LOS ANGELES — Michael Reagan, the eldest son of President Ronald Reagan and a conservative commentator, has died. He was 80.

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute announced his death in a post on the social platform X on Tuesday, calling him “a steadfast guardian of his father’s legacy.”

“Michael Reagan lived a life shaped by conviction, purpose, and an abiding devotion to President Reagan’s ideals,” the foundation said.

His cause of death was not immediately announced.

Reagan was a contributor to the conservative Newsmax television network and was known for his talk radio program, “The Michael Reagan Show.”

Reagan was born to Irene Flaugher in 1945 and adopted just hours after his birth by Ronald Reagan and his then-wife, actor Jane Wyman.

The young Reagan followed in his parents’ footsteps.

After attending Arizona State University and Los Angeles Valley College, Reagan took up acting, built his syndicated radio show and authored several books, including two about his personal journey titled “On the Outside Looking in” and “Twice Adopted.”

Throughout his life, Reagan also focused his time on several charities, raising money in powerboat racing and serving as chair of the John Douglas French Alzheimer’s Foundation board for three years.

Ronald Reagan, who was known for trying to scale back government and devoting his presidency to winning the Cold War, died in 2004 after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. Michael Reagan pushed his father’s ideas forward as chair of the Reagan Legacy Foundation.

Michael Reagan’s second marriage was to Colleen Stearns, with whom he had two children.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/06/michael-reagan-obit/ 

Chicago Blackhawks star center Connor Bedard partially practiced with the team on Tuesday. He skated in a non-contact sweater, but didn’t appear to have any limitations in his shooting or skating.

Bedard is on injured reserve as he nurses a shoulder injury he suffered on Dec. 12 in St. Louis. He’s missed 11 games — the team is 4-6-1 in his absence — including the Hawks’ 3-2 overtime win over the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday.

The Hawks, who’ve won three straight and four of their last six, seem to be standing on sturdy feet as they await more Bedard-less contests. But Bedard won’t be kept off the ice longer than he has to.

“I would’ve played against Detroit (the day after his injury), but that’s part of it,” Bedard said. “As a player, you tell them you feel good and you’re ready to go but obviously there’s importance in your health and everything.

“Watching is a tough part, but it’s been so fun to watch the guys and even when we were losing, there were so many positives. It sucks being out, watching every game and not being able to contribute is the hardest thing in the world, but just seeing how we’re playing and keep getting better, that’s exciting to watch.”

In his last two practice appearances on the ice, Bedard has shot the puck with the power that has given him 19 goals this season. He practiced with his teammates for around 30 minutes on Tuesday before doing individual work.

Hawks coach Jeff Blashill said after practice that Bedard won’t play on Wednesday against the St. Louis Blues, but he will be “day-to-day” from there. That sounds like positive news for the Hawks.

“It’s great to have him back out there involved in some of the team drills,” Blashill said. “Great to see the jump that he has, so it’s awesome.”

After practice, Bedard said, “I feel really good, got out with the guys a little bit today and keep ramping up. I think we’ve kept the timeline pretty wrapped, but like I said, I’m feeling good and hopefully pretty soon I can get back out there.”

The second half of the Hawks’ young duo returned to the ice on Tuesday. Center Frank Nazar skated with Bedard before practice with a full face mask as he recovers from taking a puck to the jaw on Dec. 20 in Ottawa.

It helps to have a teammate and a close friend with you on the road to recovery.

“The last thing I want is anyone going through it with me or anyone going through rehab, it’s the terrible part of the game,” Bedard said. “For both of us, (we have) each other to stay positive and I think we’re both attacking it really well and approaching it the best we can and with positivity.

“At the end of the day, that’s all you can do. Having him to push me and me to push him, it’s going to make us more comfortable and better when we come back.”

Related Articles

Blashill said that Bedard was to be re-evaluated “in the new year” and has stuck to that timeline. The coach recently revealed that he expects his third-year forward to return to the lineup before the NHL’s Winter Olympic break, which starts on Feb. 5.

The Hawks forward was recently left off the Team Canada roster for the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics. He was disappointed that his name wasn’t called in the roster reveal, but he understands the process that goes into selecting rosters.

