WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has accused a newly ousted three-star general of leaking sensitive information to the media just hours after officials confirmed his removal from a top military planning post. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired Army Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia as head of strategy, plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a defense official said late Wednesday. Typically, the general in the position and their staff are responsible for generating and coordinating military plans for both the chairman of the Joint Chiefs and the president. Read more
U.S. Supreme Court justices turned down a request to pause an agreement between Texas and the Department of Justice that removed a Biden-era rule allowing immigration judges to suspend some deportation proceedings.
A record 33 members have been expelled from China's Communist Party as it concluded a major annual political gathering, which had the most empty seats ever seen.
Sixteen of the 33 members expelled are from the military, according to a communique issued on Thursday, which marked the end of the four-day closed-door gathering held at a hotel in Beijing.
The latest expulsions bring the total number of members removed under Xi's third term to a record 51, up from 35 and five in his first and second terms respectively.
Beyond the plenum, China's top anti-corruption watchdog reported that 680,000 people across the party apparatus have been disciplined in the first nine months of this year.
With Russia's invasion of Ukraine straining on state finances, President Vladimir Putin is reaching for cash to fund his government and the war, squeezing tax revenue from an economy that's increasingly skewed toward the military -- while civilian needs take a back seat.
One of President Donald Trump's "Front Row Joe" superfans has been indicted on 10 felony charges related to alleged possession of child sexual abuse material. A Cuyahoga County grand jury indicted Adam Radogna, 37, owner of Adamo's Italian Restaurant in Brook Park, Ohio, on Wednesday for allegedly possessing dozens of files containing child sexual abuse material, reported WEWS-TV. He faces two counts of illegal use of a minor or impaired person in nudity-oriented material or performance and seven counts of pandering sexually oriented matter involving a minor or impaired person, all second-degree felonies, along with one fifth-degree felony count of possessing criminal tools.
Donald Trump has called Barack Obama "not a smart guy" as he himself smarts at the former president's pinpoint mockery of his White House decor. Obama, 65, joked about the 80-year-old president's obsession with gaudy renovations during a campaign stop in Cleveland on the weekend. "What's up with the gold?" Obama asked. "He's got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory, just gold everywhere." Read more
The New York Times article describes Trump's private dining room, which is located just off the Oval Office at the White House, where he watches television and makes phone calls. The publication says most of the space in the dining room is taken up by "printed-out news articles and documents," presumably Harp's handiwork. It goes on to reveal that an area of the room has been allotted to Harp and that she now uses the space to work when she is "not seated behind the president at his desk."
Republican state Sen. Terry Williams of Rutland pleaded not guilty to a domestic assault charge Wednesday. In a packed courtroom, family watched on as Williams, 74, faced a judge, charged with one count of domestic assault. According to court documents, Williams hit his adult daughter in the face during an argument at his home in Poultney on Monday night. She has been living there with him since July. The victim told police Williams said, "I should have punched you 40 years ago," and then hit her with an open fist. Her face was scratched.
Flvio Bolsonaro declared himself the "true president" of Brazil after losing last Sunday's presidential election and fleeing to the United States. After landing on a private jet with his family in Miami, Florida, on Wednesday morning, the far-right senator published the claim in a letter " even though his own party has recognised the legitimate victory of Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, as have all of Brazil's institutions, and international observers who monitored and endorsed the vote. Brazil's three main newspapers " Folha de S.Paulo, O Globo and O Estado de S.Paulo " all described Bolsonaro's declaration as "coup-mongering".
James O'Keefe, founder of the far-right Project Veritas and a mouthpiece for Trump's election hoax nonsense, has been charged alongside conservative influencer Cam Higby for two felony counts: unlawful voting and identity theft.
President Donald Trump's administration is quietly weighing a fresh concession to Moscow, one the Kremlin has pushed hard behind closed doors.
During this Sunday's NYC Marathon kicking off at 0940 HRS, WQXR-FM will play all nine of Beethoven's symphonies. Thanks to Senile Satan who cut federal funding for public broadcasting, WQXR-FM is now completely reliant on donors to survive. For those of us on budgets and don't want to spend money on SiriusXM, Spotify, premium packages on YouTube, cable TV, or Apple Music, WQXR-FM plays classical music 24/7 commercial free. Their curators, such as Lauren Rico (formerly at SiriusXM), do an excellent job. Preference of conductors for 1 Nov: Beethoven's Third: Arturo Toscanini; the Sixth: Aaron Copland or Leonard Bernstein; the Seventh: Kent Nagano or Seiji Ozawa; and of course for the Ninth, Herbert von Karajan.
One of the NYC marathon runners
The 50-page report, released Monday, contains testimony from 11 women who either accuse Trump of rape or sexual assault or say that they had been offered to Trump for sex by Epstein or Ghislaine Maxwell, with most cases happening in the 1990s. Read more
(snip) ... . Except, of course, El-Sayed is not an old-school liberal like Obama, but an apologist for antisemites and Islamists and terrorists"and voting against that doesn't make you Islamophobic.
U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico seemed to have settled on a strategy for dealing with his history of promoting dishonest and destructive ideas. The Texas Democrat, aware that his positions were far to the left of the average American, sought to run away from the most disturbing items on his agenda. But now a week before Election Day he's saying that he hasn't moderated his views at all. Voters beware
For two years, we've been trudging through sludge, trapped in Trump's MAGgoty reality-show rerun. We wake up every morning to the dread realization that a demented conman in a mangy rug still occupies the glitzed-up Oval Office (or as Obama put it, Saddam Hussein's version of a Cheesecake Factory) But is the Ceausescu balcony moment drawing near on Nov 3?
