Former Fox News personality Pete Hegseth may have saved his chances to have a Senate hearing to be the next secretary of defense by impressing Donald Trump with his determination to battle for the job.
According to a report from Politico, Hegseth's decision to go on the offense when confronted with allegations of public drunkenness and an accusation of sexual assault seems to have kept the former president from replacing him as the nominee.
With the report noting that ex-Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) pulled the trigger on stepping down as attorney general pick when he met with resistance from Republican senators, Hegseth has soldiered on with the support of MAGA activists who have come to his aid.
Politico's Meridith McGraw and Natalie Allison are reporting "Hegseth saved himself with Trump, according to multiple people familiar with the matter, who said the president-elect was pleased with the defiance he showed last week in interviews and in meetings on Capitol Hill."
According to one transition official, "He [Hegseth] stood strong and showed up to the Hill every day and had thoughtful conversations and meetings, and I think his media blitz was highly effective in proving he’s not going to back down.”
The report notes that Hegseth's change in fortune is a relief to Trump's inner circle who feared a "feeding frenzy" rebellion by GOP lawmakers if another Trump pick was forced out.
Award-winning U.S. poet Nikki Giovanni, who was at the forefront of the Black Arts Movement, died aged 81 after a long battle with cancer, local media reported Tuesday.
Widely regarded as one of the most prolific African-American poets, Giovanni received numerous awards and a Grammy nomination for her work on civil rights, gender and race issues.
Giovanni, whose most famous poems included 'Knoxville, Tennessee' and 'Nikki-Rosa', died following her third cancer diagnosis, the media reported.
She "died peacefully on December 9, 2024, with her life-long partner, Virginia (Ginney) Fowler, by her side," her friend and fellow writer Renee Watson said in a statement to CNN.
"We will forever be grateful for the unconditional time she gave to us, to all her literary children across the writerly world," poet Kwame Alexander told US media.
The Black Arts Movement, which flourished between 1965 and 1974, saw a wave of Black culture and literature championed by writers including Maya Angelou, James Baldwin and Audre Lorde.
In her writing, Giovanni reflected on her childhood growing up in Tennessee and Ohio, pushed for Black and civil rights, and described her long struggle with lung cancer.
"As one of the cultural icons of the Black Arts and Civil Rights Movements, she became friends with Rosa Parks, Aretha Franklin, James Baldwin, Nina Simone, and Muhammad Ali, and inspired generations of students, artists, activists, musicians, scholars and human beings, young and old," Watson said in her statement.
Giovanni went on to teach creative writing and literature at Virginia Tech and received numerous awards including the NAACP Image Award, the Rosa Parks Award and the Langston Hughes Award for Distinguished Contributions to Arts and Letters.
In 2004, she received a Grammy Best Spoken Word Album nomination for 'The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection'.
In a brief biography on her website, Giovanni wrote: "I wanted to be a writer who dreams or maybe a dreamer who writes but I knew one book does not a writer make."
Donald Trump again joked about making Canada an American state in a late-night post needling its Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after he cautioned against tariffs.
Trudeau traveled to Mar-a-Lago late last month for a dinner meeting with the president-elect to discuss the proposed charges on international imports. Trump revived a joke early Tuesday on Truth Social that sources claimed had "caused the prime minister and others to laugh nervously" after the meeting.
"It was a pleasure to have dinner the other night with Governor Justin Trudeau of the Great State of Canada," Trump posted at 12:06 a.m., degrading the prime minister's office and the autonomy of his nation.
"I look forward to seeing the Governor again soon so that we may continue our in depth talks on Tariffs and Trade, the results of which will be truly spectacular for all! DJT."
The president-elect's reprisal of that banter, which another Canadian official who attended the meeting dismissed as "teasing," apparently came in response to Trudeau's comments Monday on the potential impact of tariffs on the U.S. economy.
“Trump got elected on a commitment to make life better and more affordable for Americans, and I think people south of the border are beginning to wake up to the real reality that tariffs on everything from Canada would make life a lot more expensive,” Trudeau said.
The prime minister warned that 25-percent across-the-board tariffs would devastate the Canadian economy and create "real hardship for Americans."
"Americans import 65% of their crude oil from Canada, significant amounts of electricity," Trudeau said. "Just about all the natural gas exported from Canada goes to the United States. They rely on us for steel and aluminum. They rely on us for a range of agriculture imports. All of those things would get more expensive.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping warned Tuesday that there would be "no winners" in a trade war with the United States and vowed the country would hit its growth goals for the year.