“There’s disappointment for sure, everyone in Canada would want to be on that team or any country that’s going,” Bedard said. “But there are so many great players and they have tough decisions to make and you respect that.

“Every player would say they would love to be on (the roster) and disappointed not to, but it’s a great team. You can’t really be mad at the roster they’ve picked, there are no hard feelings for me.”

He respects the decision by Team Canada — which has him on standby in the event of an injury — but will make sure “there’s no choice” about selecting him in the future. He’ll be playing with a chip on his soon-to-be healed shoulder upon his return.

“When you don’t meet an expectation or meet one of your goals, the only thing to do is look in the mirror and see where you can get better,” Bedard said. “That’s not on who’s picking the team, that’s on the players and that’s the positive I’ve taken out of that.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/06/chicago-blackhawks-connor-bedard-olympics/ 

MAGA Wants Trump To Drag Hillary To Court As She Claims He “Urged Supporters To Attack Congress”

Tyler Durden
Tue, 01/06/2026 – 18:25

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/maga-wants-trump-drag-hillary-court-she-claims-he-urged-supporters-attack-congress 

Trump Says “Investigation Of California Has Begun” As Surgical Truth-Bombs About Corruption Likely Inbound

Tyler Durden
Tue, 01/06/2026 – 18:00

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/trump-says-investigation-california-has-begun-surgical-truth-bombs-about-corruption 

OWINGS MILLS, Md. — John Harbaugh is leaving the Baltimore Ravens after 18 seasons as their coach, a person with knowledge of the decision told The Associated Press.

The person spoke on condition of anonymity Tuesday because the Ravens haven’t announced the decision.

The move comes after the Ravens were one of the league’s most disappointing teams this season, going 8-9 and missing the playoffs after entering Week 1 as one of the Super Bowl favorites. Baltimore’s season ended Sunday night when Tyler Loop missed a last-second field goal, allowing the Pittsburgh Steelers to hold on for a 26-24 victory in the game that decided the AFC North title.

Harbaugh went 193-124, including the postseason. He led the 2012 Ravens to a Super Bowl title and reached the AFC championship game on three other occasions. This season was only the sixth time Baltimore missed the postseason under Harbaugh. That’s the same number of times the Ravens won the AFC North with him at the helm.

But most of Baltimore’s postseason success came in his first few seasons. The Ravens went to the AFC title game three times in his first five years as coach, culminating in their run to a Super Bowl title as a wild card when Harbaugh beat his brother Jim’s San Francisco 49ers for the title.

At that point, Harbaugh was 9-4 in the postseason, but after that he was just 4-7. After three straight seasons without a playoff berth, Lamar Jackson arrived in 2018 and led the Ravens to a division title. But Harbaugh’s lone trip to an AFC title game with Jackson was wasted two seasons ago when Baltimore lost at home to the Kansas City Chiefs.

This season was a mess pretty much from the start. The Ravens looked great for much of their opener at Buffalo before blowing a late lead. Indeed, squandering fourth-quarter advantages become a troubling trend for the Ravens in Harbaugh’s last few seasons, and after a hamstring injury sidelined Jackson, Baltimore stumbled to a 1-5 start in 2025.

Harbaugh and the Ravens worked their way back into contention and eventually reached Sunday’s winner-take-all matchup as a favorite to beat the Steelers. But despite Derrick Henry’s early dominance on the ground and Jackson’s sensational fourth quarter, another season ended in excruciating fashion.

AP’s Rob Maaddi contributed.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/06/john-harbaugh-leaving-baltimore-ravens/ 

Appeals Court Agrees To Fast-Track Challenge To $100,000 H-1B Visa Fee

Tyler Durden
Tue, 01/06/2026 – 17:40

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/appeals-court-agrees-fast-track-challenge-100000-h-1b-visa-fee 

BOSTON — The man identified by law enforcement as the shooter who killed two Brown University students and an MIT professor had been planning the attack for at least six semesters, according to information released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Claudio Neves Valente, 48, a former Brown student and Portuguese national, was found dead in a New Hampshire storage facility after he killed two students and wounded nine others in an engineering building on Dec. 13. Two days later, he killed MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro in his home in the Boston suburb of Brookline.

