Author: Grace Thompson

Washington At his hearing before the Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, Senate Republicans welcomed Pete Hegseth and indicated that they would support President-elect Donald Trump's beleaguered secretary of defense candidate. Hegseth's nomination was marred by a number of scandals going into the hearing, including claims of excessive drinking and sexual assault, both of which he has denied, and previous statements that women shouldn't serve in battle, which he has subsequently recanted. Republicans, however, left the more than four-hour interrogation Tuesday feeling hopeful that the former Fox News anchor and Army combat veteran will be confirmed as the Pentagon's commander. His confirmation will require the support of 50 senators, as the GOP now holds 53 Senate seats. According to Sen...

WASHINGTON—With a promise of House passage within the next three months, Speaker Mike Johnson is outlining a very ambitious timeframe to approve President-elect Donald Trump's big-ticket legislative agenda. Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, told NBC News on Tuesday that we are aiming for ultimate passage in April. He restated that the House intends to enact Trump's policies on taxes, domestic energy, and border security in a single, magnificent bill. Johnson has also demanded that the plan include increases to the debt cap and spending cuts. With Johnson's paper-thin House majority and no chance of gaining Democratic support, it would be an impossible undertaking. With two lawmakers departing for the Trump administration, Republicans' lead of 219-215 is about to momentarily narrow to ...

Sean "Diddy" Combs is defending himself against information that is anticipated to be used against him during his criminal trial in New York in May. As per a document filed by his defense team in the Southern District of New York on Tuesday, his lawyers have examined nine movies of "so-called 'Freak Off' tapes" that were supplied by New York prosecutors about an individual known as "Victim-1." The document requests electronic copies of the films, which Combs' lawyers claim "confirm Mr. Combs' innocence" between "fully consenting adults in a long-term relationship." According to a person familiar with the matter who spoke to NBC News, Combs' legal team is only permitted to watch the tapes "in the presence of a government representative and can see them but cannot keep them." According to th...

Los Angeles Only a few weeks ago, the 9ThirtyLA venue in the Arts District of downtown was a popular event location. Its concrete flooring and wooden beams provided the ideal setting for corporate parties, concerts, and other events. However, when fires started to ravage the Los Angeles area, a group of volunteers and community organizers transformed an industrial space into a temporary shelter, complete with beds and tables stocked with daily necessities like clothing and personal hygiene items. The location is now one of the several that have been put up throughout the area to assist wildfire evacuees in coping with the destruction, thanks to assistance from local organizations (LoveChild Hospitality, the ANE Foundation, ImpactLA, and the AFTP Foundation). Waseel Amoura, an organizer a...

In a complaint, a third former Indiana University basketball player claimed that the team doctor had sexually assaulted him and that the university had failed to take any action to keep him safe from a predator. Players Charlie Miller and Haris Mujezinovic are also involved in an updated class-action complaint against the Indiana University Trustees, along with John Flowers. According to the federal lawsuit filed Tuesday in the Southern District of Indiana, Flowers claimed that during his time as a player for the Hoosiers from 1981 to 1982, Dr. Bradford Bomba Sr. performed at least two unwarranted prostate exams on him. The complaint lists Tim Garl, a longstanding men's basketball trainer, as a defendant in addition to Flowers as a plaintiff. It claims that when Garl introduced gamers to B...

Elon Muskon was sued by the SEC on Tuesday, claiming that the billionaire committed securities fraud in 2022 by purchasing shares at inflated prices and neglecting to declare his ownership of Twitter. Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, paid $44 billion to acquire Twitter, which he eventually rebranded as X. He had amassed more than 5% of the company before the acquisition, which would have forced him to reveal his holdings to the public. Musk was able to underpay by at least $150 million for shares he bought after his financial beneficial ownership report was due because he failed to comply with disclosure regulations, according to the SEC lawsuit. As the CEO of Tesla sold shares of his auto firm and increased his interest in Twitter in 2022 before his leveraged takeover, the SEC was looki...

DENVER Officials announced Tuesday that the family of a pregnant woman who was shot and killed by Arvada, Colorado, police after they thought she was a shoplifter had struck a $2 million settlement with the city. On August 17, 2021, Destinee Thompson, a Denver mother of three, was slain while attempting to flee from police who had surrounded her car as she was leaving a motel in Arvada. Thompson's family filed a lawsuit, which was resolved in July and made public this week, according to Arvada Police Department spokesperson Dave Snelling. According to the lawsuit filed in Denver County District Court, the shooting happened when police were looking for a Latina who had brandished a knife while robbing a Target store of a cart full of goods. According to the lawsuit, the real suspect, who ...

South Korea's SEOUL Weeks after a first effort ended in a dramatic standoff at the house where Yoon has been hiding since being impeached, South Korean officials launched a second attempt on Wednesday to apprehend President Yoon Suk Yeol over his unsuccessful declaration of martial law. Members of Yoon's security staff welcomed investigators before dawn at his presidential mansion in central Seoul and prevented them from apprehending Yoon on their initial attempt on January 3. Yoon's attorneys and members of his People Power Party were also on the access road to the house, claiming the warrant was unlawful and preventing the police from approaching the house's entry. Yoon is wanted for interrogation in relation to his brief imposition of martial law last month, which caused political uph...

Early Wednesday marks the start of a new year of lunar research as two robotic landers and a tiny rover are anticipated to set out for the moon. At 1:11 a.m. ET, a SpaceX rocket is scheduled to launch two independent, uncrewed missions to the lunar surface from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. One of those projects, created by Firefly Aerospace, a Texas-based business, intends to place a lander named Blue Ghost in the Martian Crisium, a 340-mile-wide basin on the moon believed to be the location of an old asteroid impact. The other project, which is being operated by iSpace, a Japanese business, uses a mini rover named Tenacious and a lander named Resilience. Their intended landing spot is in the far north of the moon, in an area known as Mare Frigoris. This will be the second time ...

On Tuesday, the House passed a bill that would prohibit transgender athletes from playing women's and girls' sports at educational institutions that receive government funding. A 218 to 206 vote mostly along party lines passed the bill, which would also change federal law to state that sex shall be recognized based exclusively on a person's reproductive biology and genetics at birth. Henry Cuellar and Vicente Gonzalez were the only two Democrats from Texas who supported the proposal. No Republicans opposed the legislation, and Rep. Don Davis, a Democrat from North Carolina, voted in favor of it. The Senate will now consider the bill. The legislation's proponent, Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., stated that its goal was to safeguard women's sports. "The distinction between men and women is clear a...