Update:

Texas GOP Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick says he want to buy border-construction material being auctioned by the Department of Homeland and give it to President-elect Donald Trump.

“Joe Biden is now hauling off the border wall that’s been lying down for years and he wants to auction it off starting at five dollars a piece,” Patrick told Fox News opinion-show host Laura Ingraham on Thursday. “Message to the White House right now: I will bid on all of that wall and we will buy it in Texas and we will give it to Donald Trump.”

Patrick also said he has the authority to spend Texas tax dollars that way.

“I got a billion dollars in my pocket to do it,” he said. “I write the budget with [state] Sen. Joan Huffman. We have the money.”

Border security was a top campaign issue for Trump this year, as it was when he first won the presidency in 2016.

In Trump’s next term, he is expected to ramp up border security and perhaps conduct mass deportations and end birthright citizenship.

Original:

The Biden administration is using its final weeks to haul a massive amount of border wall materials away from the southern border to be sold off in a government auction, an apparent effort to hinder President-elect Donald Trump’s effort to secure the border, The Daily Wire has reported.

Videos obtained exclusively by The Daily Wire from a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agent show unused sections of the wall being hauled away on the back of flatbed trucks from a section of the border just south of Tucson, a hotspot for illegal crossings during the Biden administration.

The agent estimates that up to half a mile per day of unused border wall is being moved.

“They are taking it from three stations: Nogales, Tucson, and Three Points,” the border patrol agent, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, told The Daily Wire. “The goal is to move all of it off the border before Christmas.”

Trump made clear during his campaign that he intends to finish construction of the border wall, making use of the materials that have remained untouched at the border since President Joe Biden took office in 2021. If the material brought to the border during his first term is sold off, it will significantly delay any progress on one of Trump’s flagship campaign promises at the border.

Watch:

EXCLUSIVE: Weeks before Trump takes office, Biden is racing to auction off unused border wall materials.

Video shows trucks hauling wall materials off the border to a government auction site, where a massive amount of wall is waiting to be sold. pic.twitter.com/ogaQMBHw7R

— Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) December 12, 2024

The government contractor, DP Trucking LLC, is transporting the pieces of the wall north on Interstate 19 to Pinal Airpark in Marana, Arizona, where it is being auctioned through GovPlanet, a surplus government equipment auction marketplace.

“They just started taking all the wall that was not used, which is still totally good and usable, and they started taking it northbound,” the agent said. “They’re pulling it all off the border.”

Harold Lambeth, the owner of the trucking company, confirmed to The Daily Wire in a phone call that his company is transporting the unused border wall sections north away from the construction sites. He said he is unable to disclose further information about the work.

Video of the GovPlanet auction site where the material is being taken shows seemingly endless piles of unused border wall material. Another video, taken from one of the construction sites on the border, shows DP Trucking LLC trucks passing through with the same style of unused border wall stacked up the back of their flatbeds.

The auction website shows that sales occurred as recently as December 4 for precisely the types of materials being pulled off the border. GovPlanet has online auctions set for Dec. 11 and Dec. 18 for more of the border wall material, which is listed on the company’s website as “32.91’ X 7.91’ Steel Bollard Wall Sections w/Grout.”

The bidding for each section of wall panels is set to begin at only $5.00, according to the website.

Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ), whose congressional district borders the Pinal Airpark where the material is being sold, said the Biden administration is “purposefully hamstringing” Trump before he takes office.

“The Biden Administration is well aware they shouldn’t have reversed the construction of the border wall. If it’s true, they’re purposefully hamstringing an incoming president, it wouldn’t be shocking,” Crane told The Daily Wire. “Why would they want to see President Trump succeed with policies they aggressively sabotaged?”

The long-time border patrol agent has seen political fights play out over the border before, and believes that the Biden administration is trying to stymie Trump’s ability to quickly secure the border as soon as he returns to office.

“When Trump comes back, and he wants to start the border wall all over again, the whole entire funding fight is gonna happen again,” the agent said. “That’s their play. He’s gonna have to fight for this — again.”

The Customs and Border Protection Agency referred The Daily Wire to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, saying the latter had jurisdiction over the materials until they are erected. From there, The Daily Wire was referred to the Defense Logistics Agency, where an official said the standing policy is to refer all media requests on this to the public affairs team at the Office of the Secretary of Defense. A member of the public affairs team declined to respond to inquiries.

Trump is expected to use an executive order to unlock funds to restart construction of the border wall that was halted under Biden, with anticipation that it could be one of his day-one actions.

Crane, the Arizona congressman, says the last-minute fire sale by the Biden administration is “a direct affront to the will of the people.”

“The American people gave President Trump a mandate in November, which included the fulfillment of his plans to secure the border,” Crane said. “Any last-ditch attempt to obstruct this mandate by the Biden Administration would be a direct affront to the will of the people.”

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi is reportedly working behind the scenes to put the kibosh on Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’ dream of taking a powerful Democratic House position in the new Congress.

The 35-year-old progressive Squad member is looking to become the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, having served as vice ranking member.

But she would have to beat out Virginia Congressman Gerry Connelly, who also launched his own bid for the top committee job.

Their face-off sets Democrats up for a generational battle between the millennial member of Congress and the 74-year-old lawmaker who has served in the House since 2009.

Pelosi may no longer be in Democratic House leadership but she still wields immense power and has publicly backed Connolly for the position.

Behind the scenes, the 84-year-old California Democrat is reportedly even making calls on behalf of Connolly, according to a new report in Punchbowl News.

As Connolly seeks to become top Democrat on the House oversight Committee, last month he revealed days after the election that he was diagnosed with esophagus cancer.

The congressman said he would be undergoing chemotherapy, but he was confident in a successful outcome.

AOC first signaled she was ‘interested’ in mounting a bid for ranking member earlier this month and said she was speaking with colleagues before formalizing her bid.

While Democrats are in the minority again in the new year, whoever serves as ranking member on the committee could hold massive power should Democrats retake the majority in the midterms.

Retaking the House would give them the ability to subpoena Trump administration officials as they carry out investigations.

Current House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin is vying to be the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee where its current Ranking Member Jerry Nadler is not running again.

Nadler in announcing he would not seek to remain in the top position, threw his support behind Raskin, paving the way for a smooth transition.

All 215 House members will vote on who will fill the top committee positions for the new Congress by secret ballot.

Pelosi and AOC have been doing a delicate dance since the New York progressive Congresswoman came to Washington after a surprise upset ousting a powerful Democratic incumbent in the 2018 primary.

Ocasio-Cortez was among a group of protesters who stormed Pelosi’s office urging action on climate change in October 2018.

But Pelosi has also publicly praised the high-profile young congresswoman and downplayed reports of their feud in the past.

Earlier this year, AOC offered her own praise on the former speaker for ‘passing the torch’ to Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

The U.S. Secret Service was unable to neutralize a threat to Donald Trump from just five feet away according to a bombshell new report.

An agent fired off at least six rounds at Ryan Wesley Routh in West Palm Beach, Florida, in September but was unable to hit the target before he fled, according to the 180-page House Assassination Task Force report.

Fox News host Jesse Watters expressed outrage at the latest revelation on his hit show on Wednesday night.

‘He was only five feet away and he missed [Routh] not once, not twice, but six times,’ Watters exclaimed.

‘He missed him six times, from five feet. How does a trained agent who passed the firearms test miss a target five feet away?’ he questioned.

The report claimed the deadly shooting at Trump’s Butler, Pennsylvania, rally on July 13 was ‘preventable and should not have happened.’

But the report also encompassed the new details about the second foiled attempt on Trump’s life at his golf course in West Palm Beach.

‘The report says the Secret Service found out at 2:30 in the morning that Trump would be golfing that day,’ Watters said of the West Palm Beach incident. ‘But they didn’t secure the course, allowing Routh to camp out for 12 hours before anyone saw him.’

