US News

President Donald Trump's trip to China was billed as a high-stakes diplomatic summit with President Xi Jinping, but with one notable exception: the first lady was nowhere to be found.

Melania Trump, who had attended the 2017 Xi summit and appeared alongside both leaders and their spouses, sat this one out entirely because, according to her office, she was attending the six-month anniversary of an unnamed initiative connected to children and foster care programs. The announcement flabbergasted legal and political commentator Michael Popok, host of the podcast "The Intersection with Michael Popok," who said on a new episode on Thursday that he had no clue what Melania Trump was referring to.

Rick Jackson is running to be the Republican nominee for governor in Georgia — but his wife may have different allegiances.

According to filings from the Federal Election Commission, Melody Jackson, the candidate's spouse, gave a $1,000 contribution to Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in February 2025 — a key Democratic lawmaker that Republicans were hoping to seriously contest this year.

Wisconsin Democrats are considering a scorched-earth mid-decade redistricting if they win unified control of the state government this year, which would potentially net Democrats four new House seats.

This follows a wave of Republican redraws in the South to chop up and eliminate Black seats in the wake of the Supreme Court making it harder to challenge this under the Voting Rights Act, which has Democrats around the country champing at the bit to retaliate.

A political analyst warned on Thursday that Democrats have reached a "do or die" moment ahead of the 2026 midterm elections as a red state escalates its efforts to gerrymander its map.

South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, announced on Thursday that he is calling a special session for state lawmakers to redraw their election map ahead of the midterms. The announcement comes after McMaster refused to call a special session earlier this month after the state legislature failed to secure a veto-proof majority supporting the new maps during its regular session.

A photographer discovered never-before-seen photographs of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein in his belongings as he was preparing to move to Europe, which he thought had been destroyed after a run-in with Epstein's bodyguard, according to a new report.

Christopher Anderson, the Vanity Fair photographer who took a recent series of eye-popping portraits of officials in President Donald Trump's administration, photographed Epstein in his New York townhome for a story that was eventually spiked. Epstein eventually wrangled the photos from Anderson, but they emerged on an old hard drive that had been tucked away for years, Vanity Fair reported.

Former Homeland Security aide Miles Taylor ripped into President Donald Trump on Thursday's edition of "Deadline: White House," saying that his ballroom project writes its own attack ads and Democrats hardly have their work cut out for them at all.

This comes as even Republican lawmakers fight over the new proposal to include $1 billion in funding for the project.

A new lawsuit accused a MAGA culture warrior in Oklahoma of working with Chaya Raichik, founder of the Libs of TikTok social media account, to terrorize a teacher for more than three years, according to a report.

The Advocate reported on Thursday that Regan Killackey, a former Oklahoma public school teacher, filed a lawsuit accusing former state superintendent Ryan Walters of working with the popular social media account to attack Killackey over a photo of the teacher's son attacking the teacher's daughter with a plastic sword while she wore a President Donald Trump mask. The lawsuit says the campaign lasted more than 1,000 days.

Political analysts and observers mocked a giant Trump-aligned media company on Thursday after it was reported that the company is in talks to acquire a floundering conservative podcast.

Axios reported that Paramount is evaluating a potential distribution deal with Katie Miller, wife of President Donald Trump's Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and her podcast "The Katie Miller Podcast." The report noted that Paramount is considering the deal as it attempts to bolster its podcast roster. The company has also had discussions with Paragon Collective, which hosts comedians Whitney Cummings and D.L. Hughley, and Jubilee Media, according to the report.