Baby It’s Cold: The deep freeze is reaching into the South, where it’s 23 degrees in Little Rock, Ark. Up in Niagara Falls, it’s 6 degrees and the falls themselves are beginning to freeze. It’s 15 in New York City, and expected to be about 10 at midnight when the ball drops on 2017.

It’s 23 below in Cut Bank, MT.; Amarillo, TX, 13; Burlington VT., -3; Bangor, ME, -20.

Murder Most Foul: Police in Troy, NY, have arrested two men for what’s been described as the “savage” murders of two women and two children in a basement apartment.

James W. White, 38, and Justin C. Mann, 24, both of Schenectady, just west of Albany, were charged with murder. Both men have criminal records. A reason for the killings has not been given.

A property manager found the bodies of 36-year-old Shanta Myers and her children, 11-year-old Jeremiah and 5-year-old Shanise, and 22-year-old Brandi Mells on Tuesday. Police say the two women were in a relationship.

Police have said the circumstances of the killings were so gruesome they declined to describe them.

The Papadopoulos Proxy: While slugging down drinks at an upscale London bar in May 2016, Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos told Australia’s top diplomat in Britain that Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton, The NY Times reports.

Papadopoulos had previously been told that the Russians had a trove of Democratic Party emails.

The paper reports that two months later, when leaked Democratic emails began appearing online, the Australians told their American counterparts what they knew. The Times cites four current and former American and foreign officials as their sources.

The Trump camp has claimed that Papadopoulos was no more than a “coffee boy” in the campaign.

The Times says, “The hacking and the revelation that a member of the Trump campaign may have had inside information about it were driving factors that led the F.B.I. to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia’s attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump’s associates conspired.”

The President of Mar-a-Lago: President Trump was on Twitter yesterday promising more de-regulation and an even better economy.

He also attacked the press. “I use Social Media not because I like to, but because it is the only way to fight a VERY dishonest and unfair ‘press,’ now often referred to as Fake News Media. Phony and non-existent ‘sources’ are being used more often than ever. Many stories & reports a pure fiction!”

He has yet to offer proof that anything reported about him is fiction.

The ticket price for tonight’s party at Mar-a-Lago is $750 a head.

Unfree Speech: Thousands of demonstrators have marched in the streets of Iran over the past several days, demanding economic improvements, personal freedom, and the resignation of the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The police used teargas on one crowd of demonstrators. Two demonstrators have been shot dead.

Young people are struggling to find work and the price of food is rising, making life more difficult.

Yesterday the protests took place the same day as an annual pro-government rally. Unauthorized political demonstrations are rare.

The Obit Page: Erica Garner, who became an activist after the choking death of her father Eric at the hands of New York City police officers, has died at age 27 after suffering a heart attack. Eric Garner famously said, “I can’t breathe” as he was dying and his words became a slogan of the Black Lives matter movement. — John Portman, the architect who popularized modern hotels with soaring lobbies and Buck Rogers glass elevators, has died at age 93.

Portman built the Peachtree Center in Atlanta, the Embarcadero Center in San Francisco, and the Renaissance Center in Detroit. His designs were popular with guests, but less so with architecture critics.

Goodbye 2017: As 2017 ends, we’d like to thank the following for making it a great year for The Rooney Report:

President Donald Trump, Wikileaks, Vladimir Putin, Gen. Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Robert Mueller, James Comey, Sally Yates, “The Coffee Boy,” Sean Spicer, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Jared Kushner, Ivanka, “The Mooch,” Harvey Weinstein, Bill O’Reilly, Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Al Franken, Kevin Spacey, Roy Moore, Little Rocket Man, Alternative Facts, Fake News, The Washington Post, The NY Times, Donald Trump Jr. and “I’m Eric,” Neo Nazis, ransomware, Colin Kaepernick, Carmen Yulin Cruz, The Dow Jones, The Fifth Amendment, Twitter, “Covfefe,” and Donald Trump, Donald Trump, Donald Trump …..

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