Routh appeared in court on Wednesday and his legal team is using the insanity defense.

‘How convenient,’ said Watters with skepticism about the proposed defense.

The report notes: ‘The agent first noticed the suspect, later identified as Ryan Wesley Routh, and then noticed the barrel of Routh’s gun sticking through the fence line. The special agent, who may have been as close as five feet away from Routh, immediately responded by firing shots toward the suspect. It is believed six shots in total were fired; however, final ballistics are pending an ongoing FBI investigation.’

So it’s not conclusive that the distance or shots are as detailed by the panel.

If true, the new details present concerning information about the marksmanship of an agent assigned to the detail of the former president who at the time was running for another term and who had already been shot just two months earlier.

The report was released just days after its final public meeting last week where Acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe got into a screaming match with Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas).

Rowe did acknowledge at the hearing the agency’s ‘abject failure’ in the July shooting.

The panel was created by a House vote shortly after the first assassination attempt over the summer. And a few months later they were asked to also look into the second incident.

The group concluded that there was no single failure that allowed shooter Thomas Matthew Crooks to fire at Trump, but ‘various’ decisions and moments that created an ideal situation for the assassination attempt.

The Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump released a series of recommendations it feels will help prevent future incidents.

Members of the task force visited both sites where men tried to take out the former – and now future – president.

FOX NEWS ALERT: New revelations about the attempted Trump assassin, Ryan Routh. The @SecretService agent who spotted Routh in the bushes was only five feet away from him, but shot and missed- SIX TIMES. How does a trained agent miss a target five feet away? And that’s not all… pic.twitter.com/BT6ykkM42J

— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) December 12, 2024

The task force said it conducted 46 interviews and reviewed 18,000 pages of documents.

Crooks, who was 20 when he was shot dead by a Secret Service counter sniper, killed one rally goer, injured two others and was able to strike Trump in the right ear before he was neutralized by the former president’s protective detail.

‘[T]he former President—and everyone at the campaign event—were exposed to grave danger,’ the committee wrote.

‘Conversely, the events that transpired on September 15, 2024, in West Palm Beach, Florida, demonstrated how properly executed protective measures can foil an attempted assassination,’ they added.

The bipartisan task force was created to investigate the July 13 attack that came just centimeters away from ending Trump’s life.

But when a second assassination plot was foiled just two months later on September 15, the panel was also asked to include that incident in its probe.

While Crooks was able to get just several hundred feet in range of Trump with a rifle and discharge several shots, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, didn’t even fire a shot before a Secret Service agent opened fire in his direction.

Routh was posted outside Trump’s West Palm Beach golf course in the shrubs when he pointed the barrel of his firearm through the fencing and bush.

An agent surveying the green a few holes ahead of the then-2024 presidential candidate spotted the scope and fired in the direction of the threat. Routh fled the scene but was captured shortly after and taken into custody.

His firearm, backpacks with bulletproof materials and a GoPro camera were recovered from where he was camping out since the middle of the night.

The Assassination Task Force said the second incident was an example of what should be done by the Secret Service to best guard their protectees.

While the first assassination attempt was used as an example of how a series of failures can lead to a deadly situation.

The report comes just days after their final hearing, which devolved as Rep. Fallon got into a fiery back-and-forth with Acting Director Rowe.

An impassioned shouting match broke out after Fallon struck a nerve when he pressed Rowe about security measures in place to protect Trump, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris at the September 11 remembrance this year.

It led to a bitter argument between the two men at the hearing on Thursday, which was supposed to be focused on the security failures surrounding Trump’s protective detail.

But the conversation turned to what Fallon considered to be another Secret Service security problem two months after the first attempt – and just days before the second.

Fallon said the agent in charge of the detail should have been stationed physically closer to Trump, Biden and Harris when they all attended a 9/11 commemoration event at Ground Zero.

When asked about why the SAIC was out of range, Rowe insisted that he and other members of the detail were just outside of view of the image Fallon had blown up to exhibit at the hearing.

‘That is the day that we remember the more than 3,000 people that have died on 9/11,’ Rowe said, starting to raise his voice.

‘I actually responded to Ground Zero. I was there going through the ashes of the World Trade Center,’ he went on.

When Fallon tried to cut in, Rowe did not back down, causing the congressman to begin shouting.

‘I’m not asking you that. I’m asking you, were you the special agent in charge?! You were not,’ Fallon charged.

‘Do not invoke 9/11 for political purposes, congressman!’ Rowe was heard yelling over a barrage of cross-shouting.

‘I’m trying to ask a question. Don’t try to bully me!’ Fallon screamed and pointed at the witness.

‘You are out of line, congressman!’ Rowe fired back. ‘Way out of line.’

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed Thursday in Aqaba, Jordan, that an American citizen had been found in Syria and that the Biden-Harris administration was working to bring him home. Blinken did not identify the American, but he was described on social media as Travis Timmerman, a resident of the state of Missouri.

Videos had circulated Thursday of Syrian rebels caring for an American who, they said, had been found in one of the prisons of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which collapsed on Sunday amid the rebel advance.

Great News:
🚨Rescued American Travis Timmerman by rebels from dictator Assad & his regime Prison today.

Next, We will find our Fellow Houstonian and Veteran Captain US Marine & Journalist Austin Tice missing in Syria. pic.twitter.com/pcYgmAUmSY

— Naoufal Houjami 🇺🇸 (@ForTexasHoujami) December 12, 2024

American identified as Travis from Missouri found in Syria, telling NBC he was detained after entering as a ‘pilgrim’.

Denies being journalist Austin Tice, missing since 2012. #Syria #Travis pic.twitter.com/8ZBrEUnFT6

— British Pakistani Index (@PakistaniIndex) December 12, 2024

It was not known exactly how or why Timmerman reached Syria, or why he was imprisoned. He was reported to have been tortured by the regime.

As Breitbart News reported earlier Thursday:

Timmerman appears to be a civilian who independently decided to travel to Syria for personal reasons. He told reporters that he is a Christian and had “been reading Scripture a lot” when he disappeared in Hungary. The readings convinced him to make “a pilgrimage to Damascus,” an ancient city that plays a major role in the conversion of Saint Paul. Timmerman reportedly walked into Syria illegally and was arrested by border patrol after roaming the border region for three days.

Tice, a journalist, has been missing since 2012. The U.S. believes that he is still alive.

Other prisoners — many gone for decades — have surfaced from Assad’s prisons, including Christian activists abducted from Lebanon.

A stranger followed a 26-year-old woman before beating and raping her in a brutal Wednesday morning Bronx attack, cops said.

The victim was walking on Virginia Avenue near Wood Avenue in Parkchester around 3:30 a.m. as the suspect, identified as Gregory Williams, 21, trailed behind her, authorities said.

Then the alleged predator ambushed her with multiple punches to the right side of her body, before raping her, police said.

The victim was taken to a local hospital, where she is listed in stable condition, cops said.

Williams, of the Bronx, allegedly took off after the disturbing attack, but was captured around 12:45 p.m. on Wednesday, police said.

He was charged with two counts of first-degree rape, as well as third-degree assault, third-degree sexual abuse and second-degree harassment, the NYPD said.

Williams, dressed in a black hoodie and red and black pajama pants, remained quiet as he was walked out of an NYPD station house by detectives Wednesday night.

The woman at the center of the Duke University lacrosse rape case has finally admitted she lied when she accused three young men of sexual assault in 2006.

Crystal Mangum, from Durham, North Carolina, came under the spotlight in 2006 when she accused the trio of gang raping her during a party where she was hired as a stripper.

The 46-year-old mother-of-three is currently in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder for stabbing her boyfriend with a kitchen knife in 2011.

It was from prison where she spoke to Let’s Talk with Kat, an independent content creator who released an interview with her Thursday.

