7+ min ago (166+ words) The legislative assistant to North Carolina's Republican State Senator Norman Sanderson has been arrested for "willfully" and "maliciously" burning a house with two people inside in Raleigh, according to local affiliate Fox8 Raleigh. The assistant, Diane Cook, 38, has been arrested and booked on a first-degree arson charge into the Wake County Detention Center. Fox8 says, "it is unclear how, if at all, Cook is connected to the people who live there." Sanderson, a former sheriff's deputy, was also arrested this year. The state senator was pulled over on Oct. 18 when a breathalyzer test showed a blood alcohol concentration of .16 " double the legal limit, Fox8 reports. He received a DWI charge as well as two other misdemeanors for an open container of an alcoholic beverage and failing to obey a traffic order. He issued a public statement, saying he made "a regrettable mistake" and…...

13+ min ago (275+ words) Alex Jones, the far-right conspiracy theorist and host of InfoWars, appears to have been given considerable insider information pertaining to President Donald Trump's campaign of legal revenge against his perceived enemies, based on a new analysis from The Bulwark, which called the situation "deeply troubling." "There are a whole bunch of grand juries open and I know where and a lot more," Jones said in the August 23 post. "And I can tell you Trump is cracking the whip and pushing through the DOJ, any of the bureaucrats that are trying to block this and [Trump] is in daily communication with the patriots in there." A day later, on August 24, Jones shared another video with the caption "MEGA-BOMBSHELL EXCLUSIVE!!!" in which he claimed to have had a 45-minute-long conversation with Martin specifically. Martin has a history with Jones, appearing on InfoWars…...

18+ min ago (544+ words) Although he says President Donald Trump is "well on his way to becoming the most corrupt president in American history, Thomas B. Edsall writes in the New York Times that despite that, he is likely to escape criminal prosecution after leaving office. "Even though Trump has defied the law and the Constitution more egregiously in his second term than he did in his first, most legal experts agree that he will face few, if any, of the kind of prosecutions he was confronted with after grudgingly leaving office in 2021," Edsall writes. There is one exception, he notes, but even that one is "far from probable," and that is the "Trump family's involvement in the cybercurrency business through its 60 percent ownership of World Liberty Financial." World Liberty, Edsall explains, has "made profits exceeding hundreds of millions from investments by men who have…...

35+ min ago (915+ words) Since Donald Trump has been back in office, energy prices have increased at more than double the rate of inflation. The Consumer Price Index from the end of October reported an "all items price index" increase for food, shelter, and transportation of 3.0 percent over a 12-month period, while energy services for the same period rose by 6.4 percent. After promising to slash energy prices, Trump has done the opposite. His energy policies reflect the same ethos driving everything else in his retribution playbook: reward donors and inflict pain on Democrats, even when the economic consequences are nationwide. In early October, Trump announced the claw-back of billions of dollars in federal funding for utilities, money that had been appropriated to reinforce power grids and reduce electricity prices. Targeting blue states exclusively, Budget Director Russ Vought announced the cancellation of "nearly $8 billion in…...

35+ min ago (915+ words) Since Donald Trump has been back in office, energy prices have increased at more than double the rate of inflation. The Consumer Price Index from the end of October reported an "all items price index" increase for food, shelter, and transportation of 3.0 percent over a 12-month period, while energy services for the same period rose by 6.4 percent. After promising to slash energy prices, Trump has done the opposite. His energy policies reflect the same ethos driving everything else in his retribution playbook: reward donors and inflict pain on Democrats, even when the economic consequences are nationwide. In early October, Trump announced the claw-back of billions of dollars in federal funding for utilities, money that had been appropriated to reinforce power grids and reduce electricity prices. Targeting blue states exclusively, Budget Director Russ Vought announced the cancellation of "nearly $8 billion in…...

48+ min ago (915+ words) Foreign Affairs writer Jonathan A. Czin writes that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has played President Donald Trump and is now reaping the rewards. Although "Trump promised to unleash an economic fusillade on China after his return to the presidency, Beijing has enjoyed a remarkably strong year of diplomacy," Czin writes. Trump escalated the trade war with China, imposing broad tariffs that were met with swift retaliation from Beijing. Negotiations in November resulted in a temporary truce, including some tariff reductions, but the overall trade conflict continues. China, Czin notes, has not yielded in the face of Trump's threats. In fact, they have seemingly benefited from them instead. "After spending much of the year simply reacting to U.S. policies, Beijing went on the offensive, imposing an expansive export control regime on the supply chains for rare-earth elements just weeks before the meeting with…...

57+ min ago (321+ words) U.S. President Donald Trump holds a signed executive order on tariffs, in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 2, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis President Donald Trump talked like an economic populist, promising to protect consumers, small business owners and workers against rampaging corporations, but it was all talk, says the NY Times, just like it was in his first term. When the Trump administration required Paramount to hire a "bias monitor" for its CBS News division and to forswear diversity, equity and inclusion programs before it could merge with Skydance this was not regulation in the public interest. Nor was it in the public interest for the company's decision to fire a late-night comedian who frequently poked Trump. "It was a mixture of the Republican campaign against diversity initiatives and Mr. Trump's campaign to pressure media companies to cover…...

1+ hour, 42+ min ago (874+ words) The richest man on earth owns X. The family of the second-richest man owns Paramount, which owns CBS " and could soon own Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN. The third-richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. The fourth-richest man owns The Washington Post and Amazon MGM Studios. Another billionaire owns Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, and the New York Post. Why are the ultra-rich buying up so much of the media? Vanity may play a part, but there's a more pragmatic " some might say sinister " reason. As vast wealth concentrates in the hands of a few, this small group of the ultra-wealthy may rationally fear that a majority of voters could try to confiscate their wealth " through, for example, a wealth tax. But rather than rely on Republicans, a more reliable means of stopping majorities from targeting your riches might…...

1+ hour, 55+ min ago (460+ words) In recent days, five U.S. senators and two representatives requested documents from the Department of Homeland Security and a formal investigation into how a firm closely tied to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem ended up receiving money from a $220 million, taxpayer-funded ad campaign. The demands came in response to a ProPublica story this month that revealed that the Republican consulting firm had been secretly working on the ads, which star Noem. The company, called the Strategy Group, has long-standing personal and business ties to Noem and her senior aides at DHS. Its CEO is married to Noem's chief spokesperson at DHS. Under Noem, DHS bypassed the normal competitive bidding process when awarding the contracts " allocating the majority of the money to a mysterious Delaware LLC that was created days before the deal was finalized. The Strategy Group does not appear on public…...

2+ hour, 24+ min ago (473+ words) Mark Kelly aboard Space Shuttle Endeavour prior to a simulated launch countdown in November 2001. The US Department of Defense on Monday announced it was launching an investigation into a Democratic senator who had participating in a video warning active-duty troops to not follow illegal orders given by President Donald Trump. In a social media post, the DoD said it had "received serious allegations of misconduct" against Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a retired US Navy captain who was one of several Democrats with backgrounds in national defense to speak out against the president potentially giving unlawful orders that pit the US military against American civilians. As a result of the investigation, the DoD said that Kelly could be recalled to active duty to face potential court-martial proceedings for violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). "All servicemembers are reminded that…...