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.
(NEW YORK) — Scientists have factored damage to the ocean into the social cost of carbon for the first time — finding it nearly doubles the economic impact from climate change.
Ocean damage from climate change — dubbed the “blue” social cost of carbon — causes the global cost of carbon dioxide emissions to society to nearly double, according to new findings by researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.
The researchers calculated an additional $46.2 per ton of carbon dioxide — amounting to a total of $97.2 per ton of carbon dioxide, a 91% increase, according to the study, published Thursday in Nature Climate Change. Global carbon dioxide emissions were estimated to be 41.6 billion tons in 2024, according to the Global Carbon Budget, implying nearly $2 trillion in ocean-related damages in one year that are currently missing from standard climate cost estimates.
The ocean has never been accounted into the economic harm caused by greenhouse gas emissions before, the researchers said. The ocean was largely overlooked in the standard accounting of the social cost of carbon, despite widespread degradation to coral reef ecosystems, losses from fisheries and damage to coastal infrastructure — all of which are “well documented” and have impacted millions of people globally.
In addition, the distribution of impacts is “highly unequal” across the globe, according to the paper. Islands and small economies will be disproportionately affected, given the regions’ dependence on seafood and nutrition, according to the study.
Scripps researchers felt the need to put a price tag on the harm that climate change causes to the ocean in order to properly inform key decision-makers with a cost-benefit analysis, said environmental economist and assistant professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico Bernardo Bastien-Olvera, who led the study during a postdoctoral fellowship at Scripps Oceanography.
“The ocean was the big missing piece in these models that calculate the climate impacts on humans,” Bastien-Olvera told ABC News.
Human-amplified climate change damages oceans by warming temperatures and altering its chemistry, according to the Scripps researchers. The changes then alter the distribution of species and damages ecosystems such as reefs, mangroves, seagrass beds and kelp forests.
Coastal infrastructure, such as shipping ports, can also be damaged by increased flooding and stronger storms.
The social cost of carbon is an economic metric used in climate policy to estimate the damages that a ton of carbon dioxide causes to humans today, Bastien-Olvera said.
The researchers estimated the social cost of carbon by using integrated assessment models to run different future scenarios of how people and the economy might behave during the next century, also incorporating the potential climate impacts on systems such as coral reefs, mangroves, fisheries and seaports, Bastien-Olvera said.
The accounting was further developed by looking at straightforward market-use values, such as decreased fisheries revenue or diminished trade, as well as non-market values such as health impacts of reduced nutrition availability from impacted fisheries and recreational opportunities at the ocean, according to Scripps.
The research accounted for reduced availability of key nutrients in seafood, including calcium, omega-3 fatty acids, protein and iron — the loss of which can be linked to increases in disease risk and additional deaths.
The economic cost is caused by losses in the fishing industry, damage to coastal communities and impacts to systems that help fortify those communities, like mangroves and reefs.
The social cost of carbon is considered a more accurate accounting of harm from climate change than other calculations used as the basis of carbon credits or carbon offsets to travelers, according to Scripps.
John and Patsy Ramsey, the parents of JonBenet Ramsey, meet with a small selected group of the local Colorado media in Boulder, Colorado on May 1, 1997. Helen H. Richardson/Denver Post via Getty Images
(BOULDER, Colo.) — Nearly 29 years after 6-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey was mysteriously found killed in her Boulder, Colorado, home, police say the case remains a “top priority” and urge anyone with information to come forward.
In the last year, investigators collected new evidence and conducted tests on existing evidence in an effort to find new leads, Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn said Friday. Police also conducted new interviews and re-interviews, he said.
Redfearn — who released a statement and video as the department’s annual update on JonBenet’s case — said details on what was tested and who was interviewed cannot be released.
The mysterious murder dates back to the morning of Dec. 26, 1996, when John and Patsy Ramsey woke up to find their daughter, JonBenet, missing and a handwritten ransom note left on the stairs of their home. Hours later, John Ramsey discovered his daughter dead in their basement.
JonBenet’s autopsy determined she was sexually assaulted and strangled, and her skull was fractured. Unknown DNA was found under her fingernails and in her underwear.
The Ramseys and their son were cleared as suspects in 2008. Patsy Ramsey died in 2006.
Redfearn said he’s met with the Ramsey family and told them “we share the same goal: to find and bring JonBenet’s murderer to justice.”
The case “remains a top priority,” Redfearn said.
“It is never too late for people with knowledge of this terrible crime to come forward, and I urge those responsible for this murder to contact us,” he said.
Demonstrators against the ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deployment march during a protest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, US, on Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026. (Jaida Grey Eagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(MINNEAPOLIS) — A federal judge heard arguments Monday on the state of Minnesota’s request for a temporary restraining order to halt the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operation in the state.
