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Republicans in Washington circle the wagons around an increasingly damaged Pete Hegseth

Republicans left Democrats on Capitol Hill frustrated this week after a pair of controversies surrounding Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth continued to dominate the headlines, but the president’s party was seemingly unwilling to hold Donald Trump’s Cabinet secretary to any public accountability.
Lawmakers from both parties on the committees overseeing the armed forces and intelligence sectors huddled with Adm. Frank Bradley and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Thursday. The briefing focused on a Sept. 2 military strike on a vessel the Trump administration says was ferrying drugs in the Caribbean. In that now heavily-scrutinized mission, Navy SEALs under Bradley’s direction conducted a second strike on the burning wreckage of the vessel as at least two survivors clung to it in desperation.
Committees in both chambers, led by Republicans who hold majorities in the House and Senate, announced plans to investigate the strike after news reports generated criticism fro..

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Texas can use Trump-backed congressional map in midterms following Supreme Court ruling

The Supreme Court will let Texas use a new congressional map in next year’s crucial midterm elections that could determine the balance of power in Congress.
A redistricting war among states to maximize Republican victories in a Donald Trump-backed campaign to maintain control of Congress got a significant boost from the nation’s highest court Thursday, with the court’s conservative majority agreeing to temporarily block a lower-court order that found the map unlawful.
The map will remain in play while a legal challenge continues.
The court’s three liberal justices dissented.
In August, Texas Governor Greg Abbott approved a map drawn up by Texas Republicans that is expected to add up to five GOP seats in the House of Representatives, a move that sparked a gerrymandering arms race and legal battles among Republicans and Democrats across the country to reshape their states’ political boundaries ahead of the 2026 elections.
open image in galleryTexas Governor Greg Abbott approved a new con..

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Doctor sentenced to over 2 years in prison for selling ketamine to Matthew Perry: ‘Drug dealer in white coat’

A California doctor has been sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison for selling ketamine to Friends star Matthew Perry — the first criminal conviction over the death of the actor, who was found dead in the hot tub of his Los Angeles home in October 2023.
Dr. Salvador Plasencia, 44, who ran an urgent-care clinic in Malibu, California, was one of five people federally charged after the 54-year-old Perry, who played Chandler Bing in the hit NBC show from 1994 to 2004, died of a drug overdose.
During an emotion-charged hearing on Wednesday, Plasencia turned to Perry’s family and directly apologized for his role in the star’s tragic end, telling them: “I am just so sorry.”
Plasencia repeatedly wiped his brow throughout, as he told the court how he would one day have to explain his role to his young son.
“I failed to protect a mother’s son. I failed Mr. Perry, I failed his family and I failed myself,” the disgraced doctor said.
open image in galleryMatthew Perry was found dead in the ho..

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DNA evidence links Colorado woman’s murder to one of state’s most ‘prolific serial killers’ 40 years later

For nearly four decades, the murder of 30-year-old Rhonda Marie Fisher in the foothills outside Denver went unsolved.
A passing motorist had discovered Fisher's body on April 1, 1987, at the bottom of an embankment in rural Douglas County, south of the Colorado capital. Yet despite suspects, the killer was never found.
Now Douglas County police say they have identified the culprit as “one of Colorado's most prolific serial killers”, based on 38-year-old DNA evidence from the inside of a paper bag.
The county sheriff's office announced Wednesday that cold case investigators had found a match with convicted murderer Vincent Darrell Groves, who is believed responsible for at least 12 homicides and possibly more than 20.
Groves targeted numerous women between 1978 and 1988, both before and after a five-year sentence for second-degree murder. He was finally put away for good in 1990, only to die of liver failure in prison in 1996.
Left: Rhonda Marie Fisher. Right: Vincent Gro..

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Vanity Fair’s Olivia Nuzzi trashes scorned ex Ryan Lizza for publishing what she calls harmful ‘revenge porn’

Vanity Fair editor Olivia Nuzzi has trashed her scorned ex-fiancé Ryan Lizza for publishing what she calls harmful “revenge porn.”
The pair of high-profile journalists has recently made headlines as they unraveled their messy personal lives.
Ahead of the publication of Nuzzi’s new book, American Canto, Lizza released a series of Substack posts for his independent publication Telos News, claiming his former partner cheated on him with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and former South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford.
In the first part of the series, Lizza detailed a “love letter” Nuzzi, now 32, had supposedly sent to Sanford in March 2020. Nuzzi had covered the 2020 presidential election cycle in which Sanford was a candidate.
“If I swallowed every drop of water from the tower above your house,” Lizza quoted the letter. “I would still thirst for you.”
open image in galleryVanity Fair editor Olivia Nuzzi has trashed her scorned ex-fiancé Ryan Lizza for publishin..