There, Mangum admitted that she’d made the entire thing up.

‘I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn’t and that was wrong, and I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me,’ she said.

Mangum even admitted that the three men ‘trusted me that I wouldn’t betray their trust.’

‘[I] made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God.’

She claimed that it was her search for validation that led her to become a stripper despite having a college education.

Mangum then asked the three men she accused – David Evans, Colin Finnerty and Reade Seligmann – to accept her apologies.

‘I want them to know that I love them and they didn’t deserve that and I hope they can forgive me.

‘I hope that they can heal and trust God and know that God loves them and God is loving them through me, letting them know that they’re valuable and they didn’t deserve that.’

Mangum made it clear that she’s attempted to find religion in prison, saying she mostly reads the Bible to ‘get through the day.’

‘You can get all of that [growth] in Jesus, he loves us just the way we are. He’s enough and we’re enough.’

She claims that she would describe her time in prison as one of ‘growth’.

However, she said that she had ‘no regrets’ and that everything happens because of God.

The case became one of the most racially charged in recent memory which ended explosively when the prosecutor was disbarred and the young men were declared innocent.

The chilling case began back on March 13, 2006 when three of the four co-captains of the men’s lacrosse team at Duke hosted a party for their teammates at their off-campus house.

The group had paid a total of $800 for two exotic dancers to perform – one of whom was single mom Crystal, who was a student at the nearby North Carolina Central University.

All but one of the players on the lacrosse team were white and in the aftermath Crystal, who is Black, made a series of allegations against three of the team members.

She accused Evans, Seligmann, and Finnerty of raping and sexually assaulting her in the bathroom.

And the ensuing fallout created a firestorm across the nation – highlighting racial and socioeconomic divides at the elite university and beyond – in what became known as the Duke Lacrosse Case.

The coach was forced to resign and the university canceled the remainder of the season.

Speaking after he was indicted, David said: ‘You have all been told some fantastic lies, and I look forward to watching them unravel in the weeks to come, as they already have in weeks past…. The truth will come out.’

The students hired defense attorneys but the situation became hazy when Crystal claimed she could no longer recall the exact details of what happened that night.

The DNA evidence failed to match any of the 46 white players on the team and she eventually recanted her statement.

She later said she was not sure she had been raped, but insisted some sort of sexual assault had taken place, the LA Times said.

The tide eventually turned on prosecutor Mike Nifong who had ‘overzealously championed his case in the media.’

The boys’ defense attorneys pleaded for the North Carolina State Bar to intervene and charges were brought against a sitting district attorney for the first time in history.

It was decided that Nifong had been too outspoken and concealed the crucial DNA findings from the investigation – he was later disbarred.

As a result, the case was then handed over to an alternative district attorney, Roy Cooper, who dropped the charges against the players just four months later. Cooper recently finished up two terms as the state’s Democrat governor.

He declared the college students to be ‘innocent’ and branded Nifong as a ‘rogue prosecutor.’

Ultimately, the case did not go to trial and the three players received $20 million each in a settlement with Duke.

The house has since been torn down and the university spent more than $100 million on legal fees, settlement costs, and other expenses to preserve its ‘brand,’ according to Vanity Fair.

Crystal, who later released a memoir titled The Last Dance For Grace: The Crystal Mangum Story, was never charged with making false accusations – but her legal troubles would only continue to worsen.

Just a short time later, in February 2010, she was convicted on misdemeanor charges for setting a fire that nearly razed her home with her three children inside.

In a videotaped police interrogation, Crystal told officers she got into a confrontation with her boyfriend at the time – Milton Walker – and burned his clothes, smashed his car windshield and threatened to stab him.

The single-story duplex had heavy smoke damage, but no one was hurt, a Durham fire department news release said.

But there was still one final tragic twist in the tale.

On April 3, 2011, she and her 46-year-old boyfriend, Reginald Daye, who had been dating for about a month, had become caught up in a heated argument after she was allegedly caught flirting with another man.

She claimed that Reginald had been beating her at the time before she snatched the kitchen knife and stabbed him in self-defense.

Crystal told the court: ‘He straddled me, hit me, and then he started choking me. I couldn’t breathe. My head hurt real bad.’

‘I was just trying to survive and I felt like Reginald was trying to kill me,’ she added in her testimony.

The mom ultimately ‘poked him in the side’ of the chest at his apartment.

In a call to emergency services immediately after the stabbing Reginald’s nephew told the operator: ‘It’s Crystal Mangum. The Crystal Mangum. I told him she was trouble from the damn beginning.’

Reginald died 10 days later at Duke Hospital due to complications from his injuries.

It took the jury just six hours to reach a unanimous verdict.

In 2013, Crystal, then 34, was sentenced to a minimum of 14 years in prison for second-degree murder.

Russia launched a large-scale missile attack on Ukrainian energy facilities during the morning rush hour on Friday, Kyiv said, while explosions were heard in the Black Sea port of Odesa and other cities in western Ukraine.

Russian forces have been targeting Ukraine’s electricity system for most of the year and it renewed its strike campaign last month, causing lengthy power cuts for millions of civilians as the war with Russia nears the 34-month mark.

“Russia aims to deprive us of energy. Instead, we must deprive it of the means of terror. I reiterate my call for the urgent delivery of 20 NASAMS, HAWK, or IRIS-T air defense systems,” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote in a post on X.

An industry source told Reuters that Friday’s attack had targeted Ukrainian power substations and that it had included more strikes on gas infrastructure than in past assaults.

As the attack unfolded, energy officials announced longer, emergency power cuts, but they did not make clear whether that was because of new damage or whether it was a precautionary measure. There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Around a half of power company Yasno’s 3.5 million consumers were without power on Friday morning, their CEO said.

The extent of any damage was hard to assess. After repeated Russian attacks on the power grid, officials reveal little detailed information about the outcome of strikes and the state of the network.

Lviv Region Targeted

Authorities in the western region of Lviv confirmed there had been attacks on energy facilities there and that the schedule of power cuts would have to be changed, implying there had been damage.

Russia says it does not target civilian infrastructure, but that it sees the power system as a military target.

Ukraine’s energy system has already suffered 11 waves of attacks this year, which have caused widespread damage and lengthy power cuts all over the country.

The morning missile strike was preceded by an overnight attack involving dozens of drones.

Russian troops, meanwhile, are notching up their fastest battlefield gains in eastern Ukraine since 2022 in their drive to seize the entire industrial Donbas region.

“The enemy continues its terror. Once again, the energy sector across Ukraine is under massive attack,” Galushchenko wrote in a post on Facebook.

The Department of Education under President Joe Biden spent more than $1 billion on DEI-driven grants to public school districts, universities, and nonprofits since 2021, according to a report released by watchdog group Parents Defending Education (PDE).

The 162 grants funding DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives were aimed at hiring, educational programming, and mental health training, according to PDE. Total price tag: $1,002,522,304.81. PDE said that’s a conservative estimate.

“These numbers are based on available data and not exact. The number of districts and students is likely much higher. Some districts, such as Miami-Dade County Public Schools, is connected to multiple grants and is therefore only counted once in the numbers,” PDE wrote in its report.

PDE broke down the DEI grant distribution into three buckets:

1. DEI Hiring: $489,883,797.81
2. DEI Programming: $343,337,286
3. DEI-Based Mental health/Social Emotional Learning (SEL): $169,301,221

“Some grants covered two or all of the above categories, in those cases, the grant was counted only towards the most dominant category,” PDE said in its report.

In one example, PDE found that the “School District of Philadelphia was given $3,973,175 for its restorative justice program that is modeled after Oakland Unified School District’s (Calif.), and a program advisor is a far-left activist and former Communist Party USA member.”

Meanwhile, a report released by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) in September found that nearly one-third of K-12 students across the country are behind their grade level as of the end of the 2023-24 school year.

