Road construction is seen on March 12, 2017, at ConocoPhillips’ Greater Mooses Tooth Unit in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. (Photo by Sarah LaMarr/U.S. Bureau of Land Management)
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration is proposing to divert money from a program intended to compensate North Slope communities for the side effects of oil and gas drilling on federal land near them.
As Dunleavy prepares to unveil a long-term fiscal plan, the state is proposing to use at least some of that money across Alaska instead.
“Definitely a big deal,” said Alexei Painter, director of the Legislative Finance Division, which analyzes the budget on behalf of legislators.
It’s funded through revenue generated by oil production on federal land in the North Slope, and it is expected to grow significantly in coming years as more oil is produced from projects like Willow, which is located in the vast petroleum reserve between Utqiagvik and the Prudhoe Bay oil field.
The Willow project alone, for example, is expected to generate $3.1 billion for the grant program between 2029 and 2053, a boon for the borough’s 10,583 residents.
But in documents published recently, the Department of Revenue has reclassified money for the program as “unrestricted,” meaning it could be spent in a variety of ways.
During a Wednesday meeting of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. board of trustees, CEO Deven Mitchell told the board that he had just heard “that there’s been a federal law change” that could see more money end up in the Permanent Fund.
Mitchell couldn’t recall where he had read about that change, but it appears in the state’s newly published revenue forecast, which covers the fiscal year that starts July 1.
In several footnotes, the Department of Revenue describes a shift in policy. Currently, revenue from the leasing of federal land in the petroleum reserve is deposited in “a special revenue fund” dedicated to a particular purpose.
That changes with the new fiscal year, when “these payments will be divided between unrestricted revenue (74.5%), the Permanent Fund (25%) and Public School Trust Fund (0.5%).”
That would mean money from NPR-A would end up in the state’s general-purpose accounts, usable for services statewide or the Permanent Fund dividend.
Last year, the department wrote, “The federal government dictates that shared NPR-A revenue must be used for specific purposes, and therefore it is considered restricted revenue in this forecast.”
This year, that sentence doesn’t appear.
Comparing the two forecasts shows the difference. Last year, the department labeled NPR-A revenue as “restricted,” or locked in to a particular purpose. In the new fall forecast, it’s “unrestricted,” or available for general use.
While only $9.6 million in NPR-A revenue is expected in the next fiscal year, the state forecasts that amount will rise significantly after the end of the decade — to more than $200 million per year by 2033.
Speaking to reporters last week, an official with the Office of Management and Budget said the Alaska Department of Law was evaluating how changes to federal law in the Big Beautiful Bill Act will change the distribution of revenue to the state and local communities.
That act, passed with the enthusiastic endorsement of Republicans in Congress and President Donald Trump, calls for the state to receive 70% of revenue from oil and gas leases on federal land in the National Petroleum Reserve, Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and Cook Inlet, starting in fiscal year 2034.
The Department of Revenue concluded that clause will ultimately have little effect.
“Since all current and forecasted production in the NPR-A is located on leases issued before 2025, only a small portion of revenue within the current forecast period is expected to receive the 70% share,” the department wrote in its new forecast.
More important for the short term, the Act contains a clause stating that “for each of fiscal years 2025 through 2033, 50 percent (of federal-land oil revenue) shall be paid to the State of Alaska.”
Previous federal law contained a 50-50 split but also contained a clause stating that “in the allocation of such funds, the State shall give priority to use by subdivisions of the State most directly or severely impacted by development of oil and gas leased under this Act.”
That priority doesn’t appear in the Big Beautiful Bill.
As a result, the Alaska Department of Law is determining whether the state may choose to keep that money for direct uses instead of sending it to communities, the OMB official said.
As a precondition for the interview, reporters agreed to allow the official to speak on background and not be quoted directly.
The Alaska Department of Law did not respond to an emailed inquiry about the effort, nor did staff for any of Alaska’s three members of Congress, who were instrumental in adding that language to the Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The North Slope Borough was unable to comment before deadline Wednesday. Officials from VOICE of the Arctic Inupiat, an organization that has acted as a local booster for oil production, also did not return a message seeking comment.
Alaska State Troopers said in a bulletin Monday that Dr. Ryan McDonough died in a weekend fire at his home in Wasilla.
At the time of the fire, McDonough — a cardiologist formerly with Mat-Su Regional Medical Center — was on $50,000 bail after being arrested on Dec. 11 and accused of owning child sexual abuse images.
The fatal fire at McDonough’s home took place Saturday; McDonough was initially listed as missing after the fire, but firefighters found human remains at the site, and preliminary testing later identified McDonough’s body.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation, and the other people who lived at the home were unharmed.
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy appointed McDonough to the state medical board in August. That month, he joined other members of the medical board in voting to impose restrictions on medical care for transgender youth in the state and to recommend that Alaska lawmakers end legal access to abortion in the late stages of pregnancy.
