Alleged Brown University Shooter Dies of Self-Inflicted Gunshot Wound

This is News Radio 740, KTRH, Houston, and I Heart Radio Station, guaranteed human. Now, the latest news, weather, and traffic. It's more of what matters to you from the John Moore Services Studios. Well, good morning, 5 a.m. is our time here in Houston's morning news. I'm Jimmy Amy Coney Barrett. Among our top stories this half hour, the alleged shooter, the brown shooter, has died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A Wisconsin judge found guilty of a felony for helping an illegal evade ice. And coming up at 508, okay, how do you feel about egg nod? Details in the minutes ahead. First, we're checking out that morning drive for the first time. Gary Mack is in for sky mic today. Yeah, good morning. Right now working just one accident, which turned into a vehicle fire, that being down around Lamarck, 45 Gulf Freeway southbound at FM 1764, has all frontage road lanes closed, including the main lane connector. And I'll have a preview of our weekend road work coming up in the next few. I'm Gary Mack, the generator supercenter.com traffic center. From our KTRH, top tax defenders 24-hour weather center, lots of sunshine today, back to cool temperatures, though, 65. Then we're back up to about 80 tomorrow. We'll get Terry Smith in here. With a complete weekend forecast, now look ahead to the Christmas week. I will talk to her in nine minutes. Current temperature is 46 at your official severe weather station, News Radio 740, KTRH. It's time now for the news. Here's Cliff Saunders. Good morning. It's 501 on KTRH. Our top story. Claudio Nevis Valenti. Date of birth. And he was a 48-year-old man. Providence police chief Oscar Perez identifying a Portuguese national, now dead by suicide that they believe was responsible for the deadly Brown University shooting last Saturday and the murder of an MIT professor earlier this week. They believe he acted alone. Brown University says he was enrolled at Brown from the fall of 2000 to spring 2001 and that he was admitted to Brown's graduate school to study in the doctoral physics program. Nevis Valenti was from Portugal but a legal permanent resident of the U.S. His last address was in Miami, Florida. That's Fox's CB Cotton reporting. The news comes nearly a week after the first shooting. Former FBI Special Agent Stuart Kaplan says he's got a lot of problems. problems with the investigation. There were certain mistakes that were made early on right after the shooting that, quite frankly, had a cascading effect that probably hindered the progression. Remember, police detained a person of interest on Sunday and had to let him go. In Wisconsin, a jury has found Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Mike Duggan guilty of obstructing federal immigration agents during an attempt to serve a warrant at her courthouse earlier this year. This was necessary to hold Judge Dugan accountable in our assessment because of the action she took.

Prosecutor Brad Schimmel, jurors deliberated for six hours. Mike Duggan is no longer eligible to hold public office under Wisconsin law. After four years of Joe Biden's open borders, new polling shows more Republicans want even legal immigration slowed down or paused completely. Rampant and destructive illegal immigration combined with weaponized legal immigration has soured the American public against all immigration. William Gainwood Alleypac says that hyper-immigration has displaced American workers, led to higher prices, lower rages, and Americans are just fed up. 503, Congress takes off from D.C. for Christmas break without a deal on health care, and President Trump knows why the Dems want to keep Obamacare alive. Insurance companies own the Democrat Party. They own it. And the Democrats having a hard time. They give a lot of money to the Democrats, very little money to Republicans. Trump at the Oval Office. In the meantime, I think the dam is breaking. That's Marjorie Taylor Greene claiming on CNN this week that Trump is losing control of the Republican Party. pointing to the 13 Republicans that voted to overturn Trump's executive orders, enabling him to fire federal workers. Political consultant Luke Macias says these 13 are some of the most moderate Republicans in the party. These are Republicans who are comfortable voting with Democrats to undermine a Republican agenda. Macias says this is typical pushback from those circles. I don't see that as a damn breaking. I see that as part of what Republicans have always struggled with. I'm Erica. Smith. News Radio 740, KTRH. As for the Dems, the leader of the squad is talking even more trash these days. Now she's got her eye on Vice President JD Vance. Do you think that you'll beat that you could beat JD Vance in a head-to-head race for president, as polling suggests in 2028? Listen, these polls like three years out are, you know, they are what they are. But let the record show. I would stop it. I would stop him. Yep, that's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Texas Democrats have managed to recruit a candidate for every state and federal race on the ballot coming up next year. By having candidates running up and down the ballot, they're hoping to get more voters out, they're hoping to get more Democrat engagement, and they're hoping to see some gains. Gaines political science professor, Dr. Jackie Bally, says, but this isn't likely to result in any kind of blue wave in Texas, and it might actually just bolster Republican incumbents. President Trump signed in order to reclassify marijuana yesterday. The THC industry survived a proposed state ban on their products, but federal restrictions are now going into place. Federal limits on products containing THC take effect next year. And while some are fighting it, backers of the ban say newly released research proves that cannabis has no medical benefits. We do not want.

THC sold in retail stores across Texas because the harms outweigh the benefits. Aubrey Adams heads the group Citizens for Safe and Healthy Texas. She says this research published in the medical journal JAMA shows there is little to no evidence that marijuana effectively treats pain, anxiety, or sleep problems. KTRH's Rex notes there. 506, the rockets come up short in New Orleans, 133 to 128. They've lost three of four. They visit Denver tomorrow night. The Houston Tech. Texans look to win their seventh straight, hosting the Raiders on Sunday. I think, you know, we've gotten better in all phases. You know, we got better in as an offense, and I think, you know, our defense is still playing great. Quarterback, C.J. Stroud, their kickoff at 325. I'm Cliff Saunders right here on Houston's News, Weather and Traffic Station. News Radio 740, KTRH. World events, national headlines. Houston's Morning News with Jimmy Amy Coney Barrett. All right. It's time to talk about eggnog. He's getting close to Christmas. Time to get serious here. Eggnog, it is a love or hated kind of item. Very few of us feel ambivalent about eggnog. I love a really cold glass of eggnog. I don't like it. I don't like it's when it's been sitting out for a while. It starts to get warm. No, don't care for that. Don't like it with alcohol in it either. Don't like it spiked. Just prefer it. I prefer it the way it is. but there's good eggnog and there's not good eggnog. Most of the store-bought egg-k-k-k-nog is not that good. I'll tell you that right now. If you've never tried egg-k-k-nog and you decide, okay, I'm going to try egg-kog to see if I like it or don't like it. I would steer you away from most store-bought. Eggnog. Most of it is not that good. Certainly don't get anything that is made low fat. Eggnog was not meant to be consumed low fat. Anything along those lines. Eggnog is kind of like the cranberry sauce of drinks. It's a love-a-hate relationship. Instacar looked at the sales data from last year's Christmas holiday, put on a map the states that love their eggnog and the states that hate it. The state that supposedly loves eggnog the most is New Hampshire. Vermont is second. Followed by Alaska, Maine. I'm sensing a trend here. Oregon, Wyoming, Utah, Washington State, Wisconsin, and New Mexico. With the obvious exception of New Mexico, these are all very cold weather states for the most part. The state that can't stand, eggnog the most, Florida. Is it because of the heat? Does Eggnock not go with the heat? The rest of the 10 states that don't like eggnog as much are New Jersey, Michigan, Oklahoma, Texas, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Louisiana, and California. So we made the list of people who don't really like eggnog. Other items that surge in popularity during the holidays are rich red meats like prime rib, tenderloin roast, fruitcake, gingerbread cookies, and ed acids. It's not really a food, is it? It's to counteract the food. So it might be a good topic for today. This is our last show before Christmas. So why do we weigh in? Foods that you love at Christmas time and foods that traditionally get served at Christmas time that you hate. You can pick either and more both. You go to the iHeart radio app, KTRH, hit the talkback button, first name we're calling from, the Christmas foods you hate or love the most.

510 right now, time for traffic and weathered together. Under the weather is Sky Mike. Gary Mac is in for him. Yeah, never a fan of eggnog, just me. Planning here this weekend, if you'll be down around Fort Bend County, again, similar to last. 69th to Southwest Freeway in both directions will be roadwork from University Boulevard to around 99 at the Grand Parkway cranks up to 98. I see this one says nightly, so we'll see. Scheduled till Monday morning. Last weekend was around the clock. Still working the vehicle fire. That being 45 Gold Freeway Southbound at 1764, down on the frontage road with all lanes blocked on Gary Mac and the ability, tree experts, traffic center. From our KTRH, top tax defenders, 24-hour weather center, Terry Smith is here. We got your care package, Terry. Your Christmas cookies have arrived. Yay! They look delicious. I haven't tried one yet. I'm watching my weight. Well, for the last five years, I've been watching my weight grow. Now I'm trying to watch my weight come off a little bit more. I hear you. I hear you. But they look very tempting. I may have to try one. Well, if you do try one. Oh, yes. You have a recommendation? Well, it just depends on what you like. So they're the almond snowballs that are covered in. powdered sugar then there's the salted caramel peanut butter shortbreads those that's uh yeah that might be your thing or if you like chocolate those hazelnut cookies the chocolate hazelnut cookies are really really really bad oh man they all sound really really good maybe i'll just have a bite uh well i hope you do and let me know which one you try and i hate this guy mike's not here to sample all these goodies with you guys But hopefully he'll be feeling better soon. Well, whatever your plants are this weekend, it's looking really good to get outside. We do have a little bit of rain early next week, but really it shouldn't be too problematic. No rain today. In fact, you're probably noticing it's slightly cooler out there. drier air as well. Really nice day, like really December day. Load of it 60s today for hives. But then we warm back up tomorrow with southerly winds and sunshine close to 80 tomorrow. We'll be close to 80 Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. There'll be places a little bit in the low 80s. Sunday, we have a 20% chance of a shower. Monday or 30% chance of some rain, so not a lot of rain, and then it's back to dry weather Tuesday. Right now, 45 and your official severe weather station, news radio 740, KTRH. Well, like I said, last show before Christmas, so we're going to try to throw a little bit of festiveness into this, but we do have some news to pass along. Big story from yesterday, obviously we need to get to that, is the Manhunt is over for the Brown shooter. Yesterday, they identified who it was.

