Frustrated by what it sees as the U.S.’s determination to thwart its rise as a global superpower, China is pushing ahead with efforts to promote a new international order that has Beijing at its center.

In recent weeks, China has spoken more robustly about the prospect of conflict unless the U.S. changes course and reveled in a major diplomatic victory in the Middle East. Now its leader, Xi Jinping, is in Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, signaling Beijing’s growing embrace of its rising power on the global stage and the potential for it to further deepen conflict with the U.S. and its allies.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy urged calm Sunday and said Americans should not protest if former President Donald Trump is indicted and arrested in a hush-money investigation in New York, contradicting Trump, who called on his supporters Saturday to “Protest, take our nation back!” 

“I don’t think people should protest this, no. And I think President Trump, if you talk to him, he doesn’t believe that, either,” McCarthy, R-Calif., said in response to a question from NBC News during House Republicans’ retreat in Orlando.

He said later: “Nobody should harm one another … We want calmness out there.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Days after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a defiant visit to the city of Mariupol in his first trip to Ukrainian territory that Moscow illegally annexed in September.

Putin flew into the port city by helicopter and “traveled around several districts of the city,” the Kremlin said in a statement Sunday, adding that he met several residents and went into one family’s home after they invited him in.

Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnullin said in a separate post on his Telegram channel that Putin “personally inspected one of the residential areas, the building of the Philharmonic Society and assessed the roads, driving a car around the city.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

UBS agreed to buy its embattled rival Credit Suisse for $3.2 billion Sunday, with Swiss regulators playing a key part in the deal as governments looked to stem a contagion threatening the global banking system.

“With the takeover of Credit Suisse by UBS, a solution has been found to secure financial stability and protect the Swiss economy in this exceptional situation,” read a statement from the Swiss National Bank, which noted the central bank worked with the Swiss government and the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority to bring about the combination of the country’s two largest banks.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Senate on Thursday, in a procedural move, cleared the way for a final vote on repealing decades-old war powers measures that authorized two wars with Iraq — first under former President George H. W. Bush in the Gulf War, and then by his son, former President George W. Bush — with supporters fearing that the outdated authorizations could be misused by a future president.

In a strong bipartisan showing, the Senate voted 67-27 in a test vote to repeal the authorizations.

It’s now all but certain to pass the Senate in a final vote next week, but it’s less clear is how a Republican-controlled House will handle the legislation.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

A group of financial institutions has agreed to deposit $30 billion in First Republic Bank in what’s meant to be a sign of confidence in the banking system, the banks announced Thursday afternoon.

Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase will contribute about $5 billion apiece, while Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will deposit around $2.5 billion, the banks said in a news release. Truist, PNC, U.S. Bancorp, State Street and Bank of New York Mellon will deposit about $1 billion each.

“This action by America’s largest banks reflects their confidence in First Republic and in banks of all sizes, and it demonstrates their overall commitment to helping banks serve their customers and communities,” the group said in a statement.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Three U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence said the highest levels of the Kremlin approved the aggressive actions of Russian military fighter jets against a U.S. military drone over the Black Seaon Tuesday. 

The Russian jets dropped jet fuel on the MQ-9 Reaper, an unprecedented action, and two of the officials said the intelligence suggests the intent seemed to be to throw the drone off course or disable its surveillance capabilities. 

It was “Russian leadership’s intention to be aggressive in the intercept,” said one of the officials.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A judge appointed by former President Donald Trump heard arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit that aims to ban an abortion medication that women in the U.S. have used widely for over two decades.

During the four-hour hearing, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk appeared sympathetic to arguments from the lawyers for a coalition of anti-abortion groups called the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine. Their goal in filing the suit was to overturn the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the pills used to terminate pregnancies, which account for more than half of abortions in the U.S.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A Russian fighter jet forced down a US Air Force drone over the Black Sea on Tuesday after damaging the propeller of the American MQ-9 Reaper drone, according to the US military.

The Reaper drone and two Russian Su-27 aircraft were flying over international waters over the Black Sea on Tuesday when one of the Russian jets intentionally flew in front of and dumped fuel on the unmanned drone several times, a statement from US European Command said.

The aircraft then hit the propeller of the drone, prompting US forces to bring the MQ-9 drone down in international waters. Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder added Tuesday that the Russian aircraft flew “in the vicinity” of the drone for 30 to 40 minutes before colliding just after 7 a.m. Central European Time.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

President Joe Biden signed an executive order Tuesday designed to increase background checks in a visit to a Los Angeles suburb that was the site of a mass shooting this year.

Biden issued the order shortly before a trip to Monterey Park, where 11 people were killed in January at a gathering for Lunar New Year celebrations.

“We all saw a day and festivity and light turned into a day of fear and darkness,” Biden said Tuesday afternoon, when he read the names of the mass shooting victims.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A group of Democrats led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. Katie Porter of California will unveil legislation Tuesday to restore bank regulations that were undone under then-President Donald Trump in 2018, seeking to fix what they say was the cause of Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse.

The legislation, first reported by NBC News, would repeal the centerpiece of a law passed on a bipartisan basis by the Republican-led Congress in 2018, which eased Dodd-Frank financial regulations on midsize banks by raising the “too big to fail” threshold from $50 billion in assets to $250 billion.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., was “discharged from the hospital today,” his communications director, David Popp, said in a statement Monday.

“At the advice of his physician, the next step will be a period of physical therapy at an inpatient rehabilitation facility before he returns home,” Popp said. “Over the course of treatment this weekend, the Leader’s medical team discovered that he also suffered a minor rib fracture on Wednesday, for which he is also being treated.”

McConnell, 81, was hospitalized Wednesday after he fell at a private dinner and was treated for a concussion, his office said. By Friday, a political adviser who visited him in the hospital said, he was “doing well” and “eager” to leave.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential Republican presidential candidate, broke with many in his party Monday and told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that protecting Ukraine is not a “vital” national interest for the U.S.

“While the U.S. has many vital national interests — securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party — becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” DeSantis wrote in a questionnaire response Carlson posted on his Twitter feed.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Rep. George Santos on Friday rejected allegations of fraud from a convicted Brazilian man who said the New York Republican was the brains behind a credit card skimming scheme in 2017.

“I’m innocent. I never did anything of criminal activity and I’m no mastermind of anything,” Santos told reporters when asked about a sworn affidavit from Gustavo Ribeiro Trelha that was obtained by Politico and published Thursday. “The story’s false.”

Trelha pleaded guilty in 2017 to a charge of “access device fraud” in federal court in Seattle for a scam involving a card skimmer that lifted card numbers and passwords from ATMs. He served about six months in jail before he was deported back to Brazil, court records show.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News 

Former Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday harshly criticized former President Donald Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, widening the rift between the two men as they prepare to battle over the Republican nomination in next year’s election.

“President Trump was wrong,” Pence said during remarks at the annual white-tie Gridiron Dinner attended by politicians and journalists. “I had no right to overturn the election. And his reckless words endangered my family and everyone at the Capitol that day, and I know history will hold Donald Trump accountable.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Federal regulators stepped in Sunday to back all Silicon Valley Bank deposits, resolving a key uncertainty surrounding the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history hours before global stock markets resumed trading.

The U.S. Treasury, the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said the government would back Silicon Valley Bank deposits beyond the federally insured ceiling of $250,000. The decision addressed concerns around the fate of uninsured funds held at the Santa Clara, California-based bank — the country’s 16th largest — which had $209 billion in assets and more than $175 billion in deposits.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden on Thursday rolled out his proposed budget for fiscal year 2024, casting it as a reflection of his values ahead of an anticipated reelection run and aiming to put Republicans on the defensive.