McDonough subsequently appeared to drop off the board; he attended its August and September meetings but was absent from its October and November ones, public records show.
McDonough’s name was removed from the board’s roster in November. A spokesperson for Dunleavy told the Anchorage Daily News that the governor’s office found out about McDonough’s alleged crimes on Friday and was not aware of any investigations at the time of his appointment.
According to an affidavit submitted in Palmer courts by a Department of Homeland Security officer, the online file storage company Dropbox sent a tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on July 31.
That tip led to the investigation of a Dropbox account linked to McDonough that contained a video of a child being sexually abused. A second tip followed another video on Aug. 10.
The Anchorage Police Department, in charge of investigating tips like those received by the National Center, obtained a search warrant for McDonough’s Dropbox, GCI and Google accounts. Subsequent searches found additional suspect videos, and McDonough’s computer was seized during a search warrant on Dec. 11, shortly before his arrest.
The Alaska Beacon typically publishes copies of court affidavits but is not doing so in this case because of their graphic contents and because they describe acts of sexual violence against children.
McDonough’s next court appearance was scheduled for Jan. 31.
The sun at midnight in early July reflects on the Chukchi Sea and slabs of sea ice near the coastline of Utgiagvik. Credit: Lisa Hupp/USFWS.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued its annual Arctic Report Card on Tuesday, which documents the way rising temperatures, diminished ice, thawing permafrost, melting glaciers and vegetation shifts are transforming the region and affecting its people. The agency has released the report for 20 years as a way to track changes in the Arctic.
“The Arctic continues to warm faster than the global average, with the 10 years that comprise the last decade marking the 10 warmest years on record,” Steve Thur, NOAA’s acting administrator for oceanic and atmospheric research and the agency’s acting chief scientist, said at a news conference Tuesday.
The report card is a peer-reviewed collaboration of more than 100 scientists from 13 countries, with numerous coauthors from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. It was officially released at the American Geophysical Union’s annual meeting in New Orleans, where Thur and other officials held the news conference.
The report is the first under the second Trump administration, at a time when the federal government’s commitment to documenting Arctic climate change has diminished: The president has repeatedly called climate change a hoax and federal departments are cancelling climate change-related research and projects, as well as scrubbing climate information from public view.
Under directives from the Trump administration, NOAA no longer provides information that the National Snow and Ice Data Center once used to monitor sea ice and snow cover, for example. The Colorado-based center now relies on satellite information from the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency for its sea ice reports, and it has reduced its analysis.
A national dataset about the melt of the Greenland Ice Sheet has also been lost to the Trump administration’s cutbacks, said Rick Thoman of the UAF’s Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Preparedness, one of the report’s main editors. The ice sheet is still being monitored by European satellites, but the data is not equivalent, he said.
Government entities like NOAA’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center, which regularly provides scientific information that goes into the Arctic Report Card, have endured deep budget cuts and staff firings.
On Tuesday, Russel Vought, President Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget Director, said the administration plans to close the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a Colorado research facility that has operated since 1960. The facility “is one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country,” Vought said in a post on the social media site X.
And this year, unlike the other years since 2006 when NOAA published the first Arctic Report Card, the agency declined to issue a news release about it.
Thur, asked if NOAA will continue to publish report cards in the future, said the agency will continue the work that goes into the annual documents.
“What I would say in response to that question, is that we’re here today and that we have released the 2025 version,” he said. NOAA has continued its long-term environmental observations in the Arctic, both with satellite observations, he said. “So I think one of the things that the community can rely upon is that our efforts to continue to observe the planet will remain present,” he said.
The Mendenhall River is seen at flood levels, just a few hours after the record-breaking peak of 16.65 feet, from the Brotherhood Bridge in Juneau on Aug.13, 2025. The flood, caused by an outburst of meltwater from Mendenhall Glacier, was mentioned in the 2025 Arctic Report Card as one of the impacts of glacial melt. (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
Thur also demurred when asked whether NOAA still stands by the statements about fossil fuels made by the agency’s prior administrator, Rick Spinrad. When last year’s report was issued at the end of the Biden administration, Spinrad said the changes in the Arctic were directly related to fossil-fuel emissions. Thur did not mention fossil fuels.
“What I would say in response to that question is that we recognize that the planet is changing dramatically,” he said during the news conference. “Our role within NOAA is to try to predict what’s going to occur in the future by documenting what’s occurring today,” he said. “There is a human role, as our administrator currently, Dr. Neil Jacobs, said during his congressional confirmation hearing, for humans in influencing those changes.”
Matthew Druckenmiller of the National Snow and Ice Data Center, another lead editor of the report, made no such equivocations.
“Let us start by first acknowledging that the warming of our planet driven by human greenhouse gas emissions into our atmosphere is amplified in the Arctic,” he said near the start of the news conference. “The Arctic continues to warm much faster than the globe overall, amplified by the loss of reflective sea ice and snow, causing more of the sun’s heat to penetrate into land and ocean.”
