ICYMI: Things Are Actually Worse Now in Seattle Than During the COVID Lockdowns.

WATCH AS MINNESOTA GOES OUT OF THE FRYING PAN AND INTO THE FIRE: Klobuchar files campaign paperwork for Minnesota governor.

She is the first Democratic candidate to form a gubernatorial candidate committee since DFL Gov. Tim Walz announced earlier this month he would not seek reelection, according to Minnesota Campaign Finance Board records.

“This is a preliminary step necessary for any candidate considering a run,” a source close to Klobuchar told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS. “The senator will make an announcement of her plans in the coming days.”

A slew of Republican candidates — including House Speaker Lisa Demuth and Rep. Kristin Robbins, chair of the House fraud prevention committee — had harped on Walz for staggering fraud in state welfare programs during his time in office.

“Harped.”

LYING SNITCHES CAN BE HAD FOR NOT THAT MUCH: How Much Did Jack Smith Pay to ‘Confidential Human Sources’?

OUCH: Extreme winter storm threat sparks historic natural gas spike. “The contracts for near-term US natural gas futures have skyrocketed more than 70% so far this week, according to FactSet data. That leaves natural gas on track for the biggest weekly increase since 1990 and at the highest price since 2022, according to Bloomberg.”

ICYMI: Up in Canada, They’re Signaling Genuine Virtue for Once (Really!)

THAT’S BIG: Wobbling exoplanet hints at a hidden exomoon so massive it could redefine the word ‘moon’ altogether.

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: DHS Slates Mahmoud Khalil for Deportation to Algeria.

A VERY PUBLIC EDUCATION: ‘Portrait of a Graduate’ is lite on academics: They can’t read, but they have ‘global empathy.’

By the time I got my high school diploma, I could read, write and calculate, dissect a frog and analyze the causes of the Civil War. But that was the last millennium.

Today’s students need more, say educators. The national superintendents’ association urges schools to “establish a high-impact ecosystem by building clarity and conviction for a shared vision of learning. The newly trendy “Portrait of a Graduate” goes beyond academics to identify what “children in your community need to succeed in this rapidly changing, complex world.”

In Columbus, Ohio, for example, the portrait includes “global empathy,” ability to use technology, creativity, adaptability, communications and “critical thinking.”

“As of 2024, at least 20 states and countless districts had initiated ‘Portrait of a Graduate’ reforms, writes Daniel Buck, who directs the Conservative Education Reform Network, in Education Next. Educating the “whole child” is an old idea, he writes. This could be just another fad. However, the Education Testing Service and the Carnegie Foundation are working on tests to measure the unmeasurable. Is Caleb achieving the desired level of good citizenship? Is Emma sufficiently creative and collaborative?

Johnny’s failing algebra but he got an A in Groupthink.

SPOILER: SHE’S DEFINITELY A LIAR.

"The founders were racist genocidal colonialists, but I cherish the founding document they produced. I'm definitely not a liar." https://t.co/7Ijo1UnrCi pic.twitter.com/M5EbrBb0qT

— Duffyevsky ☦ (@TheIllegit) January 22, 2026

ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED: Things Are Actually Worse Now in Seattle Than During the COVID Lockdowns. “Well, that’s an unexpected achievement — for certain and entirely ironic values of ‘unexpected.'”

LIKELY STORY: Ms. Rachel caught liking call to ‘Free America from the Jews’ — claims she ‘was just tapping’ to delete in tearful apology.

Last year: YouTube star Ms. Rachel has been accused of spreading Hamas propaganda to children, according to an antisemitism watchdog that has penned a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi.

LENIN ADVISED, “THE WORSE, THE BETTER,” AND IT’S A LESSON THE LEFT NEVER FORGOT:

China may not be pushing this, but the faction most aligned with China just happens to be. As in Virginia and Minnesota (and California), the effect is to make a state too dysfunctional to govern, live in, or enforce federal law in.

Kneecapping industry is not what we need… https://t.co/AZiCiWbjHG

— Martin Skold (@MartinSkold2) January 22, 2026

HENRY KNOX: The Most Unlikely Hero of the American Revolution.

IT WAS A BESTSELLER AND EVERYTHING:

He wrote an entire book about it. You’d think people would read the damned thing.

— Stephen Fleming (@StephenFleming) January 22, 2026

’TURNSTILE JUMPERS CHALLENGE’: Viral TikTok trend mocks NYC’s ‘foolproof’ $1.1 billion subway turnstile upgrades. “One particular group staged a recent late-night ‘Fare Evasion Olympics’ at Manhattan’s Broadway-Lafayette Street station, turning the evasion into a competitive sporting competition equipped with gold medals and a $3 cash prize, the cost of a subway ticket. The competition, organized by comedian Danny Fisher, featured a pole dancer, a parkour athlete, and a rock climber who took home the gold medal by scaling the overhead scanners.”