They started looking for him. They eventually found him. He died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a storage unit. Yeah, they found him in a storage unit. We'll have more in that story coming up next. But first, let's do a little traffic and weather together. As we check out the drive once again, here's Gary Mack. Yeah, it's early. It's Friday, normally lighter than usual. We'll see. I'm seeing we're moving well, 45 North Freeway Southbound between, let's do from League Line to the North Loop, a half hour, 17 for both 45 Gold Freeway Northbound Bay Area Boulevard into downtown, as well as 290 eastbound. Mischie to the West Loop. I'm Gary Mack in the Generator, Supercenter.com, traffic center. From our KTRH, top tax defenders, 24-hour weather center, sunny about 65 today, partly cloudy near 84 tomorrow. cloudy early on Sunday, then partly cloudy with a high temperature of 78. Current temperature is 45 right now at your official severe weather station. News Radio 740 KTRH. It's a Friday morning as we get ready for the holiday week. Let's check in with Cliff. Sponsored by DNM Auto leasing. A Texas church decides to go woke for Christmas. We will explain anti-Semitism in Katie. A Hanukkah display outside of a pizza shop is vandalized. while a Christmas display is left untouched. And the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center renamed after the president, the Trump Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center. At the latest news anytime at KTRH.com, our next update is at 530. He wasn't kidding about that. How about that? Nope. I live in southeast Houston. Your forecast is at the bottom of the hour on 740 KTRH. They got him. They got a manhunt is over. By the way, if you want to, if you want to look at somebody seething, just seething during a press conference, look at the, look at the Providence, Rhode Island police chief. He's just seething in that thing. He's, he is so pissed off about all the criticism about how long things took and how they didn't know what they were doing. Yeah, they're, they're not real happy. with the coverage that they got on this whole thing. Hey, listen, they thought they were being transparent. They thought they were being up front. Anyway, they had the big press conference yesterday. We found out exactly who it was and how it happened. Here's the report from... WBZ in Boston. He was found dead from her parent's self-inflicted gunshot wound in a storage facility in New Hampshire. So what do we know about this suspect? Investigators are saying he is a 48-year-old Portuguese national who spent one year at Brown pursuing his PhD in physics between 2000 and 2001. Brown University's president saying that he would have been very familiar with the Barris and Holly physics and engineering building where the shooting took place, but that she couldn't track him to a specific classroom. We're also told that he went to the same university in Portugal with the slain MIT professor Nuno Loerro. So what cracked this case wide open? Rhode Island's attorney general says it was information from a very helpful witness. Remember that individual who was in close proximity of Valente in the surveillance images we saw? This person's image was released yesterday.

Investigators say that person immediately came forward after seeing themselves on television and gave a description of a car and a license plate, which they were able to track via flock cameras. Those are license plate reading cameras, which led them to the car rental facility in Massachusetts where investigators say he signed the rental car agreement under his own name. Here are investigators tonight. It was actually a video. that provided us with a description of a vehicle. Talk back with her or no? That was corroborated to a tip that was received to the tip center. That room was packed with detectives, agents, receiving calls on a daily basis. We started early and left late. Then Flak and the LPR was able to provide us. with this description of this vehicle. A vehicle was picked up by flock, which led us to a car rental place in Massachusetts. Through that, the agents and their work as well were able to get us footage of this individual, as well as a copy of the agreement, which provided his real name. Now, the shooter's dead, so trying to piece together. motive in this maybe a little bit more difficult. I actually heard one theory that maybe it was just professional jealousy. You know, this guy was in and out of Brown in a New York minute. He obviously had those types of physics and engineering background and maybe he was jealous of the MIT professor he killed. That was the thing that also got added yesterday. This murder of this MIT professor turns out that they were acquaintances. They had known each other. The man was highly successful, brilliant, the man that was murdered. Who knows? Short of some sort of a manifesto being left behind, we may never know the actual reason why he did, but he did. 526, it is time to take a look at your money. Hey, good morning, TikTok, being bought by a group of buyers led by Oracle. Fight Dance, the parent of the video sharing sensation, signed agreements to create a U.S. joint venture. The joint venture will operate as an independent entity that will control data protection, content moderation, and algorithm security. I'm John Tucker Carlson Bloomberg Business on News Radio 740, KTRH.

Houston's news weather traffic plus breaking news 24 7 this is news radio 740 KTRH live everywhere with the IRRF more of what's happening now from the John Moore services studios well again good morning 530 is our time this is Houston's morning news I'm Jimmy Amy Coney Barrett among our top stories this F are a woke Dallas church and their political nativity scene Day two of Turning Points America Fest. And coming up at 538, stripping for a good cause. Details in the minutes ahead. First, we're checking at that morning drive once again. Here's in for Sky Mike. Gary Mack. Yeah, good morning. Nothing new to report as far as the vehicle fire is concerned down around Galveston County, Lamarck. I-45, this is southbound, down on the frontage road at FM 1764. This includes the connector ramp. Both are closed. All in green otherwise around town currently. Heads up, road work. Yes, this weekend. 99 Grand Parkway both waits 8 p tonight till 7 a.m. tomorrow morning, so not terrible. Rocky Road to Champion Forest is a total closure. And I'm Gary Mack and the Ability Tree Experts Traffic Center. From our KTRH generator's super center, 24-hour weather center sunshine today with a high temperature right about 65, then we're back into the really warm stuff starting tomorrow. More on that when we talk to Terry Smith at the Weather Channel. Let's do that in nine minutes. Current temperature is 45 at your official severe weather station. News Radio 740, KTRH. It's time now for the news. Here's Cliff Saunders. Good morning, everyone. 531 on KTRH. Our top story, The Reason for the Season. While many of you want to put Christ back in Christmas, there's a church in Dallas, a Methodist church, injecting a huge dose of wokeness. Right in front of their rainbow steps is a nativity scene with Joseph, Mary, and Jesus in a barbed wire cage. That's sad to see the so-called church giving an inaccurate representation of what actually happened in the Bible and a cheap way to score political points. That is Jonathan Sines, president of Texas Values. The folks are incredibly desperate because the public does not agree with them overwhelmingly. People of faith overwhelmingly do not agree with their position. Sines also called the church out for keeping their doors locked. Jeff Iggs News Radio 740. K-tier H. Meantime, Turning Point USA's America Fest conference continues in Phoenix today. The group has seen major growth since the assassination of Charlie Kirk. 140,000 plus get involved requests have been submitted since 9-10. Erika Kirk speaking to the crowd yesterday. The conference runs through the weekend. It's expected to draw more than 30,000 attendees. Police in Providence, Rhode Island, say the man responsible for the Brown University shooting that killed two people and the murder of an MIT professor killed himself in a storage shed in New Hampshire. This man is identified as Claudio Manuel Nevis Valenti, a former student at Brown who was also tied to that professor.

It is believed that in Lisbon that those two individuals attended the same university in Portugal. The FBI's Ted Docs, Reyes Valenti, is from Portugal and had been a permanent legal resident here since 2017. 533 now there is a deal to sell TikTok to American investors, signed, sealed, and delivered. TikTok's Chinese parent bite dance has signed an agreement to sell its U.S. entity to a joint venture controlled by three American investors, Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX, to make sure that the widely popular social video platform can continue operating in the United States. That is Fox's Hillary Barski. More good news for the economy. November inflation numbers come in way lower than expectations. 2.7% year over year opposed to 3.1%. The administration is encouraged. We're cutting energy prices. We're cutting interest rates, right? These things are coming down. And I think what you're going to see next year is an extraordinary year. Energy prices down, interest prices down, and earnings up, up. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, future trading is mixed overnight. The president is already teasing more interest rate cuts in the new year. I'll soon announce our next chairman of the Federal Reserve, someone who believes in lower interest rates by a lot. President Trump's new Fed chair is expected to bring his cutting shears, but financial planner Richard Rosso says we should wait and see the full effect of Trump's economic policies first. Small business spending, people getting refund checks, higher standard deductions, more money in tax pay, pockets. By the way, these are all really good things, but sometimes really good things, heat up inflation. White House Chief Economic Advisor Kevin Hassett is the favorite. be the next Fed chair, but Trump says he's interviewing multiple candidates. Corey Olson, News Radio 740, KTRH. It's 535. Oil futures are up this morning to $56.30 a barrel. Gas prices across Houston as we start the holiday travel period, check in at 242 a gallon. That's about 20 cents cheaper than you paid last. December 19th. Ford is giving up on electric cars almost a year after President Trump eliminated the electric vehicle mandate. The Climate Depot's Mark Morano says the truth is that these allegedly environment-friendly cars are not all that environment-friendly. To make one Tesla-sized thousand-pound battery you had to dig up half a million pounds of material from the earth. Morano says he hopes the president moves to permanently and all green agenda mandates. 535 Fort Bend and Spring ISDs are both closing schools due to declining enrollment. They may not be the only ones in the area to do so.

That declining enrollment is thanks to increase competition in the education industry. This is a good thing that's the feature, not a bug. It should lead leadership at the public schools to think about how they allocate their resources effectively. Corey DeAngelis with the Educational Freedom Institute says this doesn't mean public schools will die out completely. Not all public schools are doomed to fail. If they're doing a great job, the families are happy with them. If you like your public school, you can keep your public school. He says this is also a win for taxpayers who will no longer. have to subsidize failing schools. Ethan Buchanan, News Radio 740, KTRH. The final A through F report cards for Texas public schools are now available publicly. Parents groups claim that the grades are just a good reference point, but they don't give the full view of what's really happening. Families are far more likely to trust word and mouth and the community around them and their child's experience to get a fuller picture. Bob Papinsky with the group, Raise Your Hand, Texas, says the grades heavily reflect scores on one standardized test. And the college football playoffs kick off tonight. Tomorrow, the Aggies play Miami at Kyle Field kickoff at 11 o'clock. I'm Cliff Saunders right here on Houston's News Weather and Traffic Station. News Radio 740, KTRH. Just like your car. The new IHeart Radio app now has presets. Everything I listen to in one place. It's the easiest way to listen to KTRA. Download or update our free IHeart Radio app today. You know, I really hate the Sky Mic is not here today to react to this. This is his kind of story. By the way, if you haven't heard, he's homesick. He's got the walking pneumonia and the boogie-woogie flu. Anyway, we have a group of strippers in Oregon. They're in the news for their annual fundraiser. This is like hookers with a heart of gold only as strippers. The fundraiser is called, are you ready? Sorry. Tatas for toys. Tatas for toys. 15th year that they've done it. And this week they brought in a record $60,000. This is a group of strippers in Portland, Oregon. who have turned holiday cheer into serious giving, donating a jaw-dropping $183,000 in toys to Dorn Brecker Children's Hospital over the last 14 years through their annual fundraiser, Tatas for Toys. The total makes them the hospital's top toy donor. They started 15 years ago as a $500 joke with a heart and has grown into a full-blown transition. Now, I'm not sure. The story just talks about how they're raising funds for the toys for the Children's Hospital. It doesn't say how they're raising him. I don't know if they're donating the proceedings from their clients or exactly what it is that they're doing. But the promo for the event is rather fun to read. So I'm going to read that to you. Join Portland's finest North Pole dancers for an unforgettable evening of holiday cheer, beer, and rear. As you make it, reindeer, all to benefit Dornbecker Children's Hospital. Got to give him a big, A-plus for creativity on that one. 540. Time for traffic and weather together. Let's be checking again with Gary Mack.