Former US president Donald Trump -- who returns to the White House next month -- unleashed a grueling trade war with China during his first term in office, lambasting alleged intellectual property theft and other "unfair" practices.
He has pledged to impose even higher tariffs on China after taking office on January 20, as Beijing is grappling with a shaky post-pandemic economic recovery.
"Tariff wars, trade wars, and technology wars go against historical trends and economic rules, and there will be no winners," Xi said of China-US relations while meeting several heads of multilateral financial institutions in Beijing, according to state broadcaster CCTV.
"China is willing to maintain dialogue with the US government, expand cooperation, manage differences and promote the development of China-US relations in a stable, healthy and sustainable direction," said Xi.
Beijing is targeting annual growth this year of around five percent, despite sluggish domestic consumption, high unemployment and a prolonged crisis in the vast property sector.
Xi also said during Tuesday's meeting that China had "full confidence" in achieving its 2024 growth goal, state media reported.
His remarks came as official data showed the country's exports rose last month at a slower rate than expected while imports shrunk further, underscoring the challenges China is still facing.
The latest reading reinforced the need for more support a day after top officials pledged to bolster stuttering growth.
- Trade war looms -
Overseas shipments this year have represented a rare bright spot in the Chinese economy, with domestic spending mired in a slump and persistent woes in the property sector spooking investors.
Exports jumped 6.7 percent on-year to $312.3 billion last month, China's General Administration of Customs said.
But the figure was much slower than the 8.7 percent anticipated by economists in a Bloomberg survey and well down from the 12.7 percent leap in October, which was the strongest in more than two years.
The data showed exports grew 5.4 percent on-year in January-November.
"China's exports were perhaps the biggest upside surprise for the economy in 2024," wrote Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING.
This is "one of the main reasons China is set to achieve its 'around five percent' growth target" for this year, he added.
Analysts have suggested the recent surge in shipments is because foreign buyers fearing another trade standoff were racing to beat any possible tariffs on Chinese goods by Trump.
"We could see some frontloading of exports in the coming few months but momentum is likely to soften after this is done, unless the outcome of tariff negotiations is surprisingly positive," wrote Song.
The 3.9 percent drop in imports last month extended a slide in the previous month -- and was much worse than the 0.9 percent rise forecast -- as domestic demand continues to be dampened by lacklustre consumer spending.
The readings come as investors closely watch signals from Chinese leaders, who are convening this week in Beijing for a series of key meetings on economic planning for the coming year.
The Politburo, China's top decision-making body, on Monday urged "vigorous" support for consumption and a loosening of monetary policy in 2025.
But observers are still waiting for the announcement of specific policies, particularly any measures to significantly bolster consumption.
Zhang Zhiwei, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management, said in a note that another key meeting on economic policy -- expected to take place in the coming days -- could "shed more light, particularly on the fiscal policy front".
The suspected assassin accused of gunning down the CEO of a major health insurer has officially been charged with murder hours after he was arrested in Pennsylvania.
Luigi Mangione, 26, was arrested in Altoona on Monday following a tip from a McDonald's customer. He was found with a gun, mask and notes, as well as a passport and $10,000 in cash, some of which was foreign currency.
“The customer recognized, notified an employee and wanted someone to check it out further,” said Lt. Col. George Bivens of the Pennsylvania State Police.
Late Monday, prosecutors in Manhattan filed murder, gun and forgery charges against Mangione following the shooting death of UnitedHealth executive Brian Thompson, online court records reviewed by Raw Story showed. He remained jailed in Pennsylvania, where he was charged with having an unlicensed gun, forgery and providing false identification to police, The Associated Press reported.
Mangione was booked at State Correctional Institution, Huntingdon in Pennsylvania.
“Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest,” Mangione’s family said in a statement posted on social media late Monday by his cousin, Maryland lawmaker Nino Mangione. “We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved.”
A friend of Luigi Mangione was stunned by the arrest.
“He was absolutely a not violent person, as far as I can tell,” said R.J. Martin, a friend and former roommate of the 26-year-old Mangione. “Personally, I can make zero sense of it. There's never a justification for violence.”
The moment came after tech journalist Taylor Lorenz, who founded the Substack "User Mag" and has been credited with popularizing terms including "OK Boomer," told a panel Monday on "Piers Morgan Uncensored" that she felt "joy" upon learning the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was gunned down.
