Bits and pieces from today’s news

Why are masked men carrying boxes and belongings out of the home of Jonathan Ross, the ICE thug who murdered Nicole Renee Good?

Gun-toting Feds swarmed the home of the ICE agent who fatally shot protester Renee Good on Friday morning, the Daily Mail can exclusively reveal.

A Special Response Team arrived at the suburban Minneapolis home, where Jon Ross, 43, lives with his wife and children, early this morning.

Daily Mail images captured half a dozen Federal officers wearing masks and balaclavas, one carrying pepper spray and another wielding an assault rifle.

A neighbor told the Daily Mail she spotted Ross’s wife Patrixia pacing around the couple’s driveway on Wednesday afternoon, hours after her husband opened fire on Good.

Since then, the house has been empty amid suggestions that the couple and their children have gone into hiding.

The fresh activity comes after the Daily Mail revealed that Ross is an Enforcement and Removal Operations agent and Iraq veteran, married to a Filipina immigrant.

He has become the focus of rage over ICE actions around the country after he shot and killed Good on Wednesday afternoon while she was driving her SUV down a street where agents were on duty.

QUESTION:  Are the removing items from the house for their investigation, or, is this his Gestapo friends helping him move into hiding?


Exxon CEO calls Venezuela ‘uninvestable’ without ‘significant changes’

Source: Washington Post

January 9, 2026 at 6:00 p.m. EST

As President Donald Trump pushed U.S. oil companies to commit to invest $100 billion in Venezuela at a White House meeting on Friday, the CEO of ExxonMobil warned the company is far from enlisting.

CEO Darren Woods said that Venezuela is “uninvestable” after Trump asked him how long it would take the firm to restart operations there. He added that “significant changes have to be made to those commercial frameworks, the legal system, there has to be durable investment protections,” and there needs to be a rewrite of the laws governing oil production in Venezuela.

He would only commit to sending a technical team to the country shortly to begin assessing the situation. The exchange underscored how the industry is struggling to chart a course that will please the president without spending recklessly on risky drilling ventures.

The afternoon meeting was attended by several major oil companies in addition to Exxon, including Chevron, ConocoPhilips and Shell. Chevron is the only U.S. firm operational in Venezuela. Trump vowed the companies that commit to pumping in Venezuela will make substantial profits, but the firms, aware of the extremely challenging economics and security concerns around drilling in the unstable Latin American nation, are reticent to commit.


The US Department of Agriculture suspends all federal funding to Minnesota, effective immediately.

January 9, 2026
THE HONORABLE TIM WALZ
Governor of Minesota
130 State Capitol
75 Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Bivd.
St. Paul, MN 55155
THE HONORABLE JACOB FREY
Mayor of the City of Minneapolis
City Hail
350S. Fifth St., Room 330
Minneapolis, MN 55415
Dear Governor Walz and Mayor Frey,
It is my responsibility as Secretary of Agriculture to ensure sound stewardship of taxpayer dollars by climinating fraud, waste and abuse in all programs funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The widespread and systemic fraud associated with federal benefit programs in the State of Minnesota and the City of Minneapolis demonstrate an inability to handle federal resources without additional oversight and accountability measures in place.
During your tenures as Governor of Minnesota and Mayor of Minneapolis, numerous non-profits and businesses have defrauded the federal government in what a federal prosecutor in Minnesota called "a staggering, industrial-scale fraud".! Most notably, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit— Feeding Our Future defrauded U.S. taxpayers of nearly $250 million in federal funds given to them by the Minnesota Department of Education.? This fraud scheme involved USDA funding provided to the State of Minnesota to feed hungry children under the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) and the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP). As of late November, 78 defendants had been charged in what the Department of Justice characterized as the largest COVID-19 fraud scheme in the country?
Other recent examples of'alleged fraud in Minnesota include exploitation of the Small Business Administration Paycheck Protection Program", a scheme to defraud the Housing Stabilization
1-Whut te know about Minnesoca' "industrial-scale fraad" scandal, as more charges are fled and Trump weighs in, "CES Nows (Dic. 19, 3025) available at ht:/www.cbsnews.com/news/atas-do-know-alonesota-frawf-candal
were-changes-fled-
tump-water.
/Federal Jury Finds Feeding Our Future Masternind and Co-D…
Services Program", and alleged fraud in daycare centers*, Your Administrations have refused additional accountability and oversight, claiming that criticism of rampant fraud and abuse is
"racist."
While the full extent of fraud in Minnesota is not yet known, it is clear that, under your leadership-
or lack thereof fraudsters can take advantage of federal funds and the American
taxpayer with impunity. This necessitates federal action to protect taxpayer dollars until adequate safeguards can be established.
Despite a staggering, wide-reaching fraud scandal, your Administrations refuse to provide basic information or take common sense mcasures to stop fraud. In fact, rather than conlin your SNAP rolls are accurate to prevent continuing fraud, you asked the courts to block USDA's directive to recertify the State's SNAP recipients. Recent news reports also emerged that the Minnesota Department of Human Services repeatedly reported incorrect information about SNAP to the federal government.? The Trump administration refuses to allow such fraud to continuc.
Therefore, because of your failed Icadership and abysmal financial management oversight, 1 am notifying you that, effective immediately, I am suspending payments on all active awards and any future awards from USDA to the State of Minnesota and the City of Minneapolis, currently totaling over $129.18 million. Within 30 days, you shall provide USDA with payment justifications for all federal dollar expenditures from January 20, 2025, to the present. Going forward, all transactions on awards to the State of Minnesota or the City of Minneapolis will require such payment justification. If those payment justifications are not received, awards will remain suspended.
While your Administrations have turned a blind eye to documented fraud, the Trump Administration has made clear that fraud, waste, and abuse are unacceptable. The American people deserve to know that their taxpayer dollars are helping those in need-not criminals. …
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