America


New Home for Iconic Ocean Liner • A historic ocean liner will become the world’s largest artifi cial reef after it’s sunk this spring off Florida’s Gulf Coast. Okaloosa County


offi cials expect to sink the SS United States about 32 nautical miles southeast of Pensacola. The nearly 1,000-foot


vessel shattered the trans- Atlantic speed record on its maiden voyage in 1952 in three days, 10 hours, and 40 minutes, besting the Queen Mary’s time by 10 hours. To this day, she holds the trans-Atlantic speed record for an ocean liner. Once in place, the SS


United States will sit at a depth of about 180 feet, but the vessel is so tall that the top decks will be about 60 feet from the surface, making it attractive to divers.


Education Dept. Shrinks • The U.S. Education Department handed off its biggest grant programs to other federal agencies as the Trump administration accelerated its plan to shut down the department. Most notable is one that


will put the Department of Labor over some of the largest federal funding streams for K-12 schools, including Title I money for schools serving low-income communities. Department offi cials


said the programs will continue to be funded at levels set by Congress. They did not say whether


22 NEWSMAX | JANUARY 2026


the changes would bring


further job cuts at the department, which has been thinned by waves of mass layoff s and voluntary retirement off ers. Left in place for


now is the Education Department’s $1.6 trillion student loan portfolio and its funding for students with disabilities, though Education Secretary Linda McMahon has suggested both would be better managed by other federal departments. Also unaff ected is its Offi ce for Civil Rights.


Lawsuit Over ICE Masks • The Trump administration fi led a lawsuit over California’s new laws banning federal agents from wearing masks and requiring them to have identifi cation while conducting operations in the state. The federal government


argued the laws threaten the safety of offi cers who are facing “unprecedented” harassment, doxing, and violence, and said it will not comply with them. California became


the fi rst state to ban most law enforcement offi cers, including federal immigration agents, from covering their faces while conducting offi cial business under a bill that was signed in September by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The lawsuit said


there have been multiple incidents where Immigration and Customs Enforcement offi cers


Triple Killer Executed A


killer who taunted police by writing a message in blood after murdering three men in a week was executed by


firing squad at a prison in Columbia, South Carolina. Stephen Corey Bryant, who once scrawled “catch me


if u can” on a wall using the blood of one of his victims, was executed on Nov. 14. USA Today reported Bryant’s executioners strapped him


to a chair and placed a hood over his head. Three volunteer corrections of icers shot him simultaneously from 15 feet away. Bryant’s attorneys had argued that he should be spared


because he was sexually abused as a child and had brain damage caused by his mother using drugs and alcohol while she was pregnant. The South Carolina Supreme Court rejected those arguments.


were followed and their families threatened. It cites a case of three women in Los Angeles accused of livestreaming while following an ICE agent home and posting the address on Instagram.


EPA Rolls Back Water Rules • The Environmental Protection Agency is redefi ning the scope of the nation’s clean water law to limit the wetlands it covers, building on a Supreme Court decision two years ago. The new rule will ensure


that federal jurisdiction is focused on permanent, standing, or continuously fl owing bodies of water, such as streams, oceans, rivers, and lakes, along with


wetlands that are directly connected to such bodies of water, the EPA said. The proposal is among


dozens of environmental regulations being rolled back by the Trump administration as part of what Lee Zeldin, EPA administrator, says is a concerted eff ort to accelerate economic prosperity while putting “a dagger through the heart of climate change religion.” Zeldin said the new rule


will fully implement a 2023 Supreme Court ruling that sharply limited the federal government’s authority to police water pollution and boosted property rights in a ruling in favor of an Idaho couple who sought to build a house near a lake.


Briefly Noted


AP PHOTO/THE ITEM/KEITH GEDAMKE


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