On Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced that he would choose L. Brent Bozell III, the founder of the Media Research Center, to lead the U.S. Agency for Global Media. Bozell signed a letter on behalf of his son, a convicted Jan. 6 rioter. "As the founder and president of the Media Research Center for 38 years, few have a better understanding of the global media landscape in print, television, and online than Brent," Trump stated in a Truth Social release. "He and his family have fought for the American principles of Liberty, Freedom, Equality, and Justice for generations, and he will ensure that message is heard by Freedom-loving people around the World." On Wednesday, Bozell stated that he was "honored" to be chosen by Trump to head the U.S. Agency for Global Media. "A lot of work n...

More than 31,000 people were warned and ordered to evacuate Wednesday near two new wildfires north of Los Angeles. More than 10,000 acres, or 15 square miles, have been burned since Wednesday morning in the Hughes fire near Castaic Lake in northern Los Angeles County.Cal Fire said that by 1 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET), it was only 10% contained. Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna informed reporters that the Hughes fire was being fueled by strong winds and dry conditions, but the interagency fire information center reported that no structures have been burned. Late Wednesday saw the start of a fresh brush fire in Sepulveda Pass, which spread to 40 acres close to UCLA and the heavily populated Sherman Oaks neighborhood before being put out. At 11:46 p.m. ET on Thursday, the Los Angeles F...

Madison, Wisconsin. On Wednesday, prosecutors charged a Wisconsin man with several charges, including arson, after he allegedly informed police that he attempted to set fire to a congressman's office because he was angry over the federal TikTok ban. Caiden Stachowicz, 19, was charged by Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney with felony arson, terrorist threats, attempted burglary, and property damage. If found guilty on all counts, he would be sentenced to more than 50 years in prison. Menasha resident Stachowicz was expected to appear in court for the first time on Wednesday morning. According to online court documents, Judge Tricia Walker granted him $500,000 in cash bond and mandated that he refrain from communicating with Republican U.S. Representative Glenn Grothman or his...

Washington Federal employees who failed to report peers who hold diversity, equality, inclusion, and accessibility roles that may have gone overlooked by federal supervisors risked consequences, according to emails sent to them on Wednesday. "We are aware of efforts by some in government to disguise these programs by using coded or imprecise language," according to emails that NBC News was able to get from government officials. Staff members were instructed to inform the Office of Personnel Management if they were "aware of a change in any contract description or personnel position description since November 5, 2024 to obscure the connection between the contract and DEIA or similar ideologies." "There will be no adverse consequences for timely reporting this information," the message rea...

A fast-moving wildfire flared Wednesday, spreading to over 8,000 acres in a matter of hours, forcing some 31,000 people to evacuate a region north of Los Angeles, according to officials. Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna informed reporters that another 23,000 residents were under evacuation warnings following the Hughes Fire, which broke out at 10:53 a.m. Wednesday near Castaic Lake in northern Los Angeles County. At a joint news conference, Los Angeles County Fire Department Chief Anthony Marrone stated that the fire, which was fueled by windy and dry weather, had burned 9,400 acres by Wednesday afternoon. "The fire remains a difficult fire to contain, although we are getting the upper hand," Marrone stated. The fire started weeks after two neighboring fires in the Los Angeles area e...

Following the desegregation of the military in the 1940s, the first Black woman to enlist in the U.S. Army Nurse Corps passed away. Her age was 104. During her lengthy military career, Nancy Leftenant-Colon quietly broke down racial barriers. She retired as a major and passed away earlier this month at a nursing facility in New York. She was one of six siblings, including a brother who was a well-known pilot with the Tuskegee Airmen, who participated in the war. Her name was Lefty. A biography of Leftenant-Colon on the Tuskegee Airmen Inc. website states that he was killed in a mid-air crash over Austria in 1945. His body has never been located. According to her nephew Chris Leftenant, who spoke to The Associated Press, she was simply an amazing person. When she was doing all of this firs...

A protest movement has sprung up on Reddit after Elon Musk, the owner of X, made a hand gesture on Monday that many people claimed looked like a Nazi salute. Moderators in more than 50 subreddit groups have subsequently declared that connections from X, formerly Twitter, would no longer be permitted in new posts and comments, according to NBC News. There are at least 40 million members in the protesting communities, which range in size from hundreds to millions. Only a small percentage of these individuals are usually active, especially in larger or older subreddits. The platform has about 100,000 active subreddits. The salute event, which occurred at a rally after President Donald Trump's inauguration, was expressly brought up by moderators in numerous postings announcing the new regulati...

Washington Gina Bisignano's plan worked. In the hopes that Donald Trump would be re-elected and grant her a pardon, the Jan. 6 defendant had spent years doing everything in her power to postpone her criminal case related to her activities during the Capitol attack. Trump's pardons that wiped out the case against Bisignano gave her still another reason to celebrate on Monday, two days before her 56th birthday. The dismissal was signed Tuesday by a federal court. Bisignano was a free woman on Wednesday. "I have no regrets," Bisignano declared, adding that even if you gave me a million dollars, she wouldn't change a thing. NBC News interviewed a dozen offenders who were pardoned by Trump this week, and it was a recurring theme. They all expressed gratitude for Trump's deliverance, but there...

The phones of thousands of people in eastern Altadena buzzed with a Los Angeles County warning: BE AWARE, just 30 minutes after a fire broke out on a hillside in Eaton Canyon on the afternoon of January 7. A terrible warning will sound in 40 minutes: QUIT RIGHT AWAY. However, evacuation orders were not issued until early the next morning, more than nine hours after the Eaton Fire started, thus neighborhoods in western Altadena did not feel the same urgency. It was too late by then. The wind-fueled fire killed all 17 individuals who were west of Lake Avenue, a main thoroughfare that passes through Altadena from north to south. Among them were a 95-year-old actress from the heyday of Black Hollywood, an 83-year-old retired project manager from Lockheed Martin, and a 67-year-old amputee who ...

As part of his massive crackdown on federal diversity programs, President Donald Trump withdrew an executive order this week that prohibited discrimination by federal contractors and subcontractors. In a memo released Wednesday, the White House stated that the order signed the day before "protects the civil rights of all Americans and expands individual opportunity by terminating radical DEI preferencing in federal contracting and directing federal agencies to relentlessly combat private sector discrimination." According to the Department of Labor, the contested order had mandated "affirmative action and prohibits federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin." Initially covering federal personnel...