precisely what is unwanted. The government relies on arrests, detention, and massive pressure to make those affected abandon their cases. Hearings take time, fairness disrupts the process. The consequences are visible: more chaos, longer proceedings, growing uncertainty. An already overburdened court system is being deliberately damaged. This is not a side effect, it is a method. And it is happening with almost no public debate.

Unleashed Power - How Trump Is Rolling Back the Lessons of Watergate

In the 1970s, American democracy suffered a shock from which it recovered only with difficulty. A president had abused the state for his personal interests, had opponents pursued, had turned agencies into tools. Watergate destroyed trust in the highest office - and forced Congress to act. Republicans and Democrats jointly pulled the emergency brake. They created rules, oversight mechanisms, and safeguards to prevent such abuse of power from recurring. After Watergate, the political system was deliberately recalibrated. Independent oversight bodies were created, ethics rules tightened, whistleblowers protected. Congress strengthened its role in matters of war and budgets. The justice system and investigative agencies drew clear boundaries between political leadership and law enforcement. The goal was simple and ambitious at the same time: power was to remain controllable, even when concentrated in the White House.

Donald Trump sees this order as an obstacle. From the first days of his second term, he began systematically dismantling these safeguards. He dismissed dozens of inspectors tasked with uncovering misconduct in agencies. He removed the head of the office that protects civil servants from political retaliation. He ousted the leadership of the ethics oversight body that monitors conflicts of interest. What sounds like administration is politically explosive: these are precisely the institutions created after Watergate to make abuses of power visible early. Witnesses from that era today appear stunned. A former Senate staffer later said that many things had been expected - but not a president who would so openly and shamelessly reject every form of oversight. Even legal scholars who have long advocated for a strong executive now concede that with every barrier removed, a piece of political morality disappears.

Watergate was never just a single scandal. It was an attitude, a system, a way of thinking that saw the state as an instrument of personal rule. Congress responded with laws that placed loyalty to the Constitution above loyalty to a president. Civil servants were no longer to act out of fear. Investigators were no longer to respond to calls from the White House. The rule of law was to keep its distance from power. Trump openly uses the Justice Department and federal law enforcement as political weapons. He publicly calls for investigations into political opponents, names names, applies pressure. His attorney general appeared before staff declaring they worked for the “greatest president in history.” At the same time, a task force was set up to primarily review previous investigations into Trump and his circle - with regular reports to the White House. The boundary between government and law enforcement is blurring again.

“I did not see the broadcast, but Mrs. Nixon told me that you were wonderful on the Donahue Show. As you can imagine, she is an expert on politics, and she predicts that whenever you should decide to run for public office, you will win. With warm regards, Richard Nixon - December 21, 1987”

In public service as well, neutrality no longer counts, but loyalty. New hiring procedures explicitly ask applicants about their support for Trump’s political priorities. The concept of the “deep state” serves as justification to replace unwelcome civil servants. That is exactly what Watergate was meant to prevent. The break is particularly evident in the issue of conflicts of interest. After the Nixon scandal, it was clear: financial entanglements can corrupt political decisions. That is why an ethics office was created to enforce transparency. Today, that office is effectively powerless. Its leadership has been dismissed, successors are political interim solutions without independence. At the same time, overlaps between the presidency and private business are growing. New companies, digital financial products, major investors from within the country and abroad - everything converges as regulatory barriers fall.

Trump himself openly says that a president cannot have a conflict of interest. Legally, there may be gray areas. Politically, the assumption after Watergate was different: that a president at least claims to act with integrity - or to make it appear credible. That assumption no longer holds. Congress, which once tightened the reins, now remains largely passive. Party discipline replaces institutional responsibility. Laws meant to enable oversight only work if someone is willing to enforce them. That is precisely what is missing. The result is a gradual shift in the balance of power - away from oversight, toward personal rule.

Some defenders of this development invoke a theory that all executive power must lie with the president in order to ensure decisiveness. But even supporters of this view are now warning against excess. A strong executive needs limits, otherwise it tips over. After Watergate, a senator said that nothing brings a republic down faster than deep mistrust of its own population toward the government. At the time, that sounded like a warning from a crisis that had been overcome. Today, it reads like a description of the present.