Police seize 55 pounds of meth wrapped as Christmas presents in Kentucky drug bust
Kentucky police confiscated 55 pounds of meth wrapped in Christmas paper, Dec. 22, 2025. Jeffersontown Police Department
(JEFFERSONTOWN, Ky.) — Santa was not the only one trying to deliver Christmas surprises this year.
Police say they confiscated 55 pounds of suspected methamphetamine wrapped in Christmas paper Monday during a narcotics investigation in Jeffersontown, Kentucky, right outside of Louisville.
Jacob Talamantes, 23, of Nebraska, was arrested after a police K9 alerted officers to the presence of illicit drugs in Talamantes’ 2013 Chevrolet Malibu, according to a press release from the Jeffersontown Police Department. Police say they found the festively wrapped methamphetamine packages in the vehicle.
According to police, Talamantestried to walk away from the officers but was detained. Additionally, he allegedly told officers that he was traveling from Iowa and intended to traffic the drugs.
The Jeffersontown Police Department Chief Richard Sanders decried the crime.
“No amount of festive wrapping can disguise the harm these drugs inflict on families and communities. The coordinated efforts of partner agencies ensured these holiday-wrapped packages never reached the streets,” Sanders said in a Facebook post.
Talamantes is charged with first-degree trafficking in a controlled substance, according to police. The charge is a felony, per state law.
Jeffersontown Police credited the Kentucky State Police and the Drug Enforcement Administration for their assistance in the investigation.
Attorney information for Talamantes was not immediately available, but he is expected to next appear in court on Friday, Jan. 2, per court documents.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services building is seen on March 27, 2025 in Washington, DC. The Department of Health and Human Services announced it is cutting 10,000 jobs and closing offices aimed at cutting $1.8 billion (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Trump administration took steps this week to reinstate hundreds of health and safety officials who had previously been dismissed in widespread layoffs, granting a major win for advocates of workplace safety.
The newly reinstated employees belong to the National Institute of Safety and Health, or NIOSH, a small federal office within the Department of Health and Human Services that’s focused on protecting coal miners from black lung respiratory disease. Critics of the Trump administration have accused the government of stripping away key protections for miners in its bid to reinvigorate the coal industry, ABC News has previously reported.
“This moment belongs to every single person who refused to stay silent,” Dr. Micah Niemeier-Walsh, an industrial hygienist at NIOSH and the vice president of the American Federation of Government Employees outpost in Washington, D.C., said Wednesday following news of the reinstatements.
In April 2025, hundreds of NIOSH officials were terminated as part of a so-called Reduction in Force, or RIF. Under pressure from lawmakers and labor organizers, the administration brought back some officials months later, and on Tuesday, hundreds more received an email saying the prior “notice is hereby revoked.”
“You are not affected by the RIF and remain employed in your position of record,” according to an email obtained by ABC News.
The reinstatement “ensures the continuation of critical programs that protect all working people, including mine safety research, chemical hazard assessment, and research on emerging occupational risks,” read a statement from AFGE, the federal workers union.
Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement that “the Trump Administration is committed to protecting essential services — whether it’s supporting coal miners and firefighters through NIOSH, safeguarding public health through lead prevention, or researching and tracking the most prevalent communicable diseases.”
Nixon confirmed that the reinstatement applies to all NIOSH officials except those who voluntarily left government.
Artemis II: the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft at Launch Pad 39B, on Friday, Jan. 30, 2026. (Ricardo Ramirez Buxeda/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
(MERRITT ISLAND, Fla.) — Weather conditions have again delayed operations leading to the launch of the Artemis II rocket mission to the moon.
The rollback of the Artemis II rocket and spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida was originally scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. Due to high winds in the area, NASA said its plans to move the rocket and Orion spacecraft for Artemis II off the launch pad and back to the vehicle assembly building were pushed to Wednesday morning.
The 4-mile trek is expected to take 12 hours, the space agency said.