The White House said the budget would reduce the deficit in the long-term by $3 trillion, largely due to tax increases on wealthy Americans and corporations. It would also provide a record amount for defense spending, and include funds for Biden’s pledges on paid family leave, universal preschool and more.

“I value everyone having an even shot, not just labor but small business owners, farmers and so many other people who hold the country together who’ve been basically invisible for a long time,” Biden said in a speech before a union audience at the Finishing Trades Institute in Pennsylvania.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

By early January 2021, Fox News hosts and executives were ready to move on from then-President Donald Trump and his insistence that the election was stolen.

“it’s been 8 weeks and none of them has produced anything tangible or verifiable. and now he wants thousands of his supporters to go to DC without shelter or food to demonstrate,” host Lou Dobbs texted a producer on his show on Jan. 3. “I believe the election was stolen — but without evidence we can do nothing significant.”

“We are very, very close to being able to ignore Trump most nights,” Tucker Carlson wrote in a Jan. 4 text to an unidentified person. “I truly can’t wait.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Senate Republicans lashed out at conservative Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Tuesday after he characterized the deadly Jan. 6 attackon the Capitol as “mostly peaceful chaos.”

At a GOP leadership news conference, McConnell, R-Ky., said he wanted to align himself with the letter sent to the U.S. Capitol Police force by Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger, who denounced Carlson for spreading “offensive and misleading conclusions” about the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, including a “disturbing accusation” that Officer Brian Sicknick’s death had nothing to do with the riot.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A bipartisan group of senators introduced a sweeping bill Tuesday that would allow the federal government to regulate and even ban foreign-produced technology, including TikTok.

The bill, the Restricting the Emergence of Security Threats that Risk Information and Communications Technology Act, or RESTRICT Act, would give the secretary of commerce broad power to regulate tech produced by six countries that have adversarial relationships with the U.S.: China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela.

The White House endorsed the RESTRICT Act on Tuesday, calling it “a systematic framework for addressing technology-based threats to the security and safety of Americans.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Hope Hicks, a trusted aide to Donald J. Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign, met with the Manhattan district attorney’s office on Monday — the latest in a string of witnesses to be questioned by prosecutors as they investigate the former president’s involvement in paying hush money to a porn star.

The appearance of Ms. Hicks, who was seen walking into the Manhattan district attorney’s office in the early afternoon, represents the latest sign that the prosecutors are in the final stages of their investigation.

She is at least the seventh witness to meet with prosecutors since the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, convened a grand jury in January to hear evidence in the case. Last week, another prominent member of the 2016 campaign, Kellyanne Conway, testified before the grand jury, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said on Monday he is prepared to introduce legislation to pave the way for the president to potentially use military force in Mexico to combat drug cartels.

On Friday, four Americans were kidnapped just over the border in northeastern Mexico in what U.S. officials are saying is a case of mistaken identity. Authorities say it is likely that members of a drug cartel abducted them thinking they were smugglers.

The incident highlights the ongoing problem of drug cartels in Mexico as well as the high demand in the U.S. that helps empower them.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis visited Southern California on Sunday, taking swipes at Gov. Gavin Newsom in his own backyard amid a widening Republican Primary battle ahead of 2024.

“I know you guys got a lot of problems out here, but your governor is very concerned about what we’re doing in Florida, so I figured I had to come by,” DeSantis said, speaking before a crowd of over a thousand people at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library’s Air Force One Pavilion and drawing considerable applause.

But it was not a warm welcome from everyone. The Simi Valley Police Department said Sunday that library employees discovered black spray paint on an entrance sign reading “Ron DeFascist” in the early morning hours.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

President Biden told a crowd gathered to commemorate the 58th anniversary of a brutal police attack on Black protesters that the right to vote was “under assault” as Republicans introduce laws to restrict ballot access and redraw voting districts.

Observing the anniversary of Bloody Sunday, an event that electrified the civil rights movement, Mr. Biden said the marchers who crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge on March 7, 1965, had bucked the “forces of hate” and encouraged activism that led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act five months later.

“They forced the country to confront hard truths,” Mr. Biden said, “and to act to keep the promise of America alive.”

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Kellyanne Conway, who was a top adviser to former President Donald Trump, and George Conway, a lawyer and frequent Trump critic, announced Saturday that they are divorcing after more than two decades of marriage.

The Conways, who married in 2001, said in a statement shared to Twitter by George Conway that they were in the “final stages of an amicable divorce.”

“We married more than two decades ago, cherish the many happy years (and four corgis) we’ve shared, and above all else, our four incredible children, who remain the heartbeat of our family and our top priority,” they wrote.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A Republican state senator in Florida has introduced a bill that, if passed, would require bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, his Cabinet or state legislators to register with the state.

Sen. Jason Brodeur’s bill, titled “Information Dissemination,” would also require bloggers to disclose who’s paying them for their posts about certain elected officials and how much.

“If a blogger posts to a blog about an elected state officer and receives, or will receive, compensation for that post, the blogger must register” with the appropriate office within five days of the post, the legislation says.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said Thursday she was hospitalized in San Francisco with shingles after she missed Senate votes this week.

In a statement, Feinstein, 89, said she got the shingles diagnosis while the Senate was in recess late last month.

“I have been hospitalized and am receiving treatment in San Francisco and expect to make a full recovery,” Feinstein said. “I hope to return to the Senate later this month.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Alex Murdaugh, the disgraced South Carolina lawyer accused of murdering his wife and son to gain pity and distract from financial crimes threatening to topple his reputation, was found guilty Thursday in their slayings.

After deliberating for three hours, the jury of seven men and five women convicted Murdaugh, 54, of two counts of murder in the fatal shootings of Margaret, 52, and their youngest son, Paul, 22, in June 2021. He faces 30 years to life in prison without parole.

The jury also convicted him of two counts of possession of a weapon during a violent crime, which carry five more years in prison.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former Vice President Mike Pence still won’t say whether he’s running for president next year, and he won’t speak ill of his ex-boss, former President Donald Trump. But in an interview with CBS News in Michigan on Wednesday, he also twice declined to commit to supporting Trump if he is the Republican presidential nominee.

Instead, Pence said he believes voters in 2024 will choose “wisely again,” as they did in 2016. But said he thinks “different times call for different leadership.”

“I’m very confident we’ll have better choices come 2024,” he told CBS News political correspondent Caitlin Huey-Burns. “And I’m confident our standard-bearer will win the day in November of that year.”

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

On Wednesday, former Trump White House adviser Kellyanne Conway met with prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney’s office as part of their criminal investigation into Trump and the alleged hush payment to Stormy Daniels, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

Conway is the latest witness to meet with prosecutors. Others include Michael Cohen, Trump’s one time fixer and lawyer who funded the payment, and David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer who helped arrange it.

Last month, Cohen gave his 15th interview with the district attorney’s office, which was the first since a recently convened grand jury began hearing evidence about Daniels’ long-denied affair with Trump. Pecker appeared before the grand jury on Jan. 30.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

President Joe Biden hasn’t announced whether he’s running for a second term yet, but his address to a gathering of House Democrats here Wednesday sounded a lot like a 2024 stump speech.

