Joe Kasper, the controversial chief of staff to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and a key figure in a recent power struggle at the Pentagon, will depart the agency and take a role as a Special Government Employee (SGE), a Senior Defense official told Newsweek. Hegseth has been under siege following reports of a second Signal chat group in which the defense secretary allegedly shared highly sensitive information about U.S. airstrikes in Yemen. Hegseth previously shared similar information in a Signal group that included a journalist from The Atlantic. The second group chat reportedly included Hegseth's wife, brother, lawyer, and others. Hegseth has denied leaking classified information. Instead, he has insisted the messages were "informal, unclassified coordinations" related to media planning.
When Veronica Sanchez called a Social Security hotline Thursday, she waited two hours before her call was abruptly disconnected. On Friday, she was on hold for six hours and still did not get through to anyone. Elderly and disabled people " and those who care for them " are encountering a knot of bureaucratic hurdles and service disruptions after the Trump administration imposed a sweeping overhaul of the Social Security Administration system. No field offices in California have closed. But there is rising frustration across Southern California and the nation as many seniors experience crashed webpages, endure jammed phone lines and are turned away at offices. Social Security officials have downplayed the problems and said some of the issues predate the Trump administration and the government efficiency push headed by Elon Musk. read more
The problem is the White House used 0.25 as the elasticity of import prices. Per the research paper the USTR cited in the tariff determination, the elasticity is actually closer to 1, or 0.945 to be precise. The AEI authors say the White House may have used the elasticity of retail prices instead of import prices. read more
A Florida man has been arrested after he shot and killed his girlfriend while she slept in bed with their three children, deputies say. The man then allegedly attempted to stage the murder as a home invasion. Authorities say Saun Rainge and his accomplice, Benjamin Garmon, now both face a first-degree murder charge for the death of 30-year-old Porshe Nikita Shanee' Streeter.
US stocks opened sharply lower Friday after China retaliated against the United States for President Donald Trump's tariffs in a tit-for-tat that escalates a global trade war. The Dow fell 1,000 points, or 2.5%, and the broader S&P 500 was 2.6% lower. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was 3% lower and flirting with bear-market territory " a decline of 20% from its peak in December. read more
--------------- is one ignorant little bitch.