U.S. officials are investigating the apparent leak of two top-secret U.S. documents that show American spy agencies tracking possible Israeli preparations for conducting an attack on Iran, three U.S. officials said.

The region has been on edge awaiting Israel’s response to an Iranian missile barrage launched on Oct. 1, which Iran said was in response to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and the assassination of its allies, including Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hezbollah’s powerful leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in Beirut.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former President Donald Trump served up french fries Sunday at a Philadelphia-area McDonald’s, oversalting spuds and peppering in some jabs at Vice President Kamala Harris.

The franchise in Feasterville was closed for normal business during Sunday’s photo op. The customers who went through the drive thru were pre-selected by the franchise and the local Trump campaign team, according to a person familiar with the event. The cars were also screened and searched, and the people in them were wanded down, according to the source.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former President Donald Trump delivered unusual and vulgar remarks Saturday about the late golf legend Arnold Palmer while campaigning in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, as the campaign enters the final stretch to Election Day. 

The former president spoke for more than 10 minutes about Palmer, who was born in Latrobe, at a rally at the local airport named in Palmer’s honor.

“He was an incredible man, he was an incredible champion, and he came from Latrobe,” Trump said.

Then his comments appeared to go off script.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

As Elon Musk steps up his work on behalf of former President Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris is calling in her own billionaire, Mark Cuban, to reprise the role he played for Hillary Clinton in 2016 by holding a series of high-profile appearances alongside her and her husband this week.

Cuban appeared with Harris in Wisconsin on Thursday and is set to hold a town hall for her Saturday in Phoenix before he heads to Michigan on Sunday to campaign alongside second gentleman Doug Emhoff.

“This election is a battle for entrepreneurs,” Cuban said in La Crosse, Wisconsin, on Thursday, before he warned that Trump’s trade and tariff policies would drive up prices, ruin Christmas by making gifts more expensive and “crush the dreams” of entrepreneurs by making their costs unsustainable.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A Texas woman who pleaded guilty to assaulting police during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was sentenced to 17 months in prison on Thursday.

Dana Jean Bell’s sentencing is just one among scores of other defendants set to face accountability for their roles in the attack on the U.S. Capitol in the coming weeks, even as former President Donald Trump attempts to rewrite the history of that day in his bid for reelection – including describing it as a “day of love” during a town hall Wednesday.

Thursday’s sentencing hearing, however, painted a much different picture of the day’s events.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris described Thursday as a good day for the world after the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

Sinwar, considered the mastermind behind the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack on Israel that prompted war in Gaza and wider regional conflict, was killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces announced on Thursday.

Biden, in a lengthy written statement, said he had directed U.S. intelligence officials to help Israel locate and track Sinwar as well as other Hamas leaders hiding underground.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Liam Payne, a member of the British pop band One Direction, died Wednesday at age 31 after he fell from the third floor of a hotel in Argentina, local authorities said.

Sistema de Atencion Medica de Emergencia, the emergency health service, said in a statement to Telemundo, NBC News’ Spanish-language sister network, that Payne fell from the balcony in Palermo.

Police “were directed to the hotel by a 911 call reporting an aggressive man,” said the emergency services agency. It did not say whether drugs or alcohol were involved, just that the 911 call reported that could be the case.

The agency confirmed Payne’s death, it said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday slammed former President Donald Trump’s recent comments about in vitro fertilization, pointing to his administration’s impact on abortion restrictions across the country.

Harris told reporters that she “found it to be quite bizarre” when Trump said at an all-women Fox News town hall that aired Wednesday morning, “I’m the father of IVF.”

“He should take responsibility for the fact that 1 in 3 women in America lives in a Trump’s abortion ban state,” Harris said as she departed Detroit. “What he should take responsibility for is that couples who are praying and hoping and working towards growing a family have been so disappointed and harmed by the fact that IVF treatments have now been put at risk.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A North Carolina man was arrested on Saturday and accused of threatening federal emergency responders who have been administering aid since Hurricane Helene ravaged parts of the state last month.

The man, William Jacob Parsons, 44, of Bostic, N.C., was charged under a law that makes it illegal to carry a weapon in a way that threatens the public. He was arrested at a supermarket where a Federal Emergency Management Agency bus was parked, according to Capt. Jamie Keever, a spokesman for the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office. Mr. Parsons had a handgun and a rifle in his possession.

No FEMA personnel were at the site, he said.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Vice President Kamala Harris released a report with details about her health and medical history on Saturday, as the Harris team tries to place former President Donald Trump‘s health and advanced age under new scrutiny.

Harris “remains in excellent health,” her physician, Dr. Joshua Simmons, said in a letter on Saturday. “She possesses the physical and mental resilience required to successfully execute the duties of the presidency, to include those as Chief Executive, Head of State and Commander in Chief.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden announced while surveying storm-damaged Florida on Sunday that over $600 million will flow to states affected by hurricanes Helene and Milton, which ravaged Georgia and North Carolina as well.

During remarks in St. Pete Beach, a barrier island city off of St. Petersburg, Biden said nearly $100 million of the money would go toward improvements to Florida’s power system. He noted it was his second time visiting the state in two weeks.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former President Donald Trump said in an economic address Thursday that the U.S. has allowed “big companies” to “come in and raid and rape our country.”

“‘Oh, he used the word ‘rape.’ That’s right. I used the word ‘rape,'” Trump said at the Detroit Economic Club after his remarks were met with what sounded like some gasps from the audience. “They raped our country,” he repeated.

Trump did not specify what companies he was referring to but indicated he was talking about businesses that export goods to the U.S. that were made overseas.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Biden gave an update Thursday on the government’s aid efforts in the aftermath of Hurricane Milton, urging Americans affected by the hurricane to continue to exercise caution and follow the directions of local authorities as dangerous conditions persist. 

“We’ve had search and rescue teams at the ready for any calls for help this morning,” he said from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. “There are still very dangerous conditions in the state, and people should wait to be given the all clear by their leaders before they go out. We know from previous hurricanes that it’s often the case that more lives are lost in the days following the storm than actually during the storm itself.” 

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

As President Joe Biden delivered a stark warning Wednesday about the dangerous hurricane barreling toward Florida, he shot down misinformation about the storm, including one particular conspiracy theory propagated by Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene, the congresswoman from Georgia, is now saying the federal government is literally controlling the weather, we’re controlling the weather. It’s beyond ridiculous. It’s so stupid. It’s got to stop,” Biden said in televised remarks at the White House.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on Wednesday, according to the White House.

Vice President Kamala Harris also joined the call, the White House said.

It marked the first phone call between the two leaders in months, and since fighting has intensified in the Middle East as Israel continues its war against Hamas in Gaza while also seeking to root out Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters the call lasted about 30 minutes and included a “range of issues.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Vice President Kamala Harris‘ presidential campaign operation crossed the $1 billion fundraising threshold in September, two months after she took over as the Democratic Party’s standard-bearer, according to two people familiar with the numbers.

The figure includes money raised by the campaign committee itself and by a campaign-affiliated joint fundraising committee that also collects cash for the Democratic National Committee and state parties.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Justice Department announced the arrest Tuesday of an Afghan national living in Oklahoma and accused him of plotting to kill Americans on Election Day on behalf of the terror group ISIS.