"I do believe in the sanctity of life. I think that's why I felt along with so many other Americans joy unfortunately because it feels like — " she said.
Stunned by the statement, Morgan interjected, "Joy? Seriously? Joy in the man's execution?"
"I guess I would say, maybe not joy but certainly not empathy," she said.
Morgan cut off his guest again, playing the footage of the assassination for viewers and demanding to know, "How can this make you joyful?" He noted the victim, Brian Thompson is a husband and father.
Lorenz insisted that Thompson isn't the only victim — thousands of Americans die due to the health insurance industry.
"So are tens of thousands of Americans who died because greedy health insurance executives like this one push policies of denying care to the most vulnerable people. And I [inaudible] the many millions of Americans that have watched the people that I care about suffer and in some cases die because of lack of health care."
Morgan pounced on her comment and asked if all health care executives ought to be killed.
"Would that make you even more joyful?" he retorted.
"Uh, no that would not," Lorenz began with a small chuckle, only to be interrupted again by Morgan.
"Well, why not? Why are you laughing?" he asked.
"Because, Piers, it wouldn't fix the system," she started to respond.
But Morgan didn't let up.
"You seem to find the whole thing hilarious," he continued.
"I find your question funny," she replied.
"A bloke's been murdered in the street. I don't find it funny at all," he replied.
Lorenz repeated that she doesn't find it funny that tens of thousands of Americans die each year because they're denied "life-saving health care from people like this CEO."
"You're right, we shouldn't be going around shooting each other with vigilante justice. No. I think that it is a good thing that this murder has led to America, er, the media elites and politicians in this country paying attention to this issue for the first time."
Lorenz continued noting Morgan said he couldn't understand why people would celebrate the killing.
"It's because you have not dealt, it sounds like, with the American health care system in the way that millions of other Americans have," she said.
Morgan rejected her statement and said he has dealt with the American health care system, and while he doesn't find it perfect, he would never celebrate the assassination.
"The idea that I would view it as something 'joyful' that a man who's just a health care executive has just been executed in the street I find completely bizarre," he said.
A report published in August by The Commonwealth Fund found that 45 percent of insured, working-age adults reported receiving a medical bill or being charged a copayment in the past year for a service they thought should have been free or covered by their insurance. Seventeen percent of respondents said their insurer denied care coverage that was recommended by their doctor, and more than half of those said neither they nor their doctor challenged that denial.
Additionally, nearly 60 percent of adults who experienced a coverage denial said their care was delayed as a result.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) says a woman in Georgia was killed on Monday in a car accident involving a police officer who was responding to a bomb threat at her home.
The Rome Police Department bomb squad responded to Greene’s home following a threat that her office later said in a statement was “traced to a Russian IP address.” The crash was confirmed by police, who said the officer was not critically injured, according to Atlanta news station WXIA-TV.
There was determined to be no “active threat” against the MAGA lawmaker, who her office said has been “swatted” at least nine times. But hours later, Greene posted on social media that a fatal crash occurred.
“My prayers are with Tammie Pickelsimer, her family, the officer who was injured, and the entire Rome Police Department,” Greene wrote to her followers on X. “These violent political threats have fatal consequences. It’s an undue strain on our law enforcement who must treat them seriously.”
She added that the officer was responding to the bomb threat to “protect my life” and went as far as to call the crash “murder.”
“And now, a woman has lost her life because of this despicable act," she wrote. "The perpetrator of this crime has committed murder in our small community of Rome, Georgia. The police shouldn’t have to respond to these threats and there should not be deaths caused at their hands. I’m so thankful for everything the Rome Police Department does to protect our city and for putting their lives on the line to do it. I’m sick to my stomach, but I’m also angry.”
Greene’s office said it was working with local and federal law enforcement, including the FBI, “to ensure the perpetrator is brought to justice,” and noted the “international nature and severity of this threat.”
“This should have never happened and I pray it never happens again,” she said in her post.
Already, experts have raised eyebrows at Trump's pick of anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the department, along with a number of other medicine-denialist nominees — but, Maddow noted, the whole situation gets a lot weirder.
Imagine, she said, that you are applying for a job.