I get the feeling the Mamdani crew doesn’t much care.

RICHARD FERNANDEZ NAILS IT:

The results of the recon by fire is that you can see the attack in progress.

Now that you can actually see the open borders army it's certain they've been creeping forward a looong time. They took their time blending in. Carefully snipping the perimeter wire that is the police,…

— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) January 22, 2026

MAKE IT VIRAL: Up in Canada, They’re Signaling Genuine Virtue for Once (Really!).

MOST LARGE-SCALE M&As FAIL TO DELIVER SHAREHOLDER VALUE: Netflix Stock Hits 52-Week Low, Analysts Cut Price Targets, See Warner Bros. Deal as a Drag. “The streaming giant’s fourth-quarter updates included news that it ended 2025 with more than 325 million global paid subscribers, up from 302 million as of the end of 2024. But the company’s financial outlook, especially for profit margins, disappointed.”

LOL, EXPERTS:

On French TV, a so-called expert gave viewers a quick geography lesson. Greenland, he said with more certainty than warranted, is closer to Europe than to the U.S.

The map had to be stretched so far that Iceland ended up south of Spain. pic.twitter.com/Bq6nsMUWSF

— blingsabato (@blingsabato) January 20, 2026

I thought it was Americans who didn’t know geography, but this “expert” sure seems to think his European viewers are ignorant.

ART OF THE DEAL: Trump Thinks U.S. Will Have ‘Total Access’ to Greenland at ‘No Cost.’

HOW DO YOU SAY “NO MORE ANCHOR BABIES” IN MANDARIN?

I have verified the shocking findings of @peterschweizer regarding Chinese childbirth tourism and its future impact to US democracy, it is absolutely true! Even in Houston there are at least TEN Chinese birth centers (月子中心), and they are all in operation. How many are in NYC,… https://t.co/cBuvl15s7i pic.twitter.com/w7mEyIobe5

— Bin Xie (@bxieus) January 22, 2026

THE NEW SPACE RACE: The first commercial space station, Haven-1, is now undergoing assembly for launch.

The sprawling International Space Station is due to be decommissioned less than five years from now, and the US space agency has yet to formally publish rules and requirements for the follow-on stations being designed and developed by several different private companies.

Although there are expected to be multiple bidders in “phase two” of NASA’s commercial space station program, there are at present four main contenders: Voyager Technologies, Axiom Space, Blue Origin, and Vast Space. At some point later this year, the space agency is expected to select one, or more likely two, of these companies for larger contracts that will support their efforts to build their stations.

To get a sense of the overall landscape as the competition heats up, Ars recently interviewed Voyager chief executive Dylan Taylor about his company’s plans for a private station, Starlab. Today we are publishing an interview with Max Haot, the chief executive of Vast. The company is furthest along in terms of development, choosing to build a smaller, interim space station, Haven-1, capable of short-duration stays. Eventually, NASA wants facilities capable of continuous habitation, but it is not clear whether that will be a requirement starting in 2030.

Until today, Haven-1 had a public launch date of mid-2026. However, as Haot explained in our interview, that launch date is no longer tenable.

Much more at the link.

WELL-PLACED PROFANITY: James Woods Slams Don Lemon in Profanity-Laced Rebuke Over Church Protest Coverage.

STAY WARM, AND STAY OFF THE ROADS IF YOU CAN: Maps show where winter storm threatens to bring heavy snow, brutal cold this weekend.

This will make temperatures drop well below average for this time of year and even bring record-breaking temperatures to some locations. Frostbite can occur in as little as 5-10 minutes if exposed to this dangerous cold. Wind chill temperatures are forecast to feel like 40-50 degrees below zero in some places across the northern U.S.

Ice is expected to accumulate along the southern side of the storm’s track, but considering its slow movement, the amount of accumulation is expected to be between two-tenths of an inch to up to half an inch. Impacts of this magnitude can bring down power lines. With the harsh cold in place, power outages can lead to lack of indoor heating, crippling communities.

Possible snowfall amounts are fluctuating as the forecast models continue to come together. Up to 5-10 inches of snowfall is already expected across the southern Plains as the system takes shape over the region on Friday into Saturday.

Looks like a nasty one. The best time to get prepared was before winter, but the next best time is right now, before the weather hits.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Greenland or Bust! “A purchase of Greenland would be legitimate, of course, but Dems don’t know that because they don’t read real history books. They’re not aware of how a lot of this continent became part of the United States. I live in a city that was part of the Gadsden Purchase of 1854. As far as I know, there were no radical loons back then who were bent out of shape because President Franklin Pierce made a land deal.”