US News

Rep. Terri Sewell (D-AL) scolded Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. after he denied saying that "every Black kid" should be "re-parented" instead of getting mental health treatment.

During a Thursday hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee, Sewell noted that Kennedy had made the remarks in a 2024 podcast on the 19Keys Online Show.

Samaritan's Purse President Franklin Graham faced backlash after defending President Donald Trump's decision to post an image of himself as Jesus.

"I do not believe President Trump would knowingly depict himself as Jesus Christ—that would certainly be inappropriate," Graham wrote on Thursday. "I'm thankful the President has made it very clear that this was not at all what he thought the AI-generated image was representing—he thought it was a doctor helping someone, and when he learned of the concerns, he immediately removed the post."

CNN's Brian Stelter called out Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for using religion to justify attacks on the free press.

The Pentagon chief focused much of his weekly update Thursday morning on attacking media coverage of the Iran war, but Stelter told "CNN News Central" that Hegseth seemed to be "doubling down" on President Donald Trump's self-aggrandizing use of religious language.

President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth do not have a real plan in place to neutralize the threat from Iran, NBC national security reporter David Rohde told MS NOW's "Morning Joe" on Thursday.

"The problem is if it's just more airstrikes, that didn't work," said Rohde. "And the real issue, the biggest leverage Iran has is that it hasn't attacked the energy facilities that exist across the Persian Gulf, the refineries, the natural gas processing facilities and pipelines. They've hit a few of them, but that's their sort of, you know, their top option ... their biggest threat is that if the U.S. bombs again and bombs their infrastructure, their power plants, they will take out all those facilities and it will take months, months to rebuild them. So this goes from an energy crisis that lasts for a few weeks to months and months."

Lebanese officials directly contradicted President Donald Trump's breezy suggestion that its leader would speak with Israeli leadership.

The 79-year-old president announced on Truth Social that Lebanese President Joseph Aoun would speak Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, saying they were "trying to get a little breathing room between Israel and Lebanon. It has been a long time since the two leaders have spoken, like 34 years," but Lebanese officials told Reuters that would not happen anytime soon.

Former Virginia lieutenant governor Justin Fairfax shot his wife to death and then killed himself, authorities in Annandale said.

On Thursday, officials confirmed to Fox 5 that Fairfax was found in their home at the 8100 block of Guinevere Drive. Two bodies were identified as Fairfax and his wife.

President Donald Trump seems to be ramping up pressure on elderly conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas to consider retiring as soon as possible.

The 79-year-old president strongly suggested in an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo that he would like to replace up to three justices before the midterm election, where Democrats appear poised to take back the House and narrow the already thin Republican Senate majority, according to CNN's Aaron Blake.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth once again used a Pentagon press conference to complain about the reporting on the Iran war that is trapped in a stalemate, claiming the straight reporting on Donald Trump's attack on Iran has been “garbage.”

He then claimed he attended church last Sunday with his family and heard a sermon about the Pharisees that reminded him of the persecution of Jesus Christ –– then comparing them to the US press.