By Jessie Yeung, CNN

(CNN) — Actor George Clooney and his family have been granted French citizenship, official government documents show, after he has previously voiced concern about raising his children amid the glitz of Hollywood.

A gazette notice listing all new French naturalizations, released on Saturday, includes Clooney – as well as his wife, Amal Clooney, and their twin children, Alexander and Ella.

Clooney, who also holds US citizenship, and Amal, a British-Lebanese humanitarian lawyer, are already well familiar with their new adopted country. Though they also have homes in England and near his family in Kentucky, their primary residence is a farm in France, the actor told the New York Times in February.

“Growing up in Kentucky, all I wanted to do was get away from a farm, get away from that life,” Clooney told the paper. “Now I find myself back in that life. I drive a tractor and all those things. It’s the best chance of a normal life.”

He made similar comments in an interview with Esquire in October.

“I was worried about raising our kids in LA, in the culture of Hollywood,” Clooney said. “I felt like they were never going to get a fair shake at life. France – they kind of don’t give a sh*t about fame,” he added.

“I don’t want them to be walking around worried about paparazzi. I don’t want them being compared to somebody else’s famous kids,” he said.

The actor and director has long been vocal about his privacy concerns surrounding his family, and in 2021 wrote an open letter urging the media to keep his children’s faces out of the press for their safety.

France has strong privacy protection laws: it’s illegal to photograph someone in a private place, or disclose personal information like their home addresses or phone numbers. It’s also illegal to publish pictures of celebrities in public places unless that appearance is related to their position as public figures.

When paparazzi in France try to photograph celebrities during their personal time, outside of media appearances, “the celebrity’s security or assistant will take a picture or video of the paparazzi,” litigation attorney Chassen Palmer wrote in a 2020 article in the California Western International Law Journal.

“Later, the picture and/or video are sent to the celebrity’s attorney, and the local media outlets are informed that the celebrity will seek civil damages if the photograph or video is published,” which has “largely deterred taking photographs of celebrities out in public,” he wrote.

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* WHAT…Northeast winds 25 to 35 mph with gusts up to 55 mph
expected.

* WHERE…Interstate 5 Corridor, Santa Susana Mountains, Western San
Gabriel Mountains and Highway 14 Corridor, and Western Santa
Monica Mountains Recreational Area.

* WHEN…Until 3 PM PST Tuesday.

* IMPACTS…Gusty winds will blow around unsecured objects. Tree
limbs could be blown down and a few power outages may result.
Winds this strong can make driving difficult, especially for high
profile vehicles. Use extra caution.

The post Wind Advisory issued December 29 at 7:22PM PST until December 30 at 3:00PM PST by NWS Los Angeles/Oxnard CA appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

* WHAT…North to northeast winds 20 to 35 mph with gusts of 40 to
50 mph.

* WHERE…Ventura County Coast, Malibu Coast, Ventura County
Valleys, western Los Angeles County Valleys, Southern Ventura
County Mountains, Eastern Santa Monica Mountains, and Eastern San
Gabriel Mountains.

* WHEN…Until 3 PM PST Tuesday.

* IMPACTS…Gusty winds will blow around unsecured objects. Tree
limbs could be blown down and a few power outages may result.
Winds this strong can make driving difficult, especially for high
profile vehicles. Use extra caution.

The post Wind Advisory issued December 29 at 7:22PM PST until December 30 at 3:00PM PST by NWS Los Angeles/Oxnard CA appeared first on News Channel 3-12.

By Zoe Sottile, Andy Rose, Holmes Lybrand, CNN

(CNN) — The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security say they are “surging” to investigate fraud in Minnesota, including at child care centers, in the latest show of federal force in the state — home to the country’s largest Somali population.

The investigation comes weeks after ICE launched operations in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area to specifically target undocumented Somali immigrants, precipitated by revelations about widespread fraud against the state as well as President Donald Trump’s comments that he “doesn’t want” Somalis in the country.

The president has long railed against Minnesota’s Somali diaspora, the vast majority of whom are US citizens. Around 84,000 people of Somali descent live in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, many of whom resettled after fleeing a bloody and lasting civil war in their home country.