"They ask you to fill out an intake form, and specifically, they ask you to disclose on this intake form to your potential new employer if these specific personality characteristics, you think, apply to you. 'I like to show off my body.' 'I like to look at myself in the mirror.' Is that one of your personality characteristics? Your potential new employer wants to know, wants you to put in writing, do these personality characteristics apply to you? 'I don't have that much interest in having sexual experiences with another person.' Excuse me? Sorry? Again, this is from your boss, from your would-be boss, asking you these questions."
She continued: "Another personality characteristic this application's intake form asks you about, it asks if you would describe yourself this way: 'I consistently use my physical appearance to draw attention to myself.' 'I have chronic feelings of emptiness.' 'I love large parties.' 'I leave a mess in my room.' 'I do not enjoy going to art museums.' 'I get upset when people don't notice how I look when I go out in public.' You are applying for a job and you are asked to declare these things, whether these are your characteristics. Here is my favorite one — again, what your employer is asking in considering whether or not you're going to be hired, whether or not you are suited for a job, does this personality trait apply to you? 'I believe in things and many others don't, like having a sixth sense, clairvoyance and telepathy, and as an adolescent, I had bizarre fantasies or preoccupations.'"
No normal person would tolerate that kind of thing being asked in a job application process, said Maddow.
"If your would-be boss asks you how interested you are in sex, and your would-be boss wants you to put this answer in writing and submit it to the company, call HR, right?" she said. "Nobody wants to, but honestly, call HR, maybe call the cops. Definitely don't take that job. But that, that I just showed you, the Trump transition has now confirmed that that is the questionnaire that is being administered to people who want to work for the U.S. government in the second term of Donald J. Trump."
A friend of the suspected assassin of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO last week described the man as a “thoughtful person” who led a book club, practiced yoga and calisthenics – and suffered from chronic back pain.
“I'm beyond shocked. It's unimaginable,” said R.J. Martin, a friend and former roommate of 26-year-old Luigi Mangione. Martin opened up in a revealing interview with CNN on Monday night, hours after a nationwide manhunt led police to a Pennsylvania McDonald’s location where Mangione was arrested on weapon and fake ID charges, according to media reports.
“I remember he said he had a back issue, and he was hoping to get stronger in Hawaii,” Martin told CNN’s Erin Burnett. He added that after first arriving in Honolulu, a basic surf lesson turned into a painful experience for Mangione.
“He was in bed for about a week,” Martin said. “We had to get a different bed for him that was more firm, and I know it was really traumatic and difficult. You know, when you're in your early 20s and you can't do some basic things, it can be really, really difficult.”
Martin, owner of the co-living community Surfbreak HNL where Mangione lived, said he remembers the man now suspected of gunning down healthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Wednesday as “focused on being strong and healthy.”
“But it also weighed on him that he knew that there was an impending surgery,” Martin added.
Still, Martin never recalled Mangione having “an axe to grind” with any particular health care issue. The two have remained in communication throughout the years, mostly through text messages, he said.
“Earlier this year I checked in with him, he confirmed that he had had surgery, and he sent me the x-rays,” he said. “It looked heinous with just giant screws going into his spine.”
But Martin noted that Mangione never talked about guns or wanting to commit violent acts.
“He was absolutely a not violent person, as far as I can tell,” Martin said. “Personally, I can make zero sense of it. There's never a justification for violence.”
A far-right lawmaker and vehement defender of President-elect Donald Trump gave the MAGA leader a glowing review when asked about his awkward handshake with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Trump and Macron shared a notably intense handshake Saturday as they attended the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. The encounter happened as Trump arrived for a meeting at the Elysee Palace as part of ceremonies to mark the reopening of the Cathedral, about five years after a fire left the Gothic masterpiece with extensive damage.
"When you see the video of Trump grab Macron like this and just yank — grab it and twist it, what message does that send?" he asked, imitating the president-elect's gesture.
"It's the alpha energy that the world needs right now. After four years of [President] Joe Biden and terrible foreign policy, I think not just the United States but the world was ready to take the reigns and get us back to some form of normalcy. because we could not handle another four years."
Luna speculated that had Trump lost the election, the United States would've found itself in "World War III."
"That could've happened easily, and it's getting closer by the day," Watters agreed.
The police department in Worcester, Massachusetts, allowed officers to engage in sexual misconduct with women believed to be in the commercial sex trade, Justice Department investigators said in a report, according to WBUR.