Druckenmiller also said the Trump administration did not interfere with drafting of the report.
“I can say that in producing the Arctic report card in 2025, we did not receive any political interference with our results,” he said.
Lower sea ice, more precipitation, more melt and thaw
Some of the main messages in this report concern superlatives, while others describe a continuation of long-term changes.
It was the Arctic’s hottest year in a record dating back to 1900, the report said. The past year’s winter sea ice maximum was the lowest in the satellite record, which dates back to the late 1970s, and sea ice is much thinner and younger than it was in the past, the report said.
The region set a record for precipitation for the 12 months that ended in September, despite an unusually dry summer in parts of northern Canada and Eurasia. Warmer air holds more moisture, and a long-term trend of higher precipitation continues, the report said.
Across the Arctic, June snow cover extent has declined by 50% over the past six decades, since the 1960s. “Even though you’re starting out in season with more snow, it’s melting faster,” Thoman said.
For rain, there is another pattern: more heavy rain events. Those included last January’s powerful, northward pushing “atmospheric river” that stretched from the Aleutian Islands through mainland Alaska, bringing midwinter rain and flood conditions to Anchorage and elsewhere.
Alaska figures prominently in this year’s report card, as it has in past years’ reports.
Patrick Sullivan stands by an acid seep on July 15,2023. Sullivan is part of a team of scientists who tested water quality in Kobuk Valley National Park’s Salmon River and its tributaries, where permafrost thaw has caused acid rock drainage. The process is releasing metals that have turned the waters a rusty color. A chapter in the 2025 Arctic Report Card described “rusting rivers” phenomenon. (Photo by Roman Dial/Alaska Pacific University)
One chapter is devoted to changing conditions in the Northern Bering Sea and the Chukchi Sea, where a warming-related process termed “borealization” is ongoing. That refers to the transition from an Arctic ecosystem to a more southern ecosystem.
In both seas, the report said, boreal species ranging from commercially important fish like Alaska pollock and Pacific cod to tiny organisms that make up the base of the food web, have been pushing out the more cold-adapted Arctic species like Arctic cod, saffron cod and snow crab. There are impacts to people and marine mammals, the report noted.
“Warming temperatures, declining sea ice, and shifting productivity in the Chukchi and northern Bering Seas drive ecosystem changes with significant implications for fisheries, food security, and Indigenous subsistence,” the report said.
In both seas, about a third of the boreal species groups examined over time increased, while about a third of the Arctic species groups decreased. Some of those boreal species populations spiked in recent years. That long-term trend is evident despite a lot of year-to-year variation and anomalously cold conditions in the Chukchi over the past year.
A chapter about mountain glaciers, a major contributor to global sea level rise, highlights this summer’s glacial outburst flood in Juneau, a phenomenon that has become an annual occurrence in Alaska’s capital city. Glacial outburst floods are increasing in frequency and severity in certain parts of the Arctic and subarctic, said Gabriel Wolken of UAF at the news conference.
Glacial melt is also tied to another extreme event that happened this summer in Southeast Alaska: the collapse of a mountainside along narrow Tracy Arm, which generated a local tsunami that rose nearly 1,600 feet up the opposite side.
“Glacier retreat combined with slope instability can lead to landslides,” Wolken said, adding that those slides can lead to far-reaching tsunamis. “The August 10th, 2025 landslide in Southeast Alaska’s Tracey Arm illustrates the sheer power of these hazards,” he said.
A chapter in the report is devoted to “rusting rivers,” a permafrost-related phenomenon documented throughout the Arctic but especially in Northwestern Alaska. The name comes from the conversion of clear streams to rust-colored waterways, the product of iron and other chemicals that leech out from rocks because of permafrost thaw. There are more than 200 such rusting watersheds in Alaska, said Abagael Pruitt, a University of California, Davis scientist studying the subject.
Another chapter in the report describes the Indigenous science monitoring being done at the community level. That includes work by the Aleut Community of St. Paul Island, a tribal government that has established its own lab to screen traditional foods for mercury contents.
While much of the report was devoted to impacts within the Arctic and to people living in the region, its coauthors pointed out that rapid climate change in the far north affects latitudes far to the south. Sea level rise, disrupted weather patterns and shocks to commercial fisheries that are important global food sources are among the far-ranging effects of melt, thaw and other changes, they said.
Wolken, at the news conference, put it this way:
“From the deep oceans to the highest peaks, the Arctic cryosphere is undergoing rapid, interconnected and unprecedented change, and those changes matter far beyond the Arctic.”
“No one has to carry out orders that violate the law, or our Constitution,” the lawmakers said, without specifying the orders the U.S. service members may have received. “Know that we have your back … don’t give up the ship.”
There are several unique features to military law that have no analog to civilian criminal law, and if Kelly were court-martialed he would be deprived of several fundamental constitutional rights.
