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Story by Matt Naham

Donald Trump’s attorneys received a letter from Special Counsel Jack Smith informing the former president that he is a “target” of a criminal investigation, reportedly the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, raising the possibility that a grand jury indictment under the Espionage Act or for obstruction is “imminent.”

“It means they expect to indict you”
“No one has told me I’m being indicted,” Trump said in response. But a target letter is not a guarantee of an indictment. What a target letter does, however, is substantially ratchet up the likelihood of an indictment.

Former federal prosecutor and current legal analyst Renato Mariotti said it simply Wednesday night on MSNBC: “The bottom line is, if a prosecutor tells you that you are the target of their investigation, it means they expect to indict you.”
Story by Milla

A federal judge partly struck down Florida's ban on gender-affirming healthcare for transgender minors, as he condemns those who claim that “transgender identity is not real, that it is made up." The ruling challenges the law DeSantis’ signed before confirming he was running for POTUS Judge Robert Hinkle issued a preliminary injunction regarding three transgender ...

The ruling challenges the law DeSantis’ signed before confirming he was running for POTUS
Judge Robert Hinkle issued a preliminary injunction regarding three transgender minors in Florida. The judge wrote, “The elephant in the room should be noted at the outset. Gender identity is real. The record makes this clear.” The judge also shared that despite resect unprecedented attacks on transgender medical treatment for minors, it has been endorsed by medical associations.
Story by Matthew Chapman

After years of legal problems, including an indictment, an FBI investigation, and allegations of retaliation against subordinates and improper use of government funds to support a donor, impeached longtime Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is set to face a trial in the state Senate — the first such trial for a statewide Texas official in decades. And the evidence is "ten times worse" than what has been revealed to the public, attorneys who will be arguing the case told The Daily Beast.

"Famed criminal defense attorney Dick DeGuerin — who has represented clients ranging from former U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay to convicted murderer and New York City real estate heir Robert Durst to cult leader David Koresh—is now determined to 'save and protect the people of Texas from a crooked attorney general,'" wrote Justin Rohrlich. "'It’s a matter of corruption, a matter of abuse of the public trust, a matter of misuse of public resources, flat-out bribery, perjury,' said DeGuerin, a one-time prosecutor who will help make the case on the House floor for Paxton’s conviction. 'It’s just conduct that convinces anyone that looks at it fairly that the office of attorney general has been abused and used for personal gain.'"
Story by Daniel Arkin • 1h ago

Pat Robertson, the conservative evangelist and media mogul who galvanized the modern Christian right, cultivated a massive national following and regularly drew criticism for his incendiary political statements, died Thursday, according to his official broadcasting network.

He was 93.

The Christian Broadcasting Network, the organization he founded, did not immediately announce Robertson's cause of death. "Pat Robertson dedicated his life to preaching the Gospel, helping those in need, and educating the next generation," the company said.

He was one of the most prominent and influential Christian broadcasters and entrepreneurs in the United States — equal parts religious leader and culture warrior.
Story by Loren Grush

(Bloomberg) -- A small aerospace equipment maker accused Boeing Co. of stealing technology for proprietary tools used to install engines on NASA’s new moon rocket, bolts on Dreamliner jets and fasteners on the International Space Station that don’t leak.

Wilson Aerospace, based in Fort Collins, Colorado, was Boeing’s partner on several projects over the past decade, including for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, according to a federal lawsuit late Tuesday in Washington state.

In 2014, Wilson helped Boeing with engine installation on NASA’s Space Launch System, the Colorado company said. But after about two years, Boeing ended the contract and cut off communication with Wilson after “brazenly stealing” technology, which led to misuse of a specialized torque wrench that could “put lives at risk,” Wilson alleged in the suit.
The smoke in major metro areas, including New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., was expected to cause unhealthy air for all groups.
By Marlene Lenthang and Phil Helsel

After a day of orange haze that cast a pall over New York City, obscuring some of the country’s best-known landmarks with smoke from Canadian wildfires, New Yorkers and others were in store for another day of bad air Thursday.

The smoke in major metro areas, including Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., was expected to continue through the day and cause unhealthy air for all groups, the National Weather Service said.

Mayor Eric Adams called the situation unprecedented, with air quality advisories in place for all five boroughs of the city of more than 8 million people.
By JENNIFER PELTZ

NEW YORK (AP) — Manhattan’s top prosecutor on Tuesday disavowed over 300 convictions tied to police officers who were themselves found guilty of crimes, the latest in over 1,000 dismissals citywide of cases connected to officers who were charged or convicted.

The latest abandoned convictions, almost all misdemeanors, date back as far as 1996. Each involves one of nine officers who were later convicted of on-the-job offenses — among them taking bribes, illegally selling guns, lying under oath and planting drugs on suspects — and are no longer on the force. The cases put more than 50 people behind bars and imposed fines on 130, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said.