The stepped-up effort also comes just days after a YouTube content creator, who has created anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim videos in the past, posted a viral video in which he claimed to find widespread fraud at Somali-run child care centers. The video, which includes limited evidence for the creator’s allegations, has received more than 1.5 million views on YouTube as of Monday evening and was retweeted by Vice President JD Vance and former DOGE leader Elon Musk.

One law enforcement official told CNN the buildup of DHS agents in Minneapolis on Monday, including visits to some 30 businesses, was due in part to the video.

Responding to a post on X about the alleged fraud, Vice President JD Vance — increasingly at the forefront of the administration’s anti-immigrant rhetoric — said, “they’re stealing both money and political power from Minnesotans.”

By Monday, DHS began posting videos showing agents from Homeland Security Investigations entering what it called “suspected fraud sites.”

Here’s what we know about the investigations and the viral video.

DHS and FBI both say they are investigating fraud

On Sunday, FBI director Kash Patel said the bureau had already “surged” resources to Minnesota even “before the public conversation escalated online.”

“Fraud that steals from taxpayers and robs vulnerable children will remain a top FBI priority in Minnesota and nationwide,” he said in a post on X. “The FBI believes this is just the tip of a very large iceberg. We will continue to follow the money and protect children, and this investigation very much remains ongoing.”

Officials at DHS have announced their own investigation into alleged fraud.

“DHS is on the ground in Minneapolis, going DOOR TO DOOR at suspected fraud sites,” said the agency on X, along with a video of people in jackets marked “Police – HSI.” “The American people deserve answers on how their taxpayer money is being used and ARRESTS when abuse is found.”

Neither agency said in their posts if any arrests had been made in the latest crackdown.

Gov. Tim Walz, meanwhile, has pushed back on accusations state authorities overlooked fraud. The governor “has worked for years to crack down on fraud and asked the state legislature for more authority to take aggressi

CNN

By Natasha Bertrand, Zachary Cohen, Jim Sciutto, CNN

(CNN) — The CIA carried out a drone strike earlier this month on a port facility on the coast of Venezuela, sources familiar with the matter told CNN, marking the first known US attack on a target inside that country.

The drone strike, the details of which have not been previously reported, targeted a remote dock on the Venezuelan coast that the US government believed was being used by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to store drugs and move them onto boats for onward shipping, the sources said. No one was present at the facility at the time it was struck, so there were no casualties, according to the sources.

Two sources said US Special Operations Forces provided intelligence support to the operation, underscoring their continued involvement in the region. But Col. Allie Weiskopf, a spokesperson for US Special Operations Command, denied that, saying, “Special Operations did not support this operation to include intel support.”

President Donald Trump appeared to first acknowledge the attack in an interview last week that initially attracted little notice, though he offered few specifics, including when reporters asked directly about it on Monday.

The strike could significantly escalate tensions between the US and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who the US has been pressuring to step down through an aggressive military campaign.

The US has launched strikes destroying more than 30 boats in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean in what it has described as a counter-narcotics campaign, and Trump has ordered a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers coming to and leaving Venezuela. Trump had also repeatedly threatened to carry out strikes inside Venezuela, but until the CIA attack earlier this month, the only known US strikes on Venezuelan targets were against the suspected drug trafficking boats in international waters.

The CIA declined to comment. CNN has asked the White House, US Special Operations Command, and Venezuela’s Ministry of Communications and Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.

Trump acknowledged in an interview on December 26 that the US had knocked out some type of “big facility where ships come from” as he talked about his administration’s campaign against Venezuela. Asked about it again on Monday, he said the US attacked “in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs.” But he declined to comment when asked whether the attack was conducted by the military or the CIA.

“So we hit all the boats, and now we hit the area,” Trump said Monday. “It’s the implementation area, that’s where they implement, and that is no longer around.”

One of the sources said the strike was successful in that it destroyed the facility and its boats, but described it as largely symbolic since it is just one of many port facilities used by drug traffickers leaving Venezuela. It also appeared to attract little to no attention, even inside the country, in real time.

Trump earlier this year expanded the CIA’s authorities to conduct operations in Latin America, including inside Venezuela, CNN previously reported. But even then, the US military only had the legal authority to conduct s