PDE, which bills itself as a “national grassroots organization working to reclaim our schools from activists imposing harmful agendas,” first shared its report with Fox News.

“The only people or groups to benefit from the enormous amount of grant funding are the universities, administrators, and DEI consultants, at the expense of children’s education,” PDE researcher Rhyen Staley told the outlet. “This needs to change by placing children’s learning at the forefront of education, instead of prioritizing race-based policies and DEI.”

President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Linda McMahon to be his education secretary to replace outgoing Miguel Cardona.

President Joe Biden is commuting the sentences of roughly 1,500 people who were released from prison and placed on home confinement during the coronavirus pandemic and is pardoning 39 Americans convicted of nonviolent crimes. It’s the largest single-day act of clemency in modern history.

The commutations announced Thursday are for people who have served out home confinement sentences for at least one year after they were released. Prisons were uniquely bad for spreading the virus and some inmates were released in part to stop the spread. At one point, 1 in 5 prisoners had COVID-19, according to a tally kept by The Associated Press.

Biden said he would be taking more steps in the weeks ahead and would continue to review clemency petitions. The second largest single-day act of clemency was by Barack Obama, with 330, shortly before leaving office in 2017.

“America was built on the promise of possibility and second chances,” Biden said in a statement. “As president, I have the great privilege of extending mercy to people who have demonstrated remorse and rehabilitation, restoring opportunity for Americans to participate in daily life and contribute to their communities, and taking steps to remove sentencing disparities for non-violent offenders, especially those convicted of drug offenses.”

The clemency follows a broad pardon for his son Hunter, who was prosecuted for gun and tax crimes. Biden is under pressure from advocacy groups to pardon broad swaths of people, including those on federal death row, before the Trump administration takes over in January. He’s also weighing whether to issue preemptive pardons to those who investigated Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and are facing possible retribution when he takes office.

Clemency is the term for the power the president has to pardon, in which a person is relieved of guilt and punishment, or to commute a sentence, which reduces or eliminates the punishment but doesn’t exonerate the wrongdoing. It’s customary for a president to grant mercy at the end of his term, using the power of the office to wipe away records or end prison terms.

Those pardoned Thursday range in age from 36 to 75. About half are men and half are women, and they had been convicted of nonviolent crimes such as drug offenses, fraud or theft and turned their lives around, White House lawyers said. They include a woman who led emergency response teams during natural disasters; a church deacon who has worked as an addiction counselor and youth counselor; a doctoral student in molecular biosciences; and a decorated military veteran.

Louisiana resident Trynitha Fulton, 46, was one of the pardons; she pleaded guilty to participating in a payroll fraud scheme while serving as a New Orleans middle school teacher in the early 2000s. She was sentenced to three years of probation in 2008.

“The pardon gives me a sense of freedom,” Fulton said in a written statement to the AP. “The conviction has served as a mental barrier for me, limiting my ability to live a full life.”

“The pardon gives me inspiration to make more impactful decisions personally and professionally,” she added.

After her conviction, Fulton went on to earn a master’s degree. She helps lead the nonprofit Skyliners-Youth Outreach, which supports New Orleans youth by providing hot meals, clothing, shelter and mental health referrals.

The president had previously issued 122 commutations and 21 other pardons. He’s also broadly pardoned those convicted of use and simple possession of marijuana on federal lands and in the District of Columbia, and pardoned former U.S. service members convicted of violating a now-repealed military ban on consensual gay sex.

Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., and 34 other lawmakers are urging the president to pardon environmental and human rights lawyer Steven Donziger, who was imprisoned or under house arrest for three years because of a contempt of court charge related to his work representing Indigenous farmers in a lawsuit against Chevron.

Others are advocating for Biden to commute the sentences of federal death row prisoners. His attorney general, Merrick Garland, paused federal executions. Biden had said on the campaign trail in 2020 that he wanted to end the death penalty but he never did, and now, with Trump coming back into office, it’s likely executions will resume. During his first term, Trump presided over an unprecedented number of federal executions, carried out during the height of the pandemic.

More clemency grants are coming before Biden leaves office on Jan. 20, but it’s not clear whether he’ll take action to guard against possible prosecution by Trump, an untested use of the power. The president has been taking the idea seriously and has been thinking about it for as much as six months — before the presidential election — but has been concerned about the precedent it would set, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss internal discussions.

But those who received the pardons would have to accept them. New California Sen. Adam Schiff, who was a part of the House committee that investigated the violent Jan. 6 insurrection, said such a pardon from Biden would be “unnecessary,” and that the president shouldn’t be spending his waning days in office worrying about this.

Former Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., another target of Trump’s threats, said in a statement this week that his suggestion that she and others be jailed for the investigations “is a continuation of his assault on the rule of law and the foundations of our republic.”

Before pardoning his son, Biden had repeatedly pledged not to do so. He said in a statement explaining his reversal that the prosecution had been poisoned by politics. The decision prompted criminal justice advocates and lawmakers to put additional public pressure on the administration to use that same power for everyday Americans. It wasn’t a very popular move; only about 2 in 10 Americans approved of his decision, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed Thursday that the FBI used confidential sources as part of its response to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, a revelation that lends clarity to an aspect of the event that has long been a source of speculation.

Horowitz said in a long-awaited 84-page report that 26 FBI sources were in Washington for the riot. Some of them were embedded among rioters in restricted areas, and four FBI sources also entered the Capitol with the rioters. He noted, however, that the FBI did not authorize any of those sources, also known as informants or “confidential human sources,” to enter restricted areas or the Capitol or to otherwise break the law.

The FBI sources who entered the restricted areas have not faced any charges to date, Horowitz said.

Horowitz also noted that no FBI employees, which are different than the FBI confidential human sources, were working undercover at the riot.

The FBI had tasked three of the 26 sources with being in Washington on Jan. 6 to “report on domestic terrorism subjects,” Horowitz said. The other 23 traveled to the city “on their own initiative and were not tasked by the FBI to do so,” he said.

The DOJ, through U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves’s office in Washington, has charged more than 1,500 people in connection to the riot in the past four years. A majority of them have faced minor trespassing violations, while hundreds of others have faced more serious charges, such as assaulting police officers or destroying property.

The defendants were largely supporters of President-elect Donald Trump and participated in the riot as part of a protest of the 2020 election results.

Since the incident, a faction of Trump’s supporters have spread the theory that law enforcement organized the riot or abetted participants, but Horowitz did not reach this conclusion.

The inspector general did find that the FBI failed to properly check with its field offices as part of its preparation for Jan. 6. FBI Deputy Director Paul Abbate conceded that the bureau missed this “basic step” during an interview with Horowitz.

“While the FBI undertook significant efforts to identify domestic terrorism subjects who planned to travel to the Capital region on January 6 and to prepare to support its law enforcement partners on January 6 if needed, we also determined that the FBI did not take a step that could have helped the FBI and its law enforcement partners with their preparations in advance of January 6,” Horowitz wrote.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) told the Washington Examiner that the report raised several questions for him that he planned to follow up on, including how four FBI sources entered the Capitol.

“Now when regular Americans do that, they get in trouble for that,” Jordan said. “So how did they get in? Did they go through a broken window? They walk right in the door? What’d they do? Another fundamental question is, why weren’t they charged? How much did they get paid? … We know one guy who was being reimbursed actually entered the Capitol. So, we’re paying a guy for information who actually didn’t follow the rules and broke the law. What did we pay him?”

Horowitz said his investigation did not include reviewing the DOJ’s prosecutorial activity, but rather it involved reviewing the FBI’s preparations and responses to the riot. He said he interviewed more than 200 witnesses and reviewed hundreds of thousands of documents as part of his investigation.