“We cannot stand by convictions that are built on cases brought by members of law enforcement who have violated the law,” Bragg, a Democrat, said in a statement after 308 misdemeanor cases were thrown out Tuesday. A similar proceeding was planned for eight felony cases Wednesday.

Since the start of 2021, Bragg and at least three of New York City’s four other district attorneys — in Brooklyn, the Bronx and Queens — have arranged the dismissal of a total of more than 1,200 cases connected to officers who had been convicted or charged, according to a tally compiled by The Associated Press.
Story by kmclaughlin@businessinsider.com (Kelly McLaughlin)

A Florida GOP lawmaker said he still supports a strict anti-immigration law he backed earlier this year — but now fears the new legislation could be causing a "major problem" as migrants flee the state.

"The bill has a lot of negative consequences that I'm trying to mitigate," Florida Rep. Rick Roth told Insider. "The bill has a lot of positive consequences, which I believe was the main purpose of the bill, which is to keep people from moving to Florida that are undocumented."

Roth spoke to Insider after he and fellow Republican state legislators Alina Garcia and Juan Fernandez Barquin held a meeting about the new law — FL Law SB1718, which takes effect next month — in Hialeah, Florida, on Monday morning, according to an advertisement for it shared on Twitter by activist Thomas Kennedy.

During the meeting, Roth told constituents that migrants have started moving to Georgia and other states.
Whistleblower former intelligence official says government possesses ‘intact and partially intact’ craft of non-human origin
Adam Gabbatt

The US has been urged to disclose evidence of UFOs after a whistleblower former intelligence official said the government has possession of “intact and partially intact” alien vehicles.

The former intelligence official David Grusch, who led analysis of unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAP) within a US Department of Defense agency, has alleged that the US has craft of non-human origin.

Information on these vehicles is being illegally withheld from Congress, Grusch told the Debrief. Grusch said when he turned over classified information about the vehicles to Congress he suffered retaliation from government officials. He left the government in April after a 14-year career in US intelligence.

Jonathan Grey, a current US intelligence official at the National Air and Space Intelligence Center (Nasic), confirmed the existence of “exotic materials” to the Debrief, adding: “We are not alone.”
Did Marjorie Taylor Greene forgot Russia attack Ukraine or she supports Russia

Story by Gideon Rubin

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Tuesday slammed members of both parties over their support for Ukraine amid the Eastern European country’s ongoing conflict that began with Russia’s unprovoked invasion last year.

“I’m going to fight Ukraine funding,” Greene told reporters in an exchange captured on video sheposted on Twitter.

“I’m purely disgusted with this town that they are so bloodthirsty for murder and death in Ukraine. Ukrainian civilians are being killed constantly, Russian soldiers are dying, and Ukrainian soldiers are dying, and then other people that go there to fight this war are dying."

The congresswoman continued:
‘Spycatcher’ agent who captured Robert Hanssen speaks out after his death
Story by Sheila Flynn

An agent integral to spy Robert Hanssen’s capture has said the former FBI agent “had blood on his hands” – and that Hanssen’s death in prison this week left a chapter in his own life unresolved.

Eric O’Neill, a so-called “spycatcher” who helped take down the career traitor, tweeted on Monday: “BREAKING: I just heard that the FBI’s most damaging spy Robert Hanssen, code name: Gray Day, passed away in his jail cell today. This closes the door on a huge moment in my life. I had hoped to confront him one last time, face to face.”

The former agent continued: “I had hoped to meet with #RobertHanssen one last time in his cell at ‘Supermax’ in Colorado. With his death this morning, I won’t be able to fully resolve the impact this spy had on my life.
Ron DeSantis costs Florida extra millions of taxpayer's money, claim experts – "He's not interested in any limitations or guardrails at all"
Story by Milla

DeSantis is piling up legal fees, but Republican lawmakers allegedly approved an additional $16 million for the Governor to “be in a comfortable position to speak his mind, and we're going to support him on those things." DeSantis’ war on Disney is billed hourly Business Insider reported that DeSantis’ team spends nearly $1,300 per hour ...

Story by Dan Robinson

Disgruntled customers claim throttling happens any time of the day or night
Starlink users in the UK claim their download speeds appear to be getting capped at about 50Mbit/sec if they try to retrieve large files from the web. Some reckon this amounts to mis-selling, saying they are not being provided with the advertised speed for the service.…

In a Reddit thread highlighted by a reader, British customers of the Starlink satellite broadband service complained the speed of their connection was being limited if they were downloading anything for more than 10–15 minutes.

