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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared before the Senate Finance committee on the day of his confirmation hearing as Secretary of Health and Human Services, surrounded by ardent supporters and anti-vaccine campaigners. Kennedy attempted a delicate balancing act in the face of growing criticism from Democrats, doctor's groups, and public health officials (as well as some skepticism from some Republicans). He defended and denied his contentious past as a well-known anti-vaccine lawyer while promising to be a responsible steward for an agency with 80,000 employees, a $1.8 trillion budget, and the health of the country at stake. I would like to clarify a few points for the Committee. I have been accused by the media of being anti-industry or anti-vaccine. In his opening remarks to the committee, Kenne...

Two persons knowledgeable on the situation confirmed to NBC News that an attorney for New York City Mayor Eric Adams has reached out to Justice Department leadership with a request to drop the investigation against him. Adams' attorney's outreach is typical for a well-known defendant like Adams who wants the Justice Department of a new administration to take a second look at the case. However, according to a person familiar with the situation, there is currently no sign that federal prosecutors in Manhattan in the Southern District of New York will abandon the case. According to a Justice Department official who spoke to NBC News, the office of acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove is participating in the talks with the Southern District of New York and Adams team over the ongoing case ...

The PresidentA decree signed by President Donald Trump on Wednesday begins the construction of a facility to detain thousands of migrants in Guantnamo Bay, Cuba, which he claimed was an attempt to "halt the border invasion." "I hereby direct the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security to take all appropriate actions to expand the Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to full capacity to provide additional detention space for high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States," according to the memo to the Pentagon and DHS. During a signing ceremony for the immigration detention law known as the Laken Riley Act, Trump gave a sneak peek at the plan, stating that he will "direct the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to star...

Its recent Chinese competitor, DeepSeek, may have "inappropriately taken data from its model to spin up its own artificial intelligence chatbot," according to OpenAI. On Monday, DeepSeek shocked U.S. markets by releasing an unexpectedly powerful and affordable Large Language Model, or LLM. This caused the stock of Nvidia, the leading U.S. chip manufacturer, to plummet. OpenAI's allegation was first published by the Financial Times. In an emailed statement to NBC News on Wednesday, an OpenAI representative stated that it believes DeepSeek might be one of the anonymous Chinese companies actively attempting to overtake American AI firms using a strategy called distillation, in which an LLM is trained using data produced by another LLM. The spokeswoman clarified that the business was not accus...

On Wednesday, Meta announced that it will pay $25 million to resolve a lawsuit that President Donald Trump had filed four years prior against the social media firm for suspending Trump's accounts following the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The complaint was still proceeding when Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, filed a notice of the settlement in federal court in San Francisco. The terms, which included a $25 million payment from the corporation, $22 million going toward a fund for Trump's presidential library, and the remaining amount going toward legal fees and other plaintiffs in the lawsuit, were independently confirmed by Meta spokesperson Andy Stone. According to Stone, Meta is not required to acknowledge fault as part of the settlement. Regarding ...

The case would essentially come to an end on Wednesday when the Justice Department filed to discontinue its appeal of a federal court judgment dismissing the criminal charges against President Donald Trump's erstwhile co-defendants in the secret materials case. Then-U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland had stated that the pending appeal might affect the due process rights of co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, which is why he would not make special counsel Jack Smith's report on the criminal case he had brought against Trump publicly available. Hayden O'Byrne submitted the Justice Department's move to withdraw the appeal with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. According to the Miami Herald, O'Byrne was appointed as the Southern District of Florida's acting U.S. attorney ...

Washington President Donald Trump's choice to head the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., faltered many times during his first Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday when he was questioned by senators on possible Medicaid reforms. Nearly 80 million low-income individuals are covered by the government-based health insurance program, which has gained more attention as Republicans in Congress search for ways to cut federal spending, with Medicaid potentially being one of the broadest cuts. Kennedy will supervise the implementation of Medicaid in addition to Medicare and the Affordable Care Act if he is confirmed as secretary of health and human services. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the ranking member of the Finance Committee, stated at the end of the hearing that ...

For a years-long bribery and corruption plot that saw him rewarded with gold bars and piles of cash, a court on Wednesday sentenced an emotional former senator, Bob Menendez, to 11 years in prison. Twice, Menendez had sobbed as he begged U.S. District Judge Sidney Stein for mercy. After describing acts he claimed to have done to assist people while serving in the Senate—a position he was forced to leave following his conviction—the Democrat from New Jersey declared, "I have lost everything." Menendez, who chaired the influential Senate Foreign Relations Committee when he accepted the payoffs, claimed that "every day I am awake is a punishment for a man who spent his entire life in public service." The judge seemed unimpressed, stating that although he had accomplished some good work, the e...

After their first policy meeting since he returned to office, Federal Reserve officials left interest rates steady, which prompted President Donald Trump to criticize them. In reference to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, he wrote on his Truth Social platform, "I will do it by unleashing American energy production, slashing regulation, rebalancing international trade, and reigniting American manufacturing because Jay Powell and the Fed failed to stop the problem they created with inflation." He said that inflation would never have been an issue if the Fed had focused less on DEI, gender ideology, green energy, and false climate change. The president's criticism follows days after he put pressure on policymakers to decrease interest rates, continuing his practice of making his opinions ...

Immigration enforcement actions have begun to spread throughout major U.S. cities since President Donald Trump returned to office. According to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), 956 persons were taken into custody on Sunday. However, according to an NBC News report, immigration officials made around 1,200 arrests that day, but only 613 of them—or roughly 52%—were classified as criminal arrests. The remaining individuals seemed to be either nonviolent criminals or those who had only crossed the border illegally. Being undocumented is not a criminal; rather, it is a civil offense. The following day, the number of arrests increased once further, according to the agency, which reported that 1,179 arrests and 853 detainers were made on Monday. There has been worry that law-abiding...