Donald Trump has been crowned TIME magazine’s Person of the Year after reclaiming the presidency, marking him as only the second U.S. president in history to serve non-consecutive terms. The announcement came on Thursday, placing Trump at the pinnacle of a contentious list of global influencers.

“Trump’s political rebirth is unparalleled in American history,” TIME wrote in an announcement, after speaking with the President-elect ahead of the announcement.

Trump dubbed his campaign “72 Days of Fury” after a term that Trump himself coined. This win sets Trump apart as a political figure of singular historical significance, having first held the title in 2016 when he initially seized the presidency from Hillary Clinton.

Trump’s political rebirth is unparalleled in American history. His first term ended in disgrace, with his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results culminating in the attack on the U.S. Capitol. He was shunned by most party officials when he announced his candidacy in late 2022 amid multiple criminal investigations. Little more than a year later, Trump cleared the Republican field, clinching one of the fastest contested presidential primaries in history. -TIME

The competition for this year’s title was fierce, with Trump edging out other high-profile names such as Vice President Kamala Harris, his tech mogul supporter Elon Musk, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Catherine, Princess of Wales. Notably, Musk was the magazine’s pick back in 2021.

Reflecting on his tumultuous path to victory, Trump’s year included overcoming significant challenges: a stark clearing of the GOP field, a conviction in a New York courtroom, and surviving not one, but two assassination attempts.

The campaign saw surprising alliances, including consolidations of support from unexpected quarters such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Elon Musk, alongside a dramatic shift in the Democratic nomination.

According to TIME, Trump’s win gave him the “political capital to address the sources of American discontent at home and abroad” Trump himself suggested a bold agenda, including plans to pardon Jan. 6 political prisoners.

What a difference 8 years can make. pic.twitter.com/bn3L0M93tt

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) December 12, 2024

“It’s going to start in the first hour … maybe the first nine minutes,” Trump told the outlet.

The Person of the Year title, a tradition since 1927, is not necessarily a mark of honor but rather a recognition of influence. TIME has historically selected presidents during their election victories, with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris jointly receiving the nod in 2020, and other repeat honorees including Barack Obama and George W. Bush.

Trump’s victory lap included ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange in Manhattan, where chants of “USA’ broke out…

JUST IN: ‘USA’ chants break out as President-elect Donald Trump rings the New York Stock Exchange opening bell.

Trump became the first president to ring the bell since Ronald Reagan.pic.twitter.com/vPnYNspGj8

— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) December 12, 2024

Trump is the first president to ring the bell since Ronald Reagan.

The large mysterious drones reported flying over parts of New Jersey in recent weeks appear to avoid detection by traditional methods such as helicopter and radio, according to a state lawmaker briefed Wednesday by the Department of Homeland Security.

In a post on the social media platform X, Assemblywoman Dawn Fantasia described the drones as up to 6 feet in diameter and sometimes traveling with their lights switched off. The Morris County Republican was among several state and local lawmakers who met with state police and Homeland Security officials to discuss the spate of sightings that range from the New York City area through New Jersey and westward into parts of Pennsylvania, including over Philadelphia.

The devices do not appear to be being flown by hobbyists, Fantasia wrote.

Dozens of mysterious nighttime flights started last month and have raised growing concern among residents and officials. Part of the worry stems from the flying objects initially being spotted near the Picatinny Arsenal, a U.S. military research and manufacturing facility; and over President-elect Donald Trump’s golf course in Bedminster. Drones are legal in New Jersey for recreational and commercial use, but they are subject to local and Federal Aviation Administration regulations and flight restrictions. Operators must be FAA certified.

Most, but not all, of the drones spotted in New Jersey were larger than those typically used by hobbyists.

The number of sightings has increased in recent days, though officials say many of the objects seen may have been planes rather than drones. It’s also possible that a single drone has been reported more than once.

Gov. Phil Murphy and law enforcement officials have stressed that the drones don’t appear to threaten public safety. The FBI has been investigating and has asked residents to share any videos, photos or other information they may have.

Two Republican Jersey Shore-area congressmen, U.S. Reps. Chris Smith and Jeff Van Drew, have called on the military to shoot down the drones.

Smith said a Coast Guard commanding officer briefed him on an incident over the weekend in which a dozen drones followed a motorized Coast Guard lifeboat “in close pursuit” near Barnegat Light and Island Beach State Park in Ocean County.

Coast Guard Lt. Luke Pinneo told The Associated Press Wednesday “that multiple low-altitude aircraft were observed in vicinity of one of our vessels near Island Beach State Park.”

The aircraft weren’t perceived as an immediate threat and didn’t disrupt operations, Pinneo said. The Coast Guard is assisting the FBI and state agencies in investigating.

In a letter to U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Smith called for military help dealing with the drones, noting that Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst has the capability “to identify and take down unauthorized unmanned aerial systems.”

However, Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters Wednesday that “our initial assessment here is that these are not drones or activities coming from a foreign entity or adversary.”

Many municipal lawmakers have called for more restrictions on who is entitled to fly the unmanned devices. At least one state lawmaker proposed a temporary ban on drone flights in the state.

“This is something we’re taking deadly seriously. I don’t blame people for being frustrated,” Murphy said earlier this week. A spokesman for the Democratic governor said he did not attend Wednesday’s meeting.

Republican Assemblyman Erik Peterson, whose district includes parts of the state where the drones have been reported, said he also attended Wednesday’s meeting at a state police facility in West Trenton. The session lasted for about 90 minutes.

Peterson said DHS officials were generous with their time, but appeared dismissive of some concerns, saying not all the sightings reported have been confirmed to involve drones.

So who or what is behind the flying objects? Where are they coming from? What are they doing? “My understanding is they have no clue,” Peterson said.

A message seeking comment was left with the Department of Homeland Security.

Most of the drones have been spotted along coastal areas and some were recently reported flying over a large reservoir in Clinton. Sightings also have been reported in neighboring states.

James Edwards, of Succasunna, New Jersey, said he has seen a few drones flying over his neighborhood since last month.

“It raises concern mainly because there’s so much that’s unknown,” Edwards said Wednesday. “There are lots of people spouting off about various conspiracies that they believe are in play here, but that only adds fuel to the fire unnecessarily. We need to wait and see what is really happening here, not let fear of the unknown overtake us.”

A California man who was charged with lying to the FBI about fake criminal allegations against President Biden and his son Hunter is pleading guilty, according to an agreement filed in federal court on Thursday.

Alexander Smirnov was indicted in February by special counsel David Weiss, who was appointed to lead the now-defunct investigations into Hunter Biden. The president pardoned his son earlier this month.

A longtime confidential informant, Smirnov told his FBI handler in 2020 that the two Bidens each accepted $5 million from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma several years earlier. The claims “were false, as the Defendant knew,” according to the charging documents filed against him.

The fake allegations were memorialized in an FBI document that became a central piece of evidence in congressional Republicans’ efforts to investigate the Biden family.

On Thursday, prosecutors from Weiss’ office wrote Smirnov will plead guilty to one count of creating a false federal record —the FBI document filed with his false information — and three tax-related counts. The new tax charges were filed last month.

With the agreement and the pardon of Hunter Biden, Weiss’ cases, and likely his time as special counsel, are coming to a close. Weiss was appointed U.S. attorney during the Trump administration, and the Biden administration kept him on to continue his Hunter Biden probe. Attorney General Merrick Garland elevated him to special counsel earlier this year.

An Instagram post sponsored by one of the world’s largest tech companies is woefully woke, despite consumers consistently indicating that this type of marketing isn’t effective.

We all know that “pulling a Bud Light” is now recognized as committing a misstep in marketing and potentially costing your company more than $1 billion, all in the hopes of impressing a tiny fraction of your customer base who thinks men cosplaying as women is a good idea. But still, the marketing team at Google has decided to risk it all for a dude wearing women’s clothing.

