Death at an Early Age: An eight year old migrant boy died in federal custody yesterday, once again focusing attention on the handling of migrant children by federal agencies. He’s the second child to die in custody in the last three weeks.

  On Monday, an agent noticed that the boy “was coughing and appeared to have glossy eyes”.The Guatemalan boy was taken to the hospital with what was at first thought to be a cold. He was given antibiotics and discharged. Monday night he started vomiting and was taken back to the hospital, where he died just before midnight.

  Migrant children are often held in crowded and cold facilities known as “ice boxes.” A pediatrician told The NY Times, “These facilities are no place for a child, even a well child.”

All I Want for Christmas:President Trump on Christmas day said he would allow the federal government to remain closed until he gets his southern border wall. “I can’t tell you when the government is going to be open. I can tell you it’s not going to be open until we have a wall, a fence, whatever they would like to call it,” Trump said in the Oval Office.

  The shutdown will continue until at least tomorrow when the Senate returns to Washington. It doesn’t look like the Democrats will fold and they take control of the House next week. 

  Trump repeated his claim made on Monday that he let out a contract for construction of 115 miles worth of border barrier. He tweeted on Christmas Eve, “I am in the Oval Office & just gave out a 115 mile long contract for another large section of the Wall in Texas.” The White House has offered no explanation. The President does not sign contracts for construction projects and Congress has not appropriated money for new border wall. 

  Trump also claimed that furloughed federal employees are behind him on the shutdown. “Many of those workers have said to me and communicated, stay out until you get the funding for the wall. These federal workers want the wall.”

  He didn’t say how many federal workers told him that, or who they are.

Tsunami:Recovery workers are still searching for survivors of the tsunami that hit Indonesia on Saturday. At least 430 people are reported to have been killed.

  Landslides from an erupting volcano created a wave that swept through the Sunda Strait, hitting the islands of Java and Sumatra. About 22,000 people are displaced.

  The wave hit without warning. Indonesia set up a tsunami warning system after the giant Indian Ocean disaster in 2004, but the system has stopped working.

Ahab Returns:Japan announced that it is giving up whaling under the guise of “research” and returning to open commercial whaling.

   The International Whaling Commission put a moratorium on commercial whaling in the 1980s. Japan continued killing whales claiming they were collecting scientific information.

  The country says whaling and eating whale meat is part of Japanese culture. They claim that their research tells them certain species of whales are plentiful.

Christmas Miracle:The seven-year-old girl who spoke to President Trump on the phone Christmas ever still believes in Santa Claus.

  Trump had said, “Are you still a believer in Santa?”And the girl said, “Yes, sir.” To which Trump replied, “Cause at seven, it’s marginal, right?”

  The girl, Collman Lloyd of Lexington, SC, later said she didn’t know what the word “marginal” meant.  She and her family left iced sugar biscuits and chocolate milk out for Santa Claus. They were gone in the morning and a gift from Santa was left under the family tree with Collman’s name on it.