Nasir Tawhedi, 27, is alleged to have sought to purchase semiautomatic firearms and ammunition to further his alleged plans to carry out the attack, and even went so far as to liquidate his family’s assets and resettling family members overseas in preparation.

According to the complaint, Tawhedi entered the U.S. in September 2021 on a special immigrant visa and is currently on parole status pending adjudication of his immigration proceedings.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Former President Donald Trump is disputing a report that he has had “as many as seven” phone calls with Russian President Vladimir Putin since he left the White House, and that, back when he was in office, Trump secretly sent Putin a COVID-19 testing kit for his personal use.

Journalist Bob Woodward wrote about the alleged interactions between Trump and Putin in his soon-to-be released book, titled “War,” according to the Washington Postand CNN.

Woodward reportedly cited an anonymous Trump aide as the source for his reporting regarding Trump maintaining contact with Putin after leaving the White House.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Foreign adversaries will try to shake Americans’ confidence in the legitimacy of election results in November by giving voice to false claims or spreading their own disinformation about ballot counting, U.S. intelligence officials said Tuesday.

“As we approach Election Day, the intelligence community is also stressing that foreign efforts to undermine America’s democracywon’t end on Nov. 5,” a senior intelligence official told reporters in a virtual briefing.

In its latest assessment of foreign threats to the election, intelligence officials said the main foreign powers seeking to shape the outcome of the vote — Russia, China and Iran — also were focusing on meddling in congressional and state races.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A joint federal intelligence bulletin obtained by CBS News warns of potential violent extremism and hate crimes committed in response to the one-year mark of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by the militant group Hamas and the resulting conflict in Gaza.

The bulletin, authored by FBI, Department of Homeland Security and National Counterterrorism Center, was first disseminated by federal law enforcement to local law enforcement partners late Wednesday. 

The agencies found that the one-year mark of the attack “as well as any further significant escalations” in the Israel-Hamas war “may be a motivating factor for violent extremists and hate crime perpetrators to engage in violence or threaten public safety,” the bulletin read.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Sen. JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee, confirmed to reporters Saturday that former President Donald Trump is “consistent” in his views on defunding Planned Parenthood.

A journalist asked Vance, R-Ohio, whether a future Trump administration would defund Planned Parenthood, the reproductive health care group that has garnered opposition from many conservatives for its pro-abortion-rights positions.

“On the question of defunding Planned Parenthood, look, I mean our view is we don’t think that taxpayers should fund late-term abortions,” Vance said after Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. “That has been a consistent view of the Trump campaign the first time around. It will remain a consistent view.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday did not commit to calling Congress back into session before the election after President Joe Biden pressed congressional leaders about potential funding shortfalls in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

In an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” Johnson was asked about Biden’s letter to congressional leaders on Friday requesting more money for federal disaster recovery efforts and after Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned that the department doesn’t have enough money to get through the rest of hurricane season.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News 

George Gascón, the Los Angeles district attorney, said on Thursday that his office was reviewing a decades-old case involving the brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez, who killed their parents in their Beverly Hills home and were sentenced to life in prison.

The case in the 1990s was one of the first to draw a daily national audience to a televised criminal trial. By their own testimony, the two young men marched into the den of the family’s mansion one evening with shotguns and fired more than a dozen rounds at their mother and father while the couple sat on the couch.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

A historic United States port strike has been suspended and a tentative agreement was reached “on wages,” according to the International Longshoremen’s Association and the U.S. Maritime Alliance.

“Effective immediately, all current job actions will cease and all work covered by the Master Contract will resume,” the ILA and USMX said in a joint statement Thursday evening.

The tentative agreement would increase workers’ wages by 62% over the life of the 6-year contract, sources familiar confirm to ABC News.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Vice presidential candidate Tim Walz addressed a Democratic Muslim voter group Thursday night as the Harris campaign works to engage a group of voters who threaten to defect in large numbers over the Biden administration’s handling of the deteriorating situation in the Middle East.

The virtual event, organized by Emgage Action, which endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris last week, was the most direct pitch yet to conflicted Muslim and Arab voters from her or Walz.

The appearance, which coincided with the launch of a group called Arab Americans for Harris-Walz, comes after Harris’ top national security adviser met with Arab and Muslim community leaders.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed the motion, which contained several new revelations.

Hours later, the former president attended a fundraiser in Houston, where Ali Bradley of NewsNation caught up with him.

“We know that Special Counsel Jack Smith had filed court documents calling her actions in the aftermath of the 2020 election, quote, ‘a private criminal effort,’” she told Trump. “Can you respond to that?”

“Yeah, he’s a deranged person,” he replied. “I call him deranged Jack Smith.”

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Israel’s military said Wednesday that eight soldiers had been killed in “intense fighting” with Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon, three days after it launched ground operations in the country. The update on the ongoing ground raids came almost a year after Israel launched its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip in retaliation for that Iran-backed group’s Oct. 7 terrorist rampage, prompting Hamas’ ally Hezbollah to start firing rockets at northern Israel.

The Israel Defense Forces announced the beginning of it said would be “limited, localized, and targeted ground raids” against Hezbollah in Lebanon on Monday, after about two weeks of blistering airstrikes on the group’s strongholds in southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut. Those ongoing strikes have killed more than 1,000 people and displaced about 1 million from their homes, according to Lebanese officials.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took separate tours on Wednesday of the catastrophic damage resulting from Hurricane Helene, from which at least 183 people have died.

Biden visited North Carolina and South Carolina days after the storm swept through Florida and traveled north, causing damage as far north as Tennessee and Virginia. He is also expected to travel to Georgia and Florida on Thursday.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz scolded Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance for refusing to say whether former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election on Tuesday.

During CBS’ vice presidential debate, Walz criticized Trump’s refusal to concede the 2020 election and the subsequent January 6 Capitol riots, declaring, “He was very clear. I mean, he lost this election and he said he didn’t. 140 police officers were beaten at the Capitol that day.”

He continued, “They were chanting, ‘Hang Mike Pence.’ Mike Pence made the right decision. So senator, it was adjudicated over and over and over. I worked with kids long enough to know, and I said as a football coach, sometimes you really want to win, but the democracy is bigger than winning an election. You shake hands and then you try and do everything you can to help the other side win.”

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

The first dockworkers strike at major East and Gulf coast ports in almost half a century could soon mean shortages of bananas and pricier imported cherries at U.S. grocery stores. That’s because both fruits are among the more than 100 categories of food that depend on the now-shuttered operations, with the labor dispute also expected to delay auto shipments. 

Just how much American consumers and the U.S. economy will be impacted by the strike’s immediate disruption of ports that handle about half of the country’s trade in cargo containers depends on the duration of the work stoppage, now in its first day. 

“Each day that this goes on it creates a backlog of containers and ships,” American Farm Bureau Federation economist Daniel Munch told CBS MoneyWatch. “A 3-to-5-day strike will take two weeks to clear — if it goes into three-week territory, it will be early January before it gets cleared.”

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Iran launched ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday, causing sirens to sound all over the country, the Israel Defense Forces said.

Orange fire illuminated the sky over Israel as NBC News crews in both Tel Aviv and across the border in Tyre, Lebanon, viewed the apparent missiles being fired. Smaller streaks of light were also seen, appearing to come from Israel’s aerial defense system as it tried to ward off the attack.