"My speedtest.net is over 200Mb here in rural Aberdeenshire but right enough the throughput reduces to slightly over 50Mb when downloading large files even though it starts off well over 150Mb for the first 10 minutes or so," one poster gripes.
Story by Matthew Chapman

Former President Donald Trump was infamous for campaigning on fear of crime — and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, now challenging Trump for the nomination in 2024, is determined to outdo him, telling voters to fear criminal justice reform and progressive cities as morasses of violence and danger. But DeSantis' own state reportedly doesn't prove his point.

In reality, wrote Radley Balko for The Daily Beast, DeSantis' panic on crime gets everything wrong — including the fact that it's worse in his own state than in many of the liberal jurisdictions he condemns.

"We can start with the First Step Act, Trump’s uncharacteristically hopeful and optimistic criminal justice reform bill (which, naturally, he later regretted). DeSantis recently called the law a 'jailbreak bill' that 'allowed dangerous people out of prison who have now re-offended, and really, really hurt a number of people,'" wrote Balko. "There's no evidence for any of this. If a significant number of prisoners released under the FSA have gone on to commit new violent or sex crimes, we'd know their names. Their photos would be on the cover of the New York Post, their names emblazoned in Fox News chyrons."
Story by David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement

Bill Barr, once Donald Trump‘s favorite attorney general and the one who was seen as his “faithful protector and personal henchman” for his “willingness to enable Trump’s darkest impulses,” came out swinging against his former boss Tuesday, refuting his “witch hunt” claims, and saying the ex-president “jerked” DOJ around over hundreds of classified and top secret documents he refused to return.

“I think if based on the facts, as the facts come out, I think over time, people will say that this is not a case of the Department of Justice, you know, conducting a ‘witch hunt,'” Barr told CBS News Tuesday, ahead of what many believe is an impending indictment on what experts say could include charges of obstruction of justice and charges under the Espionage Act.

“In fact,” Barr continued, praising his former agency, “they approached this very delicately, with deference to the President, and this would have gotten nowhere had the President just returned the documents.”
Story by Ken Meyer

CNN CEO Chris Licht will be taking his leave from the network in the fallout from an apparent loss of confidence in his leadership.

The news was broken by Dylan Byers of Puck news, who wrote on Twitter that Licht will be leaving the company and that he will be temporarily replaced by CNN executive Amy Entelis.

Mediaite has reached out to communications executives at CNN and Warner Bros Discovery, and the story has not yet been confirmed.
Story by Ed Mazza

Fox News host Harris Faulkner is getting called out on Twitter for uttering a “blatant” falsehood about the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic as she criticized the protective measures that were in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Faulkner, who is getting a tryout in former host Tucker Carlson’s old primetime slot, claimed schools didn’t close in 1918. Much like her predecessor, who becameinfamous for spreading COVID-19 misinformation, she was wrong.   

School closures were not only common in 1918, studies have found they were effective in reducing the excess death rate from Spanish flu ― and so many people responded that a “community note” correcting the misinformation was appended.
Story by Laurelle Stelle

Much of Arizona is experiencing long-term drought, according to the Arizona Department of Water Resources. But despite the water shortage, one Saudi Arabian company is allowed to pump unlimited amounts of Arizona’s precious groundwater to grow crops for its home country, CBS News reported.

What’s happening?
Like California, Arizona’s water situation is concerning. Even after a wet winter, the state has not recovered from what many have called a “megadrought.”

According to the Arizona Department of Water Resources, there are no statewide restrictions on water usage other than a rule that “water should only be used for beneficial purposes.” However, local governments are expected to determine what kind of water conservation measures are needed in their areas.

This may explain why Fondomonte Arizona, the Saudi Arabian company operating in Arizona, has not yet faced any restrictions.
Matthew Chapman

Last year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced to the nation that he had arrested several people who illegally voted in defiance of re-enfranchisement laws — though the cases mainly fell apart before being dismissed. Now, similar cases have cropped up in a heavily-Republican county — and they're not getting prosecuted, according to The Daily Beast.

"The office of State Attorney Bill Gladson confirmed in a May 2022 letter obtained by the Orlando Sentinel that the six offenders voted in Lake County — but that they couldn’t be prosecuted because their fraud wasn’t willful after they were 'mistakenly given voter registration cards,'" said the report.

"The decision not to prosecute the men came mere months before 20 ex-felons living in majority Democrat counties were quickly jailed after being arrested by DeSantis’ new election police force, the Office of Election Crimes and Security. Each of the 20 had also voted, but they too had received voter ID cards.
Story by Alex Griffing

Department of Homeland Security Inspector General Joseph Cuffari testified before the House Oversight Committee in a hearing on Tuesday that was supposed to be about staffing the border patrol, but took a turn as many of the Democrats on the panel grilled Cuffari about information regarding the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who is the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, joined the hearing and grilled Cuffari regarding past allegations he had altered reports from his office and did not alert Congress in a timely fashion that the Secret Service was not complying with DHS information requests.