Biden dared House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California to reveal Republicans’ budget full of spending cuts, mocked GOP Sen. Rick Scott’s reversal on targeting Social Security and Medicare and knocked “MAGA Republicans” like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia. an acolyte of former President Donald Trump who recently called for a “national divorce” between red states and blue states.

“A little bit more of Marjorie Taylor Greene and a few more and you’re going to have a lot of Republicans running our way,” Biden said of GOP voters in 2024. “Isn’t she amazing?”

Read the rest of this story at NBC News

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot lost her bid for re-election Tuesday, ending her historic run as the city’s first Black woman and first openly gay person to serve in the position.

Lightfoot, a Democrat, failed to get enough votes in the nine-person race to move on to an April 4 runoff election, according to projections by The Associated Press.

Paul Vallas, a former CEO of Chicago schools, will face Brandon Johnson, a Cook County commissioner endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden took a hard shot at Fox News over the bombshell Dominion revelations when ABC News anchor David Muir asked about flagging polls despite positive economic indicators.

Damning comments made by Fox News hosts and executives in private in the aftermath of the election were revealed in a recent filing by Dominion Voting Systems, which is suing Fox News for defamation and seeking $1.6 billion in damages.

The suit has prompted copious doomsaying by a spectrum of pundits including Mediaite Editor-in-Chief Aidan McLaughlin and famed First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams. On Monday afternoon, a new bombshell filing dropped that’s chock full of fresh revelations.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

By the time Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee confirmed Monday that he would sign a recently passed bill criminalizing drag performances in public and in front of children, a photo that appears to show him dressed in drag as a high school student had already started to circulate on Reddit and Twitter.

Just before midnight Saturday, a Reddit user shared an image that appears to show Lee as a high school student wearing a short-skirted cheerleader’s uniform, a pearl necklace and a wig, posing on a school sports field next to two girls in men’s suits. The caption says, “Governor Bill Lee in drag (1977 high school yearbook).”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A group of news organizations on Friday asked House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to share thousands of hours of security footage from Jan. 6 after Fox News host Tucker Carlson said this week that he has been given access to about 44,000 hours of video from the attack on the Capitol.

“We understand that, in your capacity as Speaker of the House of Representatives, you recently provided the Tucker Carlson Tonight television program with access to certain Congressional records — specifically, previously unavailable video footage from the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021,” wrote Laura Handman, a lawyer representing the media outlets. “We write to request that the News Organizations be granted access to these materials.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The creator of the Dilbert comic strip faced cancellations Saturday as he defended remarks describing people who are Black as members of “a hate group” from which white people should “get away.”

Various media publishers across the U.S. denounced the comments by Dilbert creator Scott Adams as racist, hateful and discriminatory while saying they would no longer provide a platform for his work.

Andrews McMeel Universal, which distributes Dilbert, cited Adams’ remarks in announcing that it would sever all ties with the cartoonist.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A cold front turbocharged by tropical precipitation brought rare snow and heavy rain to some urban Southern California rooftops over the weekend, with more in the forecast.

Late-winter extreme weather Sunday also affected the Midwest and Plains states.

The leading edge of California’s weekend storm was headed east and wreaking havoc as it continued to draw warm energy and clash with cold air, federal forecasters said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A federal judge ruled Thursday that former President Donald Trump can be deposed in a pair of lawsuits brought by two former FBI officials whom he has long publicly disparaged.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson of Washington, D.C., ruled that former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page would also be permitted to question FBI Director Christopher Wray.

The depositions must be limited to two hours and to a “narrow set of topics” that were discussed at a sealed hearing Thursday, the ruling said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg vowed that his department will work with the administration and Congress to prevent future disasters similar to the Feb. 3 train derailment that led to a spill of toxic chemicals during a visit to East Palestine, Ohio, on Thursday.

“The best way to deal with an ecological disaster is to stop it from happening in the first place and that’s a big part of where my department comes in,” Buttigieg said at a news conference, adding that the Transportation Department has laid out steps the federal government wants Congress and the rail industry to take.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The foreperson of a special grand jury convened in Fulton County, Georgia, to examine possible election interference by former President Donald Trump and his allies embarked Tuesday on a media tour of sorts, where she publicly telegraphed some of her panel’s closely held findings.

In a series of print and television interviews, jury foreperson Emily Kohrs revealed that jurors recommended charges for several individuals, without naming any of them — and intimated that the former president is among them.

“You’re not going to be shocked,” Kohrs told The New York Times about whether her panel recommended charges against Trump. “It’s not rocket science.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

President Joe Biden on Wednesday strongly condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin’s move to suspend his country’s involvement in the last remaining arms control treaty with the U.S.

Biden was asked about his reaction to Putin’s pulling out of the New START nuclear treaty upon arriving at the Polish Presidential Palace in Warsaw ahead of a meeting with leaders of the so-called Bucharest Nine group of eastern European countries and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

“I don’t have time,” Biden said. Pressed again for his reaction, Biden said, “Big mistake.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former President Donald Trump made a campaign stop here Wednesday, using the aftermath of a train derailment and toxic chemical spill to take shots at President Joe Biden’s handling of the crisis.

“They were intending to do absolutely nothing for you,” Trump, who is seeking another term in the White House, said of the Democratic administration as he spoke in a firehouse.

Flanked by Sen. JD Vance of Ohio and other local Republicans, Trump bragged about having a strong working relationship with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, noting that it initially had not planned to assist relief efforts. Trump claimed, without evidence, that the Biden administration only directed more resources because he announced that he would visit East Palestine.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Biden administration announced Tuesday a new policy, set to take effect when Covid measures at the southern border expire, that would place limits on migrants’ eligibility to claim asylum when crossing into the U.S. from Mexico.

The policy has received wide criticism from congressional Democrats and immigrant advocacy organizations who liken it to a “transit ban” proposed by President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration adviser, Stephen Miller. Advocacy organizations have threatened to sue.

Under the new rule, migrants who pass through countries on their way to the U.S. and do not first claim asylum there or take advantage of other lawful pathways will be deemed ineligible to claim asylum at the southern border.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Fabulist Rep. George Santos (R-NY) joined Piers Morgan on his Fox Nation show, Piers Morgan Uncensored, where the host pushed the Republican congressman to own up to his many tall tales.

Ahead of the interview, Morgan tweeted a laundry list of some of the lies Santos has told:

Did he lie about his entire education?
Was he ever a Wall St star?
Was his mother in the Twin Towers on 9/11?
Did his grandparents survive the Holocaust?
Is he even Jewish?
Tonight, I go one-on-one with serial liar Geroge Santos

Read the rest of the story and see the video at Mediaite

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene called for the U.S. to be separated by red and blue states and for shrinking the federal government in a tweet on President’s Day, the latest in a string of controversial statements. 

“We need a national divorce. We need to separate by red states and blue states and shrink the federal government,” Greene, R-Ga., said in the tweet. “Everyone I talk to says this. From the sick and disgusting woke culture issues shoved down our throats to the Democrat’s traitorous America Last policies, we are done.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg sent a letter Sunday to the CEO of Norfolk Southern, warning that the freight rail company must “demonstrate unequivocal support for the people” of East Palestine, Ohio, and surrounding areas after a fiery train derailment led to the release of chemicals and residents expressing concerns about their health.