Booms were also heard in video captured by NBC News, but it’s unclear whether the sound erupted from clashing missiles in the air or from Iranian missiles landing in Israel.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Joe Biden angrily hit back at Donald Trump’s false accusations after the former president and Republican presidential nominee leveled a baseless claim about the federal response to Hurricane Helene on his social media platform.

Earlier on Monday, Trump suggested that Biden and North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper were ignoring the devastation wrought by the storm, which has killed over 100 people and left hundreds missing and unaccounted for in the Tar Heel state.

In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote that he “[didn’t] like the reports” he was allegedly getting about the federal and state governments “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas” hit by the hurricane.

Read the rest of the story at The Independent UK

Thousands of dockworkers at ports from New England to Texas went on strike just after midnight on Tuesday as they rally for higher pay and more job security.

The work stoppage, the first at East and Gulf Coast ports since 1977, follows a lengthy impasse in labor talks between the International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) and the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX), a shipping industry group representing terminal operators and ocean carriers.

The strike was expected to involve 25,000 workers, according to USMX, and close 14 ports: Baltimore; Boston; Charleston, South Carolina; Jacksonville, Florida; Miami; Houston; Mobile, Alabama; New Orleans; New York/New Jersey; Norfolk, Virginia; Philadelphia; Savannah, Georgia; Tampa, Florida; and Wilmington, Delaware.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

The Israeli military says it has begun a “limited, localized” ground operation against Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon.

In posts shared on social media, the Israeli military said it was carrying out “targeted” ground raids in villages close to the Israeli border. 

“A few hours ago, the IDF began limited, localized, and targeted ground raids based on precise intelligence against Hezbollah terrorist targets and infrastructure in southern Lebanon,” the military said. “These targets are located in villages close to the border and pose an immediate threat to Israeli communities in northern Israel.”

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Hassan Nasrallah, who led the militant Hezbollah organization in Lebanon for more than three decades and built it into a domestic political force and potent regional military power with ballistic missiles that could threaten Tel Aviv, was killed on Friday in heavy Israeli airstrikes just south of Beirut. He was 64.

Both Hezbollah and Israel announced his death on Saturday. Israeli officials had said that Mr. Nasrallah was the target of the attack, which rocked the area known as the Dahiya, a dense urban area south of the capital, with such violent force that residents fled in fear as a giant mushroom cloud rose over the city.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

With less than 40 days left until November’s election, former President Donald Trump continues to escalate his personal attacks against Kamala Harris, calling for the vice president to be “impeached and prosecuted.”

Throughout his campaign rally speech in Erie, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, Trump said Harris should be disqualified from running for president, resign from office and be investigated at the highest level.

“She should be disqualified. She should resign the vice presidency and go home to California,” Trump told the cheering crowd while discussing the “invasion” at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Thirty people have been confirmed dead after Tropical Storm Helene ripped through Buncombe County, North Carolina, Sheriff Quentin Miller said early Sunday evening.

“We’re still conducting search operations, and we know that those also may include recovery operations,” he said at a news conference.

The county remains under a state of emergency, with officials saying they are working hard to help those impacted by Helene, which hit Florida’s Big Bend as a Category 4 hurricane before moving up through Georgia and the Carolinas as a tropical storm.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Harris reiterated her support for Ukraine in remarks at the White House after her meeting with Zelenskyy, telling reporters, “I’ve been proud to stand with Ukraine, I’ll continue to stand with Ukraine, and I will work to ensure Ukraine prevails in this war.”

Harris framed Ukraine’s fight against Russia as reflecting American values, saying: “The American people know well the meaning of freedom, of independence and the importance of rule of law. These ideals are central to who we are as Americans, and some of the most important moments in our history have come when we stood up to aggressors like Putin.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the White House on Thursday could be his final chance to convince a receptive American president of his country’s war aims.

The precise details of the “victory plan” Zelensky plans to present in separate meetings to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris are unknown, having been closely held until they are presented to the American leaders.

But according to people briefed on its broad contours, the plan reflects the Ukrainian leader’s urgent appeals for more immediate help countering Russia’s invasion. Zelensky is also poised to push for long-term security guarantees that could withstand changes in American leadership ahead of what is widely expected to be a close presidential election between Harris and former President Donald Trump.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been indicted by a federal grand jury, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.

In a speech addressed to New Yorkers on Wednesday, Adams vowed to fight what he called the “entirely false” indictment with “every ounce of my strength and my spirit.”

“I always knew that If I stood my ground for all of you that I would be a target — and a target I became,” Adams said.

Adams is the city’s first sitting mayor to be indicted.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Prosecutors on Tuesday filed the charge of attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate against Ryan Wesley Routh, the man they say camped outside of Donald Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course for hours on end, armed with a rifle that he pointed through a chain-link fence with a clear shot to the next hole where the former president was headed on September 15.

Routh, allegedly “stalked” Trump in Florida for more than a month, prosecutors told a federal magistrate judge on Monday, with cell phone data allegedly placing Routh at the golf course as well as Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence across several days between August 18 and the day Routh was arrested.

Routh was originally charged with two gun-related offenses, including obliteration of a firearm’s serial number and possessing a firearm while a convicted felon, while the investigation continued.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

Lawyers for former President Donald Trump are pushing back against efforts by federal prosecutors to streamline arguments and potential appeals in his 2020 election interference case, arguing they could improperly influence the 2024 race for the White House.

In papers filed Monday in federal court in Washington, defense attorneys contended that special counsel Jack Smith’s plans to file an oversized brief about whether certain Trump actions from his presidency were official or unofficial acts is improper and should not be allowed.

“Departures from these practices should never be countenanced because they risk allowing prosecutors to impact national elections, but the situation is even worse here where the Special Counsel’s Office is seeking to do so by turning criminal procedure on its head in order to file a 180-page false hit piece,” Trump’s lawyers argued.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance laid into the media for “debunking a story that comes from the residents of Springfield” on Monday, and urged journalists to listen “to people speak their truth,” after he was criticized for promoting unfounded allegations about Haitian migrants eating pets in Ohio.

“I wish the American media was half as interested in the stress on the local schools, the stress on the hospitals, and unaffordable housing as they are in debunking a story that comes from the residents of Springfield,” said Vance at a campaign rally in North Carolina, Monday.

He then questioned, “Did you ever think about listening to people speak their truth instead of listening to some bureaucrat and assuming that everything they tell you is true?”

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

House Republicans on Wednesday defeated their own plan to avert a government shutdown at the end of the month, with the party divided over the length of a short-term funding bill and what, if anything, should be attached to it.

It was an embarrassing blow to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who had yanked the same funding package off the floor last week amid growing GOP defections, only to watch it collapse on Wednesday in a vote that seemed doomed from the start.

The vote was 202-220 with two members voting present. In all, fourteen Republicans voted against the package, and three Democrats — Reps. Jared Golden of Maine, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Don Davis of North Carolina — voted for it.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Federal Reserve said Wednesday it was lowering its key interest rate by half a percentage point, an unusually aggressive move designed to cushion the economy from a further slowdown.

The central bank noted job gains had slowed while inflation had made further progress toward its 2% goal.

At a follow-up news conference, Fed Chair Jay Powell said the labor market and the economy in general remain in “solid shape.”

