United States | News & Politics

Some Republicans are trying to slow the rush to appoint President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet picks — particularly "Fox & Friends Weekend" host Pete Hegseth. Last week, Trump nominated Hegseth to serve as his Secretary of Defense.

Donald Trump has begun receiving intelligence briefings as president-elect, just months after a federal judge dismissed criminal charges against him for allegedly mishandling classified information.

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell said that his team is ready to "plug right in" if President-elect Donald Trump picks him to head election security for the federal government.

A hacker gained access to witness testimony related to investigations into former Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who resigned from Congress last week after President-elect Trump tapped him for attorney general, multiple news outlets reported Tuesday.

The unidentified person, using the name “Altam Beezley,” downloaded the information on Monday afternoon, according to The New York Times, which was the first to report on the breach.

The file contained 24 exhibits and is said to include testimony from a woman who said she had sex with Gaetz when she was 17, and testimony from another woman who said she witnessed the encounter, according to The Times.

The Times and CBS News reported that the file is part of a civil defamation case. The Times also reported it includes sealed files from the Justice Department and House Ethics Committee.

The materials do not appear to have been made public. Interest in the files may be at an all-time high, given Gaetz’s looming confirmation process.

The Ethics Committee has been investigating Gaetz for years over allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use, among other claims. Gaetz, whom the Justice Department declined to charge after investigating the same matters, has vigorously denied wrongdoing.

The Florida Republican resigned from Congress as the release of the Ethics Committee’s report was imminent, a source familiar with the matter told The Hill last week.

While the panel doesn’t generally release information about former lawmakers, the committee is facing mounting pressure to make its findings public.

Senators on both sides of the aisle have said they would like to see the report as they mull whether to confirm Gaetz as the nation’s top prosecutor, and on Monday Rep. Susan Wild (D-Pa.), the top Democrat on the Ethics Committee, said she thinks the report should be released.

It’s probably still doomed.

Built to combat terrorism, fusion centers give US Immigration and Customs Enforcement a way to gain access to data that’s meant to be protected under city laws limiting local police cooperation with ICE.

Report: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c1bfc7eee175995a4ceb638/t/673b7bdc7bfa22584f88e956/1731951581156/2024.11.19_STOP+Report_Deportation+Data+Centers_final.pdf

Women between the ages of 25 and 34 continue to be more likely than men in the same age group to have a bachelor’s degree. The gender gap in bachelor’s degree completion appears in every major racial or ethnic group, though the size of the gap varies widely.

Carr has threatened to punish speech conservatives disagree with.

A New York law sealing certain criminal records took effect on Saturday, one year after New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed it into law.

Students protesters against Israel’s was on Gaza say the “Palestine exception” means they are being treated more harshly than other groups.

In the heat of the 2024 election, news influencers seemed to be everywhere. Both Republicans and Democrats credentialed content creators to cover their conventions – and encouraged influencers to share their political messages. Influencers also interviewed the candidates and held fundraisers for them.

In the heat of the 2024 election, news influencers seemed to be everywhere. Both Republicans and Democrats credentialed content creators to cover their conventions – and encouraged influencers to share their political messages. Influencers also interviewed the candidates and held fundraisers for them.

What is a news influencer?

In this study, we use the term “news influencers” to refer to individuals who regularly post about current events and civic issues on social media and have at least 100,000 followers on any of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) or YouTube. News influencers can be journalists who are or were affiliated with a news organization or independent content creators, but they must be people and not organizations.

Refer to the methodology for more about how we identified news influencers.

But up until now, it has been difficult to get a sense of the size and characteristics of this new wave of news providers.

A unique Pew Research Center study provides a deeper understanding of both the makeup of the news influencer universe and its audience. The project includes an in-depth examination of a sample of 500 popular news influencers and the content they produce, derived from a review of more than 28,000 social media accounts. We also conducted a nationally representative survey of Americans to better understand who regularly gets news from news influencers.

Key findings about news influencers

• About one-in-five Americans – including a much higher share of adults under 30 (37%) – say they regularly get news from influencers on social media.
• News influencers are most likely to be found on the social media site X, where 85% have a presence. But many also are on other social media sites, such as Instagram (where 50% have an account) and YouTube (44%).
• Slightly more news influencers explicitly identify as Republican, conservative or pro-Donald Trump (27% of news influencers) than Democratic, liberal or pro-Kamala Harris (21%).
• A clear majority of news influencers are men (63%). Most (77%) have no affiliation or background with a news organization.

Jury selection begins in federal court Monday for two men accused of human smuggling. The charges stem from the January 2022 deaths of the Patel family from India.

Jagdish, 39, Vaishaliben, 34, Vihangi, 11, and Dharmik, 3, died while attempting to cross into the U.S on foot during a snowstorm. Their bodies were later found by Royal Canadian Mounted Police in a field near Emerson, Manitoba, just yards from the international border.

Steve Shand, 49, and Harshkumar Patel (no relation to the family), 28, will stand trial for their involvement in an illegal operation based in the Indian state of Gujarat. U.S. authorities said it used fake student visas to smuggle migrants from India into British Columbia and then into the United States. Once in the U.S., they would be transported by vehicle to Chicago to work in a restaurant chain.

Gujarat police told U.S. authorities that they suspected the restaurant owner facilitated the smuggling to find people “to work in his restaurants for substandard wages.”

The U.S. Border Patrol arrested Shand, of Deltona, Fla., after allegedly finding him a mile south of the border driving two undocumented people from India in a 15-passenger van. Authorities found five others walking nearby. All were from Gujarat.

Shand allegedly told federal investigators that Harshkumar Patel, an Indian national who was in the U.S. illegally and had been living in Florida, recruited him to pick up people from India who crossed the border into Minnesota and drive them to Chicago.

According to an earlier criminal complaint filed against Harshkumar Patel, Shand “described five total trips he had made to the international border in Minnesota in December 2021 and January 2022 to transport Indian nationals.”

For one trip, Harshkumar Patel allegedly paid Shand $3,500 in cash up front and an additional $8,000 after delivering people to Chicago.

Both men have pleaded not guilty to the charges. The trial is expected to last five days.

Emporia State University funneled secret payments to professors in the wake of breaking tenure agreements and firing 33 faculty members.

It then broke the law trying to cover up what it had done.

Americans who elected a leftist Democrat and a Republican president say the pair share an anti-establishment spirit

City subjected to false rumors from Trump loses residents integral to community over mass deportation fears

What happened in Nebraska’s election was a coordinated effort to sow confusion — and may be replicated in other states.

“There is no climate crisis and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either,” Wright said in 2023.

Peter Hegseth, pick for defense department, says encounter was consensual but woman was paid undisclosed sum

Doug Burgum served as a kind of middleman between Trump’s campaign and the fossil fuel industry during the 2024 race.