“Your duty under the Inspector General Act is to immediately report flagrant and serious abuses that are taking place. You were aware, at least as early as May of 2021, that the Secret Service had erased thousands of text messages that were sent before and during the January 6th violent attack on the Capitol, the Congress, and the vice president,” Raskin began, adding:
Story by Mark Alesia, Investigative Reporter

Donald Trump has been here before — 35 years ago — with an investigation. Then a flood in a room with evidence. It happened when auditors in New York City spent two years probing more than $3 million in unpaid rent the city was expecting from Trump’s Grand Hyatt hotel from operations in 1986.

That flood was detailed in David Cay Johnston's 2016 book "The Making of Donald Trump," and reported by CBS News at the time in the context of then-candidate Trump refusing to release his tax returns, purportedly because he was being audited. It said the two-year audit of Trump’s hotel from the late 1980s involved “stonewalling, disorganization and obfuscation at every turn.”

The story has a whole new context after CNN reported that in October of last year, a drained swimming pool at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home and resort flooded a room with computer servers containing surveillance video. Skepticism abounded immediately that it was done on purpose to damage evidence in the Justice Department’s investigation of potential obstruction. Trump is under investigation for his handling of classified documents after leaving office as president. The video could show how and when documents were moved.
Sarah K. Burris

CNN reported on Monday that a mysterious flood happened at Mar-a-Lago in October 2022 when the Justice Department was telling Donald Trump to preserve documents and the security footage at the country club. The Washington Post reported last Tuesday on an incident with the security cameras and a member of the former president's staff.

"The employee allegedly had a conversation with an IT worker at the site about how the security cameras worked and how long images remained stored in the system," the Post reported, citing a person familiar with the investigation. CNN explained that when the staff was draining the pool, it inadvertently flooded the room where the security footage was being kept.
By CBS News

Sacramento, Calif. — California's attorney general said the state of Florida appears to have arranged for a group of South American migrants to be dropped off outside a Sacramento church .

"While this is still under investigation, we can confirm these individuals were in possession of documentation purporting to be from the government of the State of Florida," Rob Bonta tweeted in a statement late Saturday .

The documents indicate the Florida Division of Emergency Management coordinated the flights, Bonta told the Los Angeles Times. Florida paid contractor Vertol Systems Inc. $1.56 million to fly migrants from Texas to Martha's Vineyard , Massachusetts, last year.

Bonta told CNN, "We believe that the state of Florida, Gov. DeSantis, is behind it. Gov. DeSantis has demonstrated his pettiness, his lack of substance, his xenophobia, and his willingness to treat human beings, people, as political pawns. It's wrong, and we are getting to the bottom of it."
Story by Milla

The override of Governor Laura Kelly’s veto of a transgender student-athlete ban led to more burning questions. Kansas lawmakers, led by Kansas House Speaker Daniel Hawkins, are accused of passing more than an anti-LGBTQ bill. The viral response The bill bans transgender girls from participating in women’s sports from kindergarten through college. Even more disturbingly, ...

Brandon Van Grack, a former national security official at the Department of Justice, talks with Rachel Maddow about Donald Trump's lawyers meeting with federal prosecutors, new reporting on special counsel Jack Smith using a Florida grand jury in addition to one in Washington, D.C. and the fever-pitched expectation that Donald Trump will be facing federal charges in the very short term future
Story by Charlie Nash

A Texas sheriff recommended charges on Monday over a stunt by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in which migrants from the southern border were sent to affluent Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.

The Bexar County Sheriff’s Office announced on Monday that it had “officially filed a completed criminal case with the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office regarding the incident from September 2022 where 49 migrants were flown to Martha’s Vineyard.”

“The charge filed is Unlawful Restraint and several accounts were filed, both misdemeanor and felony. At this time, the case is being reviewed by the DA’s office,” the office of Democratic Sheriff Javier Salazar revealed.

Immigration lawyer and former federal prosecutor Michael Wildes praised the decision during an appearance on NewsNation’s Dan Abrams Live, arguing that DeSantis “had no legal authority as a governor” to send the migrants to a different state.
Story by By ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for Donald Trump met with Justice Department officials on Monday as a decision nears on whether to bring criminal charges over the handling of classified documents at the former president’s Florida estate.

The Trump lawyers two weeks ago requested a meeting with Attorney General Merrick Garland to raise concerns about what they alleged was prosecutorial misconduct and overreach by the team led by special counsel Jack Smith. But a defense attorney meeting with Justice Department officials is also often used as an opportunity to try to persuade prosecutors against bringing charges in the final stages of an investigation.

It was not clear what was discussed during the meeting, but Trump, in a social media post and talk radio interview, signaled that he was prepared for the possibility that he would be charged and reiterated his attacks on the investigation.
Story by By SCOTT BAUER, Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin judge on Monday declined to dismiss a lawsuit seeking to ensure that no records are deleted from a now-closed state office created to investigate former President Donald Trump's loss in 2020.