Justice Department officials said Tuesday that during the search of the storage facility where Neves Valente’s body was found, the FBI recovered an electronic device containing a series of short videos made by Neves Valente after the shootings.

In the recordings, the shooter admits in Portuguese that he had been “planning the Brown University shooting for a long time,” according to a press release. He did not provide a motive for targeting Brown or the MIT professor, with whom he attended school in Portugal decades ago.

He said he felt he had nothing to apologize for and that he wanted to “leave on his own terms.” He also complained in the videos about injuring his eye in the shootings.

“I’m not going to apologize because during my lifetime no one sincerely apologized to me,” he said.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/06/brown-mit-professor-shootings/ 

A motion to correct the sentencing of a Gary man, 31, convicted in October of killing his stepfather netted him only six months less on his sentence.

Lake Superior Court Judge Gina Jones and Lake County Deputy Prosecutor Judith Massa conceded at a Tuesday hearing that the portion of James G. Adams Jr.’s sentence declaring 10 years of it was “non-suspendable” was a “misstep.” Nevertheless, the sentence itself — 17.5 years — was “very fair,” Massa said, adding that victim Lanier Miller’s family was “relatively happy” with it.

“(The crime) involved a death, and since 2024, the (Indiana) Legislature found that for a person convicted of a Level 2 felony, there should be a minimum of 10 years,” Massa said. “(Adams) has been given all the mitigators he can get.”

Adams’s attorney, James Dillon, said that Jones “had the ability to craft a sentence that’s punitive but restorative” and asked for five years in work-release and five years suspended on general order.

“He’s always been polite in court,” he said, listing mitigating factors that he felt should count.

Jones, however, said the 2.5-hour sentencing hearing in October gave everyone the information needed for the sentencing and then adjusted Adams’s sentence to seven years in prison; five years in Community Corrections, with one year served in the Kimbrough Center; two years on house arrest and two years of daily report; and five years of probation. Because the sentence was a plea agreement, the state will have to agree to any sentence appeal, she said.

Munster Police were called around 4 a.m. Feb. 27 to MRC Global, 101 45th Street, near the Illinois state line, where a man, identified as Miller, was lying just outside a white Dodge Charger facing the loading bays with the driver’s side door glass shattered, the Post-Tribune previously reported.

Miller, of South Holland, Illinois, was shot in the head and declared dead at the scene, according to court records.

Soon after, a relative dropped off Adams Jr. and Ferria Jones, his sister, at the Munster Town Hall, telling police officers they were involved with the shooting and the weapons were inside the car. Police took a silver and black Smith and Wesson gun and a black Glock 31, according to court records.

Their mother left her purse in the car — containing the Smith and Wesson — and Miller dropped his cell phone on the ground.

Miller later called his phone from MRC Global, telling a relative he’d trade it for her purse. Adams Jr. “recognized” the phone number, because he’d also worked there, too, the affidavit states.

Adams Jr. and his sister went to make the exchange. She gave different versions of what happened. Miller appeared to be “asleep” and “surprised” to see him.

Ferria Jones then changed her story and said Miller was listening to music when they arrived. Her brother first tried to find something in her trunk to “jimmy” open the locked door. When he couldn’t find anything, he ran away and grabbed a tire-chock to bust open the driver’s side window. He didn’t want to use a gun in case it accidentally went off.

When Miller tried to grab the mother’s gun, Adams tried to pull him away from it, ripping Miller’s shirt.

Jones jumped out and went to help her brother. Miller fired a shot that grazed her knee.

She “heard another shot”, but didn’t know who fired, she said in court documents. They swapped and Adams drove away, saying Miller was shot. Two relatives were on the phone during the shooting and told them to go to the police station.

Ferria Jones claimed at first, they went back for their mom’s things before just skipping it. She later admitted they took back her gun, seeing Miller with his legs sticking out, struggling to breathe.

Adams told police they first swung by the Hard Rock Casino looking for Miller because he had a “gambling problem,” before heading to his workplace in Munster.