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Putin says Russia is ready for war if Europe wants it

Leer en EspañolPresident Vladimir Putin has said Russia is ready to fight a war with Europe if it is provoked, as he accused leaders of sabotaging US-led efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
“We are not planning to go to war with Europe, but if Europe wants to and starts, we are ready right now,” he said on Tuesday. “They are on the side of war.”
He said Europe had made demands on a possible peace settlement for Ukraine, which he said Russia found “absolutely unacceptable”.
Putin suggested European powers were hindering President Donald Trump’s efforts to broker a peace deal in order to accuse Russia of not wanting peace.
The Russian leader was speaking at a plenary session of the VTB Russia Calling Investment forum in Moscow, ahead of talks with Mr Trump’s special envoy and son-in-law – Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
Last month, Russia and the US agreed to a 28-point plan – widely condemned by European governments – that would force Ukraine to give up land, cut its army and cease it..

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MAGA conspiracy theorist and Trump influencer Laura Loomer receives credentials and desk at Pentagon after media purge

Far-right influencer and outside Trump adviser Laura Loomer officially has a desk and credential at the Pentagon, after virtually all mainstream news organizations covering the Defense Department handed in their badges in October rather than agree to a new set of rules restricting their coverage to pre-approved information.
“The Washington Post and Dan Lamothe used to occupy this desk inside the Pentagon Press room,” Loomer wrote on X on Monday. “Now it’s mine!”
Reporters from other newly welcomed outlets including RedState and Fearless Media soon were also claiming to be using Lamothe’s old desk, sharing photos of what appeared to be different spaces inside the Pentagon press offices.
The mix-up prompted mockery and corrections from the recently exiled Defense Department press corps.
On X, Lamothe said he actually gave up the desk in March, well before the new crop of reporters came in, and joked that he had now “lost count” of how many alleged desks he had at the military HQ.
open..

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Costco joins growing list of companies suing Trump for refunds if Supreme Court strikes down tariffs

Costco has sued the Trump administration over its flagship tariffs policy, joining a growing list of companies vying in court to ensure they are refunded if the Supreme Court strikes those tariffs down.
In a complaint filed last week before the U.S. Court of International Trade, lawyers for Costco asked the Supreme Court to rule Trump's 'emergency' tariffs illegal and to order the full refund of all such tariffs it has already paid.
Other companies which have brought such lawsuits include the American cosmetics titan Revlon and the Japanese motorbike and motor maker Kawasaki Motors.
Three lower courts have already ruled against President Donald Trump's use of emergency powers to impose tariffs on imports from across the world, and now the Supreme Court is hearing arguments for a final decision.
But if the nation's highest court also rejects the tariffs, lawyers for Costco — the nation's biggest warehouse club retailer and the third biggest retailer in the ..

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Trump frees New York private equity executive who defrauded victims of $1.6B

President Donald Trump has commuted the prison sentence of David Gentile, a private equity executive who was convicted of defrauding thousands of investors in a $1.6 billion scheme.
The former CEO and co-founder of GPB Capital Holdings served less than two weeks of his seven-year sentence when he was released from prison Wednesday, according to The New York Times.
Gentile, 59, and a co-defendant, Jeffry Schneider, were convicted of securities and wire fraud charges in August 2024 and sentenced in May. Schneider, who was sentenced to six years, does not appear to have received clemency from Trump.
In a social media post on Thanksgiving, Trump’s “pardon czar” Alice Marie Johnson said she was “deeply grateful” to see Gentile going home to his young children.
In court filings, prosecutors said that Gentile and Schneider used investor funds to take stakes in companies in the automotive and retail industries. It paid out regular annual distributions to investors from returns on these hold..

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Trump unleashes latest insult at female reporter as he says he will release MRI results

President Donald Trump has insulted another female reporter after he was asked about releasing the results of an MRI test that he announced he had taken earlier this month.
The president took questions from reporters aboard Air Force One Sunday night, as he returned to Washington D.C. from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida where he had celebrated Thanksgiving.
Trump was asked about recent calls by Minnesota Governor and former vice presidential candidate Tim Walz to release his MRI results after the president used a mental health slur in a long, rambling Truth Social post on Thanksgiving Day, calling the lawmaker “seriously r******.”
The president claimed, as he has done multiple times, that he had “aced” a cognitive test but told the reporter that she would be “incapable” of doing the same.
It came after a male reporter put to Trump that “Governor Walz called for the release of your MRI results.”
open image in galleryDonald Trump insulted another female reporter after he was asked ab..