I could only imagine. Let's take it to the 610 North Loop first off. Westbound, around airline. That's an accident. Here reminds us to right lane, a very minimal delays at this time. I am seeing slower speeds is still on the loop westbound, approaching I-45 northbound. You know the connector that bottlenecks has a stop and go from Fulton. I'm Gary Mack and the generator supercenter.com. Traffic Center. From our KTRH, Generator Supercenter 24-hour weather center. No, okay. I'm a little early, so it's not Terry's full. Sunday today with a high temperature right about 65, partly cloudy with a high near 84 tomorrow, and then Sunday clouds early, then partly cloudy with a high temperature right about 78. Terry's just popped in the door there. So I did the forecast through Sunday, so let's find out about Christmas week, Terry. What are you thinking for Christmas week? This is insane, these temperatures. So high pressure. is taking over our weather starting tomorrow. And so we've got high pressure keeping us dry and southerly winds. And the temperatures just keep going up. So I don't know if you mention that slight chance of rain Sunday. I'll make mention of it quickly. And perhaps a few showers, I should say Sunday, that slight chance of rain and then Monday a few showers. But I think after that we're dry. And we're looking at temperatures, upper 70s to low 80s to start off the week. And I don't see that really changing. Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. And the nighttime temperature is probably in the 60s. So it's not going to feel like Christmas. Maybe, oh, early next week, like around December 29, 30th, 31st. We may get a little bit of a cool down, but it's still going to be quite mild. Really, it looks like for the rest of the year. How's that for a forecast? Well, we got told, right, that it was going to be a Lanina winter. They were going to have a warmer than normal winter. And it's showing up. Exactly. Exactly, as predicted. Current temperature is, let me hand down it. There it is, 44, and your official, severe weather station, News Radio 740KTRH. Well, again, it's our last show before Christmas. We have a question of the day. I'd love to have you participate in this. And we may add to the question here at 608 because I have another thing I wanted to ask you about, but we're starting off with eggnog today. Eggnog, the cranberry sauce of December. You either love it or you hate it. I don't know anybody who feels ambivalent about it. So your feelings on eggnog, number one. But even more than that, there is something that gets served, I'm sure, on the holiday menu at Christmas time that you really look forward to and you really love it. And there's something that maybe you grew up with as a kid that your mom always served, that you just didn't like it. and everybody else did, and you couldn't figure out, well, why don't I like this? Everybody else likes this. This is horrible. I hate this. So the worst and the best Christmas food, as far as you're concerned, you know, it could be as simple as Christmas cookies. You know, Terry Smith gave us some Christmas cookies. If she sent us some little care package of Christmas cookies, we'll save you some, Mike.

for when you feel better. Again, you go to the Icar Radio app, KTRH, and give us your thoughts there. Hey, speaking of Christmas, you remember the Seinfeld episode with Festivus, Festivus for the rest of us. Senator Rand Paul does a Festivist list every year. Kind of his big government waste items, things that we waste money on that he would like to see eliminated. Well, you know, we celebrate Festivus, is where you air your grievances. I've got a lot of problem with these big spenders up here. And so we point out some of the craziness. Two million dollars spent on teaching people to eat bugs, a million dollars teaching ferrets to binge drink alcohol, a quarter of a million spent on teaching Pakistani kids about climate change. I mean, the ridiculousness of these things that on the face value of it, people would say, I got a lot of problems with that. Most Americans would say, why? Why? Why are we still doing this? A lot of it comes to the National Science Foundation. I think you could eliminate the National Science Foundation, and you would know no detriment to that. We spend billions through the NIH. There's no real reason to have the National Science Foundation, and most of the really crazy, dumb... having fish drink gin and tequila and ask which makes them more aggressive gin or tequila i mean everybody knows it's got to be tequila right i mean that's just crazy i knew you were going to say that i know but i don't but i don't think that we really you know need those kind of studies most of them there are crazy behavioral studies you know japanese quail on cocaine i mean there's just dumb stuff that the average ordinary american will go well that's insane i'm struggling to put food on my plate and the government spending money, you know, giving drugs to different animals. Yeah, the voice is a ton, and every year he comes up with this list. And he'll have a list every year because government just doesn't get rid of it. All right, time. We'll get, by the way, to our guest here in just a moment. Corey DeAngelis, Educational Freedom Institute about declining public school enrollment. But first, let's do traffic and weather together, starting with you, Gary Mack. And just like that, I jinxed us. We're seeing pretty sizable delays down to 16 North Loop accident westbound, because that's an airline, by the way. It's gone from blocking a right lane to at least a couple of them, and we're bumper-to-bumper from nearly the hardy toll road. I give that around 10 to 15 minutes extra if you'll be stepping out the door anytime soon. I'm Gary Mack. The ability, three experts, traffic center. From our KTRH generator super center, 24-hour weather, and lots of sunshine today, 65. cooler than yesterday. Part of the cloudy near 80 tomorrow. Sunday, clouds early, maybe a rain shower with a part of the cloudy sky later in the day, 78 for the high temperature on Sunday. Right now, 44 and your officials, severe weather station, News Radio 740, KTRH. We're checking out some more of our top stories on a Friday morning. Here's Cliff. Thank you, Jimmy. The accused Brown University shooter is found dead by suicide. President Trump says he doesn't need approval from Congress to launch strikes on Venezuela. And Texas DPS, this is a follow-up from something we did last week, is now investigating the flock safety camera company for operating without a license. Get the latest news anytime at KTRH.com. Our next update is at 6 o'clock.

2025 a year that we'll go down. Come 2026. The president's set the table. Come to us. Use Radio 740, KTRH. Right, well, you may be true to your school, but declining enrollment has more and more school shutting down here. Experts believe declining public school enrollment could cause more districts to close campuses. Certainly locally, we have seen not so much. campus closures, as much as we have seen school systems go from a five-day-a-week classroom to four days a week, looking for ways to cut cost. Corey DeAngelis joins us. Educational Freedom Institute, seems how I brought that up. Let's tackle that one first, Corey. Do we have any data that tells us whether or not a four-day or a five-day school week makes a big difference in the education of a child? It doesn't make much of a big difference because they're not really teaching kids much to begin with. So when you take a day away, they're not really losing as much. But you are losing some of what you're paying for. You're losing the time that the kid spends at the school, so whether it's extracurricular activities or otherwise. But the big problem here is that the property taxpayers and the parents don't get 20% of the money back. If you're only getting, you know, four days of services as opposed to five days of services, you would think you'd reduce some cost and some of that money would go back into your pocket. But it doesn't. And this has been tried in so many places across the country and it hasn't really, you know, improved academic outcomes or anything. So, you know, when schools... ultimately closed because of so much enrollment being reduced, you know, that's a, that's a feature, I would say, not a bug, especially when you have something like school choice that just passed in Texas. You know, I've said many times before that when underperforming private schools do a bad job, they shut down. And that's how markets work in every industry. But when government schools do a bad job, they typically lobby the government and say, well, we need to get more money because we're failing. If you give us more next time, we'll do a better job. And that never actually works because it's throwing good money after bad. It's basically lighting it on fire. And the parents get the short end of the stick when you don't have choice. And taxpayers basically can never own their homes because all of their property tax money is going to fund school system. And we don't want to get in Texas to be like places like Chicago where they're just a total dumpster fire. They've had schools get to like 3% of their expected enrollment. So basically empty schools. And they'll continue funding them for years and years. Like, why are we funding these empty buildings? Well, it's because the school system is a political apparatus that just employs adults. It's become a jobs program for adults as opposed to an education initiative for kids. And so it gets so wacky when you don't have market pressures.

where they keep these schools open even though they're not serving anybody. I wanted to quickly ask you before we run out of time here, the thing, the big beef I've always had with the public school system is we are basically working the same business model we've had since the 1880s. Nothing has really changed in how the public school systems are run. So at what point do we finally fail enough where people finally decide it's okay to blow up the system and start over again and try something different? Yeah, I think we've already gotten there. I mean, look what happened with COVID, where it just got so bad that some of the schools they were refusing to open their doors. It wasn't as big of a problem in Texas because we had better leadership at the state level to tell them, oh, maybe you should provide the services that people are paying for. But in states like California and New York, they were closed and families got to see what was happening in the classroom. And we've seen an undercover videos in Texas from groups like accuracy and media that the problems aren't just. you know, California and New York, you have far left ideology in Texas public schools to gender ideology, divisive concepts, Marxist concepts like critical race theory, pitting people against each other based on their immutable characteristics. And a lot of parents said, you know what? You know, I thought the schools were just supposed to be focused on math, reading, and writing. What the heck are they doing? And so they pushed for school choice. We now have universal school choice in Texas. It's rolling out next school year. And everybody should go apply for it, starting at the beginning of February. Applications will start. You can take up to about $10,000 per student. You can get scholarships to go to a private school if you don't like what's happening in the public school. And then all you have to do is find enough room in a private school to have your kid go there. Corey, thank you. Appreciate it. Cory DeAngelis, Educational Freedom Institute. It's 557.

This is News Radio 740, KTRH, Houston, and I Heart Radio Station, guaranteed human. Now, the latest news, weather, and traffic. It's more of what matters to you from the John Moore Services Studios. 6 a.m. our time here in Houston's morning news, I'm Jimmy Amy Coney Barrett. Among our top stories this half hour, remember that Wisconsin Judge, who was helping to hide an illegal alien, helping them invade dice? She's been found guilty of a felony. That alleged brown shooter died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a storage shed. And coming up at 608, as a kid, what was the worst Christmas presents you ever got? That one's easy for me, best and worst. We'll ask you a question about that coming up. First, though, let's do this. We have traffic and weather together, starting with Gary Mac. Hey, good morning. Let's first take it back to Lamarck down on the southbound I-45 front-inch road at FM 1764 is the total closure due to the vehicle fire. Transstar shows that happened around 4 this morning. This also includes the closure of the Emmett-Lowry connector. Now, on the westbound 610 North Loop before airline, that crash just cleared a few moments ago, still the laser big. Around 15 minutes, it was blocked in two right lanes. That's breaks building now almost to the east. tax freeway. I'm Gary Mack at the generator supercenter.com traffic center. From our KTRH, top tax defenders 24 hour weather center, sunny 65 for the hide today. We'll get you the complete weekend and also into the Christmas week outlook when we talked to Terry Smith at the weather channel in eight minutes. Right now 44 and your official severe weather station, news radio 740 KTRH. It's time now for the news. Here's Cliff Saunders. Good morning, everyone. It is 602 on KTRH. We're sponsored by Shoppers Farm Supply, and our top story. He was a brown student. He was a Portuguese national, and his last known address was in Miami, Florida. And I will tell you that he took his own life. Providence police chief Oscar Perez identifying Claudio Manuel Nevis Valenti as the Brown University shooter and the killer of a professor at MIT. Authorities in Rhode Island say both the MIT professor and the suspected shooter attended the same school in Portugal and both studied physics. Investigators say the professor Nuno Lerro was shot and killed on Monday night in an upscale Boston neighborhood. Fox is Jeff Paul reporting. It took police six days to solve this. They had one person of interest in custody. Had to let him go. I think it eroded the confidence in the trust in the local law enforcement. Former FBI Special Agent Stuart Kaplan on Fox. 603 new polling shows two-thirds of Republican voters support not just Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration, but major changes when it comes to how many legal immigrants are allowed into the U.S. For many years now, over 80% of our supporters favor reductions in legal immigration levels, if not full-on time out for a period of years to help us stabilize. William Gein with AliPak says that for years, the legal immigration system and H-1B visas have been abused. In Wisconsin, a jury finds Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Mike Duggan, guilty of obstructing federal immigration agents.

during an attempt to serve a warrant at her courthouse. She's no longer eligible to hold public office under the law in Wisconsin. Here at home, the Conroe judge recently arrested for DWI is even in more hot water this morning because we're finding out more about his past. According to court documents, Judge William Wagoner was disciplined for DUI in the military. That would make last week's arrest in Montgomery his fourth arrest for driving while under the influence. One was in 2014, but a judge dismissed it, citing insufficient evidence, another in 2017. Reporter J. Juan Jung with our TV partner, Channel 2. Coming up on 605, Congress goes on Christmas break. No deal done on health care. President Trump says... The Democrats have a choice to make. They're going to have to decide do they want to do the right thing or do they want to be beholden to the insurance companies. Trump at the Oval Office, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene continues her anti-Trump rants. In an interview on CNN this week, she claimed that, quote, the dam is breaking and President Trump is losing support with Republicans. Political consultant Luke Messia says moderate Republicans have sided with the Dems for a long time now. Her pointing to them as some type of new trend, I think is inaccurate. Green claims that the Indiana Republicans who voted against redistricting will also turn on Trump in the primaries, but Macias says the conservatives willing to give Dems redistricting seats will face likely consequences. The left is still in meltdown note over Trump taking shots at Joe Biden and Barack Obama. on their presidential plaques in the walk of fame at the White House. Everything is about race with him. Is it? Well, it might also be the jealousy of how well he did it for people that. Well, Obama lives rent free in his head. Yeah, Joy Behar and the rest of the leftists on the view there. Texas Democrats are celebrating the fact that they actually recruited a candidate for every state and federal race on next year's ballot. Here's your reminder. They haven't won a statewide race. Since 1994. So does this mean they'll finally get their blue wave and flip Texas purple or even blue? Their goal is boost. turnout and engagement and down-ballot races. However, it does not guarantee changing partisan control. Political science professor Dr. Jackie Bally says this might actually end up helping Republicans. Their base will feel more emboldened to block walk, get the word out, and give money when they have not had the need to do so before because there wasn't a real race. She also says Governor Greg Abbott working to flip Harris County is going to make things even harder for the Democrats. Ethan Buchanan, News Radio 740, KTRH. Federal limits on products with two.