In the ad, influencer Cyrus Veyssi laments his dry skin.

“I’m so dry,” he pouts while looking at his reflection. “This winter dryness is not it, especially when I have so many holiday looks to pull off. Thankfully, I know just the thing.”

The scene cuts to Veyssi searching his phone for skincare products on Google. “And it’s in stock nearby!” he exclaims. “Hydrated skin is a gift to everyone, no wrapping needed,” he continues while walking through a store. “Happy holidays to me!”

Watch:

Christmas ad from Google. Dear Lord.pic.twitter.com/O6ML2Li9c4

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) December 11, 2024

Reactions online have not been good.

“Google is canceling women. Bizarre marketing strategy,” one person replied.

“My ideology is whatever is necessary to stop this bulls***. I’m tired of this,” another person wrote.

Veyssi is an interesting ad partner for Google, especially in light of what happened when Bud Light chose Dylan Mulvaney to push their product. The social media influencer, who identifies as non-binary and uses they/them pronouns, has over one million followers across TikTok and Instagram combined.

In one TikTok video, Veyssi talks down to men by imploring them to use Bounty (Procter & Gamble) and Windex (SC Johnson) to clean their hair out of the sink post-shave, insisting that it makes them “masculine” and “super strong.” He delivers this plea while wearing bright red lipstick and a low-cut tank top that shows off his chest hair.

It’s a damn shame. It’s also a mistake that Jeremy’s has never and will never make when it comes to marketing personal care products for both men and women personal care products. If all of this exhausts you, there’s some good news. Jeremy’s makes razors for both men and women. The brand-new women’s razor line of products includes razors, shave cream, lotion, and body wash. And you can bundle and save 30% plus receive a Leftist Tears tumbler with the Mega Bundle. Or pick up the Precision 5 Razor, for men who know the difference between a man and a woman. In the world of Jeremy’s, there are men, and there are women, and that elusive in-between doesn’t exist.

It’s not bigotry; it’s not erasure. It’s just reality.

This holiday season, think long and hard about where you’re spending your hard-earned money and commit to supporting companies with values that match your own. Today is the last chance to save 30% on Jeremy’s Razors sitewide.

Bud Light must regret putting Mulvaney in their ads. It’s time for other companies to realize that this type of nonsense isn’t working anymore.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday the league’s partnership with Roc Nation, the entertainment company founded by rapper and entrepreneur Jay-Z, is “not changing” amid the civil lawsuit accusing Jay-Z of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl.

Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter, was accused Sunday in a lawsuit of raping a 13-year-old girl in 2000 along with Sean “Diddy” Combs.

“We are aware of the civil allegations and Jay Z’s really strong response to that,” Goodell said at a news conference after a league meeting in Irving, Texas.

“We know, obviously, that litigation is happening. But from our standpoint, our relationship is not changing with them, including our preparations for the next Super Bowl.”

The NFL and Roc Nation entered a partnership in 2019 for the company to be the league’s “live music entertainment strategist.” Roc Nation has since annually produced the halftime show at the Super Bowl, including Kendrick Lamar’s upcoming performance in New Orleans in February.

The parties extended the partnership in October.

“I think they’re getting incredibly comfortable with not just the Super Bowl but other events that they have advised us on and helped us with,” Goodell said Wednesday. “They’ve been helpful in the social justice area to us on many occasions. They’ve been great partners that have provided a lot of value to us.”

Carter, 55, strongly denied the accusations in a statement Sunday.

“These allegations are so heinous in nature that I implore you to file a criminal complaint, not a civil one!! Whomever would commit such a crime against a minor should be locked away, would you not agree?” Carter said. “These alleged victims would deserve real justice if that were the case.”

He added: “You have made a terrible error in judgement thinking that all ‘celebrities’ are the same. I’m not from your world. I’m a young man who made it out of the project of Brooklyn. We don’t play these types of games. We have very strict codes and honor. We protect children.”

The lawsuit was originally filed in federal court in October with only Combs listed as a defendant; it was refiled Sunday to include Carter. Combs has denied the allegations.

The lawsuit claims that in 2000, when the accuser was 13, Combs and Carter raped her at a house party after the MTV Video Music Awards in New York.

In addition to the upcoming Super Bowl halftime show, Carter’s wife, Beyoncé, will perform at halftime of the game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Houston Texans on Netflix on Christmas Day.

Meta donated $1 million to Donald Trump’s inaugural fund as the social media giant takes steps to improve relations with the president-elect.

The donation was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Meta confirmed the donation to the Journal.

Inaugural fund expenses are designated for expenses associated with the presidential inauguration.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Trump’s feud stretches back to Trump’s first presidency.

In 2020, after Facebook was criticized over Trump’s violent remarks on the platform, Zuckerberg said he was “deeply shaken and disgusted by President Trump’s divisive and incendiary rhetoric.”

Trump was removed from Facebook and Instagram in 2021 for what Meta called praising “people engaged in violence at the Capitol on January 6.” Meta reversed the decision two years later.

In 2021, Trump filed suit against Facebook, Google, then-Twitter, and the companies’ respective CEOs, alleging they unlawfully censor him and other conservatives.

Mending the relationship

The feud carried over into this election cycle.

In August, Trump threatened that Zuckerberg would “spend the rest of his life in prison” if he tried to interfere in the 2024 US election.

But recently, Zuckerberg, who did not endorse a candidate in the 2024 presidential election, has been working to mend relations with Trump.

Last month, Zuckerberg visited Trump at his resort in Mar-a-Lago for Thanksgiving Eve dinner.

“It’s an important time for the future of American Innovation. Mark was grateful for the invitation to join President Trump for dinner and the opportunity to meet with members of his team about the incoming Administration,” Meta said in a statement about the dinner.

The CEO is looking to take a role in tech-policy conversations, a senior Meta executive told The Verge.

To be sure, the $1 million donation is a drop in the bucket for Meta.

Meta made over $39 billion in profit in 2023 and is worth about $1.6 trillion. Zuckerberg, who owns about 300 million Meta shares, would need to sell around 1,600 shares to pay the donation amount himself. He’s currently worth $224 billion, Bloomberg estimates.

Meta is preparing to face an antitrust trial next year over accusations that it bought Instagram and WhatsApp to crush competition in social media.

Loyal supporters

Trump is stacking his administration with people who have supported him throughout his campaign — and who could take a lighter touch on tech regulation.

Last month, Trump named Brendan Carr, a big tech critic, to head the Federal Communications Commission. Carr wrote the FCC chapter of the conservative playbook Project 2025.

Other key Trump appointments include Elon Musk as the co-head of the Department of Government Efficiency, David Sacks as AI and crypto czar, Paul Atkins as the lead of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Scott Bessent as Treasury secretary.

Zuckerberg is far from the only powerful person in tech and politics who’s been seen at Mar-a-Lago since Trump’s election win.

Musk, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Argentine President Javier Milei, and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson have all been spotted at Trump’s resort.

On Tuesday, Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said he has spent about “half” his time at Mar-a-Lago discussing policy issues with Trump.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign manager and daughter-in-law Amaryllis Fox Kennedy is making a push to serve as deputy director at the CIA next year — and RFK Jr. is making calls on her behalf, Axios has reported.

Fox Kennedy, an integral member of Kennedy’s campaign, wrote a memoir detailing nearly a decade working at the CIA. The deputy director position does not require Senate confirmation.

President-elect Trump, who has signaled plans to try to overhaul U.S. intelligence agencies during his second term, has already named former intelligence director John Ratcliffe to lead the CIA.

The deputy position is one of the highest-profile intelligence jobs that remains open. Politico reported last month that Kash Patel, who has been tapped for FBI director, and Cliff Sims, a former Trump administration official, were jockeying for the role.