Military justice
In a civilian criminal trial the government normally has the burden of proof on all matters. But in a court-martial, a service member who argues that an order is unlawful has the burden of proving its unlawfulness. And the Supreme Court, in its 1827 opinion in Martin v. Mott, gave this view some credence, arguing that the president, as commander in chief, should not be questioned during a national emergency.
Second, ordinary citizens are protected by a constitutional requirement that the prosecution must convince all jurors of the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. A court-martial has only a two-thirds threshold to establish guilt. And the jurors – called members – are not the accused service member’s peers.
Indeed, the court-martial members are military personnel who outrank the accused service member and are picked to serve by senior commanding officers. Military judges are also uniformed officers and, like the rest of the military, are subject to the chain of command.
At times, senior officers have inserted themselves into the military justice system and tried to direct a court-martial to convict an accused service member. This has created the problem of unlawful command influence, the improper use of superior authority to interfere with the court-martial process.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked the Navy secretary to review Kelly’s comments to troops for ‘potentially unlawful conduct.’ AP Photo/Daniel Kucin Jr.
Kelly is still theoretically subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice and could be court-martialed because he is a military retiree. This concept of a lifetime military jurisdiction did not exist when the Constitution was instituted in 1789. It came into existence during an emergency session of Congress in 1861.
The Supreme Court has never held that lifetime jurisdiction is constitutional. But in 2022 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia did, in a 2-1 decision.
It reasoned that if the Constitution’s creators had thought such a jurisdiction were a threat to the republic, they would have prohibited it. The dissenting judge in that case pointed out the frightening possibility of a president using the Uniform Code of Military Justice to curb free speech.
Lines of defense
Kelly is different than an ordinary retiree, and this case is bigger than a single senator. That’s because it goes to the heart of what the Constitution’s framers intended by preserving liberty through a republican form of government.
In 1648, Oliver Cromwell, who had become a military dictator over England, used the army to curb the Magna Carta – a revolutionary basic rights document dating to 1215 – and the ability of Parliament to debate matters and pass laws. The Constitution is designed to prevent anything coming close to such an occurrence.
So, what would Kelly’s defense likely be, other than that he exercised free speech and gave a correct recitation of the law?
Kelly’s first defense might be that under the Constitution, the president, as commander in chief, has no power to court-martial or otherwise administratively penalize him. Doing so would diminish Congress’ authority.
In 1974, the Supreme Court determined in Schlesinger v. Reservists Committee that although the Constitution prohibits a member of Congress from holding a position in the executive branch, citizens had no standing to sue in the federal courts to prevent this from occurring. Taken literally, the clause means that no member of Congress could hold a military commission and be beholden to the commander in chief, since this would erode Congress’ independence and authority.
Kelly’s second defense could be that after the Constitution and statutory law, the military law is governed by tradition, or the military’s own past practices, which used to be referred to as “lex non scripta.”
American history is replete with retired officers criticizing presidents or even joining in hate groups that accused a president of being beholden to subversive interests. Past presidents have ignored these men.
They include George Van Horn Moseley, who sided with pro-Nazi groups and accused President Franklin Roosevelt of being a communist. Retired generals Albert Coady Wedemeyer and Bonner Fellers formed organizations that undermined Presidents Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower.
Maj. Gen. Albert C. Wedemeyer greets Chinese miltary leaders in southwest China, on Jan. 18, 1945. AP Photo
None of these men were court-martialed or administratively penalized.
Finally, Kelly could argue in federal court that the military has no jurisdiction over him because of the issue of unlawful command influence. One only needs to look at Hegseth’s statements in the case to see the specter of this problem in regard to Kelly.
When Congress formulated the Uniform Code of Military Justice, it criminalized unlawful command influence. But as military law scholar Rachel VanLandingham has pointed out, no person has ever been prosecuted for violating the prohibition.
Kelly could argue that there are no safeguards in his case to ensure a fair hearing and that the case should move from military courts to federal courts. The federal judge assigned the case can then ponder whether siding with the administration’s claims is a step toward establishing a Cromwellian future and away from the Constitution’s protection of a republican form of government.
Of course, Congress could put a stop to any persecution of Kelly by informing the president that he is acting contrary to the Constitution and explaining to do so is a high crime or misdemeanor.
During the Vietnam War, scholar Robert Sherrill said that “military justice is to justice what military music is to music.” In the past, military justice has been able to accomplish fair trials of military members, but it is dangerously open to influence by military leaders, all the way up to the commander in chief.
If there is to be an exercise in accountability for Kelly, it could more fairly be administered through a real constitutional analysis conducted by the independent federal judicial branch – or through a congressional intervention. Without either occurring, we may as a nation find ourselves a closer step toward a Cromwellian future.
Joshua Kastenberg does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
A person mourns at a makeshift memorial outside the Barus and Holley engineering building on the campus of Brown University in Providence, R.I., on Dec. 14, 2025. Bing Guan/AFP via Getty Images
Active shootings represent a very small percentage of on-campus university violence.
