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A major Texas teachers’ union filed a federal lawsuit against the state on Tuesday challenging what it describes as unconstitutional investigations into hundreds of educators who posted comments on social media following the September killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

The Texas American Federation of Teachers, which represents approximately 66,000 public school employees, is asking a federal court to block the Texas Education Agency and its commissioner, Mike Morath, from continuing investigations that the union argues violate teachers’ free speech protections.

The legal challenge centers on a 6 September letter Morath sent to school superintendents across Texas, instructing them to report educators who made what he termed “reprehensible and inappropriate” remarks about Kirk, who was shot and killed on 10 September while speaking at Utah Valley University. The union argues this directive has triggered a sweeping crackdown on constitutionally protected speech.

“Public school teachers and other employees do not surrender their first amendment rights simply by virtue of their employment,” the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit describes cases of four teachers who faced discipline ranging from termination to formal investigations after making personal social media posts criticizing Kirk’s rightwing positions on issues including race and immigration. According to the complaint, educators were punished despite posting from personal accounts, outside work hours, and without causing any disruption to school operations.

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“Public school teachers and other employees do not surrender their first amendment rights simply by virtue of their employment,” the lawsuit reads.

The lawsuit describes cases of four teachers who faced discipline ranging from termination to formal investigations after making personal social media posts criticizing Kirk’s rightwing positions on issues including race and immigration. According to the complaint, educators were punished despite posting from personal accounts, outside work hours, and without causing any disruption to school operations.

Congressional Republicans were largely silent on the fifth anniversary of the January 6 insurrection on Tuesday, even as Democrats sought to use the occasion to condemn Donald Trump and a small group of protesters convened on the grounds of the US Capitol in solidarity with those who carried out the attack.

Democrats, who are in the minority in Congress after fruitlessly hoping that the well-documented violence would cause voters to reject Trump for good, seized on the anniversary to decry the president as a threat to democracy, and accuse Republicans of acting as his accomplices.

“Instead of holding those responsible for the attack accountable, Donald Trump and far-right extremists in Congress have repeatedly attempted to rewrite history and whitewash the horrific events of January 6. We will not let that happen,” the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, said at an unofficial hearing his party convened to examine the effects of the attack.

The anniversary was the first since Trump returned to office nearly a year ago and immediately pardoned almost everyone convicted or charged over the violence, the crowning achievement of a campaign that Republicans began almost immediately in the attack’s aftermath to blunt public outrage.

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Lars Løkke Rasmussen, the foreign minister of Denmark, told reporters on Tuesday that he hopes Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, responds to a request from Greenland’s foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, for the three of them to meet soon to discuss threats from Donald Trump to seize the Danish self-governing territory.

According to the Danish public broadcaster DR, Rasmussen said that such a meeting would give the Danes and Greenlanders a chance to correct what he called the false information Trump has used to argue that Greenland poses a threat to the security of the United States.

That misinformation, the foreign minister said, includes false claims that there are a lot of Russian and Chinese ships around Greenland, and that China exerts great influence there through investments.

“Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday.

“We do not share this image that Greenland is plastered with Chinese investments,” Rasmussen said, “nor that there are Chinese warships up and down along Greenland”.

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The Department of Homeland Security has launched an immigration and fraud crackdown in Minneapolis amid a welfare-abuse scandal in Minnesota.

CBS and CNN reported that around 2,000 federal agents have been deployed in the Twin Cities area as part of a 30-day surge in operations.

On Tuesday, the department's official account wrote “GOOD MORNING MINNEAPOLIS!” – the first in a series of posts about operations in the region.

In a post on her own X account, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem is pictured overseeing arrests, and promising to “expose and deliver accountability for the rampant fraud and criminality happening in Minnesota.”

The push comes amid new allegations of fraud by some day care centers run by Somali residents in Minnesota following claims by a right-wing influencer.

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Former Del. Mike Jones (left) and Charlie Schmidt won special elections Tuesday, with Jones capturing the Richmond-area Senate District 17 seat vacated by Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi and Schmidt succeeding Jones in House District 77.

Former Richmond Del. Mike Jones is headed back to the General Assembly — this time as a state senator — after winning Tuesday’s special election in Virginia Senate District 15, a Democratic-leaning seat vacated late last year by Ghazala Hashmi.

By 8 p.m., Jones had defeated Republican John Thomas by a margin of 67.8-32% out of 15,409 votes cast, according to unofficial election results, securing a seat that stretches across much of Richmond and parts of Chesterfield County.

The win caps a fast-moving political reshuffle sparked by November’s statewide elections and ensures Democrats retain control of the district as lawmakers prepare to convene for the 2026 General Assembly session next week.

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The Israeli military carried out further strikes in areas of Gaza beyond its immediate control, in the latest violation of a ceasefire deal brokered by the US in October.

The attacks killed at least three Palestinians, including a 15-year-old boy, in and around Khan Younis and injured many more near the Bureij refugee camp, Al Jazeera reported.

Israeli forces also continued to demolish homes and infrastructure across northern and eastern Gaza, including Gaza City neighbourhoods, saying they were targeting militant facilities.

In southern Lebanon, meanwhile, an Israeli drone strike on Sunday killed two people after targeting a car near the town of Bint Jbeil, the Lebanese ministry of health said.

The attack reportedly occurred in the Ayn al-Mizrab area, destroying the vehicle and damaging nearby buildings.

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The Israeli army has spent the last 24 hours expanding the so-called 'yellow line' in eastern Gaza, particularly in the neighbourhoods of Tuffah, Shujayea and Zeitoun, also in eastern Gaza City, squeezing Palestinians into smaller and smaller groups in the enclave.

This is what Al-Jazeera reports, from its field staff. Israel now physically occupies more than 50% of the Gaza Strip, the Arab news outlet points out. The Israeli army's actions today are also pushing the army closer to the main artery of Salah al-Din Street, forcing displaced families sheltering near the area to flee, as more and more of them are under intense threat, while Israel's genocidal war against Gaza shows no sign of abating.

Intense artillery shelling and helicopter fire also resumed today, 5 January, in areas south of the besieged enclave, north and east of the towns of Rafah and Khan Younis.

On 4 January, Israel launched further attacks in areas of Gaza outside its direct military control, according to Al-Jazeera. At least three Palestinians were killed in several Israeli attacks in Khan Younis, according to medical sources. A five-storey building in central Gaza collapsed: it had been the target of Israeli shelling in late 2023. Civil Defence teams are searching for missing people under the rubble. The Wafa news agency reported that at least five people were injured.

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World leaders and top military officials are converging on the French capital Tuesday under growing doubt that a Western-backed peace plan for Ukraine can move beyond political symbolism and impose real costs on Moscow – or whether it risks becoming yet another diplomatic exercise overtaken by events on the battlefield.

The meeting, convened under the banner of the “Coalition of the Willing,” comes as Russian missiles continue to strike Ukrainian cities and as analysts warn that any agreement lacking enforcement mechanisms is unlikely to deter the Kremlin.

Ukrainian officials say the framework under discussion is “90 percent” complete. But that final 10%  – security guarantees, US buy-in and clear penalties for Russian violations – may ultimately determine whether the plan survives contact with reality.

“This week, we will be working with our European and American partners to ensure that Ukraine has the assistance it needs,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday.https://www.kyivpost.com/post/67472

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