THC take effect next year. And while some are fighting it, backers of the band say newly released research proves cannabis has no medical benefit. The study needs to be used to halt the legalization of marijuana, THC, in Texas. We don't pass policy to harm people. As expected, President Trump reclassified marijuana yesterday as a less dangerous drug. Rockets lose to New Orleans, 133-128. Texans host the Raiders Sunday at 325. I'm Cliff Saunders on Houston's News, Weather, and Traffic Station News Radio 740, KTRH. I live in heights. I live in spring. Kingwood. Next on the 10. Your faster commute. On 740 KTRH. Six only at our time here in Houston's morning news. That brings me to the worst Christmas prison I ever got. Christmas pajamas. And back when I'm a kid, it wasn't, they weren't. pajamas that were, you know, had a Christmas message or a Christmas theme to them. They were just pajamas. And we, as kids, we were allowed to open one present on Christmas Eve. The problem was, is that the present was always picked by the parents and the present was always Christmas pajamas. And finally it's like, oh, that's okay. We don't need to open a present tonight. No, go ahead and open a present. Christmas pajamas. Best Christmas present? Oh, that's easy. One year I got a tape recorder, a reel-to-reel tape recorder that I desperately wanted because I was probably 12, 13 years old. and I already knew I wanted to be on the radio. I wanted to be on the radio in the worst kind of way. And, of course, the only way you could really practice is to have a tape recorder. So I got that tape recorder. I wore that sucker out. I just completely wore that thing out. All right, as far as a new poll asking people to describe the worst kind of gifts to get, here's what made the list. Number one, clothes that don't fit. You know, um, It's funny how people will look at you and assume you're a certain size. He's a medium. And then you're actually an extra large. So you end up having to take the clothes back or trade them in or whatever. That always was a pain. Cheap perfume or after shave came in next, followed by fake sports merchandise. Underwear. Yeah, I put that in the same category as pajamas. Anything that's clearly last minute. You can tell there's no creative thought put into it at all. Sox. A mug or novelty item. Candles. Household supplies. Wait a minute. Does somebody like giving you pintseall or something? Gym gear. And then gift cards and vouchers. Now, not everybody would agree with that one.

You know, there's some people that, you know, you just have to get that for them because you have, you know, that way you know, they'll go out and get something they actually want. So in addition to answering our question regarding eggnog this morning, you know, pros and cons of eggnog, favorite thing to eat for Christmas, thing that you always, somebody always tries to feed you for Christmas that you just, you hate it, you just don't care for it. By the way, we've got a couple of talkbacks on that. Jimmy, I like a good hot. piece of fruit cake with an ice cold glass of eggnog. Just make sure you put the high dollar booze in there. Yeehaw. One thing that I look forward to... For the holiday is prime rib with Yorkshire pudding. It's been a tradition in my family since I was a child, and I continue it with my children. And one thing I do not look forward to is fruitcake. Cannot stand that. That texture is just so odd. Yeah, fruitcake is like eggnog. You either love it. Or you hate it. It's eggnog, fruitcake, and cranberry sauce. 610. Time for traffic and weathered together, so we check it again with Gary Mack. 69th Eastex Freeway Southbound up around Bush. Wilk-Layton Parkway to the Gulf Freeway. That's running 18 minutes. You'll first encounter a few breaks first at I-10. Also 12 minutes on 69 to Southwest Freeway northbound. Williams Trace up to the 610 West Loop. Also a reminder nearby road work this weekend, starting tonight at 8. Both directions. University Boulevard to 99 Grand Parkway. Several lanes will be closed till Monday morning. I'm Gary Mack and the Ability Tree Experts Traffic Center. From our KTRH, Top Tax Defenders 24-hour Weather Center, Terry Smith joins us. She sent cookies. Yeah. Marco said, you said, oh, tell him if he's just going to try one cookie. Yes. Try the chocolate cookie. That's right. And that little voice on my shoulder starts saying, try this chocolate cookie. The chocolate cookie is probably very nice. Try it. And so I tried it. It is delicious. I gave the rest of Margo, though. I only took one bite. Well, good for you. Yeah. Try and show that willpower. Wow. I'm impressed. I am really impressed. Delicious, though. Well, good. I'm glad. I'm glad you liked it. That's my husband's favorite cookie. And he's like an addict when I make those. He's like a crack addict. Why are those cookies? It's hilarious. So it has a little bit of Nutella in it. That's kind of like the secret ingredient, not so secret, obviously. And, yeah, he just cannot resist the Nutella. I can appreciate that.

Well, I'm just, Bob, Skybike's not there. He's going to miss out. We're going to save him a couple cookies. Okay, good, good, good. And hopefully he'll have his taste butts back by the time he drives him. All right, folks, listen, whatever your holiday plans are, the good thing is the rain's not going to be an issue. We do have a little bit of wet weather Sunday and Monday, but that is it for rain. The main thing is it's just not going to feel like Christmas. Now, today feels like December. I do have to give you that. It's a little bit cooler. Load a mid-60s today. Very nice day overall. But then the southerly winds start to kick in later on today. And so it's warm over the weekend into... Most of next week. I don't see any cooling trend next week. So tomorrow close to 80. Sunday and Monday we're close to 80. We have a 20 or 30% chance of rain Sunday and Monday. Tuesday's dry. And yes, the temperatures Tuesday are still close to 80. Temperature right now, 43. Here at your official, Severe Weather Station, News Radio 740KTRH. Last show before Christmas. 620, our time here in Houston's morning news. Again, we have a question today. You can comment on eggnog or favorite, least favorite food for Christmas. You could also comment on best or worst present you ever got as a kid. Make it as a kid, not as an adult, as a kid. Go to the IHart Radio app, KTRH, hit the talkback button up to 30 seconds. First name where you're calling from and comment on any of those things as we get ready for Christmas. Time for traffic and weather together. We're checking out the drive again with Gary Mack. Clockwise, because business has picked up on the 610 North Loop Westbound, an airline. That accident, gone delays getting back to normal. Not there yet. Give that a few extra. 45 North Freeway Southbound at Little York. Originally an accident now calling it a stall in two right lanes back up from Gulf Bank, adding on 10. Let's take it to Lamarck. No change there. The closure of the southbound I-45 Frontage Road at 2-Dove. No, at FM 1764 is that vehicle fire in West Sam, North. down at the Briar Forest Toll Plaza, a fender bender bender has just cleared. I'm Gary Mack, the generator, supercenter.com traffic center. From our KTRH, top tax defenders, 24-hour weather center, sunny cooler today, says Terry, 65. Looks like about 80 tomorrow was sunshine and warm again, and then partly cloudy early with a slight shower chance, a 20% chance on Sunday with a high temperature right about 78. Current temperature is, let's see here, last time I checked it was down. Nope, it's still the same. 43 at your official severe weather station, News Radio 740KTRH. Cliff is back, and he has an update on some of our top Friday morning stories. Sponsored by Cars for Kids. Today is the deadline for the federal government to release the Epstein files. A federal grand jury in Houston unseals a six-count indictment against top leaders of Trendy Aragua. And tomorrow's Powerball Jackpot, I'm playing Jimmy Won't because he's, you know, a lottery snob, $1.5 billion. Get the latest news anytime at KTRH.com. Our next.

Not even exciting anymore. It's pocket change for you. The next update is at $6.30. Toll wrote it or save a few bucks. Your cheaper commute coming up every 10 minutes on the tens. 623 our time here in Houston's Morning. Yeah, throw a little bit of politics in today, even though we're kind of in the Christmas mood here this morning. Texas Democrats have done something kind of unique for the first time in Texas history, as far as we know. They have filled every state and federal race on the 2026 ballot. Every single one. That's a first for either party. Dr. Jackie Bally is a political science professor here in Houston. She joins us to talk about. I don't remember I was putting the doctor before you worked really hard to get that doctorate. Congratulations. I did. Thank you. I appreciate you as always. And you even went to Southern California to do it. Can you believe? I was concerned at the time that you might get brain damaged. Something might happen to you along the way, but that will never happen. No, you're a strong woman and you're proving it constantly. Okay. But this is kind of unique, I guess. And it makes sense. It's always amazing to me how many unopposed races that we have, especially here in Houston. A lot of the judges' races in years past, these judges have been running unopposed and we keep getting the same people doing the same things over and over again. And it's easy to see why. Yeah. Well, you know, two things are happening at the same time. The Democrats are deciding we're going to make sure that every single race. from top to bottom is filled. And then, of course, we know that the governor just had his announcement and he said, I'm pouring $25 million into the county to make sure that Harris County becomes deep red. So you have both parties that have decided they're going to get their base engaged and they're going to make sure up and down the ballot get voters out based on their both different causes and to make sure that each party is competitive, each race is competitive. Well, as long as the governor pointed that out, let me say this. Is there enough money on the planet to turn Harris County deeper? And it takes more than just money in order to be able to make that happen. What Governor Greg Abbott is planning to do is he's going to have field workers coming in. He's going to have strategists coming in. He's going to have grassroots applied. He's looking at the infighting that's happening with the Democratic Party, particularly you've covered it, with Lena calling out both Kim Ogg, and now she's calling out Denise Parker. And a lot of voters, independents included, are very... very leery about the crime wave that's happening, their property taxes. So he's going to be pointing and his strategies are going to be pinpointing a lot of these key policy areas and they're going to give it their all. And we've heard so many times that Republicans have not done that in Harris County because they've just assumed that the Democrats will have it. So now he said that's not going to be the case and we're going to make it competitive. Well, I'm glad to hear that. I really am. I would agree.

can't win if you don't run, right? You can't win if you don't try. Well, that's exactly right. And, you know, this is a time to strike. The governor has said that this is a time when there is infighting with on the Democrat side. And people are looking for strong leadership. People want some answers, some real answers, some key policy areas. And he has it. Well, and they want accountability. And I'd like to think that they want honesty. And that's one thing we don't have in Harris County right now is either accountability or honesty. Well, I mean, you'll look at you have several people in both Harris County and surrounding counties where you have Republican candidates in races that you haven't seen before. And so not only is he pouring his money into it, but the Republican Party feels this is the time to strike. Okay. Doctor, have a Merry Christmas. Thank you for your time this morning. Merry Christmas. Dr. Jackie Bally, political science professor here in Houston. It's 627. It's time to take a look at your money. And good morning. Thursday's gains for the S&P 500 weren't enough to make up for days of losses. That's leaving the benchmark on track for its first back-to-back weekly decline since June. I'm John Tucker Carlson Bloomberg Business on News Radio 740, KTRH.