But among those that do happen, there are patterns. And as law enforcement officials continue to investigate the Dec. 13, 2025, Brown University shooting, similarities can be seen with other active shooter cases on college campuses that scholar James Densley has studied. “They tend to happen inside a classroom, and there tends to be multiple victims,” Densley explains.
The Department of Education in Rhode Island, where Brown University is located, said on Dec. 16 that it is urging local elementary and secondary schools to review safety protocols.
Amy Lieberman, the education editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke with Densley about how schools have been given what he describes as an “impossible mandate” to try to prevent shootings.
Members of the FBI’s evidence response team work at the scene of the Brown University shooting on Dec. 13, 2025. Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images
What is the overall trajectory of school shootings over the past few years?
K-12 school shootings appear to be trending downward, at least in the past two years. But we actually saw the largest jumps in this type of violence in the three to five years leading up to 2024, which trends closely with the broader rise in homicide and violent crime we saw in the pandemic era.
In 2025, there have been 230 school shooting incidents in the U.S. – still a staggeringly high number. This compares with 336 school shootings in 2024, 352 in 2023, 308 in 2022, and 257 in 2021.
How this relates to an increase in schools trying to institute security measures to prevent shootings is an open question. But it’s true that many schools are experimenting with certain solutions, like cameras, drones, AI threat detection, weapons scanners, panic apps and facial recognition, even if there is only weak or emerging evidence about how well they work.
Schools are treated as the front line, because the larger, structural solutions are too difficult to confront. It is much easier to blame schools after a tragedy than to actually address firearm access, grievance pathways – meaning how a person becomes a school shooter – and the other societal problems that are creating these tragedies.
How have schools responded to the rise of school shootings in recent years?
Schools are being asked to solve a societal gun violence problem that they didn’t create and they cannot control. Even the best-run school cannot eliminate all risks when causes accumulate outside of their purview. These attacks are rare but catastrophic, and they create an impossible mandate for schools because when they occur, schools are told it reflects a failure in their preparation. Educators are expected to be teachers, social workers, threat assessors and first responders. It normalizes fear and shifts the responsibility downward.
There is a growing school safety industry that markets fear as a solvable, technical problem. It promises faster ways to detect weapons, for example, but the evidence base for those products is thin, proprietary or nonexistent. One example is an AI detection software that mistook a bag of Doritos for a gun, resulting in a large police response.
Schools are pressured to buy something from these companies to show they are doing something. But some of these systems create false positives, and, more importantly, they shift attention away from human relationships. Technology alone cannot resolve grievances, replace trust and create belonging, but most schools are focused on technology as a means of prevention.
How effective are other prevention systems schools have put in place?
If a school shooter is an outsider trying to attack the building, having a single point of entry, access control or multiple locks on doors creates time and space, which are essential for delaying an attacker until law enforcement can arrive, thus mitigating casualties.
But the evidence shows that nearly all school shooters are either current or former students at the school. They are very familiar with entry and exit points, and they are potentially already inside the building before the school can act on a potential threat of violence.
So, what happens if a school locks down, but you are actually locking the shooter in a room with their potential victims? What if students are forced to hide when it would be safer to run? What if you have a door that locks only from the inside and a student or staff member uses that room to bully or sexually assault another student? We’re building schools to protect against the rare events, but we are not mitigating the more common problems they face.
Students are being asked to practice preventing their own deaths in active shooter drills and learn in environments designed around worst-case scenarios. In general, interpersonal violence and spillover of community violence, like gang-related shootings, are the most common form of school shooting. Most shootings at schools occur in parking lots or at sports events, but we do very little to prepare for those types of scenarios.
Are there any benefits, then, to schools having certain non-tech safety measures in place, like making sure every person has an ID?
Of course, you don’t want strangers walking around in a school building. The fact that someone coming to the school has to get their ID scanned and wear a badge makes perfect sense, not just to prevent shootings but to also prevent theft and assaults and other risks.
The paradox is that school shooters tend to be children already affiliated with the school, and when someone walks in already firing, checkpoints and metal detectors are useless. Historically, several mass shootings in K-12 schools have started outside of the building then moved inside. The issue is not slipping past barriers but overwhelming them in seconds with irresistible force.
People hold candles and sing together on Dec. 14, 2025, at a vigil in Lippitt Memorial Park in Providence, R.I., for the recent mass shooting at Brown University. Ben Pennington/The Boston Globe via Getty Images
Absent policy change, what is the clearest way to prevent school shootings, according to current evidence?
Evidence shows that we often see signs of a crisis or withdrawal beforehand from school attackers. And that is why school-based behavioral threat assessment and management is so important. It is really about noticing changes in behavior and having the authority to intervene early. This is not about profiling people or relying on law enforcement alone. It is about having a structured, team-based process for identifying concerning behavior, assessing risk and coordinating appropriate supports – such as counseling – to prevent harm before it occurs. So often in these cases, people had a gut feeling that something was off with a particular student, but they didn’t know what to share or who to share it with.