Fox Kennedy in 2019 published a memoir, “Life Undercover: Coming of Age in the CIA,” that provided one of the most detailed personal accounts of life in the agency.

Fox Kennedy has said she was recruited by the CIA in her early 20s, becoming one of the youngest female officers at the agency.

She said she was a “nonofficial cover,” meaning she posed as a citizen under a fake identity and had no diplomatic protections.

Fox Kennedy reportedly submitted the memoir to the book publisher without getting sign off from the CIA’s Publication Review Board, stirring controversy within the agency.

The board is supposed to approve any material from officers before becoming public to ensure that key intelligence matters remain secret, NBC News reported at the time.

Fox Kennedy, who took over as Kennedy’s campaign manager in October 2023, led his presidential bid as he navigated the arduous task of trying to get on the ballot in all 50 states as an independent candidate.

Kennedy suspended his campaign in August and backed Trump.

In November, Trump nominated Kennedy to serve as director of the Department of Health and Human Services.

“President-Elect Trump has made brilliant decisions on who will serve in his second Administration at lightning pace,” Trump-Vance transition spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.

“Remaining decisions will continue to be announced by him when they are made.”

“Hey guys, some of you have heard the rumors online, and the rumors are mostly true,” Brett Cooper began her YouTube video, posted Tuesday evening, very tactfully. “Today, December 10 will be my last day hosting the Comments Section, and working for the Daily Wire. It is not true that I am being forced out; it was my own choice to leave.”

Cooper had frequently been dubbed the “female Ben Shapiro” during her tenure as one of the Daily Wire’s other podcast hosts. She was also set to star in the Wire’s production of Snow White and the Evil Queen, out next year for some reason. The video announcing her exit has garnered over 5 million views on X in the twelve hours since publication.

What are the rumors? Cockburn, of course, has been keeping up with all the Wire drama. Online whisperers implicate the other, non-Ben Shapiro co-founder, Jeremy Boreing, often referred to as “the God-king” of the Daily Wire. A number of rumors center on spats between prolific movie producer Boreing (he cast himself as the lead in Lady Ballers, which he also produced, co-wrote and directed) and Cooper.

After Cooper gives some grateful farewells at the beginning of the her video, she segues into a clip of the “God-king himself.”

“Bittersweet indeed. We’re sad to see Brett go, but we’re excited to see her take the next step in her journey,” Boreing began.

“It’s been a pleasure to see her bring the Comments Section to life these last three years.”

Brett’s YouTube show, the Comments Section with Brett Cooper, has garnered about half the YouTube subscribers that Ben Shapiro has accrued in just three years, a remarkable feat compared to Shapiro’s many years in the business.

Amid all the rumors, Reagan Rohrbach, Brett’s producer, had been “filling in” for Brett periodically, and Brett announced Rohrbach would take over the show as many predicted. Online sleuths noted that Cooper had deleted all photos featuring her with her producer from her Instagram in the week leading up to Cooper’s announcement.

Cockburn would like to host a quick comments section of his own and point out that many people are unhappy with Brett’s departure from the Daily Wire, with several on X claiming they will no longer watch.

Fortunately for the Daily Wire, they can apparently afford to lose a few of the Gen Z viewers Cooper garnered. “Daily Wire raised an undisclosed round of capital in 2023 at a valuation well north of $1 billion,” a source told Axios Tuesday, conveniently shortly before the Cooper announcement.

The Daily Wire is reportedly on track to surpass $200 million in revenue by the end of this year. The companies streaming service has well over a million subscribers. Boreing and Shapiro have been long described as shrewd businessmen, and the numbers are supporting that fact.

But as Cooper said, the rumors are “mostly” true, whatever that means. In the video where Cooper says farewell, she happens to be wearing a dark blue sweater. In her days of absence, TikTok fans had been encouraging Cooper to wear blue in her next broadcast if she was subject to an NDA — very pro-free-speech of the Wire if so! Was Cooper’s “choice” to step away much of a choice after all? She declined to comment for this story.

“But, as an actor, it is so freeing, because I don’t feel like I’m censoring myself at all,” Cooper said in an article last year on the Daily Wire, addressing her role as Snow White. That aged well…

When a panel known as a door plug blew off an Alaska Airlines flight minutes after takeoff earlier this year, a quality investigator at the factory where the Boeing plane was manufactured says he wasn’t surprised; he said he was almost expecting something like this would happen.

Whistleblower Sam Mohawk is speaking publicly for the first time about the problems he’s seen during his 13 years working in quality assurance at Boeing’s commercial airplane factories. Months before the door plug incident, Mohawk said he warned both Boeing and federal regulators about lapses in safety practices inside the company’s Renton, Washington factory, which is responsible for building about 30% of the world’s commercial jet fleet. Mohawk believes defective or “non-conforming” parts are not being properly tracked there and could be making it onto Boeing planes – a concern he said could lead to a catastrophic event without a proper investigation.

“It might not happen within the first year, but down the road they’re not going to last the lifetime that they’re expected to last,” he said. “It’s like Russian roulette, you know? You don’t know if it’s going to go down or not.”

“A desperation for parts” at Boeing’s Renton factory

A month after the Alaska Airlines incident, the National Transportation Safety Board investigation concluded the four bolts required to secure the door plug that blew off the Boeing 737-9 Max were removed during production at that Renton facility and never reinstalled. After an extensive search, NTSB investigators determined the records to document the removal of those four bolts don’t exist. Boeing said it can’t find any paperwork to explain how a plane left its factory without the bolts.

Mohawk said he started noticing problems at the Renton facility during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Boeing was ramping up production and dealing with supply chain issues.

“The idea is to keep those airplanes moving, keep that line moving at all costs,” he said.

As a quality investigator, part of Mohawk’s job is to keep track of defective airplane parts in what some employees call “the parts jail.” It’s called that, Mohawk said, because the parts are meant to be under lock and key and tracked like a chain of evidence. But Mohawk says that amid pressure to keep production moving, some employees sidestepped Boeing protocol and took bad parts out of the “parts jail” when his team wasn’t looking.

Mohawk’s concern is that those bad or “non-conforming” parts he says are getting lost or taken, could be ending up on planes.

“There’s so much chaos in that factory,” Mohawk said. “There’s a desperation for parts. Because we have problems with our parts suppliers. So there’s, in order to get that plane built and out the door in time, I think unfortunately some of those parts were recycled back onto the airplanes in order to build, keep building the airplane and not stop it in production.”

Mohawk believes it’s happening repeatedly.

“We have thousands of missing parts,” he said.

It’s not just parts like bolts that are going missing, according to Mowhawk, but also rudders, one of the primary tools for steering planes. Mohawk said 42 flawed or “non-conforming” rudders, which he says would likely not last the 30-year lifespan of a jet, have disappeared..

“They’re huge parts,” he said “And they just completely went missing.”

NTSB safety reports show the number of Boeing plane accidents has declined over the last two decades, but Mohawk is still concerned.

“Right now, the Max is a new program,” he said. “So these airplanes that are having the quality issues are brand new to the fleet. We don’t know what’s going to be coming in the future.”

The Max line, certified by the FAA in 2017, has drawn scrutiny since its first year in service.

Workers at the Renton factory, where they make the Max, returned to work last month after a seven-week strike, After their return, there was a focus on training and making sure the factory had “the supply chain sorted out.” Production has now resumed at Renton.

Mohawk still works there. In June, he filed a federal whistleblower claim to protect himself from potential retaliation. Mohawk also reported his concerns to the FAA, which is investigating his claims, and hundreds of others directed at the company.

“I put a big target on my back in there,” he said.

Despite that, he felt it was important to come forward.

“At the end of the day my friends and family fly on these airplanes,” he said.

Stories out of Renton echo those in Charleston

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, whistleblowers at Boeing submitted more than 200 reports over the last year. Their safety concerns include mismanagement of parts, poor manufacturing and sloppy inspections at Boeing.