The hearing came two days after the death of 37-year-old Alex Pretti in what was the second shooting of a U.S. citizen this month by federal immigration enforcement agents in Minneapolis.
An attorney representing the state said in Monday’s hearing that the enforcement action, dubbed “Operation Metro Surge,” is the nation’s single largest escalation of immigration enforcement, despite Minnesota not having the largest number of non-citizens with criminal convictions.
“Yet the federal government has sent an unprecedented force of thousands of masked agents armed with assault rifles to spread through our region in roving patrols that are racially profiling and inflicting violence on people,” argued state attorney Lindsey Middlecamp.
Brian Carter, another state attorney, argued that there’s a lack of precedent because “the conduct [from the federal government] is so outrageously unlawful we’ve never seen it before.”
“In the 250 years of this nation’s history, we have never seen a federal government attack states based on personal animosity,” Carter argued.
“Well, we’ve seen the federal government take very robust responses to states that aren’t yielding to federal authority,” U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez interrupted.
“Absolutely, but that’s based on the rule of law,” Carter responded.
When Judge Menendez asked what exactly the state wants her to do, Carter said, “End Operation Metro Surge.”
“The whole Operation Metro Surge is an illegal means to an illegal end, so just ending the whole thing is the appropriate remedy there,” Carter said.
“You understand the federal government has a lot of power in this area, so I’m trying to figure out what principle you’re asking me to apply that will sort out legal federal law enforcement from this 10th Amendment argument,” Judge Menendez said.
An attorney representing the federal government called the state’s request to end Operation Metro Surge “staggering.”
“The effect of their requested relief would be essentially removing the officers whom the president has concluded should be there to enforce federal immigration law,” said attorney Brantley Mayers. “It’s pretty staggering.”
Mayers argued that the requested relief should be subject to “a heightened standard.”
“They’re challenging one law enforcement initiative,” replied Judge Menendez. “They’re not challenging the enforcement of immigration law writ large.”
Mayers said that if the judge issues an order to end Operation Metro Surge, it “would be very difficult to implement.”
“If it’s difficult to implement, does that mean I can do nothing?” Judge Menendez asked.
Mayers responded by saying such an order would create a “very difficult separation of powers problem.”
The judge also said she is “grappling” with the alleged illegalities identified by the state, pointing to other lawsuits filed in Minnesota.
“Isn’t the answer to the flood of illegality to fight each illegal act?” Judge Menendez asked, noting that the conduct of federal agents is already the subject of separate litigation.
Menendez also questioned how she should draw the line between legitimate federal pressure and illegal coercion.
“How do I decide when a law enforcement response crosses the line from a legitimate response to one that violates the 10th Amendment?” she asked.
Carter argued that there are “4,000 masked, armed federal agents engaged in systemic, pervasive, and illegal violent behavior” that is “so far out on the other side of the line.”
“We’ve got retaliation, we’ve got racial profiling, we’ve got warrantless entries into homes,” Carter said.
Middlecamp said that U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s letter to Gov. Tim Walz Saturday in which she sought information about the state’s voter rolls and records on Medicaid and Food and Nutrition Service programs as a condition for ICE agents pulling back on enforcement, “can only be described as a ransom note.”
“President Trump himself took to social media last night to reaffirm those very purposes. Their message is clear,” Middlecamp said. “Minnesota can either change its laws and policies or suffer an invasion of masked armed forces. This is precisely the type of coercion and commandeering that violates the 10th Amendment.”
Middlecamp argued there has been “excessive force and unsupported detentions and arrests of legal observers” and said that DHS agents have been collecting photos and license plates of observers so they can confront them.
“Even though they are not charged with a crime or reasonably suspected of a crime, there has been indiscriminate use of chemical irritants,” she said.
The attorney argued that Operation Metro Surge is having “clear impacts on the sovereign interest to create and protect public safety, public health, and public education.”
Sara Lathrop, an attorney for the city of Minneapolis, said the weekend’s shooting “demonstrated in a terrifying way that the current situation is absolutely untenable.”
“The relief we need needs to be ordered now to take down the temperature,” Lathrop said.
In response, Judge Menendez said that “not all crises have a fix from a district court injunction.”
Carter, the state attorney, wrapped up arguments by saying the state came to the court to “protect its sovereignty.”
“The state of Minnesota comes here today to protect its sovereignty, to stop the harm to its sovereign rights under the Constitution that sets states up as independent sovereigns,” Carter said. “If we can’t come to the court and vindicate those rights, where else does a state go?”
Judge Menendez did not issue an order immediately following the hearing.
“I do not intend in any way for the depth of my analysis or whatever time I take to write to be seen as a belief that this is unimportant,” she said. “It’s because it’s extremely important that I’m doing everything I can to get it right,” the judge said.