Houston's news. Weather traffic. Plus breaking news 24-7. This is News Radio 740 KTRH. Live everywhere with the IRRF. More of what's happening now from the John Moore Services Studios. 6.30 are time. Houston's morning news. I'm Jimmy Amy Coney Barrett. Among our top stories this half hour. It's day two of Turning Points America Fest. That woke United Methodist Church in Dallas and their political nativity scene. details coming in the minutes. Oh, one more thing too. We'll have some more thoughts on your favorite things for Christmas dinner coming up in the minutes ahead. First though, we're going to check out the drive. Gary Mack is in for Skymic. And we have something else stirring, not looking good on the 610 North Loop Westbound, might have another crash. This time at I-45, the back at beginning all the way from the East Hanks Freeway plan on twiddling your thumbs for 10. Very similar for that stall in two right lanes, 45 North Freeway southbound at Little York. That's bogging down from 249. 8 to 9 more minutes, I-69 southbound, starting at Lorraine to Fannon, and then also a five-minute delay through the work zone. I-10 Westbound, Greg, up to Heights Boulevard. And I'm Gary Mack and the Ability Tree Experts Traffic Center. From our KTRH generator super center, 24-hour weather center, sunny and cooler today with a high temperature of 65. We'll get to the latest. That, by the way, is going to be the coolest date between now and Christmas is today. We'll check out the entire forecast. As we get closer to the holiday, when we talk to Terry Smith at the Weather Channel. Let's do that in nine minutes. Right now, 44 at your official severe weather station. News Radio 740, KTRH. It's time now for the news. Here's Cliff Saunders. Thank you, good sir. It is 631 on KTRH, our top story. When he was assassinated, we saw infighting. We've seen fractures. We've seen bridges being burned. Erika Kirk on opening day of Turning Point USA's America Fest in Phoenix, alluding to the rift between herself and commentator Candace Owens. The two did meet this week. They said it was productive. 30,000 people and more are expected to attend the conference through Sunday. Closer to home, there's church in Dallas. Wanted it to be a woke Christmas, putting up a nativity scene with Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus. in ICE custody. Jonathan Sines with Texas value says the so-called church just wants publicity. What the scandalous church is doing is a cheap and obvious attempt to get attention. And it's working, sadly. But it's also an inaccurate depiction of what's going on now and historically. The church also has rainbow steps at the entrance along with openly gay pastors. 633. Well, it took them a week to figure it out, but officials in Providence say the man responsible for the Brown University shooting and the murder of an MIT professor took his own life in a shed in New Hampshire. Our Providence Police Department, the Rhode Island State Police, the FBI, the ATF, and many other federal partners.

The incredible prosecutorial advice and guidance that we received in the Attorney General's office. Providence Mayor Brett Smiley, acting like they didn't botch the investigation, you recall they first detained a person of interest on Sunday who turned out not to be involved at all. The shooter has been identified as Claudio Manuel Nevis Valenti. He's a former Brown student. He's from Portugal. He's been a permanent legal resident in the U.S. for eight years now. Two people were murdered on Saturday. Nine others were wounded. A Katie man fatally shot and killed himself as officers were serving a warrant yesterday. The man was wanted on various charges, did not respond to officer commands. And after they entered the home, they heard a gunshot. They breached the master bedroom window and found the suspect in bed, deceased from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. EMS arrived on scene and pronounced the suspect as deceased. Investigators say nobody else was in the House. 634, the Trump administration is moving to cut off federal support for so-called gender affirming care, targeting both hospital practices and public insurance funding. This declaration is a clear directive to providers to follow the science and the overwhelming body of evidence that these procedures hurt, not help children. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.. Under one proposed rule, CMS would bar hospitals from performing these procedures on anyone younger than 18. Russian and American negotiators meet in Miami this weekend as talks to end the war in Ukraine continue. If Russia doesn't play ball, Senate Majority Leader John Thune says there's another option. There are a couple of bills that have been hanging around up here for a while, one on Russia sanctions. It's a bill that Lindsey Graham and others have put out. It's got like 85 co-sponsors in the Senate, Democrat and Republican. The Treasury Department has already put its own sanctions on Russia into place targeting their oil companies. Looking at your money, November inflation numbers came in much lower than expected 2.7% yearly over the, or rather as opposed to the 3.1% expectation. Overnight futures are mixed this morning. The new year will bring a new Federal Reserve chair with White House Economic Advisor Kevin Hassett, one of the favorites to replace the outgoing chair, Jerome Powell. Financial planner Richard Rosses says this might, though, bring some new complications. If he's a good Fed chair, he is going to do sometimes what the president doesn't want him to do. And then we're going to see how that is going to look. Because now you're, how dare you? I put you in there and now you're not lowering rates the way I want them. So I don't know if we're in for a whole new level of drama. Trump said this week that the new Fed share will be somebody who supports lowering interest rates by, quote, a lot. Oil futures this morning are up 20 cents to 5635 a barrel as gasoline prices across Houston drop to 242 a gallon. It's 636 declining enrollment has resulted in multiple Houston area ISD is looking at closing campuses, a sign that competition and education.

It's finally having an effect. That'll allow for the market to expand in other areas. Maybe a private school will be able to expand its capacity or open another campus or maybe a public school that's knocking out of the park will get more funding from students. Corey DeAngelis with the Educational Freedom Institute. The final report card grades for Texas public schools are finally available publicly. Bob Popinski with the group, Raise Your Hand. Texas says parents need to use the grades as a jumping off point. You should be involved with what's going on in your student's classroom. You should be talking to the teacher. He adds that grades heavily reflect scores on one standardized test. College football playoffs kickoff tonight. We've got Oklahoma taking on Alabama tomorrow at 11 at Kyle Field. It's the Aggies in Miami. I'm Cliff Saunders on Houston's news weather and traffic station. News Radio 740, KTRH. Info at the speed of Houston. Right now, Houston's morning news continues with Jimmy Amy Coney Barrett and the Houston Morning News team. I'm good and hungry. Listen to this. 6.30 is our time here in Houston's morning news. All right. We're talking about the things you love or hate about Christmas dinner. There's always a dish. I was never a big fan of the jello mold. I've never cared for cranberry sauce. We had turkey at our house. We had turkey for Thanksgiving and for Christmas. I wasn't quite sure why we did that. It seemed like everybody else did a ham. or maybe a rib roast or something like that. What? Mom, how come we always had turkey? Less expensive, maybe. Could be. Anyway, love to have you weigh in. You go to the IHare Radio app, KTRH. First name, where are you calling from? We're doing a couple of different topics today. Favorite worst, what got me started on this with the whole eggnog thing, because eggnog is something you either love it or you really don't. So if you want to comment on an eggnog, you can. You can comment on the favorite things for Christmas dinner or the things you really didn't care for. Or if you prefer, the worst and best Christmas present you ever got as a kid. So, but let's deal with food right now. Hey, good morning, Jimmy. It's Jason from San Antonio. Merry Christmas, my friend. So eggnog for me is a lot like liver. I've tried it a lot of different ways. I've tried to like it. Just don't care for it. You can have mine. Good morning, Jimmy. Merry Christmas. James, for my task to Cedar here. We are really looking forward to brisket and ribs for Christmas. And eggnog is best served with whiskey. Two to one. Two parts eggnog, one part bourbon. It's amazing. Okay. I had somebody else. Who? Somebody else had Britain. I'm going to have to find that in suggested a particular type of alcohol to put into the egg dog. They would make you like eggnog with alcohol. 6.40 time for traffic and weather together. I don't like it with booze in there. Gary Mack is here. He's ready to fill you in on the drive.

Two big obstacles currently around our north side. Let's have a look. 45 North Freeway southbound. First call to stall. Now we have first responders out there. That's gone to an accident. In a couple of right lanes, delays at 25 minutes from 249. Then give it another 15 on the westbound 610 North Loop at I-45. No visual. If you're around there, feel free. 713. 212 tips. Give me some lanes. We are solid from Hirsch. Not looking good. I'm Gary Mack in the Generator Super Center. from our kTRH generator super center 24 hour weather center the cookie queen is here terry smith getting us all fat and happy and and this is not good timing too because it's swimsuit weather and you know we don't need to be putting on any more weight during swimsuit weather well you just do it like you did it which is just have a bite and call it a day one bite of a cookie yeah easier said than done Yeah, well, I appreciate you tasting it, at least trying it. Well, I had to. You took the trouble to make those for us? We had to try it. You're very sweet. Well, around here at the Weather Channel, if you put out free food, we have vultures that work here. These people shed their humans and turn into vultures. It's like a swarm of locusts came in. It is. It's crazy. Well, yes, you just might want to have to swimsuit handy. I just can't believe these temperatures. Not today. Today, it's really comfortable. We're a little cooler, less humid today, lots of sunshine, low to mid-60s this afternoon. That's December in Houston. But starting tomorrow and then into next week, and right now for as far as I can see next week, temperatures are going to warm up. It'll be warm. A little more humidity. It's a dry day Saturday, near 80. Sunday, we have a 20% chance of a shower. Monday, there's a 30% chance of some showers. Tuesday, Wednesday, Christmas Day right now look dry. But temperatures will continue in the upper 70s to low 80s, I think through Christmas, maybe even beyond. Right now, 43, here at your official, Severe Weather Station, News Radio 740KTRH. All right, Merry Christmas, everybody. It's our last show before Christmas. Got this email. Hello, Jimmy. When you mentioned receiving a tape recorder for Christmas when you were a kid. But it was my favorite Christmas gift ever because I knew I wanted to be on the radio. It sparked a long forgotten memory. One year when I was a youth, all I wanted for Christmas was a tape recorder. I got one and I used it to interview everyone who crossed my path. I grew up to be a journalist. Never wanted to be anything else. Thank you for triggering that fond memory. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Roxanne Bilger, listening to your program from Scotland, she says. Please tell me you're not having Haggis for Christmas dinner. 6.50, time for traffic and weather together. Should we check it again with Gary Mack?