By making the larger cut, he said, “our intention is to keep it there.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

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Sean “Diddy” Combs, the spotlight-adoring music impresario who helped launch the careers of some of the biggest names in hip-hop and R&B, was denied bail and sent to jail Tuesday after being accused in a three-count federal indictment of having used his sprawling business empire to abuse, threaten and traffic women in order to “fulfill his sexual desires” and protect his reputation.

Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York accuse Combs of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution in the indictment unsealed Tuesday.

It accuses Combs, 54, along with members of his security and household staff, personal assistants and other associates in his businesses, of “creating a criminal enterprise whose members and associates engaged in, and attempted to engage in, among other crimes, sex trafficking, forced labor, kidnapping, arson, bribery and obstruction of justice.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The militant group Hezbollah said Tuesday that pagers belonging to its members had blown up across Lebanon, killing at least nine people and injuring more than 2,750, according to the country’s Health Ministry.

Iran-backed Hezbollah pinned the blame for the widespread and simultaneous blasts on Israel, without providing evidence. Israel did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the accusations and the explosions.

More than 200 people were in critical condition, the public health minister, Dr. Firas Abiad, told reporters. According to The Associated Press and Al Jazeera, officials updated the death toll after Abiad’s news conference.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) defended pushing the baseless smear of Haitian migrants eating household pets in Springfield, OH — a claim which has been widely debunked.

In a shocking 16-minute interview on CNN Sunday, the Ohio senator was called out by CNN’s Dana Bash for peddling the claims.

“Before Donald Trump talked about eating dogs and cats on a debate stage, it was you, Senator, who first elevated this baseless rumor,” Bash said. “These are your constituents. So why are you putting them at risk by continuing to spread claims about Haitian immigrants, despite officials in your state saying that there’s no evidence and pleading for you to stop?”

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Former President Donald Trump is getting pilloried for ramping up his attackson Taylor Swift — following the pop mega-star’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris.

In a Sunday morning post to his Truth Social platform, the former president declared in all-caps “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”

The post drew mockery and condemnation — with a common reaction being a reference to a popular Swift song title.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine on Sunday decried former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield were eating dogs and other pets as “garbage” but stopped short of directly condemning Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, for spreading the false claims.

“There’s a lot of garbage on the internet. You know, this is a piece of garbage that was simply not true. There’s no evidence of this at all,” DeWine said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week” when he was asked whether it’s responsible for Trump to push the false claims.

Asked what he would say to Trump after he pointed out that there is no truth to his claims, DeWine condemned groups that have marched in Springfield as part of a hate campaign against Haitian immigrants and went on to praise Haitians as hard-working people who have brought “positive influences” to the town.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Riding high on momentum two days after the presidential debate, Vice President Kamala Harris was greeted by a deafening crowd here Thursday, eager to see the Democratic nominee push to the next phase of her campaign.

Harris told supporters it was time to turn the page from Donald Trump while again challenging the former president to a second debate, which she did earlier in the day at her rally in Charlotte.

“We owe it to the voters. Because here’s the thing: In this election, what’s at stake could not be more important,” she said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Vice President Kamala Harris raised $47 million in the first 24 hours following her debate with former President Donald J. Trump on Tuesday night, a sum that will likely expand a widening funding gap between the two campaigns.

That tally, shared by the Harris campaign with The New York Times, included donations from 600,000 people. It is her largest 24-hour fund-raising period since an initial burst of donations when she entered the race in July and raised $81 million on the first day.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Barely an hour before the presidential debate the father of an 11-year-old Ohio boy killed when an immigrant’s minivan crashed into a school bus lashed out at Donald J. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance.

Speaking during public comment at a regular meeting of the Springfield City Commission, the father, Nathan Clark, called them “morally bankrupt” politicians spreading hate at the expense of his son, Aiden. Mr. Clark said, “This needs to stop now.”

The death of Aiden Clark, who was thrown from the bus after the minivan driver, who is Haitian, veered into oncoming traffic just over a year ago, shook residents of Springfield, a blue-collar town between Dayton and Columbus. And it touched off a wave of angry rhetoric over the thousands of immigrants from Haiti who have settled in the area since the pandemic.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Longtime Republican pollster Frank Luntz said the presidential election is basically over after Vice President Kamala Harris drubbed Donald Trump at Tuesday night’s debate.
“I’m trying to decide if I want to go on record and the answer is yes,” he told Piers Morgan on Wednesday. “I think that he loses because of this debate performance.”

He added:

“This is not the worst debate performance I’ve seen in my career, but it’s very close to it. The conversations about people eating dogs and cats, calling the leader of Hungary one of the greatest world leaders, repeatedly missing the opportunity to focus on inflation and affordability, and the complete inability to present his point of view without completely tearing into her, into Joe Biden, into whomever was in his sights. It was a pretty negative performance. Pretty pessimistic. Cynical. Contemptuous. And I think that this will cost him.”

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris for president may boost voter registration beyond Democrats’ “wildest dreams.“

The General Services Administration, which oversees the website, confirmed to NBC News that as of 2 p.m. ET Wednesday, 337,826 people had visited a custom URL that Swift posted on Instagram when she announced she was endorsing Harris.

The custom URL directs people to vote.gov, a website that helps visitors register to vote in their states. The site also breaks down Americans’ voting rights, explains election processes and provides a road map to frequently asked questions.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Pop superstar Taylor Swift endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential candidacy on Tuesday night after the high-stakes debatewith former President Donald Trump, calling the Democratic nominee a “steady-handed, gifted leader.”

“I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election,” Swift said in a post on Instagram to her more than 283 million followers. “I’m voting for @kamalaharris  because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos.”

Swift went on to say that she was “heartened and impressed” by Harris’ selection of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, praising him as a champion of “LGBTQ+ rights, IVF and a woman’s right to own her body for decades.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

It began just as they appeared before the audience.

Vice President Kamala Harris walked across the stage into former President Donald Trump’s space, reached out her hand and introduced herself.

Trump, visibly taken aback, shook her hand.

The assertive move by Harris was one that ended up setting the tone for the next 90 minutes, where Harris made her case to become the nation’s next president as much through body language as she did through words.

And in that period, she repeatedly got under Trump’s skin, sending him into angry screeds where he struggled to stay on topic and, at times, careened into confounding anecdotes.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump clashed in their first presidential debate Tuesday in Philadelphia, less than two months before Election Day.

Heading into the debate, Harris appeared to have more to gain — and more to lose. A New York Times/Siena College poll found that 28% said they “need to learn more about Kamala Harris,” compared with just 9% who said the same about Trump. Overall, Trump led Harris by 1 point among likely voters, with 5% unsure or not backing either.

The debate covered a wide range of issues and featured a series of intense exchanges between the two bitter rivals. Harris presented herself as a pragmatic problem-solver and diminished Trump as a wannabe dictator who can’t keep his rally crowds engaged. Trump attacked Harris as a radical and frequently returned to his theme of criticizing migration, sometimes veering into conspiracy theories.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Legendary actor James Earl Jones, best known for his innumerable movie roles and the booming voice of the character of Darth Vader in the “Star Wars” franchise, has died, his representative confirmed to ABC News.

He was 93 years old.

Jones died on Monday morning at his home in Dutchess County, New York, surrounded by his family, according to longtime agent Barry McPherson.

The thespian, whose powerful, deep voice brought to life the iconic villain of Darth Vader, acted for more than six decades and won three Tony Awards, including a lifetime honor in 2017, two Emmys and a Grammy. He was recognized for lifetime achievement by the Academy Awards in 2011.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Police in Springfield, Ohio, said Monday they had received no credible reports of immigrants harming pets, contradicting a claim by Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance. 

