Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis defended her prosecution of President Donald Trump and his allies Wednesday during a three-hour-long hearing in front of the Georgia state Senate.
The Senate Special Committee on Investigation has been warring with Willis over a subpoena first issued in 2024, and the hearing comes after the state Supreme Court heard oral arguments over Willis’ challenge to the subpoena last week.
Read the full story
The Memphis City Council on Tuesday approved a 2 percent raise for the city’s fire department. Passed amid litigation over the city’s alleged betrayal of its prior commitment to give firefighters a raise, the last attempt to provide the raise failed earlier this month, after Council Member Yolanda Cooper-Sutton accused the department of “rape” over its request for a raise.
After the December 2 meeting concluded without a vote, Memphis Mayor Paul Young’s resolution to amend the city’s 2026 budget to include a 2 percent raise for firefighters passed with eight of the 13 members of the Memphis City Council voting in favor.
Read the full story
CBS News President Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Thursday that would reschedule marijuana to a lower drug classification, according to two sources familiar with the planning, in one of the most significant changes to drug policy in decades. One source cautioned that while the plan is for the order to be signed Thursday, the timing could shift. The order is expected to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule III drug. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, Schedule I applies to substances with “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse” — the agency’s most stringent classification, which is also for heroin, LSD and ecstasy in addition to marijuana. READ THE FULL STORY
Read the full story
Newsweek Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez holds a slight lead over Vice President JD Vance in a hypothetical 2028 presidential matchup, according to a new poll. The New York Democratic congresswoman, known as AOC, edges the likely Republican nominee 51 percent to 49 percent, in The Argument/Verasight survey released on Tuesday. However, the result was within the poll’s 2.7 percentage point margin of error, making the two candidates statistically tied. The poll asked voters who they would vote for if the election was between the two of them. Newsweek reached out to representatives for Vance and Ocasio-Cortez by email to comment on this story outside of normal business hours. READ THE FULL STORY
Read the full story
AM NY Gov. Kathy Hochul announced her support Wednesday for a revised version New York’s Medical Aid in Dying (MAID) bill, legislation that would give terminally ill patients in the state with six months or less to live the option to end their lives using a prescribed lethal cocktail of drugs. The governor will not sign the version of the MAID bill that the state Legislature approved earlier this year. Rather, Hochul said, she would ink a revised version of the same legislation, agreed upon with the sponsors and legislative leaders, that will be introduced when the Assembly and state Senate reconvene in January. Hochul made the announcement in an Albany Times-Union opinion piece on Wednesday, in which she called the bill a way to “speed up” the dying process for terminally ill New Yorkers who have been professionally diagnosed to have less than six months to live. READ THE FULL STORY
Read the full story
The Hill A federal judge has blocked a move by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to limit lawmakers’ access to immigration detention facilities. Lawmakers have a right to make unannounced visits to detention centers, but DHS in July sought to curb visits with a new policy requiring lawmakers give a week’s notice before any visit. U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb agreed to stay the policy, determining that further review would likely find lawmakers’ rights had been violated. READ THE FULL STORY
Read the full story
FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino on Wednesday announced his plans to leave the FBI at the end of the year.
“I will be leaving my position with the FBI in January. I want to thank President Trump, AG Bondi, and Director Patel for the opportunity to serve with purpose,” he posted on X. ” Most importantly, I want to thank you, my fellow Americans, for the privilege to serve you. God bless America, and all those who defend Her.”
Read the full story
The amended final deportation order for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, modified on December 11 by Immigration Judge Philip Taylor to include language specifically ordering his deportation to El Salvador, also replaced one of the four references to Guatemala contained in the original, 2019 order.
Taylor issued the modified order hours after U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis ordered Abrego Garcia to be released, declaring that the final order issued by Immigration Judge David Jones against Abrego Garcia in 2019 did not qualify as a final deportation order because it only acknowledged that Abrego Garcia conceded his eligibility for deportation, but did not actively order it.
Read the full story
President Donald Trump on Tuesday added five more countries, including Syria, to his list of countries whose citizens are banned from entering the United States after multiple terror attacks occurred globally in recent weeks.
The most recent terror attack occurred in Australia on Sunday, when a father and a son opened fire on Jewish worshipers during Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach. The shooting killed 15 people and wounded 25 others.
Read the full story
As the FBI raised doubts that a search warrant for Donald Trump’s Florida estate met probable cause standards, the Justice Department under President Joe Biden pushed to expand the search’s scope, refused cooperation with Trump’s attorney, and discounted the agents’ concerns about the optics of the raid, according to newly declassified emails turned over to Congress.
The new evidence that surfaced Tuesday may have more than political impact, as a top congressman warns it may give Trump cause to sue for civil liberty violations or prompt prosecutors to pursue a criminal investigation.
Read the full story
President Donald Trump increased pressure on the Venezuelan government Tuesday by designating its regime a “foreign terrorist organization” and ordering a “complete and total” blockade of oil tankers moving in and out of Venezuela.
The actions come after the United States issued new sanctions on the country’s oil industry last week and on members of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s family. The U.S. has also been conducting military strikes against boats from the South American country that it alleges are carrying drugs.
Read the full story
A group of House Republicans in swing districts spurned House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday morning to trigger a floor vote on extending pandemic-era Obamacare subsidies favored by Democrats.
Four moderate House Republicans — Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Ryan Mackenzie and Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania and Mike Lawler of New York — signed a discharge petition to force a vote on a clean three-year extension of the Obamacare subsidies slated to expire at the year’s end. The petition was sponsored by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and is supported by every Democratic lawmaker.
Read the full story
Republican New York Rep. Elise Stefanik is racking up a slate of endorsements from conservative grassroots organizations in her bid to become the Empire State’s next governor.
Eight conservative advocacy groups in upstate New York endorsed Stefanik’s gubernatorial campaign Tuesday, the Daily Caller News Foundation can exclusively report. The representative is vying for the Republican nomination against Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who entered the primary despite state GOP leaders coalescing around the congresswoman’s campaign. Both candidates are seeking to unseat Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2026.
Read the full story
The United States added 64,000 jobs in the month of November, according to the most recent jobs report.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics provided the November jobs report more than a week late due to the federal government shutdown from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12. The bureau did not release a jobs report for October but said the U.S. lost 105,000 jobs, mainly due to federal government cuts.
Read the full story
Lieutenant Governor Randy McNally (R-Oak Ridge) said a possible expansion to the number of scholarships offered under Tennessee’s Education Freedom Scholarship Program would depend on the state’s revenue picture.
Read the full story
Even as many scholars and pundits deny the differences between the sexes and vastly expand the concept of gender, society is increasingly dividing along these clear and simple lines.
Mountains of data and broad-based studies show that men and women increasingly inhabit separate psychological, relational, and civic universes that interpret adulthood, authority, intimacy, and obligation in profoundly different ways.
Read the full story
Americans are rightly frustrated with high prescription drug prices. But if we truly want lower costs and better care, price controls are not the answer. Importing European-style mandates – such as “Most Favored Nation” (MFN) pricing – would do more harm than good, crippling innovation and reducing access to future cures.
And, it will benefit our adversaries like China as more research and development along with production of drugs are moved overseas – the exact opposite of what we want in the R&D and manufacturing and supply pipeline.
Read the full story