The New York Times reports: Pelé, one of soccer’s greatest players and a transformative figure in 20th-century sports who achieved a level of global celebrity few athletes have known, died on Thursday in São Paulo. He was 82. A national hero in his native Brazil, Pelé was beloved around the world — by the very poor, among whom he was …

CBS News reports: A polygamous leader accused of taking more than 20 wives, including underage girls, pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to kidnapping and tampering with evidence charges stemming from a federal investigation into his community on the Utah-Arizona border. Sam Bateman’s case is the most recent example of law enforcement taking action against abuse in the sister cities of …

ABC News reports: Democrat Kris Mayes is the winner of Arizona’s attorney general race, a state judge announced Thursday. Mayes defeated Republican Abraham Hamadeh by 280 votes after a mandatory recount was triggered due to how close they were separated after the initial tally in November, when Mayes led by roughly 500 votes out of 2.5 million cast. Maricopa County …

The Louisville Courier-Journal reports: Former U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and her husband, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, generally have stayed mum when former President Donald Trump slams them online, but on Thursday she responded after her ex-boss repeated a racist nickname he has used for her before. When asked about it during a televised interview with CNN, Chao called …

Playbook reports: House Republicans are starting to ask themselves two “what-if” questions surrounding Kevin McCarthy’s fate: 1) If the California Republican gets the gavel, how long will he be speaker? And, if he doesn’t, 2) how does he serve out his remaining days in Congress? On the first question: There’s a consensus among many House Republicans, one that few would …

Law & Crime reports: A federal judge threw out a challenge to D.C.’s concealed pistol law after four D.C.-area residents failed to include a basic part of their case. Although the challengers made multiple arguments about the use of guns in 1600s New England, they included nothing to show that they were — or ever would be — personally affected …

Reuters reports: Russia fired scores of missiles into Ukraine early on Thursday, targeting Kyiv and other cities including Lviv in the west and Odesa in the southwest, sending people rushing to shelters and knocking out power in one of Moscow’s largest aerial assaults.  Ukraine’s military said it had shot down 54 missiles out of 69 launched by Russia. Air raid …

The Washington Post reports: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu inaugurated the most right-wing government in Israel’s history on Thursday, launching a divisive chapter of national politics that pits newly influential ultrareligious, ultranationalist leaders against an opposition that warns democracy is in peril. They are already pursuing plans to restrict the rights of minorities, alter the system of governmental checks and balances, …

The Associated Press reports: So far, 97 lifetime federal judges have been confirmed under Biden, a figure that outpaces both Trump (85) and Barack Obama (62) at this point in their presidencies, according to data from the White House and the office of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The 97 from the Biden presidency includes Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown …

Politico reports: In respective letters to Reps. James Comer (R-Ky) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), White House Special Counsel Richard Sauber said that the Biden administration had no immediate plans to respond to a slew of records requests that both men made the past several weeks. In those letters, obtained exclusively by POLITICO, Sauber described such requests as constitutionally illegitimate because …

CNN reports: In appearances, and in an old campaign biography, Santos claimed his parents sent him to Horace Mann, an elite private school in the Bronx. “He began Horace Mann preparatory school in the Bronx, however, did not graduate from Horace Mann due to financial difficulties for his family,” his biography read in 2019. “He obtained a GED during his …

The Daily Beast reports: In a just-released deposition surrounding Dominion’s defamation lawsuit, the Fox News star said he’d never believed—not “for one second”—baseless election fraud claims stemming from the 2020 election. That stance, directly at odds with many of his primetime segments and the beliefs of many of his closest allies, has put Hannity in an awkward position. Among the …

Raw Story reports: On his Truth Social website, Trump posted a link to an editorial from MAGA publication American Greatness in which author Dan Gelernter compared Trump to the late President Teddy Roosevelt, whose unsuccessful third-party bid in 1912 handed the White House to Democrat Woodrow Wilson. Gelernter concedes that Trump running as a third-party candidate in 2024 would likely …

Bloomberg News reports: Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro seems poised to skip the inauguration of his successor Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Jan. 1, shunning a traditional power handover ceremony in Brasilia to spend New Year’s Eve celebrations in the US. Brazil’s official gazette on Wednesday published an authorization for an army official to travel to the US in the final …

Axios reports: Twitter users around the world reported problems accessing the website and other technical glitches on Wednesday night. In the first widespread outage since Elon Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in late October, over 10,000 users in countries including the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Germany, Italy, France, Australia and New Zealand reported outage issues, starting in …

Politico reports: The Jan. 6 select committee’s finding that Donald Trump lured followers to storm the Capitol does not absolve them of legal responsibility for their actions, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, the first opinion to cite the congressional panel’s criminal referrals of the former president. U.S. District Court Judge John Bates cited the select committee’s report and criminal referrals …

The Hill reports: House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) Chairman Tom Emmer (Minn.) and House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) have not commented on the revelations surrounding Santos’s background and falsehoods. McCarthy did not answer questions about Santos in the Capitol last week, and House GOP leaders did …

The Associated Press reports: Families hoping to catch a Southwest Airlines flight after days of cancellations, missing luggage and missed family connections suffered through another wave of scrubbed flights, with another 2,500 pulled from arrival and departure boards Wednesday. According to the FlightAware tracking service, more than 91% of all canceled flights in the U.S. Wednesday were from Southwest. This …

Mediaite reports: Kimberly Guilfoyle demanded payment before she would speak at former President Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 rally, according to transcripts, which included copies of text messages, released by the House committee investigating the Capitol attack. Guilfoyle is engaged to Donald Trump Jr. “You will pay us that’s the deal so don’t even think about it,” Guilfoyle wrote to Trump …

Reuters reports: Tesla Inc Chief Executive Elon Musk told employees that they should not be “bothered by stock market craziness” after the company’s shares fell nearly 70% this year on jitters over softening demand for electric vehicles and Musk’s distraction with running Twitter. In an email sent to staff, Musk said he believes that long term, Tesla will be the …