“Norfolk Southern must live up to its commitment to make residents whole — and must also live up to its obligation to do whatever it takes to stop putting communities such as East Palestine at risk,” Buttigieg wrote. “This is the right time for Norfolk Southern to take a leadership position within the rail industry, shifting to a posture that focuses on supporting, not thwarting, efforts to raise the standard of U.S. rail safety regulation.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Former President Donald Trump made a curious decision to amplify a tweet that doesn’t look very good for him with the investigation into his actions in Georgia during the 2020 election.

On Saturday, Trump — via his Truth Social platform — shared a tweet from Politico’s Kyle Cheney, which came from a thread on the release of limited excerpts from the Fulton County special grand jury report. The grand jury is investigating whether Trump and his allies illegally attempted to overturn his electoral loss in Georgia during the 2020 election.

Even though Trump has ceaselessly pushed the unsubstantiated claim that the election was “stolen” from him through massive electoral corruption, he chose to flag Cheney’s tweet which noted “there was no widespread fraud in Georgia.”

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Former President Jimmy Carter will begin to receive hospice care at home following a series of hospital stays, his foundation said in a statement on Saturday.

“After a series of short hospital stays, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter today decided to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care instead of additional medical intervention,” the statement said. “He has the full support of his family and his medical team. The Carter family asks for privacy during this time and is grateful for the concern shown by his many admirers.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Employees at Fox News knew that claims blaming election fraud for Donald Trump’s 2020 loss were outlandish and false, even as the network continued to promote them as credible, a newly unsealed court filing appears to show.

The document, which pulls from a host of internal communications from Fox News employees involved in election coverage, includes comments and quotes revealing that producers, executives and stars of the network knew that the election wasn’t stolen and that many fraud claims were bogus.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman on Wednesday checked himself into a Washington hospital “to receive treatment for clinical depression,” his chief of staff said on Thursday.

“While John has experienced depression off and on throughout his life, it only became severe in recent weeks,” Adam Jentleson said in a statement.

Jentleson said that Fetterman was evaluated on Monday by Congress’ attending physician, Dr. Brian P. Monahan, who “recommended inpatient care” at Walter Reed hospital. “John agreed, and he is receiving treatment on a voluntary basis.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

President Joe Biden said he “acted out of an abundance of caution” when ordering the shooting down of three unidentified aerial objects flying over North American airspace this past weekend.

While the U.S. military is still working to recover the objects and U.S. intelligence officials are still assessing them, Biden said nothing currently suggests they were related to China’s surveillance program or that they were surveillance vehicles from other countries.

“But make no mistake, if any object presents a threat to the safety and security of the American people, I will take it down,” Biden said.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

President Joe Biden plans to deliver his most extended public remarks yet — as early as Thursday — about the unidentified objects that the U.S. military has been shooting down, three people familiar with the matter said.

Biden will explain how he has tasked his administration with setting parameters about how to deal with aerial balloons and other objects spotted in the future.

The exact timing of Biden’s remarks has not been settled. The president is due to take a physical exam Thursday that could last several hours.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Justice Department is ending its sex trafficking investigation into Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., without charging him with any crimes, his attorneys and congressional office said.

“We have just spoken with the DOJ and have been informed that they have concluded their investigation into Congressman Gaetz and allegations related to sex trafficking and obstruction of justice and they have determined not to bring any charges against him,” Gaetz attorneys Marc Mukasey and Isabelle Kirshner said in a statement.

Gaetz’s office added, “The Department of Justice has confirmed to Congressman Gaetz’s attorneys that their investigation has concluded and that he will not be charged with any crimes.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Alexandria Verner was kind, positive and “everything you’d want your daughter or friend to be,” a family friend said.

“Her kindness was on display every single second you were around her,” Clawson Public Schools Superintendent Billy Shellenbarger told CNN. He is friends with the Verner family and has known Alexandria, or Alex, as he called her, since she was in kindergarten.

Verner was one of three Michigan State University students killed in a mass shooting on campus Monday night, university police said Tuesday.

The Michigan State University Department of Police and Public Safety identified the three students killed Monday night as junior Arielle Anderson, sophomore Brian Fraser and Verner, who was also a junior.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

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The special counsel investigating Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents is seeking to compel a lawyer for the former president to testify before a grand jury, a source familiar with the matter said.

Prosecutors allege in a sealed filing that they have evidence that some of Trump’s conversations with the attorney were in furtherance of a crime, the source said.

In a sign of an aggressive new legal strategy, first reported by The New York Times, the source said special counsel Jack Smith has asked a judge to allow prosecutors to invoke what’s known as the crime-fraud exception, which would let them sidestep protections afforded to Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran through attorney-client privilege.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on Tuesday announced her 2024 presidential campaign, making her former President Donald Trump’s first opponent for the Republican nomination.

Haley, who served as ambassador to the United Nations for two years in the Trump administration, is expected to deliver her in-person announcement speech Wednesday in Charleston.

“It’s time for a new generation of leadership — to rediscover fiscal responsibility, secure our border, and strengthen our country, our pride and our purpose.” Haley said in her video announcement.

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A new congressional panel created by House Republicans launched an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus pandemicMonday by requesting documents and testimony from health and intelligence officials who have worked in the Biden administration.

Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, the chair of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, and House Oversight and Accountability chair James Comer, R-Ky., sent letters to Dr. Anthony Fauci, senior Biden administration officials like National Intelligence Director Avril Haines and the president of EcoHealth Alliance, a New York nonprofit group focused on emerging infectious diseases.

Fauci, who had directed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984 and was President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser starting in January 2021, left his federal government posts at the end of December.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A Georgia judge ruled Monday that parts of a Fulton County grand jury’s report into possible interference in the 2020 election by former President Donald Trump and his allies be made public this week.

In an eight-page ruling, Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney ruled that the report’s introduction and conclusion, as well as section VIII, in which jurors express concern that some witnesses may have lied under oath, can be made public. Those witnesses are not identified, he said.

The Fulton County district attorney’s office convened the special purpose grand jury for an investigation into “‘the facts and circumstances relating directly or indirectly to possible attempts to disrupt the lawful administration of the 2020 elections in the State of Georgia’ and to prepare a report on whether anyone should be prosecuted for such potential crimes.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Amid all the mystery about the unidentified objects flying over the United States and Canada, White House officials made a point of saying Monday there is no evidence to suggest aliens are involved.

The U.S. military shot down three unidentified objects on Friday and over the weekend, in addition to the suspected Chinese spy balloon shot down last week, but has said little more about what they were.

As officials and lawmakers continue to raise questions, with few answers available so far, speculation has started to swirl about extraterrestrial involvement, along with not a few jokes.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Donald Trump’s legal team recently turned over a folder bearing classified markings to the Justice Department that it said was found at the former president’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, a senior law enforcement official told NBC News.

Trump’s lawyers told the the Justice Department it came from Mar-a-Lago, so they are going under that assumption, the official said, adding that the folder was found last month and Trump’s lawyers turned it over voluntarily.

It is unclear what level of classification markings were on the folder or what it may have contained.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden traveled to Tampa, Florida, on Thursday, continuing his post-State of the Union blitz in election battleground states, arguing that he would protect Medicare and Social Security while claiming some Republicans, including Florida’s Sen. Rick Scott, want to cut the popular programs.

“Look, I know that a lot of Republicans, their dream is to cut Social Security and Medicare. Well let me say this: If that’s your dream, I’m your nightmare,” Biden said at the University of Tampa.