Mohawk’s story echoes another Boeing whistleblower at another Boeing plant, John Barnett. He spent three decades at Boeing and began working as a quality manager on the long-haul 787 Dreamliner at the company’s South Carolina factory in 2010.

Barnett said managers there pressured workers to ignore FAA regulations, such as not tracking defective parts properly. He said Boeing then retaliated against him for speaking up. Boeing has denied his claims.

In 2017, Barnett retired and contacted Charleston attorney Rob Turkewitz, who’s worked with dozens of Boeing employees over the last decade. Turkewitz said Barnett had more than 3,000 internal documents — emails and photos from Boeing — to support his whistleblower claims.

Seven years later, Barnett was in the final stretch of his case.

“I think that John Barnett was probably the best witness I have ever seen testify,” Turkewitz said. “He knew the facts up and down.”

Barnett was scheduled to complete his final day of depositions on March 9. He never showed.

Turkewitz went to Barnett’s hotel to search for him and learned the 62-year-old whistleblower had been found dead inside his truck. Police said it was a suicide.

Turkewitz called Barnett’s family, including his mom, Vicky Stokes, and his brothers, Rodney Barnett, Robby Barnett and Michael Barnett.

“He put up a good front with us, but you, you know, times when we really had heart-to-heart conversations, you could tell it just wore on him,” Michael Barnett said. “You know, I’d ask him, ‘Why do you want to — why do you just keep pursuing it?” And he’s just, like, ‘Because it’s the right thing to do. Who else is going to do it?'”

The Barnett family is continuing his legal fight.

More Boeing workers speak up

Barnett’s death also inspired other Boeing workers to speak up. Merle Meyers, who’d worked with Barnett, said he was angry when he learned how Barnett was allegedly treated.

Meyers started his 30-year career at Boeing as a parts inspector. He worked as a quality manager at the company’s largest plant, located in Everett, Washington, before he left last year. Meyers’ concerns first began in 2015, when he said he discovered defective 787 landing gear axles that had been scrapped, back at the factory.

“They were corroded beyond repair,” Meyers said.

Meyers said workers, driven by schedule pressure, took the axles to avoid stalling production.

Photos provided to 60 Minutes show the axles spray-painted red and clearly marked as “scrap.” Meyers said he learned scrap parts marked like this had been taken without authorization for over a decade. Sometimes people used chemical cleaners to remove the paint, Meyers said.

Boeing says it thoroughly investigated Meyers’ claims and that the defective axles did not make it onto airplanes. But Meyers says the competition for airplane parts continued.

“They would talk openly about it at the stand-up meetings, senior managers,” Meyers said.

They’d compete for parts, both good and bad, he said.

“They’re not too picky,” he said.

Meyers alleges company vice presidents were at those meetings and would do nothing about what they heard.

“Speak up until my face is blue”

Boeing employee Sam Salehpour worked in aerospace as an engineer for 40 years. Earlier in his career he worked on rockets, including for companies supporting the Challenger Space Shuttle, which exploded in 1986, killing seven people, though Salehpour didn’t work on the Challenger.

“Ever since that explosion I have promised myself, ‘If I see problems that they are concerning, or safety-related, I am going to speak up until my face is blue,'” Salehoupour said.

He now works on the 777 line in the Everett factory, where Meyers worked. Salehpour says when the jet is assembled, pre-drilled holes are supposed to line up to join pieces together. Salehpour told federal investigators that when they didn’t, he witnessed Boeing employees trying to force them to line up.

“They were jumping up and down like this,” Salehpour said. “When I see people are jumping up and down like that to align the hole, I’m saying, ‘We have a problem.'”

Salehpour described how he believes that kind of pressure on parts could impact the lifespan of a plane.

“That’s like going one more time on your paperclip, OK? And we know that paper clip doesn’t break the first time, the second time, the third time,” Salehoupour said. “But it may be breaking on the 30th or the 40th time.”

Salehoupour alleges this is still happening at Boeing.

Boeing responds to whistleblowers

In a statement to 60 Minutes, Boeing said it carefully investigates all quality and safety concerns, including those of the whistleblowers 60 Minutes spoke with. Boeing said:

“Every day, thousands of Boeing airplanes take off and land around the world, and we are dedicated to the safety of all passengers and crew on board. Our employees are empowered and encouraged to report any concern with safety and quality. We carefully investigate every concern and take action to address any validated issue.

The current and former Boeing employees interviewed by 60 Minutes previously shared their concerns with the company. We listened and carefully evaluated their claims, and we do not doubt their sincerity. Some of their feedback contributed to improvements in our factory processes, and other issues they raised were not accurate. But to be clear: Based on investigations over several years, none of their claims were found to affect airplane safety.

Commercial air travel is the safest form of transportation – and our industry continues improving its exceptional safety record – in part because people do speak up about potential issues. We encourage and welcome employees’ feedback and will continue to incorporate their ideas to make Boeing better.”

Alarming ‘wanted’ posters of top healthcare executives popping up across New York City prompted police to issue a bulletin warning leaders of the rising threats.

In the wake of the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, video shared on social media showed ‘wanted’ signs featuring other healthcare corporate leaders plastered across traffic control boxes in Manhattan.

The menacing posters were erected on Canal Street – one of Manhattan’s busiest thoroughfares – flanked with the red and black words: ‘Wanted. Denying medical care for corporate profit. Health care CEOs should not feel safe.’

The signs also included the phrase suspected shooter Luigi Mangione allegedly wrote on the bullets found at the crime scene – ‘Deny. Defend. Depose.’

The alliterative trio of words reference a book by Jay Feinman’s titled ‘Delay, Defend, Deny: Why insurance company don’t pay claims, and what you can do about it.’

A New York Police Department bulletin issued Tuesday emphasized the heightened risk on healthcare executives following Thompson’s slaying, reported ABC News.

‘Both prior to and after the suspected perpetrator’s identification and arrest, some online users across social media platforms reacted positively to the killing, encouraged future targeting of similar executives, and shared conspiracy theories regarding the shooting,’ the bulletin said.

The bulletin highlighted social media posts sharing information about the other executives – and the NYPD said that menacing users are posting ‘that it is a hitlist and that CEOs should be afraid.’

Health insurance companies have started removing images of their leadership teams from their websites following Thompson’s assassination.

Mangione, 26, appeared in court on Tuesday, fighting against extradition to New York – where he is charged with second-degree murder after Thompson was slain.

The former Ivy League student had been apprehended at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania on Monday, when he was found with a 3D-printed pistol and black silencer, as well as a manifesto condemning the American healthcare system.

Authorities have said Mangione’s three-page manifesto is currently being investigated, which they have labeled a ‘claim of responsibility.’

He wrote about the grandiose size of UnitedHealthcare and how much profits it makes, and went on to condemn health insurance companies more broadly for placing profits over care.

‘To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone. This was fairly trivial: some elementary social engineering, basic CAD, [and] a lot of patience,’ Mangione allegedly wrote in the manifesto, according to the Daily Beast.

He went on to say he had ‘respect’ for federal investigators, and apologized for causing any ‘traumas,’ but seemed to defend his alleged actions.

‘Frankly these parasites had it coming,’ the manifesto wrote.

It claimed that the United States had the ‘most expensive healthcare system in the world,’ but blasted the system for making America only the 42nd in life expectancy.

Thomas Dickey, Mangione’s lawyer, said on Tuesday night that his client will also plead not guilty to the gun possession charges he is facing in Pennsylvania.

He made a court appearance after being charged with murder on Tuesday – pouting as he was escorted out of the hearing, after suffering a ferocious public meltdown hours earlier.

The orange jumpsuit-clad suspect had to be restrained as he screamed at police while heading into court in Altoona, Pennsylvania.