The senator from Ohio, as well as other Republican lawmakers and several conservative commentators, have in recent days asserted without evidence that the arrival of thousands of immigrants from Haiti had created chaos in Springfield. 

In a post on X, Vance wrote Monday that “people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.” 

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Over the past two weeks, former President Donald Trump has become increasingly explicit in describing plans to use the Department of Justice to prosecute scores of people he has declared corrupt, if he wins in November. 

Legal experts said Trump will face obstacles. Judges, prosecutors and juries, for example, could decline to try or convict people if there is scant evidence they committed a crime.

But the experts also said the Supreme Court’s recent immunity decision gives a president the power to order the attorney general to indict any individuals they wish without facing legal consequences themselves.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are set to face off in their first debate of the 2024 election tomorrow night, moderated by ABC News.

With only weeks until Election Day, the debate is a crucial opportunity for both candidates to work to sway undecided voters in what’s expected to be a close contest.

The debate is a chance for Harris — who became the Democratic candidate after President Joe Biden left the race following his lackluster June debate performance — and Trump to explain their policies on key issues. It’s the first time the pair will meet in person.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

A new poll from The New York Times and Siena College that surveyed likely voters indicates the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump is nearly evenly matched. While there is a margin of error of 3 percentage points, Trump is ahead of Harris in a 48% to 47% lead.

The figures are similar to the Times and Siena College’s July poll, which followed President Joe Biden dropping out of the race and Harris announcing her presidential campaign.

In the seven battleground states — Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina and Arizona — Harris is slightly leading or tied with Trump, according to the latest poll.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., on Sunday called Vice President Kamala Harris’ decision to moderate her views on fracking and “Medicare for All” “pragmatic,” saying that Harris is “doing what she thinks is right in order to win the election” and that he still considers her to be “progressive.”

Still, Sanders added that Harris has a path to victory by campaigning on other progressive positions, like raising the minimum wage, raising taxes on the wealthy and increasing Social Security benefits.

“I think if you campaign on those issues — raising taxes on billionaires — you know what, she’s going to win, and I think she could win big,” said Sanders, who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016 and 2020.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A federal judge declared at a court hearing on Thursday that she would not let former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign for the White House affect the schedule of the criminal case in which he stands accused of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.

Hours later, the judge, Tanya S. Chutkan, fulfilled that vow by setting a schedule for the matter that moved speedily ahead and opened the possibility that prosecutors could make public more of the evidence they hope to use against Mr. Trump at trial in a court filing before Election Day.

Judge Chutkan established a series of deadlines for filings from both sides to assess the impact of several legal issues on the case, including the Supreme Court’s recent ruling granting Mr. Trump some immunity from criminal prosecution for official actions he took as president.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz used some of his sharpest language on the campaign trail Thursday in remarks going after both former President Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

Speaking at a rally in Erie, Pa., Walz borrowed a line from Josh Shapiro, the state’s Democratic governor by saying that “whenever Donald Trump’s talking about America, he’s s— talking America.”

Shapiro has said numerous times that Trump is “s— talking” the country, which Walz acknowledged when he paraphrased the Pennsylvania governor.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Hunter Biden pleaded guilty Thursday to all the charges in the federal tax case against him, a surprise move that avoids a potentially embarrassing trial for President Joe Biden‘s son.

The sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 16.

“Hunter put his family first today. And it was a brave and loving thing to do,” his attorney Abbe Lowell told reporters afterwards, saying the plea prevented a “show trial.”

Biden did not speak to reporters, but issued a statement blasting prosecutors from special counsel David Weiss’ office who he said were “focused not on justice but on dehumanizing me for my actions during my addiction.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., on Wednesday endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president, the latest high-profile Republican endorsement for Democrats.

Cheney’s comments took place during an appearance at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy.

“Because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris,” Cheney said in a video of remarks posted to X. The university separately provided a clip of Cheney’s remarks to NBC News.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trumpare set to debate each other next week for the first time after their campaigns on Wednesday agreed to the ground rules set by host network ABC.

The Sept. 10 event in Philadelphia will use the same rules and formatas the June debate between Trump and President Joe Biden.

Both campaigns had previously agreed to hold the debate on that date, but the agreement appeared to be in jeopardy after Trump suggested he might back out and Harris’ team sought to change the rule on muted microphones.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Employees of the Russia-backed media network RT funded and directed a scheme that sent millions of dollars to prominent right-wing commentators through a media company that appears to match the description of Tenet Media, a leading platform for pro-Trump voices, according to an NBC News review of charging documents, business records and social media profiles.

The indictment on Wednesday of two RT employees, Konstantin Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva, includes allegations that the duo implemented a nearly $10 million plan to fund an unnamed Tennessee-based company as one of their “covert projects” to influence American politics by posting videos to TikTok, Instagram, X and YouTube.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

In an interview with podcaster Lex Fridman, Trump spewed some of his usual rhetoric about the 2020 election and Project 2025.

“I think the fraud was on the other side. I think the election was a fraud,” Trump told Fridman, referring to the 2020 election. “And many people felt it was that and they wanted answers. And when you can’t challenge an election, you have to be able to challenge it, otherwise it’s going to get worse, not better.”

Trump, who also falsely claimed that there is a trend of noncitizens voting, is currently facing an indictment related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

Read the rest of the story at HuffPost

President Joe Biden on Monday said he did not think Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had done enough to secure a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas, a comment that comes amid massive protests in Israel.  

Biden made the remark to reporters after a weekend during which the bodies of six hostages executed by Hamas were found in a Gaza tunnel. Among those discovered was the body of 23-year-old American Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose parents had publicly pleaded for the return of their son. The pair had brought their personal appeal to the Democratic National Convention, where they were received with a standing ovation.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Two words sum up the national and battleground state polls released ahead of Labor Day weekend, with fewer than 10 weeks to go until Election Day: changed and close.

Changed, because most of the surveys — conducted after President Joe Biden’s exit from the 2024 race, after the Democratic convention, and after independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed former President Donald Trump — show Vice President Kamala Harris with narrow leads nationally and in key battlegrounds. 

That’s compared with polling that mostly showed Trump with a narrow edge before Biden’s departure. 

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Gold Star families did not invite President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to Arlington National Cemetery by last week to commemorate the third anniversary of the attack at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan, a White House official and a Harris aide told NBC News, rebutting separate claims made Sunday by GOP Sen. Tom Cotton and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.

The two were speaking about former President Donald Trump’s visit last week to Arlington National Cemetery, where he has drawn criticism for posing for photos with Gold Star families in a section of the cemetery where photos are traditionally prohibited.

Last week, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Trump’s visit was a “personal invitation by families.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Former President Donald Trump is seeking to delay the upcoming sentencing in his New York hush money case by again asking a federal court in New York to take up the case in light of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity.

In a 60-page filing Thursday, Trump’s lawyers urged the court to reconsider his argument to remove the case from state court to federal court ahead of the former president’s Sept. 18 sentencing.

“The ongoing proceedings will continue to cause direct and irreparable harm to President Trump — the leading candidate in the 2024 Presidential election — and voters located far beyond Manhattan,” defense lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote in the filing.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Former President Donald Trump said in an interview with NBC News on Thursday that if he is elected, his administration would not only protect access to in-vitro fertilization but would also have either the government or insurance companies cover the cost of the expensive service for American women who need it.