Biden once again leaned into what called the “spirited debate” at the State of the Union on Tuesday night, when he said “some Republicans” wanted to cut Social Security and Medicare to help balance the nation’s budget, prompting outrage from GOP members, including some calling him a “liar.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

The Chinese balloon that flew above the U.S. for eight days included “multiple antennas” capable of collecting signals intelligence, a senior State Department official said Thursday, and the balloon maker has proven ties to the Chinese military.

While China condemned the U.S. for destroying what it said was a weather balloon, the State Department official described the balloon as carrying equipment designed to collect communications and threatened action against Beijing.

According to the official, photos taken by high-altitude U-2 planes confirmed the presence of the equipment, including “multiple antennas … likely capable of collecting and geo-locating communications” and “solar panels large enough to produce the requisite power to operate multiple active intelligence collection sensors.” The equipment was “inconsistent” with that aboard weather balloons.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Unlike most conservatives who weighed in on Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders’(R-AR.) rebuttal to the State of the Union address, Steve Bannon is not a fan.

Sanders gave remarks shortly after President Joe Biden addressed a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night. In her speech, Sanders ripped the left’s “woke fantasies” and said the president has handed the country over to the “woke mob that can’t even tell you what a woman is.”

Bannon was joined on his War Room podcast by former Fox News host Lou Dobbs, who said Sanders’ failure to mention former President Donald Trumpwas “a great insult.”

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

The term “pussy ass bitch” has been entered into the Congressional Record after a former Twitter employee testified about a tweet former President Donald Trumpwanted taken down.

During Wednesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing, the panel heard testimony that in 2019, then-President Trump’s White House reached out to Twitter asking that a tweet from model Chrissy Teigen be removed from the platform.

Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) asked ex-Twitter employee Anika Collier Navaroli what the tweet said.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Former President Donald Trump is approaching Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis with a newly urgent hostility, rushing to turn the Republican base against his most formidable potential rival in 2024.

Out is “Ron DeSanctimonious,” Trump’s clunky attempt at a nickname. 

In are increasingly frequent public floggings on Trump’s Truth Social website that brand DeSantis in terms that could repel GOP voters.

“RINO GLOBALIST,” Trump fumed last week, using the pejorative acronym for “Republican in name only.” On Tuesday, he postedtwice to call attention to a 2021 blog post from a site called The Hill Reporter, which purportedly showed a picture of DeSantis with several young women during his brief time as a high school teachermore than 20 years ago. Trump’s posts questioned, without evidence, whether DeSantis was inappropriate with his female students. 

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden took aim at Republicans at several points in his State of the Union address, but he provoked the fiercest reaction when he said some in the party want to gut Medicare and Social Security. 

“Instead of making the wealthy pay their fair share, some Republicans want Medicare and Social Security to sunset,” Biden said, referring to a means by which government programs end without votes in Congress. 

At that, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., sitting behind Biden in the House chamber, conspicuously shook his head no.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

LeBron James, who was anointed “The Chosen One” on the cover of Sports Illustrated as a 17-year-old high school junior, fulfilled that prophecy by breaking the NBA scoring record with his 38,388th point during season 20 of his illustrious career.

The Los Angeles Lakers’ forward scored the record-breaking basket in front of a home crowd Tuesday night local time against the Oklahoma City Thunder, overtaking a milestone that stood for nearly 39 years and was held by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the Lakers and Milwaukee Bucks center.

James broke the record with a fadeaway with 10.9 seconds left in the third quarter. The crowd erupted, and James shared a hug with his mother. The game paused in celebration.

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Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, chided Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., on Tuesday night ahead of President Joe Biden’s address in what appeared to be a tense exchange on the House floor.

Santos, who has faced calls to resign after he admitted having liedabout much of his background, had positioned himself along the chamber’s middle aisle ahead of Biden’s speech. Lawmakers will often choose to sit along the aisle for the State of the Union so they can greet and shake hands with the president as he enters and walks toward the dais.

As senators made their way into the House, Romney had a brief exchange with Santos, who looked annoyed as Romney walked away. Romney spoke to reporters about the interaction after Biden’s address.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

In a good old-fashioned Grammys shocker, Harry Styles’ “Harry’s House” defeated Beyoncé’s ballyhooed “Renaissance” to win album of the year at music’s most prestigious awards show on Sunday night. Yet to say that Beyoncé — who also lost record of the year (which went to Lizzo’s “About Damn Time”) and song of the year (which went to Bonnie Raitt’s “Just Like That”) — had a bad night isn’t quite right. With victories in a handful of smaller categories, the singer became the winningest artist in Grammys history.

Read the rest of the story at The Los Angeles Times

Former President Donald Trump and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christietraded barbs across the online battlefield Sunday, sparring over the looming contest for the 2024 Republican nomination.

The two former GOP elected officials were once allies, with Christie serving a core role with Trump’s debate prep and as a member of the 2016 presidential transition team, but their relationship has since soured. The ex-president apparently being the one to infect Christie with a Covid-19 case that sent him to the ICU for a week— and then reportedly worried mostly about if Christie would blame him for the infection — did not help.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y., the freshman lawmaker accused of fabricating key parts of his résumé, is being accused of ethics violations and sexual harassment by a former prospective congressional aide, according to a letter posted Friday on Twitter.

In the letter to the House Ethics Committee, Derek Myers accused Santos of groping him when he worked for Santos’ office as a volunteer, and he requested an investigation into the allegation whether correct procedure was followed related to his work as a volunteer in Santos’ office.

Myers said that Santos offered him a job and that he briefly worked as a “volunteer” in the office while his paperwork was being processed before the offer was rescinded last week.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

China urged calm Friday and said that it was looking into reports of a high-altitude surveillance balloon suspected of belonging to Beijing hovering over the United States, while Canadasaid it was monitoring a “potential second incident.”

U.S. officials said Thursday the military was monitoring the balloon, which flew over the Aleutian Islands and through Canada before being spotted Wednesday over Billings, Montana. A senior defense official said the U.S. was confident that the balloon belonged to China, which has flown stratospheric balloons over the country before but not usually for this long.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former President Donald Trump took a swipe at his former UN ambassador,Nikki Haley, on Wednesday after reports ran this week that Haley will announce a run for the presidency in mid-February – challenging Trump for the GOP nomination.

Trump shared a clip of Haley saying she would not run against him on his Truth Social platform with the caption, “Nikki has to follow her heart, not her honor. She should definitely run!”

In the clip from April 2021, a reporter asks Haley, “He [Trump] still has a lot of popularity. If he runs again in 2024, will you support him?”

“Yes,” Haley quickly replies.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Tyre Nichols’ family gathered in Memphis, Tennessee, for his funeral, weeks after the 29-year-old died following a violent encounter with Memphis police caught on body camera.

Graphic footage of the Jan. 7 traffic stop, which showed officers beating Nichols, was released to the public on Friday and sparked nationwide outrage. Nichols, a young father who loved skateboarding, died on Jan. 10, after spending three days in a hospital.

Five officers involved in the incident have since been fired and chargedwith several felonies, including second-degree murder.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

The FBI has contacted a Navy veteran, Richard Osthoff, as part of an investigation into embattled Rep. George Santos and a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for Osthoff’s sick service dog.

Osthoff confirmed the call from the FBI, and sources familiar with the matter confirmed the nature of the investigation — which adds to the growing list of legal issues and controversies Santos, R-N.Y., is facing.

The freshman lawmaker insists he isn’t a “criminal” and has said he will leave office if he isn’t reelected. He has acknowledged and apologized for lying about parts of his background while maintaining that he was only embellishing his resume.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Newly released video obtained by CBS News provides the first look at former President Donald Trump’s deposition last summer in the New York attorney general’s civil fraud investigation. 

