--:-- [Upbeat music fades out, and the host, Georgia Howe, speaks]
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--:-- [Music transitions to a more serious tone]
--:-- Georgia Howe: This episode is brought to you by Balance of Nature. Go to balanceofnature.com and use promo code WIRE for 35% off your first order as a preferred customer, plus get a free bottle of fiber and spice. That's balanceofnature.com, promo code WIRE.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley. It's Monday, December 30th, and this is your Morning Wire afternoon update.
--:-- John Bickley: President Biden announced today that he's now offering another $2.5 billion in defense assistance to Ukraine. In a statement Monday, the outgoing president said, quote, At my direction, the United States will continue to work relentlessly to strengthen Ukraine's position in this war over the remainder of my time in office.
--:-- John Bickley: The new military aid will include a $1.25 billion drawdown package for Ukraine's military, as well as another billion authorization through the Defense Department Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative. The billions in additional aid come as the Biden administration scrambles to direct as much money as it can to Ukraine before Trump takes office.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis has suffered yet another legal blow. A superior court ruled that Georgia lawmakers can subpoena her for information related to her Donald Trump election case.
--:-- John Bickley: Lawmakers are looking into whether Willis engaged in misconduct during her prosecution of the president-elect. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Shakira Ingram has given Willis until January 13th to file a list of claimed privileges and objections. But Willis' team plans to appeal the decision, calling it wrong.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Willis was recently removed from the case by an appeals court, which cited the appearance of impropriety amid a scandal with one of her prosecutors. Trump has blasted her case as a disgrace to justice.
--:-- John Bickley: Homelessness in the U.S. skyrocketed in 2024, jumping 18%. Daily Wire reporter Tim Pierce has the numbers. Most of the rise was driven by a lack of affordable housing, natural disasters, and an influx of immigrants.
--:-- Georgia Howe: A January count by the Department of Housing and Urban Development found over 770,000 people homeless, a number that is almost certainly an undercount. The sharp 18% increase followed a 12% increase the previous year.
--:-- John Bickley: The HUD report also points out a concerning trend of family homelessness, which surged nearly 40 percent due to the arrival of migrant families. New York and Chicago saw these numbers double due to migrant arrivals. Los Angeles reported a small decrease of 5 in people living on the streets.
--:-- Georgia Howe: This could be due to a Supreme Court ruling that says outdoor sleeping bans can be enforced by local authorities. Homelessness among the veteran community continued its downward trend, dropping 8% this year.
--:-- John Bickley: Trump's threats about taking aggressive military action against drug cartels in Mexico appear to already be yielding results. Mexico's new left-wing President Claudia Scheinbaum has started to take action against the powerful Sinaloa cartel.
--:-- Georgia Howe: According to the Wall Street Journal, Mexican law enforcement has made record seizures of fentanyl from the cartel, and Scheinbaum has sent her security minister to Sinaloa to, quote, oversee the efforts to take back control of a state where organized crime dominates.
--:-- John Bickley: The country is also now setting up an elite unit of security officers who will be vetted and trained by the U.S. for operations against the cartels.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The man accused of burning a woman to death in the New York subway has been indicted by a grand jury. Daily Wire senior editor Ash Short reports.
--:-- Ash Short: A grand jury has indicted 33-year-old Sebastian Zepeda for the unprovoked attack and murder of a woman in a subway car. Prosecutors say Zepeda, who is an illegal immigrant, lit the victim's clothing on fire, causing her death.
--:-- Georgia Howe: The indictment will be unsealed on January 7th and Zepeda faces life in prison if convicted. Officials say Zepeda was deported in 2018 but reentered the U illegally and had been staying in New York City migrant shelters.
--:-- John Bickley: President Biden is telling people he would have beaten Trump in the election and that he wanted his attorney general to go after Trump even harder. That's according to a report by The Washington Post.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Daily Wire deputy managing editor Tim Rice has more. According to The Post, Biden and some of his aides still believe he should have stayed in the race despite the rocky debate performance and low poll numbers that prompted Democrats to pressure him to drop out.
--:-- Tim Rice: The president's polling had cratered and he was trailing Trump in nearly every battleground state when he was effectively forced out. The Post reports that Biden also says he should have picked someone other than Merrick Garland as attorney general, complaining about the Justice Department's slowness in prosecuting Trump and its aggressiveness in prosecuting his son, Hunter.
--:-- Georgia Howe: And Norwegian chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen withdrew from the World Rapid and Blitz chess championships in New York after being fined $200 for wearing jeans, a violation of the tournament's dress code.
--:-- John Bickley: When officials requested he change attire, Carlson refused and was barred from the next round. He then chose to quit the event, saying, at that point, it became a bit of a matter of principle for me. I'm too old at this point to care too much.
--:-- Georgia Howe: All right, those are your drive home updates this afternoon. To learn more about these stories, go to dailywire.com. And for more in-depth reporting on the biggest stories of the day, tune in to our full episode of Morning Wire every morning. Bye.
