The Associated Press reports: Incoming senior Trump administration officials have begun questioning career civil servants who work on the White House National Security Council about who they voted for in the 2024 election, their political contributions and whether they have made social media posts that could be considered incriminating by Trump’s team. At least some of these nonpolitical employees have …

Radiology Business reports: President-elect Donald J. Trump first announced his HHS selection in November, with Kennedy slated to serve as the commander in chief’s principal advisor on all health matters. However, the Committee to Protect Health Care, a national advocacy organization, is now pushing lawmakers to derail his confirmation. The group had garnered signatures from more than 19,000 physicians as …

The Daily Beast reports: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has made it abundantly clear that she didn’t study atmospheric sciences in college, launching an unhinged suggestion that officials could end the Los Angeles wildfires by manipulating the weather. “Why don’t they use geoengineering like cloud seeding to bring rain down on the wildfires in California?” the Republican asked Sunday in …

The Meidas Touch reports: As wildfires rage across California, a number of the state’s Republican lawmakers have drawn criticism for abandoning their the state during the crisis, opting instead to join Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. The entire California House Delegation was there except David Valadao who voted to impeach Trump after January 6th. Instead of coordinating aid, offering a presence, …

Axios reports: President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discussed the efforts to reach a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal by Jan. 20 — when Biden’s term ends — according to U.S. and Israeli officials. The indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas have reached a critical point eight days before President-elect Trump is sworn into office. Biden’s team is …

The Hill reports: California’s insurance commissioner issued a one-year moratorium on policy nonrenewals and cancellations in areas affected by devastating wildfires in and around Los Angeles. “I am using my moratorium powers to prevent insurance companies from canceling or non-renewing policies in wildfire-impacted areas, so people don’t face the added stress of finding new insurance during this horrific event,” the …

The Washington Post reports: As Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, Amazon has cut commitments to protecting the rights of Black and LGBTQ+ people from a public listing of its corporate policies. Statements that said Amazon supported the rights of transgender people and would protect the safety of Black employees and customers disappeared from a webpage stating …

Politico reports: According to nearly a dozen retired officers and current military lawyers, as well as scholars who teach at West Point and Annapolis, an intense if quiet debate is underway inside the U.S. military community about what orders it would be obliged to obey if President-elect Donald Trump decides to follow through on his previous warnings that he might …

“I put in the application for a presidential pardon because I believe that Joe Biden has the same responsibility to me that he had to his own son. And I would expect that the same exact pardon that he gave his son has to go to me and to anybody else that’s on that enemies list, whether they want it …

“When you see what’s being shown on television, in addition to the tragedy on the ground, you’re also seeing gross mismanagement in California by elected officials, and it’s heartbreaking to hear the fire chief say that they’ve diverted all of this money away from the fire department to be used for social programs when they were already stretched too thin. …

Variety reports: With the Grammy Awards exactly three weeks away, the wildfires that continue to rage across the event’s long-running home city of Los Angeles have led many in the industry to speculate whether or not the show will be postponed. Even if the wildfires are contained by then and the city is on the road to recovery, the sheer …

NBC News reports: Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., on Sunday dismissed President-elect Donald Trump’s threat to acquire Greenland by military force, saying, “The United States is not going to invade another country. That’s not who we are.” Trump “speaks very boldly on a lot of things,” Lankford said, adding: “We’ve seen this over how he’s done negotiations, whether it be for …

The Guardian reports: Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward forcefully denied making statements attributed to him by James Comer, the Republican chair of the powerful House oversight committee, in which Woodward supposedly said Joe Biden was financially corrupt. “The statements attributed to me in what is apparently his book are false,” Woodward said. “I made none of those statements he attributes …

From a new website launched by Gov. Gavin Newsom: LIE – California Cut Firefighting Budgets FACT: The number of CalFIRE personnel has nearly doubled since 2019 (from 5,829 to 10,741) FACT: CalFIRE’s budget has nearly doubled since 2019 ($2 Billion to $3.8 Billion) LIE – These Wildfires are Caused by California’s Mismanagement of Forest Lands FACT: The budget for managing …

Los Angeles’s ABC affiliate reports: Police confirmed to KTLA that officers detained two people at Vice President Kamala Harris’ home in Brentwood during curfew hours on Saturday. The Los Angeles Police Department said a call came into the West L.A. station around 4:40 a.m., reporting a potential burglary on the Vice President’s property. Officers responded to the residence located on …

Law & Crime reports: A U.S. Navy veteran and Oath Keeper who rioted on Jan. 6 at the U.S. Capitol in a Depends adult diaper was sentenced to time served this week. Thomas Caldwell, 70, learned that he will avoid any further time in custody at his sentencing hearing on Friday in front of U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta. …

The New York Times reports: Four years after receiving a pardon from President Donald J. Trump for crimes related to foreign lobbying, Paul Manafort is again seeking business from political interests abroad. Mr. Manafort, who led Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign for a few months, has assembled a team of consultants who helped run Mr. Trump’s 2024 effort and is looking …

Rochester, New York’s PBS affiliate reports: Love and resilience were on full display this past weekend at the inaugural Big Gay Wedding Day, held at Rochester’s First Universalist Church. Organized by local Unitarian Universalist congregations, including First Unitarian Church of Rochester, First Universalist Church of Rochester and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Canandaigua, the free event offered LGBTQ couples the …

Newsweek reports: Donald Trump has claimed that “deranged” Jack Smith was fired as special counsel by the Department of Justice ahead of the president-elect’s return to office. In a post on Truth Social in the early hours on Sunday ET, Trump said that Smith had been “fired” from the DOJ after he “left town empty-handed” without any federal prosecutions against …

The Christian Post reports: Actor and filmmaker Mel Gibson went on the “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, where he discussed his faith, the challenges of creating Christian-oriented films in Hollywood and why he believes Darwinian evolution is a flawed theory. When the topic of the veracity of the resurrection of Christ came up, Gibson said he considers the Gospels to be …