Trump sat for questioning under oath on Aug. 10, and the video shows him politely answering the opening questions from state Attorney General Letitia James.

Wearing a dark blue suit, red tie and American flag lapel pin, sitting in front of a camera in a downtown Manhattan conference room, Trump answered “yes” when asked by James if he was familiar with the rules for giving a deposition. But as the questioning about his finances began in earnest, the former president—and now candidate for that same office—invoked the Fifth Amendment and continued to do so for nearly four hours.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Former President Donald Trump is strapped for campaign cash following the mid-November launch of his 2024 presidential campaign, according to end-of-year figures obtained exclusively by NBC News.

Trump, who has been the GOP’s most prolific fundraiser in recent years, pulled in about $9.5 million over the final six weeks of last year through his campaign and a joint fundraising committee, according to a person familiar with his haul.

The numbers were shared with NBC News in advance of Trump’s filing of the first campaign finance totals of his third bid for the presidency Tuesday.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Three EMTs who responded to the fatal beating of Tyre Nichols were fired Monday after an internal investigation, the Memphis Fire Department said Monday.

Robert Long, JaMichael Sandridge and Lt. Michelle Whitaker were found to have violated multiple department policies and protocols in their patient response to Nichols on Jan. 7, the fire department said in a statement.

“Their actions or inactions on the scene that night do not meet the expectations of the Memphis Fire Department and are not reflective of the outstanding service the men and women of the Memphis Fire Department provide daily in our community,” it said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden will meet with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., on Wednesday, a White House official confirmed, amid Republicans’ debt-ceiling showdown with Democrats.

Biden will host McCarthy at the White House for a discussion about a variety of issues in one of a series of meetings with congressional leaders at the start of the new Congress, a White House spokesperson said Sunday. Biden met with Democratic leaders last week, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Hundreds of peaceful demonstrators, fueled by newly released body camera video showing the brutal beating of Tyre Nichols by police officers, demanded justice, accountability and police reform Saturday afternoon.

Many in the crowd voiced their frustrations regarding a long history of police violence against citizens, corruption and the need to disband several tactical units under the Memphis Police Department.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) hit back at Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-SC), who said she is ignorant about fossil fuels.

The House debated oil and gas drilling on federal land Thursday night. Republicans introduced a bill that would require the federal government to approve more drilling on government property before drawing from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve in non-emergency situations.

Ocasio-Cortez proposed an amendment that would impose certain limits on oil and gas leases.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Five former Memphis police officers were indicted Thursday on murder charges in the death of Tyre Nichols, whose beating after a traffic stop was captured on video that “sickened” a top Tennessee law enforcement official.

The officers — Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley, Emmitt Martin III, Desmond Mills Jr. and Justin Smith — were fired after, Police Chief C.J. Davis said, they violated department policies during the Jan. 7 stop that led to Nichols’ death.

All five former officers were charged with second-degree murder, two counts of official misconduct, two counts of aggravated kidnapping, one count of official oppression and one count of aggravated assault, prosecutors announced.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Monterey Park, California, on Wednesday to meet with victims’ families days after a mass shooter there killed 11 and wounded at least nine others at a Lunar New Year celebration inside a dance studio.

Harris visited Star Dance Studio to mourn the loss of the victims of the Monterey Park shooting, expressing the administration’s “deepest condolences and sorrows for the violent and tragic and useless thing that happened” there.

The vice president, carrying a large bouquet of Yellow lilies and white roses, took time looking at each of the 11 memorials set up at the dance studio in honor of the victims.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Tuesday that while he stands by Rep. George Santos, the freshman congressman from New York would be removed from office if the Ethics Committee finds he broke the law after he admitted fabricating parts of his background.

McCarthy was pressed at a news conference about why he still supports Santos, who has lied about much of his background and résumé, including a false claim that his mother was at the World Trade Center during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Asked whether he is standing by Santos because his resignation would cut into the House Republicans’ narrow majority, McCarthy pushed back.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A “small number” of classified documents were discovered last week at former Vice President Mike Pence’s Indiana home, according to two letters Pence’s counsel sent to the National Archives obtained by NBC News on Tuesday.

The lawyer, Greg Jacob, said the documents were discovered on Jan. 16 after Pence asked “outside counsel” to look for records bearing classified markings following the recent news about documents found in President Joe Biden’s Delaware home.

Jacob, who was a top lawyer in Pence’s vice presidential office and now represents him in matters pertaining to the National Archives, said the team identified a “small number of documents that could potentially contain sensitive or classified information” while it was reviewing records stored in his personal home.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The elderly gunman responsible for the dance hall massacre in Monterey Park was out of step with other Asian immigrants who found joy and companionship in venues like the Star Ballroom Dance Studio, former friends said.

Huu Can Tran, 72, was an angry loner who appeared to have a grudge against the world — not just his ex-wife — people he crossed paths with said Tuesday.

“I think his whole life was going down,” said a man who used to rent an apartment from Tran and asked that his name not be used because he did not want to be associated with the gunman.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

After weeks of discussion, the Biden administration is preparing to send Abrams tanks to Ukraine, according to three senior U.S. officials. 

The administration may announce the decision as early as Wednesday. The current plan includes a couple dozen Abrams tanks, but the officials stressed that the decision is not yet final and could change.

The tanks would not be available to the Ukrainians immediately. It will take many months before the high-tech vehicles arrive on the ground in Ukraine, the officials said, and the training for Ukrainian troops is also expected to take several months.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

An Arkansas man who was photographed during the Jan. 6 riot with his feet on a desk in then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office was found guilty on all counts Monday after brief jury deliberations.

Richard Barnett faced eight charges stemming from the insurrection in 2021, including theft of government property. He said repeatedly in court last week that he regretted what happened at the Capitol that day but did not consider his actions illegal.

Barnett told reporters outside the court courthouse: “This is not a jury of my peers. I don’t agree with the decision, but I do appreciate the process, and we are surely going to appeal.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries tapped Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell to continue serving on the House Intelligence Committee on Monday, teeing up a long-anticipated fight with Speaker Kevin McCarthy who has vowed to block the pair from keeping their seats on the powerful panel.

The move means that the relationship between Jeffries, a New Yorker who is the new minority leader, and McCarthy of California, the new GOP speaker, is getting off to a rocky start.

Members of the Intelligence Committee are selected differently from other congressional committees because it is a “select” committee. As speaker, McCarthy has the authority to choose a chairman and Republican members. Jeffries, as minority leader, can nominate Democrats, but McCarthy has the power to reject them.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The gunman behind the deadly dance hall shooting in the Los Angeles suburb of Monterey Park may have been targeting his ex-wife on the Lunar New Year, the city’s mayor said Monday.

That revelation came as investigators are focused on a personal motive and have discounted hate crime or terrorism as a possible inspiration for the attack, multiple law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation said.

The officials emphasized that it’s early in the investigation but said evidence gathered at the suspect’s home and in the van where he was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound Sunday afternoon so far suggests the bloodshed was somehow personal.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden will name Jeff Zients to serve as his next chief of staff, replacing Ron Klain, who is expected to leave in the coming weeks, an administration official and a person familiar with the decision told NBC News.

Zients, who previously led the Biden administration’s Covid-19 response, left the administration briefly last April but returned in the fall right before the midterm elections.