“We are going to be, under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment,” Trump said before adding, “We’re going to be mandating that the insurance company pay.”

Asked to clarify whether the government would pay for IVF services or whether insurance companies would do so, Trump reiterated that one option would be to have insurance companies pay “under a mandate, yes.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Vice President Kamala Harris has closed the gap in several critical swing states just over a month into her campaign, according to recent polling by Fox News.

The network released new surveys on Wednesday comparing Harris’ support in four battleground states to President Joe Biden‘s polling numbers prior to him suspending his reelection campaign in late July. The results found that Harris is locked in a tight race with former President Donald Trump in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina—states where Biden once trailed the GOP presidential nominee by at least 5 points each.

In Arizona, where Harris currently leads Trump by 1 point (50 percent to 49 percent), Biden was down by 5 percentage points in a Fox News poll in June. Harris also leads Trump in Georgia and Nevada by 2 percentage points (50 percent to 48 percent). Biden, on the other hand, was trailing the former president by 6 points in Georgia back in April and by 5 points in Nevada in June.

Read the rest of the story at Newsweek

Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to soon face her first post-convention test when she sits for a formal interview airing in primetime on Thursday.

CNN announced Tuesday that Harris and her running mate Gov. Tim Walz will be interviewed by anchor Dana Bash, marking the first sitdown with a reporter since President Joe Biden bowed out of the race.

The interview, airing at 9 p.m. ET, comes as Harris and Walz take a campaign bus tour of battleground Georgia and as she faced growing calls from the Trump campaign and reporters to agree to an extended questioning.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced on Truth Social that he has “reached an agreement” to participate in a September 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, noting that “the rules will be the same as the last CNN debate, which seemed to work out well for everyone.”

The rules will largely mirror the terms used by CNN for its June 27 debate, including that microphones will be muted as the other candidate speaks and no studio audience will be present, a person familiar with the matter confirmed to CNN.

Still, the Harris campaign maintains that discussions are ongoing with ABC over whether microphones will remain on during September’s presidential debate, according to a source familiar with the matter.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

Vice President Kamala Harris will embark on a two-day Georgia swing on Wednesday, and analysts say it’s wise to strike in the Southern swing state while she has momentum.

The Democratic presidential nominee is coming off what even some Republicans say was a successful national convention, with Donald Trump campaign aides contending any polling spike she gets this week is merely a political sugar high that will fade.

But Harris and her team have made clear they believe the Peach State, won by President Joe Biden in 2020, is in play again.

Read the rest of the story at Roll Call

A federal judge in Texas on Monday temporarily blocked the Biden administration from granting legal status to unauthorized immigrants married to American citizens, granting a request from 16 Republican-led states who challenged the new policy.

The order by District Court Judge J. Campbell Barker effectively brings to a halt a large immigration program that opened just last week to an estimated half a million immigrants living in the U.S. without legal status. While preliminary and temporary, the ruling is also an early blow to one of the two major moves taken by President Biden in June on immigration, a top campaign issue in the 2024 race for president.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Federal prosecutors asked an appeals court Monday to restore Donald Trump’s classified documents case, pushing back on the former president‘s claims that Jack Smith’s appointment as special counsel violated the Constitution.

“The Attorney General validly appointed the Special Counsel, who is also properly funded,” Assistant Special Counsel James Pearce, a member of Smith’s team, wrote in a brief filed with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “In ruling otherwise, the district court deviated from binding Supreme Court precedent, misconstrued the statutes that authorized the Special Counsel’s appointment, and took inadequate account of the longstanding history of Attorney General appointments of special counsels.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

What to know about the exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah

• Israel and the Hezbollah militant group launched their heaviest exchange of fire after months of strikes and counterstrikes. By mid-morning Sunday, it appeared to have ended, with both sides saying they only aimed at military targets.
• Authorities in Lebanon said the Israeli strikes killed three people, while Israel said one of its soldiers was killed.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Five people have been charged in connection with the ketamine death of “Friends” star Matthew Perry, federal officials in Los Angeles announced Thursday.

Three of the defendants, including a doctor and the actor’s assistant, are in plea agreements for federal drug charges in connection with this death, while two others — including a second doctor and a woman reportedly known as “The Ketamine Queen” who is accused of selling Perry the batch of ketamine that killed him, were arrested on Thursday, according to the Department of Justice.

U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said investigators conducted a wide-ranging investigation following Perry’s death in October 2023 that “revealed a broad, underground criminal network responsible for distributing large quantities of ketamine to Mr. Perry and others.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

At a news conference Thursday afternoon at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey — his second in a week – former President Donald Trump said he’s “entitled” to insult his Democratic opponent — Vice President Kamala Harris — because he doesn’t respect her.

“I think I am entitled to personal attacks. I do not have a lot of respect for her. I don’t have a lot of respect for her intelligence, and I think she’ll be a terrible president. And I think it is very important that we win. And whether the personal attacks are good, bad – I mean, she certainly attacks me personally. She actually called me weird. ‘He’s weird,'” he said.

“She’s not — she’s not smart. I don’t believe she loves our country,” he added.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris held their first joint event since Biden exited the 2024 race and endorsed her to take his place atop the Democratic ticket.

The two walked out together to cheers to deliver remarks on stage at Prince George’s County Community College in Maryland about the economy and what their administration has done to alleviate costs for Americans.

That includes the administration’s announcement earlier Thursday that the Department of Health and Human Services reached an agreement on price negotiations for 10 commonly used drugs that they say will save Medicare enrollees $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs when the new prices go into effect in 2026.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Trump is in North Carolina to deliver remarks on the economy, but his speech so far has not revealed any new or detailed policy positions and instead is focused on bashing Harris on inflation and immigration.

“With four more years of Harris, your finances will never recover, they’re never going to recover. Our country will never recover, frankly, more importantly. It will be unrecoverable,” he said. “Vote Trump, and your incomes will soar, your savings will grow, young people will be able to afford a home and we will bring back the American dream bigger, better and stronger than ever before.”

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

The Republican Vice Presidential nominee, JD Vance, generally doesn’t want people to know that when he served in the US Marine Corps as a journalist (called a Combat Correspondent) deployed to Iraq, his name was not JD Vance.  He was Corporal James D. Hamel.  Corporal Hamel was assigned in the relatively safe, air-conditioned spaces on an al-Assad airbase in Western Iraq, where he put out press releases for the 2^ndMarine Air Wing for a year.  There was danger. Every US base was rocketed, and the roads were dicing with death, but writing press releases for The Eagle and Crescent base newspaper was his daily job.  At the end of four years, he got out without any distinguishing award or the coveted Combat Action Ribbon.  No matter, he served honorably. But his attack this week on retired Master Sargent Tim Walz, the homey beloved governor of Minnesota, went about twenty steps too far. 

Read the rest of Malcolm Nance’s piece at and subscribe to his Substack

Vice President Kamala Harris is set to deliver a speech Friday to roll out her economic portfolio in Raleigh, North Carolina, marking the first time Harris has released a major policy initiative since President Biden dropped out of the race last month. 

