The Hill reports: Sen. Markwayne Mullin (Okla.), the Senate Republican deputy whip, on Thursday blocked a request by Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.) to demand the Trump administration release files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Gallego, a first-term senator, stood up on the Senate floor to demand that colleagues “show the American people that they deserve the truth” …

The Miami New Times reports: State contracts related to Alligator Alcatraz, the controversial detention facility in the Florida Everglades, appear to have disappeared from the state’s public contract database. On Wednesday, Florida Rep. Anna Eskamani noticed that dozens of Alligator Alcatraz contracts on the Florida Accountability Contract Tracking System (FACTS) website were suddenly gone. Just a day prior, the Orlando state …

CBS News reports: President Trump has been diagnosed with a “benign and common” vein condition known as chronic venous insufficiency after he noticed swelling in his legs, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt announced today. According to Johns Hopkins and the Cleveland Clinic, chronic venous insufficiency occurs when veins in the legs struggle to allow blood to flow back up …

The Daily Beast reports: President Donald Trump’s former chief of staff claims the president is in the Epstein files — and on a list of the child sex offender’s associates. “He’s in the files. A lot of people are in the files,” Mick Mulvaney said in a forthcoming interview with Al Jazeera, a clip of which was teased online. “But …

“Their crimes against us are so numerous, it is hard to count. But we’ve been taken advantage of by the elites, and it is President Trump who is our hammer. That is why that man, the forgotten man, votes for President Trump. “President Trump built his political dynasty on attacking elite pedophiles. You can check the tape. Some of the …

The Minnesota Star Tribune reports: One of President Donald Trump’s closest advisers went on national television and ridiculed the city of Minneapolis as a crime-ridden haven for undocumented immigrants, comments that drew a swift retort Wednesday from Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, during an interview Tuesday on FOX News Channel’s “The Will …

The Associated Press reports: Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials will be given access to the personal data of the nation’s 79 million Medicaid enrollees, including home addresses and ethnicities, to track down immigrants who may not be living legally in the United States, according to an agreement obtained by The Associated Press. The information will give ICE officials the ability …

Ken Klippenstein reports at Substack: Pete Hegseth loves to have his picture taken doing jumping jacks, jogging with the troops, and hanging with buff special ops commandos. In fact, the Secretary of Defense is all about appearances, making a constant show of being more virile than anyone who’s ever preceded him. In the name of warfighting and military readiness, Hegseth …

Posted to the Family Research Council’s website: Senate Republicans are determined to keep throwing taxpayer dollars at the Democrats’ woke programs in the name of “foreign aid.” In a blow to Donald Trump’s goal to end government bloat and abuse, moderate senators — led by Susan Collins (R-Maine) — threw a tantrum over the White House’s plan to shave a …

Politico reports: Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought isn’t interested in giving assurances to lawmakers on Capitol Hill that the White House will abide by any bipartisan spending agreements made this year. “The appropriations process has to be less bipartisan,” Vought told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast Thursday. With Republicans in full control of government, he …

From the Diocese Of Nashville: Juan Carlos Garcia, a former associate pastor at St. Philip Catholic Church in Franklin, pleaded guilty Monday in Williamson County Court to charges stemming from a 2024 indictment on multiple counts of sexual misconduct involving both minors and adults. Garcia entered a plea to all the original charges. In making the plea, Garcia admitted his …

NBC News reports: When Emil Bove worked in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, for example, he earned a reputation as an unprofessional and abusive prosecutor. He parlayed this background into a role as a Trump defense attorney, punctuated by his defeat in the Stormy Daniels case, which paid dividends: Trump rewarded with Bove a …

“Andrew Cuomo is a creep, slapping fannies and killing grannies! Everybody likes Curtis Sliwa, my favorable ratings are the highest in in this election cycle. So guess what? You gotta vote for the guy who if you cut my veins and arteries, I bleed New York City. My whole campaign is improve, don’t move. “We are going to fight for …

The Denver Post reports: A consultant claiming to work for the White House called several Republican county clerks in Colorado last week, seeking “third-party” access to secure voting equipment, election officials told The Denver Post. At least 10 Republican clerks were contacted by consultant Jeff Small, officials said Wednesday. Small, who has Colorado political connections, told the clerks that he …

CNBC reports: Mark Zuckerberg and current and former directors and officers of Meta Platforms agreed on Thursday to settle claims seeking $8 billion for the damage they allegedly caused the company by allowing repeated violations of Facebook users’ privacy, a lawyer for the shareholders told a Delaware judge on Thursday. The parties did not disclose details of the settlement and …

The Washington Post reports: The Justice Department requested that a Louisville police officer convicted in connection with a raid that resulted in Breonna Taylor’s death serve one day in prison. The federal government suggested in an unusual sentencing memo to a judge that the Biden administration should not have prosecuted the officer on the civil rights charges on which he …

The Associated Press reports: Britain will lower the voting age from 18 to 16 by the next national election as part of measures to increase democratic participation, the government announced Thursday. The center-left Labour Party pledged before it was elected in July 2024 to lower the voting age for elections to Britain’s Parliament. Scotland and Wales already let 16- and …

Politico reports: President Donald Trump announced Wednesday his administration had eliminated federal funding for California’s high-speed rail project, making good on his promise to end government support for the project. Trump has for months threatened to pull Obama- and Biden-era grants amounting to about $4 billion for the planned rail line stretching through the Central Valley and ultimately connecting Los …

San Francisco’s ABC affiliate reports: U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum are in San Francisco visiting Alcatraz Thursday morning and are expected to announce plans to reopen the federal penitentiary. Back in May, President Trump started talking about reopening the site as a federal prison. Congress is expected to introduce a bill to end environmental protections …

“When somebody starts saying ‘don’t question things or you can’t be in our club,’ yeah, that’s a cult, and I’m not a cult joiner, never have been. You know, my operation’s not a cult, my crew’s not a cult. Trump says you people that bring this up don’t even deserve to be involved in this movement. You are excommunicata. You …