The lawsuit was one of several filed by liberal watchdog group American Oversight against former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman and the office of special counsel that he led. Assembly Speaker Robin Vos hired Gableman to lead the probe in 2021 under pressure from Trump and conservative Republicans in Wisconsin who were pushing for decertifying Biden's win.

Vos put the investigation on hold in April 2022 and then fired Gableman in August 2022 after he turned up no evidence to back Trump's false claims that the election had been stolen from him. Vos fired Gableman just days after Vos won his primary over an opponent endorsed by Gableman and Trump. Vos called Gableman an “embarrassment” to himself and the state.

Even though the office has been unstaffed for nearly a year, it continues to fight open records lawsuits. Courts have repeatedly ruled against Gableman and his former office in those cases.
Tom Boggioni

Reflecting on a reports that the grand jury empaneled by special counsel Jack Smith will meet again after a month-long quiet period, former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade suggested there is always the possibility that Smith used the downtime to gain approval to indict Donald Trump.

Speaking with MSNBC host Ana Cabrera, McQuade was asked what could be going down this week when the grand jury looking into Donald Trump's mishandling of sensitive documents meets after having already heard from a wide array of witnesses.

"Here's one possible theory, just a theory. They last met May 5th, a period of quiet, and are now coming back," she said.
Story by Brad Reed

In 2020, former President Donald Trump's campaign hired two private firms to investigate claims of mass voter fraud in the presidential election, and both firms concluded that there was simply insufficient evidence to prove the election had been stolen by President Joe Biden.

Now the Washington Post reports that both special counsel Jack Smith and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis have taken interest in the firms' work as they probe whether Trump broke any laws when he tried to stay in power after losing the 2020 election.

The Post's report brings new details about the findings of the two firms, Berkeley Research Group and Simpatico Software Systems, who are now both cooperating with investigators.

One particularly notable detail involves Ken Block, the president of Simpatico Software Systems, who provided the Trump campaign with lengthy and detailed presentations debunking the false claims the former president and his allies were pushing about mass voter fraud.
Story by Tom Boggioni

Reacting to a report that Donald Trump was sharing highly sensitive government documents with visitors at his Bedminster resort, a former national security adviser to ex-vice president Mike Pence said she was very concerned but not overly surprised.

Appearing on MSNBNC with host Alex Witt, Olivia Troye pointed out that in her dealings with the former president who is now facing possible Espionage Act charges, he was very cavalier with sensitive information.

Reflecting on the new revelations that could bolster special counsel Jack Smith's federal investigation of Trump, Troye stated there were always concerns about the former president.

"I think Trump is seriously a very unstable and unfit leader," she told the MSNBC host. "He was very trivial when it came to matters of national security, and he did not have the grasp to understand the gravity of certain situations; the strategic understanding of what it meant internationally and regionally when some of these decisions were being discussed, and potentially being made."
Story by Navdeep Yadav

Donald Trump's National Security Adviser, John Bolton, said the former president did ‘enormous damage’ to the country and the Republican party during his time at the White House.

What Happened: Bolton, in an interview on CNN, said he would not sign the Republican National Committee's pledge to back the party's ultimate nominee if Trump were to be the GOP candidate for the U.S. presidential election in 2024.
WFAA

A fighter jet caused a loud sonic boom that could be heard and felt across the D.C. area.
Story by Maya Boddie

Florida Governor and 2024 GOP candidate Ron DeSantis and his wife Casey DeSantis recently visited Iowa for a campaign appearance, and once again, made their intention to wage a "War on Woke" clear.

NBC News Correspondent Dasha Burns shared a clip of her interview with the governor via Twitter, writing, "DeSantis and Trump are battling it out in the Governor’s first week as a candidate. A surprising split came on the “woke” issue with Trump stepping back and DeSantis leaning in. I asked DeSantis about it today: 'You've got to be willing to fight the woke' WATCH"

In the clip, Burns can be heard saying, "[Trump] said he doesn't like to use the word 'woke’' because people don't know what it means," noting, "That's obviously a big part of your messaging. What do you say to that?"
Story by The Week Staff

Republicans have proposed restarting construction on ex-President Trump's unfinished wall. Is the wall effective? Here's everything you need to know:

How much wall did Trump build?
At a recent CNN town hall, former President Donald Trump claimed that his administration finished building a wall along the 1,954-mile border separating the U.S. and Mexico. But according to a Customs and Border Protection report written two days after Trump left office in 2021, about 458 miles of the wall were completed under his administration, with another 280 miles identified for construction but never finished. Of those 458 miles, just 52 covered sections of the border that hadn't previously had a barrier. The other 406 replaced shorter barriers that already existed with a fence made of reinforced hollow steel bollards ranging from 18 to 33 feet high. In some sections, lights, cameras and sensors accompanied the new barriers; in others, a secondary fence was built to reinforce an existing one. The project cost an estimated $15 billion, with the money coming from Department of Defense funds and appropriations from Congress. Combined with fencing that pre-dated Trump's presidency, about 700 miles — mostly along public land in Arizona and New Mexico — now have a barrier. In May, House Republicans passed an immigration bill calling for resuming construction.

