Russian, Ukrainian and US negotiators are meeting in Abu Dhabi today for the first trilateral talks since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022 - here's what we know
T The last day of July 2025 was D-day for Florida's local governments. That was when the state's new Department of Government Efficiency, modeled on Elon Musk's federal DOGE, began descending on city halls and county administrative offices to audit spending as part of Governor Ron DeSantis's drive for "transparency and accountability in government." His administration dispatched two teams of fiscal specialists from Tallahassee"including experts from the Departments of Revenue, Financial Services, and Education"in what he called a "boots-on-the-ground" effort to rein in local government spending. To justify the campaign, DeSantis argued that, with Florida's growing prosperity, local governments were using revenue from rising tax receipts, especially property levies, to go on a "spending spree." The state DOGE's purpose, he said, was to find out what elected officials were doing with all that new money
This Week in Freudenfreude: She's Got a Ticket to Ride (And She Don't Care)
This Week in Schadenfreude: The President's Ratings Aren't What They Once Were
How many polite ways, after all, are there to ask whether the President of the United States has lost his mind? Read more
US Congress Useless
Inflation ticked up to 2.8% November, moving further away from the Federal Reserve's target 2% mark, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports Thursday.
A man accused of putting a bounty on the life of Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino was found not guilty Thursday. A verdict was reached just before 4 p.m. The jury of six men and six women got the case about 12:45 p.m. Thursday. Closing arguments took up all of the morning. The government was unable to provide any evidence to corroborate an alleged murder-for-hire plot. According to the statute, a person commits murder for hire if they take a substantial step toward committing the crime. That substantial step must be an act that strongly corroborates that the defendant intended to carry it out.
The Florida Bar downplayed a congressional finding that Matt Gaetz, President Trump's first choice for U.S. Attorney General, committed statutory rape before it abandoned his prosecution. Roughly the top half of the 70-page file is a report by a bipartisan U.S. House Ethics Committee that concludes the now-former Republican congressman took illegal drugs and paid women, at least one who was underage, for sex for more than three years. The report recaps the committee's investigation that derailed Gaetz's wild ride that let him off short of becoming U.S. Attorney General.
In November 2020, a freak wave appeared, lifting a lone buoy off the coast of British Columbia 17.6 meters (58 feet) high.
TikTok has finalized a deal to create a new American version of the app, avoiding the looming threat of a ban in the U.S. that has been in discussion for years.
An independent autopsy commissioned by the family of Renee Good, the woman fatally shot by an immigration agent in Minneapolis earlier this month, found she was shot at least three times, sustaining wounds to her head, arm and breast, lawyers for the family said.
US officials on Thursday presented their vision for a "New Gaza" that would turn the shattered Palestinian territory into a glitzy resort of skyscrapers by the sea, a project that could start emerging in three years.
Pope Leo is among world leaders invited to join Donald Trump's "Board of Peace" according to Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vaticans top diplomatic official.
Leo, the first U.S. pope and a critic of some of Trump's policies, is evaluating the invitation, he said. Read more
Police have ruled a Florida man's actions self-defense after he shot a felon who allegedly attempted to abduct his wife. According to Fox News affiliate WTVT-TV, citing the Manatee County Sheriff's Office, Nicholas Palomo, a 36-year-old felon who had previously gone to prison for kidnapping and other crimes, attempted to abduct a woman who was walking her dog in Bradenton, Florida, on New Year's Day. The woman managed to run away from Palomo's car and warned her husband, who went outside to confront Palomo.
President Volodymyr Zelensky says trilateral talks on ending the war in Ukraine are to take place with Russia and the US in the United Arab Emirates, after he met President Donald Trump in Davos. "It's all about the land. This is the issue which is not solved yet," Zelensky told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland - adding that trilateral talks might provide the two sides with "variants".