For decades we’ve invested far more in responding to school shootings once they occur rather than in preventing them. You can lock doors and run drills, but no school can become a fortress.
Attackers leak warning signs in advance. Real prevention is about creating human systems that get upstream of this.
James Densley has received funding from the National Institute of Justice, the Joyce Foundation, and the Sandy Hook Promise Foundation.
The phenomenal singer posed for a playful snap that shows no sign of her signature layers of baggy clothes.
Eilish has long controlled her image, drawing focus to her music rather than to her body when she’s on stage.
But, every now and then, she’s here to remind fans that she can post jaw-dropping thirst traps whenever she likes.
Music superstar Billie Eilish performs onstage during “Hit Me Hard And Soft: The Tour” at Kaseya Center on October 09, 2025. (Photo Credit: Arturo Holmes/Getty Images for Live Nation)
Billie Eilish has a new photo that you won’t want to miss
On Monday, December 15, musician Lucy Healey shared an eye-catching photo of Billie Eilish.
That is actually an understatement. You’ll see.
Taking to her Instagram Story, Healey shared a snap of Eilish posing in a kitchen.
While we don’t know what she’s drinking, she’s smiling playfully while holding what appears to be a baby bottle.
Eilish’s ensemble is also garnering significant attention. She’s wearing a low-cut spaghetti strap top with her jeans.
Different articles of clothing fit different people in different ways.
As you can see, the form-fitting attire is extremely flattering on Eilish.
In addition to the ample cleavage, the beloved singer’s playful yet provocative pose and facial expression make it a solid snap.
It should come as no surprise that the photo quickly spread throughout social media.
There are entire blogs on numerous platforms that post nothing but celebrity (women) thirst traps. Eilish’s bottle pic seems to be on all of them.
Billie Eilish attends the world premiere of 20th Century Studios “Avatar: Fire and Ash” at The Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California on December 01, 2025. (Photo Credit: Jesse Grant/Getty Images for 20th Century Studios)
‘What kind of goddess is that?’
The reactions to Billie Eilish’s jaw-dropping photo weren’t exactly all over the place, but they weren’t all the same, either.
“I wasn’t familiar with Billie’s game,” commented one individual.
(Famously, Eilish has often chosen to wear baggy clothes, even when performing, in part to deflect exactly this kind of attention)
“What is she doing with those mf cannons goddddamn,” another mused hornily.
Some of the comments were simply too raw in their lust for us to share here. Whatever you’re thinking, someone has said something more explicit and much more publicly.
Billie Eilish attends the 96th Annual Academy Awards on March 10, 2024. (Photo Credit: Arturo Holmes/Getty Images)
“Wtf, what kind of goddess is that?” marveled another.
“I would let her drop a nuclear bomb on me,” wrote another about Eilish.
“I don’t like her music or her aesthetic,” some guy wrote, “but she’s divine.” Well, even people with bad taste can have good taste in one area, it seems!
“I need a week off work,” another expressed. That’s a pretty relatable way to react to thirst — as if you’ve been hit by a giant cartoon mallet and need time to recover.
All in all, the responses are positive. They’re just not all expressed in the same way.
Billie Eilish performs onstage at the 2025 iHeartRadio Music Awards at Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles, California on March 17, 2025. (Photo Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images for iHeartRadio)
This is not her usual outfit
For generations, our culture’s unhealthy fixation on body shapes has dominated discussion of pop stars.
How many phenomenal singers and performers have bowed out because they weren’t prepared for the onslaught of body commentary, thirst, and shaming? We may never know.
But Billie Eilish is perfectly aware of that. She has intentionally deflected attention from her body in most appearances.
The thing is that she is a gorgeous woman. She’d just rather focus on music.
Their son, Nick Reiner, is the primary suspect. Police have already taken him into custody.
The couple’s daughter, Romy, is the one who found her parents, their home turned into a crime scene.
New details are coming to light about the state of the Reiners and the first statements to police when they arrived on the scene.
Rob Reiner and Michele Singer Reiner attend “Misery” Broadway opening night at The Broadhurst Theatre on November 15, 2015. (Photo Credit: Michael Stewart/Getty Images)
Daughter Romy first discovered parents Rob and Michele Reiner dead in their home
TMZ reports that Rob and Michele Reiner had been dead for hours before their daughter, Romy, discovered them in their home on Sunday.
According to the tabloid’s law enforcement sources, police arrived at the Brentwood, Los Angeles residence around 3:40 PM.
At this time, both Rob and Michele’s bodies were in a state of rigor mortis.
Rigor mortis is, as the name suggests, is a state of rigidity that follows death. It is the fourth stage of death, brought about by chemical changes in the muscles.
Barring unusual circumstances, this stage helps investigators to determine a timeline of a victim’s death.
