What to Know Today

George Santos lied about losing “four employees” at the Pulse nightclub shooting. The New York representative-elect, whose midterm win secured a narrow Republican majority in the U.S. House, appears to have made up key parts of his resume: Wall Street firms Santos claims to have worked at told The New York Times there’s no record of his employment there, and the college he says he holds a degree from has no evidence of his graduation. Santos appeared at a gala last month that also drew white nationalists and right-wing conspiracy theorists.

Families navigate the holidays after losing loved ones to gun violence. For parents who have lost a child, the end of the year can be a particularly painful time to grieve, Abené Clayton writes for The Guardian. It’s all the more difficult when the season coincides with the day their children died. Clayton spoke to four parents about how they grapple with the holidays after losing their children to shootings.

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Father of Highland Park shooting suspect charged with felonies. The father faces seven counts of reckless conduct charges, CNN reports. Prosecutors say the charges stem from helping his son, who was under 21 at the time, obtain an Illinois gun license three years ago. Seven people were killed during the attack on the city’s Fourth of July parade last summer. 

How did Sarasota County become home to a far-right entertainment complex? Located in a conservative stronghold on Florida’s west coast, “The Hollow2A” — a reference to the Second Amendment — has become a meeting place for Proud Boys and a stomping ground for Michael Flynn. The Hollow is equipped with waterslides, gazebos, and a shooting range: It’s a playground, The Washington Post reports, for radical members of the Republican Party trying to push the Florida GOP farther right. 

TSA intercepts record number of guns at security checkpoints — again. Officers have found 6,301 firearms in carry-on bags in 2022, the Associated Press reports, topping last year’s record by more than 30 weapons. The agency has detected increasing numbers of guns since at least 2012, when it discovered 1,549 firearms at security checkpoints. 

Data Point

88 percent — the proportion of guns detected at airport security checkpoints the TSA says are loaded. [Associated Press]

Sunny Sone
Sunny is in charge of our newsletters, leading the growth of existing products and dreaming up new ones. They previously worked as a copy editor at The Intercept and as digital editor for the Texas Observer, and co-published a web-only magazine under the Brick House media cooperative. Sunny has covered topics ranging from the Texas funeral industry to the life of visionary composer Pauline Oliveros. They hold a degree in journalism from the University of Texas at Austin.