Is the new wall effective?
It does not seem to be deterring migrants from coming to or crossing the border. The number of crossings, as measured by apprehensions at the border, rose steeply during Trump's term, more than doubling from 2018 to 2019. The pandemic initially slowed migration, but by spring 2021, the number of unlawful border crossings and arrests — separate from those legally applying for asylum — had risen above the totals recorded in most months before Trump began building the wall. Border Patrol officials maintain, however, that the towering bollards have served a purpose. "There is a psychological reason," said Chief Patrol Agent Patricia McGurk-Daniel. "It's a high fence. You don't want to cross it, but it's also tall enough our agents can see through." Professional smugglers and determined migrants, however, have found myriad ways to get through and over the wall.
Brad Reed

David Moerschel, a member of the Oath Keepers who was convicted of seditious conspiracy earlier this year, admitted that he made a mistake in deciding to join the militia to storm the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021.

As reported by Politico's Kyle Cheney, Moerschel said during a sentencing hearing that he regrets getting mixed up with Kelly Meggs, the leader of the Florida Oath Keepers who was sentenced last month to more than a decade in jail after also being convicted on seditious conspiracy charges.

"I don't mean anything bad about Kelly Meggs, but he was a used car salesman," Moerschel told the court, according to Cheney. "It was dumb to follow that guy."

Cheney also notes that Moerschel was a neuroscientist by trade before he got himself involved in trying to block the peaceful transfer of power in the name of former President Donald Trump, who prior to getting involved in politics was the host of "Celebrity Apprentice."
Story by Brad Reed

Some Republicans in the state of Georgia are lamenting the turn their party has taken under former President Donald Trump, as many of them blame him for twice costing them United States Senate elections. In interviews with the Atlanta Journal Constitution, several longtime Republicans in the state expressed concern about how Trump has turned politics into a nonstop spectacle that has alienated swing voters throughout the country.

Ed Henderson, an officer with the Rabun County GOP, argued that moderate forces within the Georgia GOP needed to be more forceful in retaking their party from MAGA extremists who keep losing them elections. "You have a complete divorce between what 1,500 activists want and common sense,” he said. “We’re a party now of performance artists. And extremism sells.”
Story by psquire@insider.com (Paul Squire)

Secret Service agents missed an intruder who got into a Biden official's home in April because they were distracted by their personal cellphones, CNN reported. In the April incident, an apparently intoxicated man made it inside national security adviser Jake Sullivan's home in the early morning hours.

Sullivan confronted the man inside his house and told him to leave, the Washington Post first reported. The Secret Service agents guarding Sullivan's house didn't even realize someone had gotten inside until Sullivan had the confused man leave and then went outside to tell the agents what happened, according to the Post.
Brad Reed

A new report from The Atlantic's Tim Alberta documents how CNN boss Chris Licht completely ruined any shot he had at rehabilitating his network in the wake of its widely criticized town hall with former President Donald Trump.

Alberta starts off by documenting how Licht initially planned to use the town hall as an olive branch to American conservatives to show that his network was willing to give the former president a venue where he could get a fair hearing.

What actually happened, however, was that Trump steamrolled over host Kaitlan Collins for two hours and somehow managed to anger Americans across the political spectrum.

"Licht knew this was bad—very, very bad," Alberta writes of the CNN boss's reaction in the wake of the town hall. "Republicans were angry at CNN. Democrats were angry at CNN. Journalists were angry at CNN. The only one who wasn’t angry, it seemed, was Trump, most likely because he’d succeeded in disgracing the network on its own airwaves."
Story by Lyndon Nicholas

Deep space exploration has been the topic of fictional movies and franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars for generations. Although it is becoming more of a reality, companies often have overlooked the negative impacts of these endeavors in favor of expediency and spectacle. According to an article from The New York Times, the recent SpaceX Starship launch failure caused an unknown amount of unforeseen environmental damage to the surrounding area, including the city of Port Isabel, Texas.

Resident Sharon Almaguer called it "truly terrifying" and "on a completely different level" from previous launches from Elon Musk‘s SpaceX launchpad in Boca Chica, and expressed the sentiment that "the locals here are just being sacrificed." Valerie Bates, a spokeswoman for the city, described a cloud of "thick, granular, sand grain that just landed on everything," while local fitness gym owner Luis Alanas described the rumbling as equivalent to a "mini earthquake."