News of Zients’ selection was first reported by The Washington Post.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The man suspected of carrying out a deadly shooting in Monterey Park was identified Sunday afternoon, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said.

The man, Huu Can Tran, 72, died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a white van in Torrance as officers closed in, Luna said.

When law enforcement searched the van they recovered “several pieces of evidence” that linked the suspect to both the Monterey Park scene and a second scene in neighboring Alhambra, Luna said. A handgun was also found in the van, he said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A federal judge on Thursday sanctioned former President Donald Trump and one of his top attorneys nearly $1 million for filing a sprawling lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and other perceived political enemies “that should never have been filed.”

U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks of Southern Florida said in his 46-page order that Trump, lead attorney Alina Habba and Habba Madaio & Associates were jointly liable for $937,989 in the suit, which he dismissed in September.

“This case should never have been brought. Its inadequacy as a legal claim was evident from the start. No reasonable lawyer would have filed it,” Middlebrooks wrote, adding that the suit was intended “for a political purpose.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Supreme Court announced Thursday that after a lengthy investigation it has been unable to conclusively identify who leaked an unpublished draft of an opinion indicating the court was poised to roll back abortion rights.

In an unsigned statement, the court said that all leads had been followed up and forensic analysis had been performed but that “the team has to date been unable to identify a person responsible by a preponderance of the evidence.”

The attached report suggested the court was not watertight, with some employees admitting they had talked to spouses about the draft opinion and how the justices had voted. The investigation, conducted by Supreme Court Marshal Gail Curley, was largely limited to the court building itself and the people who work there, meaning any actions people took at home or elsewhere using personal devices were mostly not within its scope.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

David Crosby, the legendary singer-songwriter and founding member of the Byrds and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, has died, a source close to the musician confirmed Thursday. He was 81.

Crosby, a two-time Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee, died after a long illness, his wife said in a statement to Variety.

“He was lovingly surrounded by his wife and soulmate Jan and son Django,” she told the outlet. “Although he is no longer here with us, his humanity and kind soul will continue to guide and inspire us. His legacy will continue to live on through his legendary music.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Mounting a comeback for the White House, Donald Trump is looking to regain control over his powerful social media accounts.

With access to his Twitter account back, Trump’s campaign is formally petitioning Facebook’s parent company to unblock his account there after it was locked in response to the U.S. Capitol riot two years ago.

“We believe that the ban on President Trump’s account on Facebook has dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse,” Trump’s campaign wrote in its letter to Meta on Tuesday, according to a copy reviewed by NBC News.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former President Donald Trump misidentified a woman who has accused him of sexual assault during a recent deposition, according to an excerpt was released Wednesday.

Trump is being sued by E. Jean Carroll, an advice columnist based in New York City, for defamation and sexual assault. She claims the alleged assault occurred in a New York department store in the mid-1990s. Trump has vehemently denied the allegations.

While he testified about the case from his Mar-a-Lago home and resort on Oct. 12, Trump called Carroll’s accusation a  “complete con job.”

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

The White House sought to deflect criticism that it is withholding facts about one of the biggest debacles of Joe Biden’s presidency, taking questions Tuesday about batches of classified records found in his home and an old office.

A White House official, Ian Sams, spoke to reporters Tuesday about documents dating to Biden’s vice presidency — the first time the White House has solicited questions about the classified materials. Although he offered little that advanced the public’s understanding of the matter, the mere willingness to address questions was itself a departure from the initial response.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The White House and the Secret Service said Monday they do not maintain visitor logs for President Joe Biden’s personal home in Wilmington, Delaware, a day after a top House Republican called for their release.

“Like every President across decades of modern history, his personal residence is personal,” White House counsel’s office spokesman Ian Sams said in a statement. “But upon taking office, President Biden restored the norm and tradition of keeping White House visitors logs, including publishing them regularly, after the previous administration ended them.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden made a historical pilgrimage Sunday to “America’s freedom church” to mark Martin Luther King Jr.’sbirthday, saying democracy was at a perilous moment and that the civil rights leader’s life and legacy “show us the way and we should pay attention.”

As the first sitting president to deliver a Sunday morning sermon at King’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, Biden cited the telling question that King himself once asked of the nation.

“He said, ‘Where do we go from here?’” Biden said from the pulpit. ”Well, my message to this nation on this day is we go forward, we go together, when we choose democracy over autocracy, a beloved community over chaos, when we choose believers and the dreams, to be doers, to be unafraid, always keeping the faith.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

House Republicans’ calls for Rep. George Santos to resign are growing after state GOP leaders in New York said he should step aside over a slew of lies and fabrications in the biography he ran on in the 2022 midterm election.

Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., also starting his first term, dropped his earlier hedging and unequivocally said Thursday that Santos should resign.

“It is clear that George Santos has lost the confidence and support of his party, his constituents, and his colleagues. With the extent and severity of the allegations against him, his inability to take full responsibility for his conduct and the numerous investigations underway, I believe he is unable to fulfill his duties and should resign,” Lawler said in a statement.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Behind closed doors in 2017, President Donald Trump discussed the idea of using a nuclear weapon against North Korea and suggested he could blame a U.S. strike against the communist regime on another country, according to a new section of a book that details key events of his administration.

Trump’s alleged comments, reported for the first time in a new afterword to a book by New York Times Washington correspondent Michael Schmidt, came as tensions between the U.S. and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un escalated, alarming then-White House chief of staff John Kelly.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Lisa Marie Presley, the only child of rock icon Elvis Presley, died Thursday, her mother said. She was 54.

“It is with a heavy heart that I must share the devastating news that my beautiful daughter Lisa Marie has left us,” Priscilla Presley said in a statement to The Associated Press. “She was the most passionate, strong and loving woman I have ever known.”

The family is shocked and devastated, Presley said in a statement that thanked supporters for the love and prayers and asked for privacy.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Flights across the U.S. resumed Wednesday morning, several hours after the Federal Aviation Administration suffered a computer outagethat forced it to halt all departures nationwide while it scrambled to resolve the issue.

The FAA said the crippling delays that affected thousands of flights appear to have been caused by a problem in the Notice to Air Missions system, or NOTAM, which sends pilots vital information they need to fly.

A corrupted file affected both the primary and the backup systems, a senior government official said Wednesday evening, adding that officials continue to investigate.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Aides to President Joe Biden have discovered at least one additional batch of classified documents in a location separate from the Washington office he used after leaving the Obama administration, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Since November, after the discovery of documents with classified markings in his former office, Biden aides have been searching for any additional classified materials that might be in other locations he used, said the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide details about the ongoing inquiry.

 The White House did not reply to a request for comment. The Justice Department had no comment.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Seventeen people have died in a series of atmospheric rivers that have slammed into California in the last two weeks, a staggering death toll in a state used to wildfires, earthquakes and drought, a state official said Tuesday.

The deaths have been reported across the state — from San Bernardino County in the south to Mendocino County in the north, according to the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. 

A spokesperson for the agency, Brian Ferguson, said two kinds of death have been most prevalent — those resulting from trees’ falling on people and vehicles’ getting overwhelmed by floodwater.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

In the first week of the new GOP-led House, a Texas Republican has filed articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Rep. Pat Fallon, in a document filed Monday night, accused Mayorkas of “high crimes and misdemeanors” in his role as homeland security secretary. The articles have been referred to the Judiciary Committee, chaired by Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.