Special Guests Michele Singer Reiner, Rob Reiner, and Romy Reiner attend The 30th Anniversary Screening of “When Harry Met Sally⦔ Opening Night at the 2019 10th Annual TCM Classic Film Festival on April 11, 2019. (Photo Credit: Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for TCM)
In this case, the Reiners being in a state of rigor mortis helped authorites to conclude that the couple had been murdered hours before Romy’s arrival.
The peak of rigor mortis takes place approximately 13 hours after death, but TMZ‘s report did not specify.
Rigor mortis itself generally lasts about 8 hours or less at room temperature.
Likely, we will have to wait for the medical examiner’s full report to know a more precise time of death.
However, we know several things about the horrifying discovery that Romy made.
A security guard keeps watch in front of director Rob Reiner’s home on December 15, 2025. (Photo Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Here is the timeline, starting just before the 9-1-1 call
On Sunday, December 14, Romy Reiner arrived at her parents’ house to find both Rob and Michele dead.
Given the state of their bodies, the knife wounds were obvious and obviously fatal. She immediately called police.
Romy’s next call was to longtime family friend Billy Crystal. A friend of hers also joined her, seemingly for emotional support.
Authorities arrived and interviewed Romy at the scene.
This is when Romy first indicated that her older brother, Nick Reiner, was likely a person of interest in the case.
Rob Reiner, wife Michele Singer, and daughter Romy Reiner attend the 2019 TCM Classic Film Festival Opening Night Gala And 30th Anniversary Screening Of “When Harry Met Sally” – Arrivals at TCL Chinese Theatre on April 11, 2019. (Photo Credit: Joe Scarnici/Getty Images)
According to TMZ‘s report, Romy told officers that Nick was “dangerous.”
She also told them that he was living at the house, but was not there when she arrived.
The apparent implication was that she believed that Nick had fled the scene, though it seems unlikely that she used those exact words.
TMZ‘s report on the state of the scene describes “bodies butchered” with the murder looking like the deed of a “mad man.”
As we saw clearly just three months ago, neck injuries can cause a tremendous amount of rapid blood loss. The horror would be difficult to imagine for most, and much harder for Romy to witness.
Rob Reiner and Michele Reiner attend Human Rights Campaign’s 2025 Los Angeles Dinner at Fairmont Century Plaza on March 22, 2025. (Photo Credit: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Human Rights Campaign)
Nick is in custody
About six hours after Romy’s grim discovery, authorities located Nick Reiner and arrested him on suspicion of murder.
Given the state of the late Rob and Michele Reiner’s remains and Romy’s statements to police, they are remanding Nick — holding him without bail.
He is also on suicide watch, out of apparent fear that he may be unstable or in an altered state of consciousness.
Millions are grieving the late director for his indelible impact upon popular culture as well as his activism that improved countless lives in his home state of California and beyond.
But this terrible act has destroyed a family. In more ways than one.
Nick Reiner was scheduled to make his first appearance in court on Tuesday,
But Nick’s attorney, Alan Jackson — who previously represented Harvey Weinstein — revealed today that his client had not been “medically cleared” for transportation to his arraignment.
Obviously, that could mean any number of things.
Actor/Producer/Director Rob Reiner (center) and wife Michele Singer (L) and son Nick Reiner (R) attend Teen Vogue’s Back-to-School Saturday kick-off event at The Grove on August 9, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Michael Buckner/Getty Images for Teen Vogue)
Multiple outlets have confirmed that Nick is on suicide watch, so it’s possible that he’s not psychologically fit to appear in court.
It’s also possible that he sustained some sort of injury, either during the struggle with his parents or after his arrest.
Whatever the case, the 32-year-old is receiving no sympathy from Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan J. Hochman, who stated moments ago that Reiner could face the death penalty if he’s convicted.
Nick was arrested in connection with their deaths and is currently being held without bail.
Director Rob Reiner (second from left) and family arrive at the premiere of “Rumor Has It” at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater on December 15, 2005 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Sources say the night before the alleged murders, Nick attended Conan O’Brien’s Christmas party with his parents.
Witnesses say he was badly underdressed (wearing sweats and a hoodie at a black tie event) and behaving erratically.
According to at least one account, Nick “stormed off” after a tense exchange with comedian Bill Hader.
Sources say Nick interrupted a conversation between Hader and another guest and became irate when Hader informed him that the conversation was private.
Witnesses say Nick also had a “loud argument” with his father at O’Brien’s party.
Honoree Rob Reiner poses with family at the 41st Annual Chaplin Award Gala at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts on April 28, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
Numerous celebrities have paid loving tribute to Rob Reiner, and an associate of the family’s, a yoga instructor named Alanna Zabel tells Page Six that Nick has a long history of “egocentric” behavior.
She rememberd Nick as “this little boy” with “behavioral issues” who “was always upsetting everyone” but “trying to figure it out.”