Once they found him in Munster, Miller said he had “no intention” of talking with Adams, so he went to break out the car window. He grabbed a tire chock 40 yards away and busted out the window. The men started fighting and pulled Miller’s shirt off. When Miller tried to reach for the mother’s gun, Ferria Jones ran around and tried to grab it from him. Adams pressed his gun to Miller’s back and then shot Miller.

Miller started to “slur” and “trail off.” Adams said he “panicked” and didn’t know what to do, taking the mom’s and then putting it back. They left, then went back, because his gun magazine fell out, and they grabbed it from Miller’s car. They also grabbed the purse and the other gun.

They met with a relative at a Highland gas station who called 911 and took them to turn themselves in at the Munster Town Hall, where the police department is located.

Michelle L. Quinn is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/06/new-sentence-cuts-six-months-for-gary-man-in-death-of-stepfather/ 

Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson hasn’t heard from a lot of old colleagues about making the playoffs as a first-year head coach, nor has he given himself a second to pat himself on the back for the achievement.

It’s a short week before the Bears face the Green Bay Packers on Saturday for the third time in six weeks — and in a wild-card playoff game, no less.

“Just really focused at the task at hand,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday at Halas Hall. “We’ll worry about the reflection, we’ll have plenty of time to do that when the season’s over. We’re not ready for that, you know?

“Just like I told those guys after the game (Sunday), we’re mentally prepared to play for five more weeks. And so that’s our intent.”

The players were equally intense about getting ready for a playoff game.

“It’s everything,” said defensive end Montez Sweat, who has spent the last 2½ seasons with the Bears. “You’re usually packing the cars up, sending everything back home to home base and getting ready for the offseason. So it feels good preparing for the postseason right now.”

Quarterback Caleb Williams, who will be playing in the NFL playoffs for the first time, harked back to his college and high school days.

“All the big games are the same to me,” he said. “I think the mindset of it just changes a little bit because you know you don’t have another game if you go out there and you don’t accomplish the goal.”

The Bears last made the postseason in 2020, led by coach Matt Nagy and quarterback Mitch Trubisky. They lost 21-9 to the Saints on Jan 10, 2021, in New Orleans.

They last hosted a playoff game on Jan. 6, 2019, a 16-15 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles — the infamous “Double Doink” game.

As much of a downer as that was for a stunned Soldier Field crowd, Bears players this season have noticed an uptick in the home crowd’s intensity over the last month.

“It’s awesome,” safety Kevin Byard III said. “These past few games have been feeling like playoff atmospheres. … This city, it deserves a winner. It deserves a team that’s going to be able to make this run.”

Bears players witnessed raucous crowds as visitors to hostile Lambeau Field in Week 14, when they lost 28-21 to the Packers, and again on their home turf in Week 16, when Soldier Field erupted after Williams connected with DJ Moore on a 46-yard touchdown pass in overtime for a 22-16 victory.

So a third game against the hated Packers at Soldier Field?

Could it get any rowdier?

“I wouldn’t expect nothing less,” Byard said.

“But at the same time, we have to be smart enough, and that’s when you talk about just the playoff experience, understanding that the personal foul penalties almost hurt us in the last game, so we can’t have that this week.”

Bears defensive end Austin Booker tackles Packers quarterback Jordan Love in the first quarter Dec. 20, 2025, at Soldier Field. Booker was called for roughing the passer on the play. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune)

In the rematch at Soldier Field, an amped-up Bears defense committed two roughing-the-passer and two unnecessary-roughness penalties, which nearly undermined their chance at victory.

“That’s something that we’re going to be talking about as a team,” Byard said. “But the intensity level is going to be there. It’s Green Bay at Soldier Field. The emotions are going to be high. It’s going to be a super exciting atmosphere, but also understand it’s playoffs. The refs are probably going to call it a little tighter.

“More eyes on the game. It’s going to be a nationally televised game, so just understanding all those elements and make sure you’re playing smart, taking it all the way up until that line. Don’t cross the line, but take it all the way up there because that’s the intensity that’s going to be needed to win this game.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/06/chicago-bears-playoff-intensity/ 

Iran Decries ‘Foreign Interference’ As Protest Death Toll Rises Significantly

Tyler Durden
Tue, 01/06/2026 – 17:20

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/iran-decries-foreign-interference-protest-death-toll-rises-significantly