Investigators found that police officers "'rapidly escalated minor incidents by using more force than necessary' including during encounters with people who have behavioral health disabilities or are in crisis — a violation of the Fourth Amendment," according to the report Monday. "The report also includes what investigations describe as 'concerns about some credible reports that officers have sexually assaulted women under threat of arrest and engaged in other sexual misconduct; and concerns that WPD lacks adequate policies and practices to respond to and investigate sexual assaults by officers and others.'"
“Excessive force and sexual misconduct at the hands of officers who took an oath to serve and protect deeply diminishes the public’s trust in its sworn officers," said acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy, of the District of Massachusetts. “The actions by certain officers who engaged in this conduct are not a reflection of the many hard working and ethical officers at the WPD who did not engage in such misconduct."
Brian T. Kelley, the police department's lawyer, sharply criticized the report, saying, “Instead of identifying individual officers who could — and should — be prosecuted if these serious allegations were true, DOJ has prepared a report by civil lawyers with no prosecutorial experience which makes incredibly broad allegations but fails to identify a single corrupt officer.”
Nonetheless, there have been several incidents in the past where police in various parts of the country have been implicated in sexual misconduct.
In 2022, Brian Harris, a local constable chief in Harris County, Texas, was busted in an undercover prostitution operation. And in 2014, a Baltimore police officer, Charles Hagee, was arrested on allegations of soliciting prostitution services from a 14-year-old girl online.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) continued his yearslong crusade against Dr. Anthony Fauci, telling a conservative radio host Monday that he would again pursue criminal charges against the country’s former top infectious disease expert with President-elect Donald Trump in the White House.
And the idea that President Joe Biden is considering a preemptive pardon of Fauci didn’t seem to phase the Kentucky senator, who has forcefully lambasted Fauci for his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, including in an infamous January 2022 shouting match during a Senate Health Committee hearing.
“I've sent criminal referrals on Anthony Fauci twice to the Department of Justice without a response. I will send those referrals again,” Paul told Glenn Beck on Monday. “If they preemptively pardon Fauci, it will seal his fate as the architect, author, and Godfather of the pandemic.”
Paul went on to tell Beck on his show, “The Glenn Beck Program,” that Fauci “is the one that funded it,” and “allowed the research not to be scrutinized.”
“And really we have him at his own words,” Paul said. “We have him dead to rights. If the president pardons him I think it will just cement his role in history as being the architect of gain-of-function surgery.”
Beck added that he hopes Kash Patel – Trump’s pick for FBI director – releases “the raw evidence that has been gathered, kind of like the Twitter files, where we can see all the stuff that has been classified that should be seen by the American people.”
Paul agreed that he thinks Patel should release a still-classified FBI report on the pandemic if confirmed to the post.
“Anything having to do with ‘Russia Gate,’ anything to do with the abuse of the FBI to go after Donald Trump, all that has to be publicly released as well,” he told Beck.
McDonald's locations in Pennsylvania have been subject to a flood of bad reviews as reviewers express outrage that an employee reportedly called in the tip that led to the arrest of the suspect in the shooting of a health insurance CEO, according to a report.
Police on Monday announced the arrest of Luigi Mangione at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after an employee called police.
According to Axios, online activists gleeful over the killing of Brian Thompson have turned on the McDonald's franchise that turned him in — with some writing an avalanche of fake bad reviews.
"Following the 'outing' of Mangione as a person of interest, sympathizers took to the internet to slam the McDonald's employee for tipping off police," said the report. "Users left reviews for at least three McDonald's locations in or around Altoona, Pennsylvania, with dozens of people leaving one star ratings and complaining about 'rats.' Others more explicitly called out 'snitches.'"
One user wrote, "This location has rats in the kitchen that will make you sick and your insurance isn't going to cover it."
Mangione, who hails from a wealthy and well-connected family, is reported to have read several books on chronic back pain. The shell casings on the scene of Thompson's murder were inscribed with the words "deny," "defend," and "depose," a phrase associated with the health insurance industry's claims denial process.
The public uproar of schadenfreude over the killing, and the outpouring of people justifying it by detailing stories of their frustration dealing with health insurance companies, has alarmed many political observers.
"Review-bombing" a restaurant for political reasons is not a new tactic. Earlier this year, when President-elect Donald Trump made a campaign stop working at a McDonald's in Feasterville-Trevose, Pennsylvania, in an elaborate attempt to attack Vice President Kamala Harris' personal story, that McDonald's Yelp page was flooded with bad reviews, with one person saying a "senile old man got bronzer on my fries."