“Rob and Michelle asked me to do yoga with Nicky privately,” hoping it would help calm him down, Zabel recalls.
“Boys are wild in general, not just Nicky,” she explained, adding:
“I really focused our sessions on trying to exhaust him so that I could get to that place of connection and mindfulness. But I rarely got there because he was just inexhaustible.”
The Reiners reportedly spent millions on therapists and rehab programs over the years. And at one point, Nick and Rob collaborated on a semiautobiographical film — 2015’s Being Charlie — based on Nick’s struggles.
Again, we don’t know what sort of medical issues kept Nick out of court today, but we’ll continue to monitor the situation, and we’ll keep you updated as new information becomes available.
We have sad news to report from the world of music today.
Joe Ely — the country and rock star who helped put the Austin music scene on the map in the 1960s and ’70s — has passed away.
He was 78 years old.
Joe Ely reads from his new book “Reverb” while visiting Mojo Nixon in Celebration of his 10 Year Anniversary On SiriusXM with A special live show at the SiriusXM Studios on November 12, 2014 in Austin, Texas. (Photo by Gary Miller/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
News of Ely’s death comes courtesy of a statement posted on his Instagram page on Tuesday.
“Legendary songwriter, singer, and raconteur Joe Ely died today from complications of Lewy Body Dementia, Parkinson’s and pneumonia,” the statement reads.
“His beloved wife Sharon and daughter Marie were at his side at their home in Taos, New Mexico. Ely was born February 9, 1947 in Amarillo, Texas.
“He was a leader of the extraordinary parade of artists raised in Lubbock who later settled in the live music capital of Austin,” the post continued.
Artist Joe Ely waits to go onstage during the CMHOF Outlaws and Armadillos VIP Opening Reception on May 24, 2018 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Rick Diamond/Getty Images for Country Music Hall Of Fame & Museum)
“Ely signed with MCA Records in the 1970s and spent more than five decades recording and performing around the world.”
The statement promised that “a full obituary” and additional information would be provided shortly.
After establishing himself as a traveling musician in the late ’60s, Ely formed the country trio The Flatlanders in 1972.
Following a nearly 20-year hiatus during which their reputation only grew, the Flatlanders reassembled in 1998 to record a song for Robert Redford’s film The Horse Whisperer.
Joe Ely performs onstage for Country’s Roaring ’70s: Outlaws and Armadillos exhibition opening concert at Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum on May 25, 2018 in Nashville, Tennessee. (Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images)
Ely continued touring and recording in the years that followed, releasing his final album, Love and Freedom, in February 2025.
A musician whose influence and fandom stretched well beyond the world of country music, Ely caught the attention of legendary punk band the Clash in 1978 and was later asked to tour with the band.
“I had teachers tell me I wouldn’t make it to 21 when I was going to high school, so I beat the odds,” the iconic musician famously quipped in a 2011 interview.
Ely is survived by his wife and daughter.
Our thoughts go out to his loved ones during this incredibly difficult one.
Janelle Brown made two major admissions on Sister Wives this week.
Two major admissions that were opposite in nature.
On the latest installment of this TLC reality show, Kody Brown sat down to offer an apology to his former spouses… starting with Janelle.
(TLC)
For the first time we can recall, Janelle confessed on air that she had thoughts in the past that maybe she wasn’t totally done with Kody.
“At some point I thought, ‘What if we worked this out?’” Janelle acknowledged before getting together in person with Kody. “It’s just one of those thoughts, you know, you have when you sit down with an ex.”
It didn’t take long for reality to slap Janelle in the face, though.
“He says all the time how much he loves Robyn and she’s his true love or whatever,” the mom of six later said. “And I’m like, ‘That’s great. You guys can have each other.’”
(TLC)
In the end, accepting Kody’s apology on this episode — which included him explaining why he alleged to have never loved his first three wives — felt like the last piece of the puzzle for Janelle.
She was able to finally say it: Janelle Brown is ready to move on.
“This feels like the timing is right, now,” Janelle told viewers of her desire to ask for a spiritual release from her union. “The property is done. We’ve said our peace, and now it feels like it’s time to really cut that and move on.”
From what we can gather, Sister Wives Season 20 was filmed many months ago; some time this spring.
We can’t say for certain when Janelle has since gone through with this release, which we believe would go through the family’s church.
Janelle Brown has made the astute decision to walk away from Kody. (TLC)
“The financial ties are dissolved,” said Janelle, who now lives near daughter Maddie in North Carolina. “Kody and I meeting sort of put a few of the little pieces that were missing out of the chapter of the book that’s closed.”
And while Brown graciously listened to what her ex had to say about the rocky years following their separation, “I don’t really care what Kody thinks about me seeking a spiritual release,” Janelle added. “I don’t care.”
“I don’t really know if I’ll feel any different once the spiritual release is done,” Janelle concluded. “But intellectually, I’ll know that there’s a difference.”
