Kids ‘n Kinship provides friendships and positive role models to children and youth ages 5-16 who are in need of an additional supportive relationship with an adult. Here’s one of the youth waiting for a mentor:

First name: Natalie

Age: 10

Interests: Natalie is a fifth-grader and an oldest child. She likes to be active and play outside; she hopes to try track, swimming or soccer. She also likes to play Roblox and watch her shows. Her favorite school subjects are music and gym, and is learning to play the clarinet in band. Her favorite foods are burgers and sushi.

Personality/Characteristics: Natalie’s guardian describes her as “pretty outgoing, sometimes a little shy, and definitely an overthinker.” Natalie names her family as her favorite people. She’s happy when she is playing with her friends and sometimes gets annoyed with her younger brother and sister.

Goals/dreams: Natalie would love to have the super power to teleport! She says she’d teleport home when she’s at school and doesn’t want to be there anymore. She dreams of becoming either a singer or doctor. Her guardian hopes a mentor will help to give her experiences outside of spending time on her phone and to be another supportive adult who can help her talk through her thoughts and feelings.

For more information: Natalie is waiting for a mentor through Kids n’ Kinship in Dakota County. To learn more about this youth mentoring program and the 39+ youth waiting for a mentor, sign up for an Information Session, visit www.kidsnkinship.org or email programs@kidsnkinship.org. For more information about mentoring in the Twin Cities outside of Dakota County, contact MENTOR MN at mentor@mentormn.org or fill out a brief form at www.mentoring.org/take-action/become-a-mentor/#search.

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Philosopher George Santayana once famously observed, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Unfortunately, our nation’s collective memory doesn’t seem to even extend back two decades.

Last month, Fannie Mae dropped the requirement that borrowers have a minimum credit score of 620. Freddie Mac had made a similar change earlier in the year. A credit score measures a person’s likelihood of paying back a loan. While it isn’t perfect, credit scores are widely used to evaluate risk. This change will make is easier for people with lower credit scores to obtain home loans.

Bill Pulte, director of U.S. federal housing, declared this a “big deal for consumers.”

It’s understandable that Pulte and these organizations would seek to help want-to-be homeowners. Home prices are at or near record highs around the country.

Removing this barrier might seem sensible. Pulte insisted this is a “small or nothing deal for underwriting.” But this ignores the fine print.

Decades ago, Congress created Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to bolster the nation’s housing market. The companies don’t loan money directly. Instead, they purchase loans from banks. They then repackage some of those loans into mortgage-backed securities that investors purchase. Backed by the federal government, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guarantee the principal and interest payments on the loans they sell. Their reach is extensive.

This arrangement gives banks more money to lend. In theory, this keeps a steady supply of funding available for potential homebuyers. One might wonder if artificially inflating the amount of money available to lend has contributed to the country’s soaring home prices.

But anyone who remembers the 2008 housing crash should hear alarm bells going off. While there were several factors for the financial collapse, one underlying cause was risky home loans. Those mortgages had been sold and then repackaged as mortgage-backed securities. When borrowers stopped repaying their loans, the value of those securities plummeted. That rippled through the entire economy. The effects of that recession lingered for years.

That’s reason enough to be concerned about this move. The government should be very careful about opening the door to risky borrowers, especially when prices are at record highs.

What the housing market needs is more supply.

Washington should seek to lower prices, not lending standards.

— The Las Vegas Review-Journal

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Today is Friday, Jan. 2, the second day of 2026. There are 363 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Jan. 2, 1981, British serial killer Peter Sutcliffe, aka the “Yorkshire Ripper,” was captured after a series of killings bred fear across northwest England between 1975 and 1980. Subsequently convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the killings of 13 women, he died in 2020 at the age of 74.

Also on this date:

In 1890, President Benjamin Harrison appointed Alice Sanger as the first female White House staffer at a time of a growing movement for women’s rights.

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In 1942, the Philippine capital of Manila was captured by Japanese forces during World War II.

In 1959, the Soviet spacecraft Luna 1 launched, becoming the first spacecraft to escape Earth’s gravity.

In 1971, 66 people were killed in a crush of spectators leaving a soccer match at Ibrox Stadium in Glasgow, Scotland.

In 1974, President Richard Nixon signed legislation requiring states to limit highway speeds to 55 mph as a way of conserving gasoline during an OPEC oil embargo. (The 55 mph limit was effectively phased out in 1987; federal speed limits were abolished in 1995.)

In 2016, a heavily armed group led by brothers Ammon and Ryan Bundy seized the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, beginning a 41-day standoff to protest the imprisonment of two ranchers convicted of setting fires on public land and to demand the federal government turn over public lands to local control.

In 2023, Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest after making a tackle during the first quarter of an NFL game against the Cincinnati Bengals, requiring life-saving treatment on the field. The game was canceled; Hamlin would recover fully and return to play the following season.

In 2024, Harvard University President Claudine Gay resigned amid plagiarism accusations and a backlash over her congressional testimony about antisemitism on campus. She was the Ivy League institution’s first Black president.

Today’s Birthdays:

Filmmaker Todd Haynes is 65.
Baseball Hall of Famer Edgar Martínez is 63.
Actor-singer Tia Carrere is 59.
Actor Cuba Gooding Jr. is 58.
Model Christy Turlington is 57.
Actor Taye Diggs is 55.
Actor Renée Elise Goldsberry is 55.
Actor-comedian Dax Shepard is 51.
Actor Kate Bosworth is 43.
Musician Trombone Shorty is 40.
Singer-rapper Bryson Tiller is 33.

The annual Ice Castles — Minnesota attraction made its earliest-ever opening last week, just in time for News Year’s Day visitors to explore the frozen spectacle at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds in Falcon Heights.

Promoters have staged the event at various locations in the Twin Cities, including Stillwater, before last year’s debut in Falcon Heights. Work on the illuminated castles, which include ice slides, tunnels, caverns and intricate ice sculptures, began in early December.

For ticketing information, go to icecastles.com/minnesota.

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