Louis Balderas, the founder of LabPadre, which films SpaceX launches, described  "bowling ball-sized pieces of concrete" and a large crater in the Earth that resulted from the launch.
Story by Laurelle Stelle

The Texas legislature is currently considering a bill to heavily restrict the generation of wind and solar energy, University of Texas at Austin research scientist Joshua D. Rhodes revealed in a tweet.

The bill in question is Texas SB 624, co-sponsored by Senators Lois Kolkhorst, Mayes Middleton, and Bryan Hughes. It establishes new permit requirements for affordable “renewable energy” — not for dirty energy sources, such as coal. If passed, it would take effect this September.

According to the latest version of the bill (as of late May), any Texas resident with a large solar or wind system who wants to connect to the grid would need a permit. The lengthy permitting process requires a public meeting to allow comments, multiple surveys and assessments, and a website with information about the project.

SB 624 also requires that wind turbines be placed a whole 3,000 feet — more than half a mile — away from the property line, except with the permission of neighboring property owners. “Texas #SB624 would turn all of Texas into an HOA where your neighbors are now going to be able to tell you what you can and can’t do on your own property,” tweeted Rhodes.
Story by Stephanie Kaplan

President Joe Biden isn't having the best week! Hours after taking a tumble while onstage at the 2023 U.S. Air Force Academy graduation in Colorado, the Pennsylvania native had another incident while arriving back at the White House.

According to a report, on Thursday, June 1, the POTUS "bumped his head on the doorframe while exiting the helicopter but otherwise appeared spry." The head bump didn't seem to bother the 80-year-old, as when he walked across the lawn to return home, he poked fun at his accidents.
Story by Tatyana Tandanpolie

The Atlanta-area probe of former President Donald Trump's attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss has expanded to include activities in Washington, D.C. and other states, two sources with knowledge of the investigation told The Washington Post. The inquiry's expansion is a sign that "prosecutors may be building a sprawling case under Georgia's racketeering laws," the outlet reported.

Fulton Country District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat, began her investigation over two years ago into Trump and his allies' efforts to reverse his loss, indicating during its course that she may use the state's far-reaching Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statute to accuse them of a larger scheme.

Recently, according to the two sources, Willis has pursued information regarding the Trump campaign's hiring of two firms, one of which investigators have subpoenaed, to identify voter fraud across the country and hiding their results when they didn't find it. The DA, whose investigation is separate from a similar federal probe into the former president, has said that she plans to make a charging decision this summer as early as August.
David Knowles·Senior Editor

Federal prosecutors have obtained a recording of former President Donald Trump on which he acknowledges that he was in possession of classified documents he took with him when he left the White House and that he did not have the power to declassify them, CNN reported Wednesday.

A number of other outlets, including Politico, CBS News and ABC News also confirmed the report, which said the recording is being scrutinized as part of special counsel Jack Smith's investigation of Trump's handling of classified documents after leaving Washington. According to the reports, in a 2021 meeting with people who don't have security clearances, Trump is heard at his Bedminster, N.J., golf course discussing a multipage, classified document in his possession that pertains to a possible attack on Iran. Notably, Trump is said to have spoken of his desire to tell other people about the document, but he acknowledged that he is legally prevented from doing so.

Those remarks, which have yet to be made public, appear to undercut Trump's claim that he had declassified all of the documents sought by the National Archives and the FBI.
Kaitlan Collins Paula Reid Katelyn Polantz
By Kaitlan Collins, Paula Reid and Katelyn Polantz, CNN

Attorneys for Donald Trump turned over material in mid-March in response to a federal subpoena related to a classified US military document described by the former president on tape in 2021 but were unable to find the document itself, two sources tell CNN.

Prosecutors issued the subpoena shortly after asking a Trump aide before a federal grand jury about the audio recording of a July 2021 meeting at Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey. On the recording, Trump acknowledges he held onto a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran.

Prosecutors sought “any and all” documents and materials related to Mark Milley, Trump’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Iran, including maps or invasion plans, the sources say. A similar subpoena was sent to at least one other attendee of the meeting, another source tells CNN.

The sources say prosecutors made clear to Trump’s attorneys after issuing the subpoena that they specifically wanted the Iran document he talked about on tape as well as any material referencing classified information – like meeting notes, audio recordings or copies of the document – that may still be Trump’s possession.
Story by Queerty

Ron “Don’t Say Gay” DeSantis has problem: he’s not very good at talking to people. That’s not ideal for any politician, but especially one who’s running for president. On Thursday, DeSantis held a campaign event in New Hampshire, where he delivered “his stock stump speech,” according to NBC News. But unlike other presidential candidates who barnstorm the Granite State, DeSantis didn’t take any questions from the audience.

