Author: Grace Thompson

WASHINGTON — Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, was briefly detained after an interaction with police at Dulles International Airport near Washington, a spokesperson told NBC News. The spokesperson said that McCaul was not arrested and was not threatening to anyone and that police approached him because he appeared to be drunk and needed help. McCaul was then able to phone a family member to pick him up from the airport to bring him back to Washington. A spokesperson for Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority police said McCaul was charged with being drunk in public around 9 p.m. Nov. 4 and released to a driver who picked him up. The spokesperson said McCaul, who is a nervous flyer, took the drug Ambien to help him sleep on a flight back h...

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump stunned Senate Republicans by announcing Wednesday that he will nominate Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., to be attorney general. Gaetz, a Trump loyalist known for being a rabble-rouser in Congress, will need a majority of the Senate to be confirmed as the country’s top law enforcement officer. Republicans will have a majority of 52 or 53 seats beginning Jan. 3, depending on the outcome of the Pennsylvania Senate race. That means Gaetz won't have a large margin for error, assuming every Democrat opposes him. Some Senate Republicans said the process won’t be smooth sailing. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said it will be “a significant challenge” for Gaetz to win enough votes to be confirmed. “I don’t think it’s a serious nomination...

The Oklahoma school district where a transgender student died this year after an altercation in a bathroom violated federal law by mishandling sexual harassment allegations, according to an investigation by the federal Education Department. The department’s Office of Civil Rights opened an investigation into Owasso Public Schools in March following a complaint from the Human Rights Campaign , the country’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization. HRC alleged that the district failed to investigate sex-based harassment that may have contributed to the death of Nex Benedict, 16, a trans student who died Feb. 8 , a day after a fight at Owasso High School. Benedict’s death was ruled a suicide by a medical examiner, and his name became a rallying cry among LGBTQ advocates...

Super Bowl-winning Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes said Wednesday it's "frustrating, disappointing" that he and teammate Travis Kelce were recently targeted by burglars . Mahomes and Kelce, the star tight end and boyfriend of Taylor Swift , were both break-in victims at their homes in the Kansas City area. "Obviously, it’s frustrating, disappointing," Mahomes told reporters in advance of his team's game Sund a y a gainst the Buffalo Bills . "I can't get into too many of the details because the investigation is still ongoing. But obviously it's something that you don’t want to happen to, really, anybody but obviously yourself." Mahomes' house in Belton, Missouri, was hit early Oct. 6, while Kelce's place in Leawo...

Nicole Daedone, the founder of OneTaste, a wellness company centered on the practice of "orgasmic meditation," said she will "absolutely" testify at her trial next year. The former CEO is scheduled to stand trial in New York in January on one count of forced labor conspiracy. Prosecutors allege that she and former OneTaste executive Rachel Cherwitz, who is facing the same charge, targeted victims of trauma to become members and manipulated them into performing sex acts and going into debt, among other things. Cherwitz has denied any wrongdoing. “It’s not true,” Daedone said of the allegations against her in an exclusive interview with NBC News N OW’s “Top Story.” “It’s definitely not true. And as much as any human being, as this woman, this person, would not want to go to cour...

Four years after the radio telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico collapsed , a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine is shining a light on the unprecedented failures that caused its destruction. The steel cables holding up the telescope’s 900-ton receiver platform became loose because the zinc-filled sockets built to support them failed, according to the report published Oct. 25. The failure was due to excessive “zinc creep,” a process in which the metal used to prevent corrosion or rusting on the sockets deforms and loses it grip over time, the report said. The zinc gradually lost its hold on the cables suspending the telescope’s main platform over the reflector dish. This allowed several cables to pull out of the soc...

WASHINGTON — Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., plans to file a resolution in the House on Thursday that would express support for the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution, which sets the term limits for the president. Term limits are already enshrined in the Constitution in the 22nd Amendment, so the resolution would have little tangible effect, and it's unclear whether it will get a vote on the House floor, which Republicans control. However, he could introduce it as a privileged resolution to force Republicans to vote on the matter. The resolution, which NBC News obtained Wednesday, reaffirms that the 22nd Amendment "applies to two terms in the aggregate as President of the United States" and reaffirms that it "applies to President-elect Trump." The resolution lists a number of instances in ...

Pennsylvania’s Senate race is heading to a recount, which the narrow margin between Republican Dave McCormick and Democratic Sen. Bob Casey triggered automatically under state law. Secretary of the Commonwealth Al Schmidt announced Wednesday that the unofficial results showing a narrow race have led to a recount. Schmidt noted in his announcement that counties must begin the recount no later than Nov. 20 and that they must complete the process by noon Nov. 26. The results will not be published until Nov. 27. Just over 29,000 votes, or 0.4% of the total votes cast, separate the two candidates, with McCormick narrowly leading. Any margin under 0.5 percentage points triggers a recount in Pennsylvania. NBC News has not yet projected a winner in the race. McCormick spokeswoman Elizabet...

The most-followed tech review influencer on YouTube apologized after viewers caught him driving almost three times over the speed limit in a video he uploaded Tuesday to nearly 20 million subscribers. Marques Brownlee wrote in a post on X that his driving was “Absolutely inexcusable and dangerous.” The video showed him driving a Lamborghini at 96 mph, passing 35 mph speed-limit signs and a "children playing" sign, indicating that the street was in a residential area. Before apologizing on X, Brownlee said that he “Cut out the unnecessary driving clip that obviously added nothing to the video. I hear all your feedback on sponsored videos too.” In addition to the speeding, viewers took issue with the video, titled “How My Video Gear is Changing,” being sponsored content ...

Four people in Southern California were arrested and accused of insurance fraud after they claimed their cars were trashed by a bear — which was actually someone in a bear costume, officials said Wednesday. The so-called bear was claimed to have entered and damaged a 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost on Jan. 8 while it was parked at Lake Arrowhead in the San Bernardino Mountains northeast of Los Angeles, the California Department of Insurance said. Video was submitted to the insurance company that alleged to show the animal entering the car. “Upon further scrutiny of the video, the investigation determined the bear was actually a person in a bear costume,” the Insurance Department said in a statement . The group also submitted claims for damage to two other cars, a 2015 Mercedes G6...