Yeah, kind of heavy. We're seeing delays on I-69 around downtown southbound from I-10 to 45 to go freeway. Also, I-10 westbound, Lockwood, Houston Avenue. And whatever the case may be, I'm thinking an accident westbound on the 610 north loop at I-45. Weight times ladder three, now up to 15, nearly a half hour very quickly, a crash, 45 north-freeway southbound around Little York in a couple of right. I'm Gary Mack and the Ability Tree Experts Traffic Center. KTRH, generator super center, 24-hour weather center today. We're looking at sunshine, cooler temperature, 65, roughly for the height today. Tomorrow's sunshine and warm, near 80. Sunday, partly cloudy early, and then a slight chance of a shower, 20% chance, with high temperature right about 78. Current temperature is 43 at your official severe weather station. News Radio 740, KTRH. Cliff is standing by has an update on some of our top stories. The accused Brown University shooter is found dead by his own hand. We've got delays building at the airports with the Christmas travel season kicking off and weather an issue in other parts of the country. Right now, about 36 between Bush and Hobby. And the Dallas Cowboys are ranked as the most valuable sports franchise once again by Forbes. We checked the Texans were 17th. The Rockets were 38th. Cowboys. Hate the Cowboys. At the latest news anytime at KTRH.com, our next update is at 7. Learned how to listen. From you. I don't miss a shelf. Talk about it here. I cannot help it listen to you all the time. Listen. News Radio 740, KTRH. Yeah, but maybe a little looser here in the new year. 652 now here in Houston's Board News. We have the timeline coming up here in just a couple of minutes. First, a little economic news. Kevin Hassett, Trump Economic Advisor, first of all, pleasantly happy. I don't think he's surprised, but he's pleasantly happy that the inflation rate was 2.7%, only 0.2% for the last month. The 2.7% is just for a yearly basis. They were expecting it to be 3.1%. So there's a piece of good news. And the other piece of good news is what he says is coming in, as we've been talking about, what is coming in 2026. Higher paychecks, he says, and lower taxes. When will people start to feel things tangibly improve? Well, I mean, right now, if you look at what's happening with the lower inflation and the higher wages, you saw in the jobs report that the latest wage number was that wages for the typical worker were up 3.7%. So if you're running 3.7% wage increases at 1.6% core inflation, then real wages are grown at a rate of about 2.5%. By our estimates right now, blue collar workers have already seen an almost $2,000 raise this year after inflation because wages are grown. so much faster than prices. I think that what happens in the end, and this is what happened in the first term, is that people will see it in their wallets. One of the things that I think is really interesting about what the President said last night, which is a very important point, is that we didn't pass the Big Beautiful Bill until the middle of the summer. And so that a lot of the tax changes, which affect last year, weren't in any tax forms that people filled out at the beginning of the year. And so we are going to see the biggest, you know, refund cycle.

ever the history of America, and people are going to get massive refund checks. So for the typical person who's a tip worker or gets overtime pay, we're expecting just that part of it alone to be worth a couple thousand dollar refund. And we're going to definitely have a big PR campaign at the beginning of the year urging people to file early so they can get the money that they're owed from taxes this year. I think that might be a question. If I have to put that on my calendar, possible or potential question of the day in March, as you have your taxes prepared, are you getting a massive refund? Will you be getting a massive refund compared to what you've gotten over the course last couple of years? Yeah, we'll hang on to that one. All right, time for the timeline. Let me see here. There's one. There it is. Four packet tickets. For Astros Light Up the Park, presented by Houston Methodist. It is running through January the 4th, offering a magical blend of light sounds and holiday joy with an Astros twist. For more information to buy tickets, go to Astros.com, but again, you can win four from us. Just tell us what year today's timelines from. Today, in service to our duty to the Constitution. It was December. Two articles of impeachment. The House of Representatives impeaches Donald Trump. Donald J. Trump with committing high crimes. And the misdemeanors. On television. Well, hi, welcome to Sesame Street. Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch actor, Carol Spinney, dies at age 85. Look at that. See, it's got letters on it. At the movies. I want to convince you that that is where I belong, Mr. Ayles. John Lithgow and Charlize Theron, star in Bombshell. It's Mr. Murdoch's air. But I did create it. And number one on the radio. Because I'm heartless.

The weekend with Heartless. What year was it? If you know, 713-212-58-74, that is 713-212, KTRH. Good luck. All right, we have a winner. That winner would be Maria here in Houston. She knew the right year was 2019. Well done, Maria. Get that four pack of passes for Astros light up the park running now through January the 4th at Diken Park. Enjoy the show, and thank you for listening to Houston's Morning News. This is News Radio 740, KTRH, Houston, and I Heart Radio Station, guaranteed human. Now, the latest news, weather, and traffic. It's more of what matters to you from the John Moore Services Studios. It is 7 a.m. now here in Houston's morning news, I'm Jimmy Amy Coney Barrett. Among our top stories this half hour, a homeless guy gives police and providence the info they need to catch the killer. You can't be a judge if you commit a felony, right? And coming up at 708, you weigh in on the best and worst Christmas presents you ever got as a kid. Details in the minutes ahead. First, we're checking out the morning drive once again with Gary Mack. Hey there, good morning. Not to start. We were hoping for 69 East Tech's Freeway Southbound at Lyons. That's an accident in the left lane, costing us a few. Now to 69 to Southwest Freeway, Northbound at Buffalo Speedway. Also a crash there. That's an additional tan from Newcastle to the east side. Laporte, near my old stopping grounds, 146 northbound around Port Road. A fender vendor reported delays. I've got those now from Red Bluff. 25 more minutes lost. And Mike from Well. We thank you for calling in. Another accident, 45 north, freeway southbound around 249 in the left lane. The Little York crash we can clear. I'm Gary Mack at the generator supercenter.com traffic center. From our KTRH, top tax defenders 24-hour weather sun sunny and cooler today with a high temperature of 65. We'll get the complete forecast. We'll look at the rest of the weekend and into next week with Christmas, of course, coming up. We'll talk to Terry Smith in about eight minutes right now, 43, at your official, Severe Weather Station, News Radio 740KTRH. It's time now for the news. Here's Cliff Saunders. Good morning, everyone. Sponsored by Plants for All Seasons, our top story. Claudio, Nevis, Valenti, date of birth, and he was a 48-year-old man. Providence Police Chief Oscar Perez identifying a Portuguese national now dead by his own hand that they believe was responsible for both the Brown shooting last Saturday and the murder of an MIT professor earlier this week. They believe he acted alone. Brown University says he was enrolled at Brown from the fall of 2000 to spring 2001 and that he was admitted to Brown's graduate school to study in the doctoral physics program. Nevis Valenti was from Portugal. but a legal permanent resident of the U.S. His last address was in Miami, Florida. That is Fox's CB Cotton. President Trump, by the way, he suspended the green card lottery due to this shooting. The news comes nearly a week after the first shooting, and former FBI Special Agent Stuart Kaplan says he's got a lot of problems with how this investigation went. There were certain mistakes that were made early on right after the shooting.

Quite frankly, it had a cascading effect that probably hindered the progression. Remember, police detained a person of interest on Sunday and then had to let him go. In Wisconsin, a jury finds Milwaukee County judge Hannah Mike Duggan, guilty of obstructing federal immigration agents who tried to serve a warrant at her courthouse earlier this year. This was necessary to hold Judge Dugan accountable in our assessment because of the action she took. Prosecutor Brad Schmiddle jurors deliberated for six hours. Mike Duggan is no longer eligible to hold public offense under Wisconsin law. After four years of Joe Biden's open border, new polling shows Republicans want even legal immigration slowed down or paused completely. Rampant and destructive illegal immigration, combined with weaponized legal immigration, has soured the American public against all immigration. William Gean with Alipak says hyper-immigration has displaced American workers, led to higher prices, and Americans are fed up. 704, Congress takes off from D.C. for Christmas break without a deal on health care. President Trump knows why the Dems want to keep Obamacare propped up. Insurance companies own the Democrat Party. They own it. And the Democrats having a hard time. They give a lot of money to the Democrats, very little money to Republicans. Trump at the Oval Office. I think the dam is breaking. That was Marjorie Taylor Greene on CNN this week, claiming that Trump is losing control of the Republican Party. Operative word being claiming. pointing to the 13 Republicans that voted to overturn Trump's executive orders, enabling him to fire federal workers. Political consultant Luke Macias says these 13 are some of the most moderate Republicans in the party. These are Republicans who are comfortable voting with Democrats to undermine a Republican agenda. Macias says this is typical pushback from those circles. I don't see that as a damn breaking. I see that as part of what Republicans have always struggled with. I'm Erica. Smith. News Radio 740 KTRH. As for the Dems, the leader of the squad is talking more trash and she's going after Vice President JD Vance. Do you think that you'll beat that you could beat JD Vance in a head-to-head race for president as polling suggests in 2028? Listen, these polls like three years out are, you know, they are what they are. But let the record show I would stop it. Yeah, that was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Texas Democrats in the meantime have managed to actually recruit a candidate for every state and federal race on the ballot in 2026. By having candidates running up and down the ballot, they're hoping to get more voters out, they're hoping to get more Democrat engagement, and they're hoping to see some gains. Political scientist, Dr. Taki Bally, says gains, but this isn't likely to result in... any kind of blue wave in Texas. The president has signed in order to reclassify marijuana. The GHC industry survived a proposed state ban on its products earlier this year. But federal restrictions, that's a different story.

Federal limits on products containing THC take effect next year. And while some are fighting it, backers of the ban say newly released research proves that cannabis has no medical benefits. We do not want THC sold in retail stores across Texas because the harms outweigh the benefits. Aubrey Adams heads the group Citizens for Safe and Healthy Texas. She says this research published in the medical journal JAMA shows there is little to no evidence that marijuana. effectively treats pain, anxiety, or sleep problems. That is KTRH's Rex Oates. The Rockets lose to New Orleans 133 to 128. The Texans look for their seventh consecutive victory hosting the Raiders on Sunday. I think, you know, we've gotten better in all phases. You know, we got better in as an offense. And I think, you know, our defense is still playing great. Quarterback, C.J. Stroud there, kickoff is coming up at 325. I'm Cliff Saunders on Houston's News Weather and Traffic Station News Radio 740, KTRH. Stay informed. Stay on time. Houston's Morning News continues with Jimmy Amy Coney Barrett and the Houston Morning News team. All right, best and the worst Christmas presents. I asked that question earlier this morning. I mentioned that for me, the worst was always the pajamas. The Christmas Eve is like, for the first, when we were little, you know, it was easy to okie-dok us into thinking that it might be something we actually wanted. You know, they get all, parents would get all excited. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'll tell you what, you could open one present. Here it is. And every year, Christmas pajamas. So after a while you come on, no, it's okay, but I'll do it tomorrow. No, no, no, no, open it now. And then the best I mentioned this morning was the tape recorder. You know it was a Sears tape recorder? That was when Sears had everything. Vacuum cleaners, lawnmowers. um clothing everything even the tape recorder the real to real tape recorder i got came from seers well maybe from santa but santa bought it at seers okay near as i can tell all right so again the question is um best and or worst presents you ever got as a kid for christmas this paul my favorite Christmas gift is a child close to my erector set that I got. Believe it or not, I still have it. I'm 65. Jimmy, this is Wyatt from Katie Porter. I was 13 years old in 1982 when my sister got me a culture club t-shirt for Christmas with a big old fabulous picture of boy George right on the front of it. I said thank you because that's the way I was raised, but I knew in my mind there was no way. No way I was ever going to wear that shirt. So boy George went right back in the closet until I wound up throwing that shirt away a few years later. Oh, that's hilarious. The t-shirt, your sister, got you that you just couldn't bring yourself to wear. All right, 7-10, time for traffic and weather together as we're checking again with Gary Mack. Yes, sir, the accident on the 6-10 North Loop Westbound, around 45 the North Freeway. That's clear, but not soon forgotten. Delays around 20 to 25 minutes from Lockwood. This one also causing things to back up on the East Texas Freeway. Nearby, 45 North Freeway southbound at Westmount, Houston Road, in a left lane also crashed there. And 69 to Southwest Freeway northbound at Buffalo Speedway planned for 10 here. A fender bender bogging us down from the 610 West.

