NBC News reports: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Homeland Security, will testify today at a confirmation hearing held by the Senate homeland security committee. If she is confirmed, Noem will oversee a workforce of more than 260,000 people across several agencies. Noem had at one time been viewed as a possible …

Axios reports: Former Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) conspicuous silence is starting to spook Tulsi Gabbard’s team. Voting against Gabbard would resume hostilities between McConnell and Trump. It could have implications for big policy questions down the line, from funding Ukraine to raising tariffs. Two key GOP swing votes sit on the Intel committee: Sens. Susan Collins (R-Me.), a …

Houston’s CBS affiliate reports: A judge in Texas ruled Thursday that three other states can move ahead with their effort to roll back federal rules and make it harder for people across the U.S. to access the abortion drug mifepristone. The states of Idaho, Kansas and Missouri made the request in U.S. District Court in Amarillo, Texas. The only judge …

CBS News reports: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced early Friday local time that Israel has finalized its ceasefire agreement with the militant group Hamas that will see the release of hostages held in Gaza. Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that the prime minister “has been updated by the negotiating team that agreements have been reached on a …

ABC News reports: A Missouri man who brandished a Nazi flag after a thwarted attack on the White House in 2023 was sentenced to eight years in federal prison on Thursday. Sai Varsith Kandula traveled from St. Louis, Missouri, to Washington, D.C., on May 22, 2023. Four hours after his arrival, Kandula — then 19 years old — crashed the …

Politico reports: It’s been a dozen years since the Stonewall Democrats, a once-prominent LGBTQ+ rights group, went defunct. But now, on the eve of Donald Trump’s inauguration, a new coalition of state-level advocacy groups is reestablishing a national presence to gird against the incoming president and a Republican-controlled Congress. The group, the National Federation of Stonewall Democrats, comes together at …

Mediaite reports: President-elect Donald Trump signaled he might investigate FBI Office of Diversity, and Inclusion, demanding the agency “preserve and retain all records, documents” after the organization shuttered the office the month after Trump’s election win. The DEI office within the FBI closed its doors in December 2024, according to Fox News, but did not give a reason as to …

The Globe & Mail reports: Alberta Premier Danielle Smith refused to sign off on a joint statement issued by fellow provincial leaders and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Wednesday on how Canada plans to respond to Donald Trump’s tariff threats. The Premier blamed the federal government’s unwillingness to rule out export levies or restrictions on energy exports as part of potential …

Variety reports: President-elect Donald Trump is hoping to make Hollywood “stronger than ever before” by naming Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson and Jon Voight as “special ambassadors,” whose goal will be to bring back business lost to “foreign countries.” It appears that the newly appointed ambassadors had little advance notice on the news, as Gibson said he found out at the …

“We will always be part of NATO. We will always be a strong partner for U.S. We are close neighbors, we have been cooperating in the last 80 years, and I think the future have a lot to offer to cooperate with, but we want to also be clear. We don’t want to be Americans, we don’t want to be …

NBC News reports: President Joe Biden said Friday he is commuting the sentences of nearly 2500 people convicted of nonviolent drug offenses, cementing his legacy as the president who has issued the most individual pardons and commutations in U.S. history. “Today’s clemency action provides relief for individuals who received lengthy sentences based on discredited distinctions between crack and powder cocaine, …

The Associated Press reports: President Joe Biden won’t enforce a ban on TikTok that is set to take effect a day before he leaves office on Monday, a U.S. official said Thursday, leaving its fate in the hands of Trump. Congress last year, in a law signed by Biden, required that TikTok’s China-based parent company ByteDance divest the company by …

Variety reports: Brad Pitt has reacted to the viral story of a 53-year-old French woman who was swindled out of $850,000 by someone pretending to be the actor. The story broke on Sunday on the TF1 show “Sept à huit,” which aired the testimony of Anne, a French interior decorator who described how she had been scammed by a fake …

The New York Times reports: Mayor Eric Adams of New York City was on his way to Florida on Thursday evening to meet with President-elect Donald J. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, his spokesman confirmed. The meeting did not appear on Mr. Adams’s public schedule. And while Mr. Adams has expressed a desire to work productively with the incoming administration, critics have …

CNN reports: SpaceX just took to the social media platform X to rehash what happened today: Starship experienced a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” That’s a favored SpaceX euphemism for an explosion or unplanned destruction of a launch vehicle. It’s not clear how, when or why the Starship spacecraft exploded. The vehicle is equipped with a “flight termination system,” which is designed …

Bloomberg Law reports: Trump’s attorney general selection Pam Bondi is worth $12.2 million, $3.9 million of which is held in Trump Media shares she received after the Truth Social parent company went public last year, financial disclosures obtained by Bloomberg Law show. After a long career in public service, Bondi appeared to accumulate much of her wealth once she entered …

“I’m honored and humbled to be appointed by Gov. DeSantis as the next Attorney General of the Free State of Florida. I’m excited to get to work, build on Ashley Moody’s fine record, help enact the Donald Trump agenda, and defend our people, our constitution, and our Florida way of life!” – James Uthmeier, DeSantis’s chief of staff, on replacing …

Law & Crime reports: A Jan. 6 rioter who was arrested in Canada after failing to report to prison and attempting to apply for asylum is now looking at the possibility of spending another year behind bars — on top of his original nine month sentence — for fleeing justice, according to federal prosecutors. Antony Vo, a former Indiana resident …

The Daily Beast reports: Tulsi Gabbard’s spiritual “guru” called gay people “perverts” and spewed homophobic slurs when she was involved in his tiny group, an audio recording obtained by the Daily Beast reveals. The tape shows how Chris Butler—the leader of the Science of Identity Foundation in which Gabbard was brought up—called homosexuality “abnormal,” “unhealthy and unnatural.” He compared it …

The Independent reports: With just four days remaining in his term as the commander-in-chief of America’s military, President Joe Biden urged the six armed services members to remain true to their pledge to uphold the U.S. Constitution as he addressed them for the final time. “Our commitment to honor, to integrity, to unity, to protecting and defending not a person …