The move was deemed necessary after crews detected an interrupted flow of helium to the Artemis II rocket’s upper stage on Saturday. Helium did not flow properly during normal operations and reconfigurations that followed the wet dress rehearsal that concluded on Thursday.
The upper stage uses helium to maintain the proper environmental conditions for its engine and to pressurize liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen propellant tanks, according to NASA. Essentially, helium is a critical element that ensures the proper flow of fuel into the rocket.
Once back in the vehicle assembly building, teams will install platforms to access the helium flow issue, NASA said. Teams will review potential causes of the issue as well as data from the 2022 Artemis I mission, in which teams had to troubleshoot helium-related pressurization of the upper stage before launch.
The Artemis II mission is a test flight that will send four astronauts on a more than 600,000-mile journey around the moon to test critical spacecraft systems, according to NASA. The crew will fly over the far side of the moon — passing between 4,000 and 6,000 miles above it — and spend a day observing and photographing the region.
After the lunar flyby, the astronauts will circle the moon for a return to Earth, in which the Earth-moon gravity field will help pull the spacecraft back to Earth over the course of its three-day return trip.
The Orion will then splashdown off the coast of San Diego after re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere, and the U.S. Navy will recover the astronauts from the Pacific Ocean.
The journey is expected to take 10 days total.
The mission sets the stage for the future Artemis III, which aims to someday land astronauts near the moon’s South Pole. The region has never been explored by humans before.
Artemis II will mark the first time humans have traveled beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972.
In January, NASA delayed the Artemis moonshot due to near-freezing temperatures at the launch site.
Heaters were deployed to keep the Orion capsule on top of the rocket warm, while rocket-purging systems were adapted to the cold.
The rollback of Artemis II means it will not launch during the March launch window, NASA said.
The quick preparations will potentially preserve the April launch window, pending the outcome of data findings and repair efforts, according to the agency.
ABC News’ Briana Alvarado and Matthew Glasser contributed to this report.
Ballots arrive at the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operation Center on election night on November 5, 2024 in Fairburn, Georgia. Megan Varner/Getty Images
(FULTON COUNTY, Ga.) — A top Fulton County official on Thursday blasted the Trump administration for the FBI’s seizure of 2020 election ballots, saying the move is about “intimidation and distraction.”
County officials said the FBI seized original 2020 voting records Wednesday while serving a search warrant at the county’s Elections Hub and Operations Center.
The development comes after President Donald Trump has repeatedly said there was voter fraud in the 2020 election, specifically in Georgia, that contributed to his election loss. Georgia officials audited and certified the results following the election.
“Every audit, every recount, every court ruling has confirmed what we the people of Fulton County already knew: Our elections were fair and accurate and every legal vote was counted,” Robb Pitts, the chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, said at a press briefing Thursday.
“These ongoing efforts are about intimidation and distraction, not facts,” Pitts said.
Last month, the Justice Department sued Fulton County for access to its 2020 election records, including ballot stubs and signature envelopes.
Asked why the county did not turn over the records then, Pitts said “there is a fight” over the ballots, but that county attorneys reviewed the warrant and said was in their best interest to comply.
“Fulton County has nothing to hide,” he said, “Fulton County elections are fair and lawful, and the outcome of the 2020 election will not change.”
The search warrant authorized the FBI to search for “All physical ballots from the 2020 General Election,” in addition to tabulator tapes from voting machines and 2020 voter rolls, among other documents, according to a copy of the warrant obtained by ABC affiliate WSB.
The warrant says the material “constitutes evidence of the commission of a criminal offense” and had been “used as the means of committing a criminal offense.” It was signed by federal magistrate Judge Catherine Salinas.
Specifically, the warrant listed possible violations of two statutes — one which requires election records to be retained for a certain amount of time, and another which outlines criminal penalties for people, including election officials, who intimidate voters or to knowingly procure false votes or false voter registrations.