When a reporter asked DeSantis about his disengagement, the anti-social Florida governor threw a hissy fit. “People are coming up to me, talking to me,” he wailed. “What are you talking about? Are you blind? Are you blind? People are coming up to me, talking to me whatever they want to talk to me about.”
Story by Brad Reed

An extensive new report from NBC News details the ways that Republican canvassing operations in states such as Nevada are riddled with problems that include canvassers "cheating" by lying about the number of local homes they've visited. One particularly prominent example cited in the story involves a Republican canvasser who claimed to have knocked doors all around a Southern Las Vegas neighborhood, even though they actually spent the day lounging in the Caesar's Palace casino.

According to data reviewed by local GOP officials, this was not an isolated incident. "A half-dozen Republican-aligned field operators working on various races in Nevada, Georgia and Oregon said they encountered suspicious or fraudulent data — such as entries filed from homes that weren’t visited or falsified surveys — in 2022," the report notes.
Story by Tommy Christopher

CNN anchor Abby Phillip confronted Trump attorney Jim Trusty over the bombshell recording of ex-President Donald Trump discussing a classified document with people who weren’t authorized to view it — widely seen as evidence Trump knew he possessed classified documents.

CNN broke the news Wednesday afternoon that Trump was caught on tape discussing a classified document that he had taken with him when he left the White House. On the tape, Trump reportedly acknowledges he can’t show the document — which outlines a plan to invade Iran — to his visitors because of the classification attached to it.

On Wednesday night’s edition of CNN Primetime, Phillip and co-anchor Kaitlan Collins interviewed Trusty about the development, and the attorney argued that Trump declassified everything as he left.

But Phillip pressed Trusty on the point, asking him why, even if the declassification argument were valid, Trump would find it appropriate to discuss such a sensitive matter with outsiders:
Zachary Basu

A ruthless war between the Trump and DeSantis campaigns is unfolding in increasingly personal terms, sucking in top surrogates and raising new skepticism about the likelihood of post-primary reconciliation.

Why it matters: Former President Trump doesn't just want to defeat Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — he's out to destroy DeSantis' political career and that of anyone who has expressed even a hint of support for his candidacy. For Trump, loyalty is paramount — and a one-way street. The fact that so many former Trump administration officials and supporters have defected to team DeSantis has made the feud intensely personal for the ex-president.

Driving the news: Trump on Tuesday attacked his former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, now a Fox News host, after she said on air that polling showed DeSantis was "closing the gap" on Trump in Iowa.
By David Morgan

WASHINGTON, June 1 (Reuters) - Kevin McCarthy earned his stripes as Republican speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday, navigating fierce hardline opposition to pass a debt ceiling bill containing federal spending limits that President Joe Biden for months vowed to resist.

Six months after he endured 15 humiliating floor votes just to be elected speaker, McCarthy proved capable of dragging Biden into negotiations over spending and other Republican priorities, and then marshalling two-thirds of his often fractious House Republican majority to enact bipartisan legislation.

"Keep underestimating us and we'll keep proving to the American public that we'll never give up," McCarthy told reporters after the vote.

The bill, approved by a 314-117 margin, lifts the government's $31.4 trillion debt ceiling in exchange for cutting non-defense discretionary spending and stiffening work requirements in assistance programs.
Building owner Andrew Wold facing fine as cause of collapse remains undetermined
Andrea Blanco, Maroosha Muzaffar

A contractor has said he warned the owner of the residential building that collapsed in downtown Davenport, Iowa, on Sunday that the disaster was imminent.

Speaking to The Quad-Cities Times, Ryan Shaffer, co-owner of local firm RA Masonry, said he was working on another building close to the six-storey 324 Main Street complex when he was approached by the latter property’s owner, Andrew Wold, about potential work, only for Mr Wold to walk away saying the quote was too high.

“He wanted to cut the cost by cutting out the shoring and supporting of the building," Mr Shaffer said. “I said, ‘If we don’t do it this way exactly, I’m not putting my guys in there. Somebody is going to die.’” Mr Wold appears to have subsequently shopped around for a cheaper firm to carry out the work and found an alternative business that would do it for less, as reflected by city records.
WION

Next year's election will mark America's 60th presidential contest. President Joe Biden, a democrat, is seeking re-election and launched his campaign last month. Donald Trump is the clear frontrunner in an increasingly crowded field seeking the Republican Presidential nomination. As the race for the white house heats up, former Vice President mike pence plans to announce his candidacy next week.
The car she was driving launched 120 feet down the highway, police reported.
By Associated Press

VALDOSTA, Georgia — It looks like a scene from a Hollywood blockbuster. A sedan rockets into the air after driving up the ramp of a flatbed tow truck on a Georgia highway. And the whole crash is caught on video by an officer’s body camera.

Shocked motorists and law enforcement watched in horror as the Nissan Altima was launched 120 feet down the highway in Lowndes County, according to police report on the May 24 crash.
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