salute. I'm Gary Mack at the Ability Tree Experts Traffic Center. From our KTRH, Top Tax Defenders 24-hour Weather Center. Time to check it with Terry Smith. She has lots of sunshine coming away today. Kind of normal December temperature today, but this is one of those rare normal days, Terry. It is a rare normal day. It's been kind of crazy so far this month, and I don't see that really changing much at all. And when I say crazy, we had a lot of cold weather for the first part of December, and then we warmed up. And now today feels like December, but it really looks like after today. The rest of the year is going to be much warmer than it should be. See, we should have our temperatures in the mid-60s. Afternoon highs are supposed to be in the mid-60s, and we're going to be much warmer than that starting tomorrow. Today, temperatures will be in the load of mid-60s. So it's normal December, and it's cool at night, pleasantly so, mid-40s to mid-50s tonight. But tomorrow... The southerly winds kick in. High pressure is going to keep us sunny and dry, and temperatures will be either side of 80s. So upper 70s to low 80s, easily 10, almost 15 degrees above the norm. And that's where we stay. I think really, at least through Christmas, probably beyond that, the only rain that I see in the forecast, Sunday, a 20% chance of a shower, and Monday maybe a 30% chance of some rain. Right now, temperature 42 at your official, Severe Weather Station, News Radio 740, KTRH. Next week, next week, you ready? 719 here in Houston's morning news. All right, coming up, we're going to talk about this Dallas Church. depicting the Holy Family in a barbed-wired cage with a sign on the nativity scene that says ice was here. Is this some sort of esoteric, far-left, you know, greeny church kind of a thing? This, well, I don't know, but it's a mainstream. It's a United Methodist Church. I don't know about what religion you were raised. I was raised a Methodist. What has happened? Why have churches become just like politics, where you've got people on the far left, churches, I should say, on the far left, churches on the far right and maybe a handful in between? It's as divided as the rest of us are, I guess. Jonathan Sines from Texas Values will join us to talk about it next. First of at 720. Traffic and weather together, starting with Gary Mack. Let's begin. 45 North Freeway Southbound in from Woodlands Parkway to the North Loop. That's just under a half hour drive. A hands up had accidents at 249 and Little York both now clear. Now that balloons up to 45 minutes on I-10, the East Freeway westbound Garth Road to 69. The Eastex, due to a broken down vehicle right there in the right lane at the East X Freeway, yes. And 22 on 45 Gulf Freeway northbound FM 1764. The southbound frontage road remains closed for a vehicle 5th.

We're going northbound to the south loop for 22 minutes. I'm Gary Mack at the generator supercenter.com traffic center. From our KTRH, generator super center, 24-hour weather center for today we're looking at sunshine cooler 65, sunny and warm tomorrow 80, and then on Sunday, partly cloudy, about 20% shower chance with a high 78. Current temperature, 42 in your official severe weather station, news radio 740 KTRH. Cliff Saunders has an update from our newsroom on this Friday morning. A Methodist Church in Texas goes woke for Christmas. We will give you the details. A top appointee of the incoming socialist mayor of New York City is forced to quit because of anti-Semitic grants on social media that were exposed. And Bill Clinton was impeached on this day in 1998. At the latest news anytime at KTRH.com, our next update is at 7.30. The plot of the stories of the day will thicken as you go about your day. Add afternoon news and talk. Stir things up. For easy consumption. News Radio 740, KTRH. Well, this little Lord Jesus is in a barbed wire cage at this United Methodist Church in Dallas. What the heck is going on here? Jonathan Sines joins us with Texas values. And Jonathan, here's the part. As somebody who was raised a Methodist, I'm looking at this going, what happened to the Methodist Church? I'm sure this is not true of all United Methodist churches, is it? Or are we finding more and more that certain denominations are becoming more and more liberal? Well, look, Jimmy, it's, excuse me, it's good to be with you. And I really appreciate being on the show this morning because This is a scandalous wayward church that has a history of pushing back against their own denomination a few years ago. they ordained a gay member of their clergy and when they were told by their bishop that that was not a part of their denominations beliefs, you know, now the Methodist Church in many ways has voted to go in that direction in the past year or so, but at the time they had not, it was a scandalous use in a cheap... publicity stunt on behalf of this church using something as precious and central to the Christian faith as Christmas in the manger scene to gain political points. But that's how desperate some people are, unfortunately, because they're losing the public perception battle, they're losing the debate amongst the public and within Christians. You know, because what we know what's going on is we're simply enforcing Our border laws just like Obama did, just like Biden did. Now, President Trump is being more firm about them, whereas the Biden administration and the Obama administration were, you know, sometimes they would enforce them, sometimes they would not, but they were deporting people at high numbers as well. Biden and Obama was, and Trump is just getting more news because they're being more clear and firm. And you cannot have.

public safety when you have laws that are enforced sometimes and sometimes there's not what that means is the bad people take advantage of those and look the christian and christmas time that we're in is about hope it's about the future it's about a savior it's about something that's so fundamental to our christian faith and it's not about people's misinterpretation of how we should have enforce our border laws. Yeah, I'm just noticing from the video two of this church that they have, they have rainbow steps going up to this altar where this, where the sign is for their nativity scene. So, yeah, they're pretty out there. I'm surprised, though, if they are going against the teachings of the Methodist Church, how is it that they are still the Methodist Church? Don't they normally take those, you know, take those types of churches and say, well, you can't be, can't be part of our faith anymore? Well, look, I mean, this church has a history of causing controversy within their own denomination and going against their own leadership. Why haven't they been kicked out? Yeah. No, look, it's a good question. And I'll tell you this. People are deciding on their own to leave the Methodist denomination or to split from them because they're not following what the Bible says about this thing. They're not actually living in demonstrating a Christian life. And so, you know, they're becoming really more of a political. organization in many ways. Your point about the rainbow, you know, painted on their steps was their way of pushing back against the fact federal and state law make it clear what we've always known that there's a difference between male and female. And we have to put that in law now just so people start, stop acting like there's some type of difference. We know this in Houston, right? This issue came up with a bathroom ordinance in 2014 that the people voted down that in these Parker pushed. And so you have a church where you, the expectation is they would be following what the Bible says about these things. They care more about politics than they do about what their own Christian faith says. And look, at Texas values, we work on these issues a lot. We know that there are attacks on Christmas every year. That's what this is. This is not just simply their opposition to our federal laws being enforced, which we have every right to do. This is them attacking Christmas and really misusing it. in a way that all Christians should be ashamed to see. And, you know, we work on protecting Christmas every year at our nonprofit organization. That's what we're doing now. There are other issues across the state. We have state laws on this to say that you have a right to display these things. But I think it's important. They got the attention they wanted, sadly. And you can understand why. But I think it's important for people to see to communicate their disagreement with this and to recognize what it is, a desperate, cheap attempt. to get attention on a matter that they're actually losing. The majority of people believe we should be enforcing our laws at the border. When you see what happened to the young girl, Jocelyn, and others, we know there are bad people on the streets because our border laws, our immigration laws are not, we're not being enforced before. They are now, and you're going to see a big difference. All right. Jonathan, thank you. Merry Christmas. Appreciate your time. That's Jonathan Sines. Texas values at 727, and time to take a look at your money. Hey, good morning, TikTok, being bought by a group of buyers led by Oracle.

bite dance, the parent of the video sharing sensation, signed agreements to create a U.S. joint venture. The joint venture will operate as an independent entity that will control data protection, content moderation, and algorithm security. A Nike share sank after the company warned that sales will decline this quarter. The world's largest sportswear company expects revenue to be down in the low single digits, a surprising turn after two straight periods of growth. I'm John Tucker Carlson Bloomberg Business on News Radio 740, KTRH. For the news that you are old. Houston's, news, weather, traffic, plus breaking news 24-7. This is News 740, KTRH. Drive everywhere with the I-H. More of what's happening now from the John Moore Services Studios. 7.30 now here in Houston's morning news. I'm Jimmy Amy Coney Barrett. Among our top stories this half hour. Why can't this Dallas church stick to non-political Christmas messaging? Turning point. Yep, there are America Fest continues today. And coming up at 738, more of your thoughts on presents and Christmas dinner. Details in the minutes ahead. First, we're checking out the drive once again. Here's Gary Mack. Great to see you. Good morning. Okay, our biggest hurdles at the moment include the 69 Southwest Freeway accident. It's northbound at Buffalo Speedway. That's breaks from beyond the West Loop, adding on 10 minutes at the very least. Also, if the I-10 Westbound roadwork wasn't adding on enough aggravation near downtown, we had a broken down vehicle around Greg, an accident, an I-45. Both have since cleared. However, don't get your hopes up. We're solid from nearly Lathrop delays over a half hour. North Loop westbound. That's a white knuckle or two. More on that coming up before Marco mutes me. I'm Gary Mack of the Ability Tree Experts Traffic Center. From our KTRH, yeah, generator super center, 24-hour weather center, sunny cooler 65 today. Sunny and warm again tomorrow. 80. Yep, up and down. And we stay up after tomorrow, though. Sunshine, about near 80 degrees, about 78 for the high with a 20% shower chance on Sunday. Right now, it is 42 at your official severe weather station. News Radio 740, KTRH. It's time now for the news. Here's Cliff Saunders. 732 on KTRH, our top story, while many want to put Christ back into Christmas, a church in Dallas is injecting a huge dose of wokeness. Right in front of their rainbow steps is a nativity scene with Joseph, Mary, and Jesus in a barbed wire cage. That's sad to see a so-called church giving an inaccurate representation of what actually happened in the Bible and a cheap way to score political points. That is Jonathan Sines, president of Texas Values. The folks are incredibly desperate because the public does not agree with them overwhelmingly. People of faith overwhelmingly do not agree with their position. Science also called the church out for keeping their doors locked. Jeff Iggs News Radio 740.

K-tier H. Meantime Turning Point USA's America Fest continues in Phoenix today. The group has seen major growth since the assassination of Charlie Kirk. 140,000 plus get involved requests have been submitted since 9-10. Erika Kirk speaking to the crowd yesterday. The conference runs through Sunday. It's expected to draw more than 30,000 attendees. Police in Providence, Rhode Island, say that the man responsible for the Brown University shooting that killed two people and the murder of an MIT professor this week took his own life in New Hampshire, identified as Claudio Manuel Nevis Valenti, a former student at Brown, who was also tied to Nuno Larero. It is believed that in Lisbon that those two individuals attended the same university in Portugal. The FBI's Ted Docs there. Now Reyes Valenti is from Portugal. He'd been a permanent legal resident in the U.S. for eight years. 734, a deal to sell TikTok to American investors is signed, sealed, and delivered. TikTok's Chinese parent bite dance has signed an agreement to sell its U.S. entity to a joint venture controlled by three American investors, Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX, to make sure that the widely popular social video platform can continue operating in the United States. Fox is Hillary Barski. More good news for the Trump economy. November inflation numbers were lower than expectations. The administration is encouraged. We're cutting energy prices. We're cutting interest rates, right? Things are coming down. And I think what you're going to see next year is an extraordinary year. Energy prices down, interest prices down, and earnings up, up. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick on Fox, business, overnight futures are mixed. The president is already choosing more interest rate cuts in 2026. I'll soon announce our next chairman of the Federal Reserve, someone who believes in lower interest rates by a lot. President Trump's new Fed chair is expected to bring his cutting shears, but financial planner Richard. Rosso says we should wait and see the full effect of Trump's economic policies first. Small business spending, people getting refund checks, higher standard deductions, more money in tax pay pockets. By the way, these are all really good things, but sometimes really good things heat up inflation. White House chief economic advisor Kevin Hassett is the favorite to be the next Fed chair, but Trump says he's interviewing multiple candidates. Corey Olson, News Radio 740, KTRH. 735, oil futures are up to $56.55 a barrel this morning as gasoline prices across Houston drop to 242 a gallon. Ford is giving up on EVs. This is almost a year after President Trump eliminated the EV mandate. Climate Depot's Mark Morano says the truth is that these supposedly environment-friendly cars? or not environment friendly. To make one Tesla-sized, thousand-pound battery you had to dig up half a million pounds of material from the earth. It is now 736. Fort Bend and Spring ISD are closing schools because of declining enrollment. They may not be the only districts in our area to do so.

