US says 8-year-old Guatemalan boy has died in custody  —  EL PASO, Texas (AP) — U.S. immigration authorities say an 8-year-old boy from Guatemala has died in government custody, the second immigrant child to die in detention this month.  —  U.S. Customs and Border Protection say the boy died shortly after midnight Tuesday.

Trump: “I can't tell you when” shutdown will end  —  In a short question and answer session with reporters this morning, President Trump said “I can't tell you when the government is going to reopen,” and that the partial government shutdown won't end until “we have a wall, a fence, whatever they'd like to call it.”

Why the Trump presidency will end poorly  —  As we celebrate Christmastime amid an unnecessary and indefinite government shutdown and the worst December for the stock market since 1931, I'm reminded once again of my longstanding prediction: The Trump presidency will end poorly because character is destiny.

ICE dumps hundreds of migrants with nowhere to go at a bus station on eve of Christmas without warning shelters  —  Lawmakers and immigrant rights groups scramble after ICE releases hundreds of migrants without alerting local shelters. … EL PASO - Hundreds of asylum-seekers spent part …

Trump is incompetent, impulsive and amoral.  Heaven help us all.  —  The chaos all around us is what happens when the nation elects an incompetent, narcissistic, impulsive and amoral man as president.  This Christmas, heaven help us all.  —  Much of the government is shut down over symbolic funding …

Time for G.O.P. to Threaten to Fire Trump  —  Republican leaders need to mount an intervention.  —  Up to now I have not favored removing President Trump from office.  I felt strongly that it would be best for the country that he leave the way he came in, through the ballot box.

Christmas in Lebanon: 'Jesus Isn't Only for the Christians'  —  BEIRUT — The Iranian cultural attaché stepped up to the microphone on a stage flanked by banners bearing the faces of Iran's two foremost religious authorities: Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, and Ayatollah Khamenei, the current supreme leader.

Dutch church clocks up 1,400 hours to prevent family being deported  —  Non-stop service held to prevent deportation  —  (CNN)A non-stop church service in the Netherlands — aimed at stopping an Armenian family from being deported — has become so popular it has issued tickets for the Christmas period to control numbers.

TSA moving toward floppy-ear airport dog force because pointy-ear dogs ‘scare children’  —  The Transportation Security Administration is in the process of swapping out pointy-ear dogs for floppy-ear ones in an effort to put more of the public at ease when interacting with its canines.