1 To end shutdown, Trump needs to ‘put something on the table
Now several days into the partial closure, which began at midnight Saturday, the president is standing firm with his demand for border funding, something Democrats on Capitol Hill are refusing to hand over. “I can’t tell you when the government is going to be open. I can tell you that it’s not going to be open until we have a wall or fence -- whatever they’d like to call it,” Trump told reporters from the Oval Office. “Once when they go into the new Congress, as we know, the Democrats are even going to have more power as they will be in control of the House. So what I’m looking for is a long few weeks going into the new year where we’re trading a lot of back and forths. But until the president and his team put something like DACA or something on the table that will make Democrats salivate, I think we’re going to be at status quo,”
2 Lawmakers to return to Capitol Hill amid partial shutdown with no obvious change to border impasse
All 100 senators agreed to a stopgap spending bill (a “Continuing Resolution” or “CR” in the Congressional lingua franca) a week ago Wednesday night. The bill would run the government until February 8. The House was poised to follow suit and pass the CR on Thursday or Friday, keep the federal lights on and dispatch everyone home for the holidays. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) deposited the interim spending bill on the Senate floor early in the day on Wednesday. “I don’t believe he would bring it up unless he had assurances that the President would sign the CR,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL). “But you never know.” You never know with President Trump. There were strong signals from the White House last Thursday morning that Trump would grudgingly sign a stopgap spending bill to fund the government – even though the package lacked money for a border wall. Trump’s oscillation began when he got an earful from the conservative House Freedom Caucus Wednesday night. Freedom Caucus Leader Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) declared that Trump’s base would revolt if he signed the "Band-Aid" bill. Meadows predicted that signing the legislation would inflict “major damage” to Trump’s 2020 re-election bid.
3 Before the first month of the year has even come to an end, most people have given up on their annual commitment to themselves. Research conducted by Strava, the social network for athletes, has discovered that Saturday, Jan. 12 is the fateful day of New Year’s resolutions.
After analyzing more than 31.5 million online global activities last January, Strava was able to pinpoint the date when most people report failing their resolution. Sticking to resolutions is hard and we all know there’s a lot of talk and pressure in January about getting fitter and being healthier,” Gareth Mills from Strava told The Independent. “A key factor in success is motivation and analyzing millions of activity uploads, we’ve been able to pinpoint the day your motivation is most likely to waver.” “A key factor in success is motivation and analyzing millions of activity uploads, we’ve been able to pinpoint the day your motivation is most likely to waver.” According to a study conducted by the University of Scranton, just 8 percent of people achieve their New Year’s goals, while around 80 percent fail to keep their New Year’s resolutions, says U.S. clinical psychologist Joseph Luciani. Roughly 55 percent of New Year’s resolutions were health-related, such as exercising more, eating healthier and getting out of financial debt, according to the science journal The Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. But it’s not all grim. There’s hope, it’s just about how you set up resolutions. Dr. Carly Moores, associate lecturer at Flinders University and registered nutritionist, said if your goal is to lose weight or improve lifestyle habits, try not to make too many changes at all once. “Start with small changes and continue to build on these or try to tackle one change at a time,” Dr. Moores said. “Try to set yourself goals, reflect on your progress towards these, acknowledge that changes can be hard, and results won’t happen overnight … or even in the first two weeks of the new year.”