Harris is expected to announce that she will make tackling inflation a “Day One” priority, as well as outline a plan to lower costs for middle class families, take on corporate-price gouging and an overall focus on lowering costs for Americans, according to details shared by Harris-Walz campaign officials. 

According to the most recent CBS News poll, only 9% of registered voters rated the condition of the national economy as ‘very good’ with the economy and inflation ranking as the top issue of concern consistently across 2024 polls. Inflation has cooled since its peak in June 2022, but many voters are still feeling the financial strains. Prices are still 20% higher overall than prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News 

The United Auto Workers Union has filed federal labor charges against former President Donald Trump and Elon Musk, the union said Tuesday.

In a thread on X, the union said Trump and Musk had illegally attempted to “threaten and intimidate workers who stand up for themselves by engaging in protected concerted activity, such as strikes.”

Musk — who has endorsed Trump for president — interviewed him for two hours Monday night on X Spaces in a conversation that reached over 1 million users.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., fended off several primary challengersTuesday, NBC News projects, a victory for progressives after two of her fellow members of the “squad” suffered defeats this summer. 

Omar defeated former Minneapolis City Council member Don Samuels, who lost to her by just 2 percentage points in the 2022 primary, and two other challengers in Minnesota’s 5th District. 

Reps. Jamaal Bowman, of New York, and Cori Bush, of Missouri — also members of the progressive “squad” of lawmakers of colors — lost primaries in recent weeks that centered on the Democratic Party’s split over the Israel-Hamas war. 

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign bashed Elon Musk’s interview with former President Donald Trump that was hosted on X, The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter, issuing a statement that dunked on the two participants as “self-obsessed rich guys” who couldn’t run a livestream.

The chat between Musk and the ex-president got off to a late start, as many users were initially unable to tune in for over half an hour after the Space was supposed to open. The interview finally got started around 8:45 pm ET.

Musk claimed the problem was due to a “massive DDOS attack,” but the rest of Twitter/X — including Spaces — was showing normal functionality for users, and The Verge reported that several sources at X said that “there wasn’t actually a denial-of-service attack,” and there was a “99 percent” chance Musk was not telling the truth.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

A New York judge ruled Monday that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s ballot-access petition in the state is invalid, delivering the first major blow to the independent presidential candidate’s bid for nationwide ballot access.

New York Supreme Court Justice Christina Ryba accepted the arguments made by Democratic voters and supported by Clear Choice PAC, a pro-Kamala Harris group seeking to combat third party candidates, which claimed Kennedy violated state law by listing a New York address as his residence on the petition despite living in California.

Ryba wrote that Kennedy’s listed New York address was not a “bona fide and legitimate residence, but merely a ‘sham’ address that he assumed for the purpose of maintaining his voter registration and furthering his own political aspirations in this State.”

Read the rest of the story at CNN

A ballot measure for a proposed Arizona constitutional amendment that would establish a “fundamental right to abortion” has garnered enough signatures to be on the state’s ballot.

The Arizona Abortion Access Act received 577,971 certified signatures, the Arizona secretary of state’s office confirmed Monday – nearly 200,000 more than required to appear on the November ballot. An estimated 800,000 signatures were submitted, the office said.

The measure would enshrine the right to abortion in the state constitution up to fetal viability, which doctors believe is around 22 to 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

Donald Trump’s campaign, which has whiffed in its early attacks on Kamala Harris’ new presidential campaign, will grapple this week for a more effective foothold after the vice president transformed an election of stunning surprises.

The ex-president has deployed some of his most trusted political tools — targeting racial identify, creating alternative realities, flinging insults and gaslighting. On Sunday, for instance, he spread a new false conspiracy theory over the size of Harris’ rally crowd in Michigan last week. But his efforts to bring down his new adversary and her policy of ignoring his provocations have so far more highlighted his own liabilities than hers and emphasized the way Harris could offer a new choice for voters.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

Vice President Kamala Harris pledged Saturday to eliminate taxes on tipped wages for service workers, matching a proposal from former President Donald Trump.

During a rally in Las Vegas she held alongside her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Harris praised the work of the Culinary Workers Union, which endorsed her Friday, and vowed to continue to support policies that would benefit the union’s workers.

“When I am president, we will continue our fight for working families of America, including to raise the minimum wage, and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers,” Harris said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Vice President Kamala Harris will not agree to a Sept. 4 debate on Fox News against former President Donald Trump but could take up his offer for multiple debates if he shows up for their scheduled Sept. 10 debate on ABC News, a report claims.

Trump proposed three debates during a lengthy press conference on Thursday afternoon. In addition to the ABC debate which Trump initially agreed to with the Biden campaign, the former president pitched debates on Fox News and NBC scheduled for Sept. 4 and Sept. 24, respectively.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Vice President Kamala Harris took her first questions from the press on Thursday since becoming the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

Harris – who has received criticism for dodging questions from the press since she launched her presidential campaign last month – answered a few short questions from reporters on Thursday evening, addressing debates with former President Donald Trump and Republican attacks on her running mate Tim Walz.

“VP Kamala Harris took a few questions on the tarmac just now,” reported Politico White House correspondent Eugene Daniels in a series of social media posts. “On a sit-down interview: ‘I’ve talked to my team. I want us to get an interview scheduled before the end of the month.’”

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday appeared to confuse former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown with former California Gov. Jerry Brown in recounting what he characterized as a near-death experience.

During a news conference from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump said he once flew with Willie Brown in a helicopter that “went down” when he was asked about Vice President Kamala Harris’ past relationship with the former mayor and whether he thought the relationship had played a role in her career path.

“In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him. We thought maybe this is the end. We were in a helicopter going to a certain location together, and there was an emergency landing. This was not a pleasant landing, and Willie was, he was a little concerned,” Trump said. “So I know him. I know him pretty well.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

A Pakistani national with purported ties to Iran was arrested last month on charges he plotted to assassinate former President Donald Trump and multiple other public officials, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court.

While the criminal complaint does not mention Trump by name, multiple sources familiar with the case told ABC News one of the intended targets of the alleged plot was Trump. Other possible targets included government officials from both sides of the aisle, the sources said.

After spending time in Iran, Asif Merchant flew from Pakistan to the U.S. to recruit hitmen to carry out the alleged plot, according to a detention memo. The person he contacted was a confidential informant working with the FBI, according to the criminal complaint.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Vice President Kamala Harris has selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her vice presidential running mate, adding a popular Midwestern state executive to the Democratic ticket as the party gears up to hold onto key northern battleground states this fall.

Harris’ campaign texted supporters Tuesday morning, calling Walz “a battle-tested leader who has an incredible track record of getting things done for Minnesota families” and asking for donations to support the new ticket.

In picking Walz, who’s in his second term and also served 12 years in Congress, Harris will have as her No. 2 someone with a proven record of winning over white working-class voters in Rust Belt states while also boasting a robustly progressive record.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes’ office announced Monday that Jenna Ellis, a former Donald Trump attorney and one of the 18 defendants in the Arizona “fake electors” case stemming from the 2020 election, is cooperating with the prosecution.

Ellis signed the cooperation agreement Monday morning, according to the announcement, which said prosecutors are dropping the charges against her.

“This agreement represents a significant step forward in our case,” Mayes, a Democrat, said in a statement. “I am grateful to Ms. Ellis for her cooperation with our investigation and prosecution.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The head of a Senate panel investigating Clarence Thomas said Monday that the Supreme Court justice had failed to disclose additional private jet travel.

