Despite President Trump's waves of pardons for allies and supporters who sought to overturn his 2020 election loss and his clemency for all Capitol riot defendants, at least one federal case with tethers to the 2020 election still lingered. Now, a federal judge in Houston has sentenced Abigail Shry to 27 months in federal prison, followed by two years of supervised release, after she pleaded guilty to phoning a vulgar, violent and racist threat to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in August 2023. The threat was made hours after Chutkan was assigned to oversee Mr. Trump's criminal case for allegedly conspiring to overturn his 2020 loss, of which Jan. 6 was a component. In court Wednesday before Judge Keith Ellison, Shry apologized to anyone who was subjected to hearing her "abhorrent" voicemail, saying that it "was not and is not reflective of my character or beliefs."
A sharp rise in students entering the University of California system without middle school-level math skills is raising alarms among educators. A new internal report from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) reveals that the percentage of incoming students scoring below Algebra 1 on placement exams"a math course typically completed by the end of eighth grade"has tripled over the past five years. Read more
The Milan Attorney General's Office has opened an investigation into a chilling case that recalls the infamous Sniper Alley of Sarajevo " the city besieged from 1992 to 1996 by Serb-Bosnian militias during the Bosnian War. From the surrounding hills, they shot at passersby who had no choice but to cross that street and expose themselves to being killed. It is estimated that more than 11,000 civilians were murdered in this way. The investigation, revealed by Italian media, concerns an alleged crime of intentional homicide aggravated by cruelty and vile motives. Its central thesis is that some Italians paid to go to Sarajevo for the weekend and shoot at people, as if it were a hunting trip. Ordinary citizens, with ties to far-right circles and passionate about weapons, allegedly hired this service as a kind of human safari in the besieged city.
The Biden-era sanctuary state policies in California foisted on the state and Americans by Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom have once again collided with federal law " this time on America's highways. The California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has admitted to illegally issuing 17,000 commercial driver's licenses (CDLs) to foreign nationals who were not legally eligible to hold them, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced Tuesday. "After weeks of claiming they did nothing wrong, Gavin Newsom and California have been caught red-handed," Duffy wrote in a statement. "Now that we've exposed their lies, 17,000 illegally issued trucking licenses are being revoked. Read more
After surging through the Pacific Ocean, a massive tsunami crashed into Hawaii in 1946, killing 159 people and destroying hundreds of buildings. It was the deadliest such event in modern U.S. history " and it sparked a reckoning. The wave was caused by a distant underwater earthquake near Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Few in Hawaii knew the deadly tremor had occurred, or that a massive wall of water that reached as high as 130 feet, was on its way, moving as fast as a commercial jet. The disaster, along with another earthquake-caused tsunami in 1964, pushed the United States to beef up its alert systems in part through the National Tsunami Warning Center, operated under National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. After NOAA ceased funding to the lab that's been monitoring seismic activity for more than 25 years, nine stations tracking tsunami-causing earthquakes for the agency will go offline by the end of the month.
President Donald Trump received backlash from his own supporters on Tuesday after he suggested in a disastrous Fox News interview that there were not enough talented Americans.
The monthslong bipartisan effort to sidestep Speaker Mike Johnson and force the release of all Justice Department files on the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein is kicking into high gear this week, setting up a December floor battle that President Donald Trump has sought to avoid. Read more
Dummkopf Trumpf's campaign committee Never Surrender Inc. began fundraising off NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani's (D) win in earnest. The PAC emailed this screed: "This isn't for just anyone. YOU qualified because your profile proves you HEAVILY DESPISE dangerous Communists like Zohran Mamdani " the NYC radical who just won his election and is pushing RADICAL COMMIE Agenda harder than ever! Zohran Mamdani is going to make the Big Apple ROT!" The fundraising appeal is the latest effort from Trumpf's allies to make Mamdani a foil ahead of next year's midterm elections. The NRCC launched an ad campaign tying Democrats to Mamdani less than a day after his win. Trumpf bleated in an interview that he wants to see Mamdani do well, but warned the Muslim needs to be respectful of Washington. "I would like to see the new mayor do well, because I love New York," Trumpf, a draft dodging silver-spooned NYC native who never worked a day in his life sniveled. Read more
With humanoid robots walking and dancing their way into the headlines, it's worth noting that simpler designs can also make a huge difference to humanity. One of these more unassuming bots is Firebot, which clambers into burning structures ahead of firefighters, helping them avoid danger and find people trapped inside.
Emergency responders were hoping to use an underwater drone Sunday to reach a miner trapped deep inside a flooded West Virginia coal mine, authorities said. A mining crew hit an unknown pocket of water Saturday about three-quarters of a mile into the Rolling Thunder mine near Drennen, about 50 miles east of the state capital of Charleston, Nicholas County Commissioner Garrett Cole said in a Facebook post. Read more
The documents, presented in Israel last month to officials from the Departments of State and Defense, raise concerns including whether a multinational security initiative meant to keep the peace in Gaza can really be deployed.
The US is planning to build a large military base in Israel on the Gaza border, according to a joint report from the Israeli investigative outlet Shomrim and the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. The report said that the construction of the base would cost about $500 million and would be designed to house thousands of US and international troops tasked with maintaining the Gaza ceasefire deal. Read more
President Donald Trump called into Pat McAfee's show on ESPN on Tuesday, there was one topic that really got the president fired up: The NFL's new kickoff format. "I hate the kickoff," Trump said to protestations from McAfee. "I think it's so terrible. I think it's so demeaning, and I think it hurts the game. It hurts the pageantry. I mean, you still have guys crashing into each other, and ... it's the opposite of what the game (is supposed to be). The ball is in the air, and nobody's moving. It's supposed to be when the ball is in the air, when the ball is played, you're supposed to move. Read more
World War I -- known at the time as "The Great War" -- officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of "the war to end all wars."
Thousands of protesters in Serbia symbolically formed a human shield Tuesday around a bombed-out military complex, vowing to protect it from redevelopment as a luxury compound by a company linked to U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Some may prefer it raining cats and dogs over a cold front full of falling iguanas.
Weather experts warned Central and Southern Florida residents they should be on "falling iguana watch" after temperatures dipped into the 30s and 40s on Tuesday, Nov. 11.