That declining enrollment is thanks to increase competition in the education industry. This is a good thing that's the feature, not a bug. It should lead leadership at the public schools to think about how they allocate their resources effectively. Corey DeAngelis with the Educational Freedom Institute says this doesn't mean public schools will die out completely. Not all public schools are doomed to fail. If they're doing a great job, the families are happy with them. If you like your public school, you can keep your public school. He says this is also a win for taxpayers who will no longer. have to subsidize failing schools. Ethan Buchanan, News Radio 740, KTRH. And finally, the college football playoffs kickoff tonight as the Aggies take on Miami tomorrow at Kyle Field, the kickoff for that game at 11 o'clock in the morning, plan accordingly. I'm Cliff Saunders on Houston's news weather and traffic station, KTRH. I live in Deer Park. I live in the Woodlands. Your reliable forecast next on the 10 on 740 KTRH. Oh, yeah, I can. 737 is their time here in Houston's morning news. We always get on topics involving food here. There's a story about eggnog and, you know, to love it or hate it kind of thing. By the way, Richard Rosso, frequently guests on our program, says, you don't like eggnog with alcohol. Try it with fireball. I'm just the combination in my mind, fireball and eggnog. Hey, you know, who am I to judge? It might work. But we got on the topic of food that we have for Christmas. We all grew up with food that we like and we don't like, much of which our parents tried to get us to eat. And so your favorite Christmas dinner item, the thing that you always ended up getting served at Christmas that you just really don't care for, that became a topic here this morning. Skip from Webster. One thing I have to make for Christmas every year is the Thunderbolt annual Yehah chilling. Make it for all the employees, any customers that walk in and tell Sky Mike that if he needs to have some of you feel better, I'll send him over both. This is Henry from spring. Definitely ham for a Christmas dinner. And my mom made a wonderful raisin gravy to go over it. I agree that eggnog is like liver. You either love it or hate it. But the recipe my wife's family uses has brandy and rum and fresh eggs. And it is not the same animal as the eggnog that you purchase from the store. Change my opinion on it. So now I am a lover of homemade eggnog. Oh, okay. So the key there is the homemade part. Yeah, there are a few. I'm not trying to remember once. They come to mind. A lot of them come from local dairies. You know, if you can find, I can usually tell by the consistency of the egg knock if it's going to be good or not. I mean, it really needs to be nice and thick. And I know that sounds disgusting, but as far as flavor, I mean, to me, that's the key. It's got to be really nice and thick. in order to be a really, really good eggnog. The other topic we had this morning was present's best or worst present you ever got when you were a kid. Skip from Westchester. Best Christmas present ever. 11 years old. We got my first John boat with a 7 of horsepower escow board on it. It was loud and clunky, but I was king of the river. Joe from Conroe. Best Christmas present was a Chattanooga train set.

One is I had this aunt that always got us educational boys, little electronic spelling bees and stuff like that. Hey, Jimmy, this is Eric Down Include. Favorite Christmas present as a kid, parents entered a raffle for a promotional go-kart from SunKiss back in the early 80s. Well, I won bright orange go-kart with a Corvette body on it. Man, all the kids loved me that year. No kidding. You were the cool kid that year for sure. 7.40. Time for traffic and weather together. As we check it again, Skybikes still under the weather. Gary Max's in for him. 32 minutes, your trip time to move westbound on the 610 North Loop between Homestead and Ella Boulevard. It's got to be an accident in there somewhere. Been mangled up all morning around I-45. Progress is being made. The accident, 69 East Bank, southbound at Lions. That's clear now, delays very minor. We're running 20 minutes on I-10 to K to eastbound. Between Kirkwood to downtown, that's about the worst of it. If you're taking that route. And 45-go-freeway northbound around the South Belt. John, from our tip line, thank you very much. We have a stalled vehicle causing a slowdown there. I'm Gary Mack and the generator supercenter.com traffic sector. From our KTRH, Generator Supercenter, 24-hour weather center. Terry is here. It looks cloudless out there, Terry, so I know we're going to have a lot of sunshine today. How about the temperatures? It's going to be a really nice day. It's cooler. We've had a front move through, and our winds have shifted, and they're northerly winds, so slightly cooler and drier air. today. But then after that, we go through another wind shift. They're more southerly, and so the warmer weather and the humidity will return. That happens starting tomorrow. I like today. It's like a quick dose of December if you're not a fan of the cooler temperatures. It's quite pleasant, though. Low to mid-60s today. Tomorrow definitely warming up, a dry day, upper 70s to low 80s tomorrow. I think we're going to stay in the upper 70s to low 80s through next week. most of next week. I don't see any big change. Only thing is we may get a little bit of rain Sunday and Monday, a 20% chance of a shower Sunday and a 30% chance of rain Monday. So I'm thinking we need to revisit this idea of ugly Christmas sweaters here in Houston and go with the ugly Christmas t-shirt. Yeah, I agree. Or the ugly Christmas swimsuit. Do they make those? That'd be cool. Oh, my goodness. That would be fun to have one of those. Current temperature is 43. in your official severe weather station. News Radio 740 KTRH. Yep, last show before Christmas. Let me throw another Merry Christmas in there. We'll be back to wish you a Happy New Year on Monday the 29th. Coming up in just a moment here, they finally, the manhuts finally older. They got the guy responsible for the Brown University shooting, also responsible, we believe, for a shooting of a professor at MIT. We'll talk to former FBI Special Agent and Navy SEAL Jonathan Gilliam about all this coming up next. First, though, the little traffic and weather together, starting with Gary Mack.

And watch for an accident this time on 45 Gulf Freeway, northbound after Griggs. That's breaks from the 16th South Loop. Give it 10 minutes there. Other slowdowns if you're heading out now include all the 16 West Loop's northbound, starting in Westheimer to Bissonet. This is also causing delays on the Southwest Freeway from the West Park Tollway. 610 North Loop, not looking any better. Westbound from Blockwood to around Yale as well as any which way downtown. Gulf Southwest I-10, forget about it. I'm Gary Mad. in the generator supercenter.com traffic center. From our KTRH generator super center, 24-hour weather center, sunny and cool today, 65, tomorrow, sunny in warming back up again, high right about 80, and then Sunday, partly cloudy, slight chance of a shower, 20% chance with a high right about 80. Current temperature 43 at your official severe weather station, news radio 740 KTRH. It's a Friday morning, and Cliff is here with an update on some of our top stories. The accused Brown University shooter is found dead by suicide. 30 flights had delayed at Bush this morning, another 23 at Hobby. And in Austin, two men are okay after getting stuck on a roller coaster at the Circuit of the Americans. They were suspended 130 feet in the air. Get the latest news anytime at KTRH.com. Our next update is at 8. I live in Clear Lake. Humble. Reliable. KTRH traffic and weather. Next on the 10. Man, Hunt is over. He's been caught and he is dead. He is a Portuguese national 48 years old who evidently shot an MIT professor in addition to the shooting at Brown University. Thanks to the... testimony, if you will, of a homeless man, evidently, that second person of interest that they had snapshot up, he evidently heard of that he had been on TV, contacted the police and gave them some much needed information that led to them tracking this guy down. And again, he took his own life. in his storage unit rather than face the law or give us any real explanation of why he did, but he did. Former FBI Special Agent and Navy SEAL Jonathan Gilliam joins us. You know, the Providence Police Department, Brown University Police Department took a lot of criticism over this going on five, six days. We're seemingly without much of any progress here. As we look back now, what do you think of the police work they did in this case? Well, I think the police work that they did was excellent. But the, which is typically the case, the briefings by the executives and the city officials was horrendous, even up through last night. The brief that they gave after this individual killed himself was. basically like a pageant of everybody giving speeches about how great they are. And it was, it's just terrible. We've got to get past this where there's standards of how we give briefs across this country because if there's information that the public needs, they're not getting it. And some of it's important and could be helpful in solving crimes and they're just missing it because of all these executives. Meanwhile, all these detectives and police are out there busting the rear ends on the street doing great work. And in this case,

A homeless individual, you know, was living for free, I guess, in the basement of this school, Brown University, was smart enough and coherent enough to give the right advice that led to this capture or to finding the body. Now, what do we make of the suspect himself? He has killed himself, so the chances of us, unless he left some sort of a manifesto and I have not heard that he did, we may never find out exactly why he did what he did. But you take a look at who was targeted in this, and you've got to have to wonder, this is going to sound weird, Jonathan, but... You think there's any possibility that jealousy was involved in this? This is a guy who went to school at Brown University like 24, 25 years ago and dropped out. And the guy killed at MIT is a well-known, highly successful professor in the field this guy wanted to be in that he also had gone to school with in Portugal, evidently. I just have to kind of wonder if these people were targets because this guy didn't turn out to be the success he wanted to be. I mean, it could be jealousy, it could be delusional, but he definitely knew the professor that he killed. He definitely went to that school at some period, whether or not he knew people in that classroom is still yet to be seen. But it appears, you know, from the video footage that we've, the limited footage that we've seen, that he was, he didn't just rush into that building. He waited for periods of time, and then he went in there. So the possibility that he knew somebody or something about somebody in there is plausible. So I think they may be able to connect these dots if there's enough of an online presence and they're able to find enough evidence about his background and the connections between these people. I think that we may be able to see some intent or motivation. But. It could also just be the guy's delusional and the people that, you know, the place where he's been and the person that he knows fell victim to that. So I think time will tell. You think all the information eventually comes out on this one because it feels like they haven't been completely forthcoming with the information they have. We never have seen a video coming out of that classroom that supposedly exists with what he was shouting in the classroom. Yeah, and I listen to, I think all the information will come out. It's a 50-50. It really depends on who's in charge of this and how fast the news cycle runs, because once people forget about it, they don't continue to hope for that information or press for it. So, you know, good police work. I think the information is there that the public could be given. I just think law enforcement needs to realize that. The public is a force multiplier. And if they stop treating the public like they're helpless idiots and start using them as sound sources to find information, I think things could change in this country greatly. That's a great point. Merry Christmas, Jonathan. Thanks for joining us. We appreciate it. Former FBI Special Agent and Navy SEAL, Jonathan Gilliam. And that's it. I'll be off next week. Y'all have a great Merry Christmas. See you a week from Monday here on News Radio 740, KTRH.