In a letter to an attorney for conservative megadonor Harlan Crow, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said flight records show that in 2010 Thomas and his wife traveled round-trip from Hawaii to New Zealand aboard Crow’s private jet.

Wyden, who chairs the Senate Finance Committee, said the finding intensified his concerns that Crow was engaged in a scheme to avoid paying taxes.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Vice President Kamala Harris will set out this week on a swing-state campaign blitz, giving her a far heavier travel schedule than her opponent, former President Donald Trump.

It will be a critical week for Harris, who is rushing to introduce herself to voters with just three months until Election Day. It will also be the first time she will appear with her yet-to-be-announced running mate.

Starting Tuesday, Harris will campaign across seven swing states over five days, one of the heaviest weeks of campaign-related travel in the general election.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Hurricane Debby is nearing landfall, with the eyewall moving onshore in the Florida Big Bend area, according to a special 4 a.m. ET update from the National Hurricane Center.

Landfall is when the center of the eye moves over land.

Debby has sustained maximum winds of 80 mph, with stronger gusts. It is about 40 miles west-northwest of Cedar Key, 80 miles south-southeast of Tallahassee, Florida, and is moving to the north-northeast at 12 mph.

Read the rest of the story at CNN

Boosted by Democrats, younger and Black voters becoming more engaged and likely to vote, and by women decidedly thinking she’d favor their interests more, Vice President Kamala Harris has reset the 2024 presidential race. 

She has a 1-point edge nationally — something President Biden never had (he was down by 5 points when he left the race) — and Harris and former President Donald Trump are tied across the collective battleground states. 

Looking ahead, voters are also defining why the next few weeks could be critical. 

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.acknowledged Sunday that he abandoned a young dead bear in Central Park after he initially planned to skin the cub for meat.

Kennedy said in a three-minute video on X that The New Yorker magazine found out about the incident, the date of which is unknown, and asked him for confirmation. Kennedy described driving north of New York City to go falconing with a group when he saw a woman in a van hit and kill a young bear.

“So I pulled over and I picked up the bear and put him in the back of my van because I was going to skin the bear, and it was very good condition,” Kennedy said in the video, talking to Roseanne Barr. “And I was going to put the meat in my refrigerator.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance brought his fiery campaign rhetoric on immigration to the U.S.-Mexico border Thursday as the Trump campaign drubs Vice President Kamala Harris over the Biden administration’s approach to border security. 

Sharpening his attacks on Harris from the stump in recent days, Vance, the Republican senator from Ohio, visited an unfinished part of the border wall in Arizona — a stark visual to drive home the campaign’s juxtaposition of Harris’ and Trump’s records. 

“It is not hard to secure the southern border. You just have to reimplement some commonsense policies,” Vance said after he received a briefing from border patrol union members, a representative from the sheriff’s department and a local rancher. 

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The vetting team for Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign has met with six potential running mate contenders as her selection process nears its end, two sources familiar with the campaign said.

The six contenders are Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

All of them are around the same age as Harris, 59, or younger, and most have already stumped for the vice president on the campaign trail or in media appearances since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.

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Republican senators ABC News spoke with Thursday squirmed when asked about former President Donald Trump falsely questioning Vice President Kamala Harris’ racial identity during his interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention a day earlier — as the former president doubled down on the false attack.

In a social media post Thursday morning, former President Donald Trump shared a family portrait of Vice President Kamala Harris and wrote, “Your warmth, friendship, and love of your Indian Heritage are very much appreciated.”

His social media post reiterated his false claim that Harris only emphasized her Asian-American heritage — something he mentioned during his interview at the NABJ convention on Wednesday.

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At an event in Houston tonight for the historically Black sorority Sigma Gamma Rho, Harris said Trump’s comments at an appearance at an annual convention of Black journalists today were divisive and disrespectful.

“It was the same old show — the divisiveness and the disrespect,” Harris said. “And let me just say the American people deserve better. The American people deserve better.”

Trump had engaged in a hostile exchange with journalists asking him questions during a panel at the event this afternoon, and he had falsely questioned Harris’ Black identity, saying that a number of years ago “she happened to turn Black and now wants to be known as Black.”

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Three men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks, including alleged mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have reached plea agreements in the military commissions process, officials said Wednesday.

Mohammed, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi are scheduled to appear at a hearing at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, next week, according to the Office of Military Commissions.

The details of the plea agreement are unclear, but the defendants are expected to plead guilty to lesser charges that could spare them the death penalty.

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The United Auto Workers has endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris over Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump.

The union’s endorsement shouldn’t be surprising. UAW President Shawn Fain has been outspoken against Trump. The Detroit union also has historically supported Democrats, including President Joe Biden.

It comes after Biden withdrew his re-election bid and endorsed Harris to become the Democratic nominee against Trump.

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On the campaign trail in Nevada on Tuesday, Ohio Sen. JD Vance attacked Vice President Kamala Harris as “dangerously liberal” and reiterated former President Donald Trump’s pledge to launch mass deportation operations in his second term.

Trump’s running mate is attempting to introduce himself to a national audience as the Harris campaign and other Democrats paint him as out-of-touch, hard right and “anti-woman,” with a particular focus on his anti-abortion stances and previous comments describing Harris — the Republican ticket’s likely Democratic opponent in November — and other leaders in the Democratic Party as “a bunch of childless cat ladies.”

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The Heritage Foundation official leading Project 2025 is stepping down and the group is winding down its policy work following sustained criticism by former President Donald Trump and his campaign.

Trump’s campaign said in a statement Tuesday that the announcement should put on notice others trying to link themselves to Trump and that it “welcomed” reports of the group’s “demise.”

“Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you,” co-campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said.

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As soon as this Thursday, delegates in the Democratic Party will hold a virtual vote to select their new nominee. Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to run unopposed. Here’s more on what it means and how the vote will work:

Who gets to vote?

The nearly 4,000 pledged delegates allocated during the Democratic primary process will be voting on the nomination. 

Do Biden’s delegates automatically go to Harris?

The vast majority of the party’s delegates were pledged to President Biden before he dropped out and endorsed Harris. These delegates weren’t automatically assigned to Harris, but within the 48 hours of her campaign launch, an overwhelming majority of the delegates said they would back her. 

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Some famous “white dudes” — including the guy who played “The Dude” — rallied in support of Vice President Kamala Harris, who would be the first female president if elected, in the inaugural event of a new group called White Dudes for Harris on Monday night.

The name may be a bit facetious, but the star-studded Zoom call attracted more than 180,000 participants and raised almost $4 million, according to organizers, who are themselves a group of white dude Democratic political operatives. 

Over the nearly 3½-hour call, they said, they sold more than 5,700 White Dudes for Harris trucker caps — “not the pointy ones,” joked Ross Morales Rocketto, one of the organizers, referring to less PC gatherings of white dudes like the Ku Klux Klan.

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North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper has informed Kamala Harris‘ presidential campaign that he does not want to be under consideration in her search for a vice presidential candidate, he said Monday night.

Cooper said in a statement explaining his decision that although he was taking himself out of consideration, he’s still backing Harris’ candidacy.

“I strongly support Vice President Harris’ campaign for President,” Cooper said. “I know she’s going to win and I was honored to be considered for this role. This just wasn’t the right time for North Carolina and for me to potentially be on a national ticket.

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