Congressional Republicans have made immigration and the surge in border crossings a top issue since President Joe Biden took office. The administration has faced GOP criticism for moving to terminate Trump-era policies such as “Remain in Mexico,” aimed at restricting immigration at the southern border, and Title 42, a policy implemented near the start of the Covid pandemic that allowed U.S. authorities to turn asylum-seekers away at the border.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden on Tuesday addressed the controversy over classified documents found at a former office of his in Washington, saying that he was “surprised” when he learned of their existence and that his attorneys have been “cooperating fully” with the government’s review of the records.

“People know I take classified documents and classified information seriously,” Biden said in response to a question at a news conference in Mexico City. “I was briefed about this discovery and surprised to learn that there were any government records that were taken there to that office. But I don’t know what’s in the documents. My lawyers have not suggested I ask what they were.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

One person is dead, a 5-year-old is missing and more than 7 million people in the Los Angeles area were under a flash flood warning Monday as a “parade of cyclones” slammed California.

In Avila Beach, roughly 180 miles north of Los Angeles, one person was killed when a vehicle was overtaken by water, said Anita Konopa, an official with the San Luis Obispo County Office of Emergency Services. Another official with the agency, Scott Jalbert, initially said two people had died.

In the northern section of the county, near Paso Robles, floodwaters swamped a vehicle driving through a low creek bed, Jalbert said. An adult was rescued, but a child was swept away, he said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A “small number of documents” with classified markings that appear to be from the Obama administration were found at a think tank in Washington, D.C., tied to President Joe Biden and are under review by the Justice Department and National Archives, a White House lawyer said Monday.

The documents were discovered in a locked closet by Biden’s attorneys days before the midterm elections as they prepared to vacate office space at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement, Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president said in a statement.

A source familiar with the matter told NBC News that Biden only became aware of the classified documents being stored in his former office when he was informed by his lawyers they had discovered them.

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Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., would not commit on Sunday to recusing himself from a possible House GOP investigation of the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 investigation, even though federal investigators have looked at his role in the larger effort leading up to the insurrection and previously seized his cell phone. 

“Why should I be limited? Why should anybody be limited just because someone has made an accusation? Everybody in America is innocent until proven otherwise,” Perry told ABC “This Week” anchor George Stephanopoulos.

“We’re gonna investigate, and we need to we need to make sure that that these agencies aren’t running amok and aren’t out of control, which clearly they are,” said Perry, the leader of the hard-right Freedom Caucus.

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President Joe Biden traveled to El Paso, Texas, on Sunday to assess enforcement operations at the U.S.-Mexico border — his first trip to the border since taking office — just days after his administration announced new restrictions on asylum seekers amid record numbers of migrants attempting to cross into the U.S.

The trip comes amid repeated Republican criticism of the president for not traveling to the southern border sooner and of what they say are his administration’s ineffective policies as the situation there has worsened. Biden plans to demand Republicans in Congress fund his request for border security resources and to work toward comprehensive immigration reform, a White House official said.

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Chaos struck Brazil’s capital Sunday when supporters of former President Jair Bolsonaro descended on government buildings, breached them, climbed on a rooftop and broke windows.

Video depicted damage to an office in the presidential palace, as well as broken windows in the country’s highest court.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, sworn in Jan. 1, responded by authorizing federal intervention in the Federal District until the end of January. 

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President Joe Biden on Friday will mark the second anniversary of the attack on the Capitol by awarding the Presidential Citizens Medal to a dozen election workers, officials and law enforcement officers for “contributions to our democracy” before and during the riot, a White House official said.

“These 12 heroes demonstrated courage and selflessness during a moment of peril for our nation,” the official said.

Among those set to receive the medal — the country’s second-highest civilian honor — are former Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers, a Republican who resisted pressure from then-President Donald Trump and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, to organize a legislative hearing on voter fraud allegations and have the state Legislature appoint an alternative slate of electors.

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The longtime partner of Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died after the Jan. 6 riot, filed a wrongful death lawsuit Thursday against former President Donald Trump and two men involved in assaulting Sicknick.

Sicknick, 42, died a day after the attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. Washington’s chief medical examiner ruled in April 2021 that he died of natural causes after having suffered two strokes.

The lawsuit, filed by Sicknick’s partner, Sandra Garza, cites comments from the medical examiner that “all that transpired” on Jan. 6 “played a role in his condition.”

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The postponed Buffalo Bills-Cincinnati Bengals game will not bemade up following the terrifying collapse of safety Damar Hamlin, the league said Thursday.

With one game left in the regular season, the NFL is still working out the details of how the canceled game will affect seeding for the playoffs, which begin Jan. 14-15.

The NFL acknowledged that canceling the game “creates potential competitive inequities in certain playoff scenarios” and said NFL clubs will consider a resolution at a special league meeting Friday.

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In what’s sure to be a proverbial split-screen image, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is appearing alongside President Biden in Kentucky Wednesday to talk infrastructure improvements, at the same time that House Republicans enter a second day of the 118th Congress without having coalesced around a speaker. 

The president and the top Senate Republican are visiting the Brent Spence Bridge connecting Kentucky and Ohio to announce more than $2 billion in investments from the bipartisan infrastructure law to upgrade that bridge and other bridges across the country. On Wednesday, Mr. Biden and McConnell will be accompanied by Ohio’s Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, former Ohio GOP Sen. Rob Portman, Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, underscoring the bipartisan support for infrastructure improvements. 

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Trees fell and wires were downed in San Francisco as a powerful storm hit California and prompted evacuation orders in other parts of the state Wednesday, officials said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom earlier declared a state of emergency as the weather was expected to bring heavy rain, snow and flooding. The declaration will allow state agencies to respond quickly as the storm develops and support local jurisdictions.

The heaviest rain was expected to hit Northern California Wednesday and Thursday morning, Newsom’s office said. In Southern California, the heaviest rain was forecast for Wednesday night through Thursday.

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Hope Hicks, who was a top adviser to former President Donald Trump, told an aide to Ivanka Trump that “we all look like domestic terrorists now” as the Capitol riot unfolded on Jan. 6, 2021.

In texts released by the House Jan. 6 committee, Hicks expressed concern about the consequences of Trump’s actions to Julie Radford, who was then Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff.

“In one day he ended every future opportunity that doesn’t include speaking engagements at the local proud boys chapter,” Hicks said, appearing to refer to the then-president.

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Buffalo Bills defensive back Damar Hamlin remained in critical condition on Tuesday after he went into cardiac arrest during a prime-time N.F.L. game, a frightening reminder of the ever-present risk of serious injury in America’s biggest sport that has the league facing one of its worst crises in decades.

Hamlin’s injury, following what looked like a routine tackle, has the N.F.L. again answering questions about player safety in a season marred by high-profile injuries.

With millions of fans watching on television, Hamlin, 24, collapsedin the first quarter of a crucial matchup with playoff implications on Monday night, forcing the league to suspend the game. As Hamlin lay on the field motionless, medical workers feverishly worked to restart his heart. Players were in tears, the stadium went silent and fans watched along in distress as a young athlete’s life hung in the balance.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Hounded by reporters whom he labored to avoid and shunned by members of his own party, George Santos, Republican representative-elect of New York, spent his first day in Congress as an outcast.

For weeks, Mr. Santos had been hard to pin down, ignoring calls and texts, hiding out in Long Island and Queens, appearing only briefly for uncomfortable interviews with conservative outlets and dodging questions about the geyser of falsehoods about his background that have been revealed since he flipped a Democratic seat on Long Island in November.

But on Tuesday, Mr. Santos was not able to hide anymore.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times