President Donald Trump has embarked on a bizarre posting spree touting his friendship with Black celebrities following his racist video of Barack and Michelle Obama. The president took to social media on Wednesday morning to post a series of clips showing him with everyone from ear-biting boxer Mike Tyson, convicted felon Diddy and accused child molester Michael Jackson. How quickly people forget. So Sad! President DJT," Trump wrote in an apparent effort to bolster his credentials with the Black community. One post, sarcastically titled "A Timeline of Trump's bigotry," featured a TikTok video with various images, from the president kissing Black babies and hugging Oprah Winfrey, to shaking Will Smith's hand and hanging out with Snoop Dogg.
A passenger plane in Somalia carrying 55 people on board crash-landed in shallow water on a seashore near the international airport on Tuesday.
Compared with CBO projections from January 2025, before Mr. Trump took office, the federal government is now expected to run a $23.1 trillion shortfall over the next nine years, rather than a $21.8 trillion one, a $1.4 trillion wider gap.
In a Facebook post stretching three times the length of the Gettysburg Address, a North Carolina senator praised Bad Bunny's Super Bowl performance as "the most American halftime show I have even seen," an experience that drove him to tears and kept him writing nearly to midnight.
The airport said in an Instagram post that all flights to and from the airport would be grounded from late Tuesday through late on Feb. 20, including commercial, cargo and general aviation flights. It suggested travelers contact their airlines to get up-to-date flight information. The shutdown is likely to create significant disruptions given the duration and the size of the metropolitan area. El Paso, a border city with a population of nearly 700,000 and larger when you include the surrounding metro area, is hub of cross-border commerce alongside neighboring Ciudad Juarez in Mexico.
The Trump administration removed a large Rainbow Flag from a flagpole at the Stonewall National Monument in Christopher Park, NYC, representing the president's latest attack on the queer community at the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ rights movement.Christopher Park
Donald Trump: "The Peace President"
New analysis from trans journalist and researcher Jessica Kant has found that Fox News publishes more articles about trans people than any other media outlet in the country. And that includes LGBTQ+ publications. The findings bolster what Democrats have long argued, that it's actually Republicans who are obsessed with trans people and not the other way around. Kant also noted that right-leaning publications produce far more articles on trans people than the mainstream media. "Our annihilation has become a central organizing principle of the Republican Party," Kant wrote in her analysis, which used her research to unpack how the right "manufactured the illusion of a dangerous all-powerful enemy out of a tiny demographic with no political influence, financial resources, nor social capital."
Vice President JD Vance has deleted a post about the Armenian Genocide from his social media accounts in an embarrassing climbdown. After attending the Milano Cortina Winter Olympic Games Opening Ceremony on Friday, he flew to Armenia as part of a much-touted trip to support a U.S.-brokered deal to end the country's long-running conflict with Azerbaijan. But he accidentally broke ranks with his own boss after he and his wife, Second Lady Usha Vance, laid a wreath on a memorial honoring those who died during Armenia's 1915 genocide. In the initial now-deleted social media post, Vance said they were "at the Armenian Genocide memorial to honor the victims of the 1915 Armenian genocide." Trump has long refused to call the systematic killing of Armenians a "genocide," a term disputed by U.S. ally Turkey. The initial post was supposedly made in error by a staffer who was not part of the delegation, an official said.
Turning Point USA's widely-viewed alternative halftime show to the Super Bowl LX spectacle was reportedly entirely pre-recorded in Atlanta, Georgia, with multiple sources indicating that roughly 200 audience members were paid to appear, raising questions about authenticity and public reception. Advertised extensively across social media, the performance featured country and rock artists including Kid Rock, Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett and was presented as a live tribute to 'faith, family and freedom.'
A federal employee who police say conducted background checks for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other government agencies was arrested last week in a Bloomington prostitution sting. Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges said Department of Defense contractor Brashad Johnson, 36, of Maple Grove, was one of 30 suspects arrested as part of an undercover operation targeting people seeking to pay for sex. "This is the most disturbing arrest that we've had here," Hodges said of Johnson during a news conference on Tuesday. "He is a backgrounder for ICE, Homeland Security and federal agencies. So when you're getting your security clearance, this is one of the guys that does your backgrounds, which is kind of scary."
Californicated: Super Bowl-winning Seattle Seahawks quarterback Sam Darnold won $188,000 in prize money for the game. His tax bill from Democrat-run California will be $202,000.
Khanna named, US businessman Leslie Wexner of Victoria's Secret, Abercrombie & Fitch and Bath & Body Works fame; Emirati businessman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem; and Salvatore Nuara, Zurab Mikeladze, Leonic Leonov, and Nicola Caputo.
Amid Rock the Country's lineup disruptions this week - with artists including Shinedown, Ludacris, Morgan Wade and Carter Faith making exits - the festival's July 25-26 weekend in Anderson, S.C., is no longer on the schedule. The South Carolina stop originally announced as part of an eight-city trek has been removed from Rock the Country's website. Billboard reached out to a representative for Rock the Country for comment. Shinedown, who pulled out of the festival on Feb. 6, was one of the acts booked to perform at the South Carolina dates. The band opted to drop out after receiving backlash from fans for participating in the festival. Read more
A British woman who was shot dead by her father while visiting his home in Texas had argued with him about US President Donald Trump earlier that day, an inquest has heard. Lucy Harrison, from Warrington in Cheshire, was shot in the chest on 10 January 2025 in Prosper, near Dallas. Police in the town investigated the 23-year-old's death as possible manslaughter but no criminal case was brought against Kris Harrison after a grand jury in Collin County declined to indict him. An inquest into Lucy Harrison's death opened earlier at Cheshire Coroner's Court, where her boyfriend Sam Littler described the "big argument" about Trump, who was preparing to be inaugurated for his second term of office.
If you needed an example of the disconnect between legacy media and the country at large, look no further than "Melania." The new documentary on Melania Trump follows the first lady in the 20 days leading up to the 2025 presidential inauguration " and her second stint calling the White House home. The critics HATE it, giving it a lousy score of just 10%, according to Rotten Tomatoes (compare that with the 93% score critics gave the 2020 documentary "Becoming" about former first lady Michelle Obama). Yet, the Americans heading to the theater to watch "Melania" have a vastly different takeaway. They've given it a score of 99%. This discrepancy has broken the film rating site's 27-year record.
