
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) played a big advocacy role in President-elect Joe Biden's 2020 bid, no doubt helping him lock up the typically red state of Georgia. Bottoms was expected to be offered a White House role in return, perhaps as the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development or the head of the Small Business Administration, or even Biden's vice president. After the naming of Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) as Biden's running mate over the summer, and after Biden slotted Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) into the HUD spot, Bottoms' choices seemed to be slimming.

Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger on Friday criticized the Texas GOP for floating the idea of secession after the Supreme Court rejected a bid to overturn the results of the presidential election. In a statement, the Texas GOP chairman suggested that "law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution." Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said the statement should be immediately retracted and the people involved fired.

BEIRUT (Reuters) -Leading Lebanese parties lambasted charges brought against the prime minister and three former ministers over the Beirut port explosion on Friday, highlighting the political minefield facing the investigation. The heavily armed, Shi'ite Muslim Hezbollah movement said the charges smacked of political targeting, joining a wider pushback by influential parties against the allegations of negligence made by Judge Fadi Sawan. Four months since the port blast that killed 200 people, injured thousands and destroyed entire districts, victims are still awaiting the result of the investigation.

A tip from a concerned citizen provided a pivotal break Friday in the Dec. 3 slaying of 26-year-old nurseย Caitlyn Kaufman, who worked in the intensive care unit at Saint Thomas West Hospital. Atย dawn,ย members of Metro Nashville Police Department's SWAT team descended on an East Nashville apartment complex and made anย arrest in the fatal shooting of a Nashville nurse who was driving to work when police say someoneย opened fire on her SUV. Devaunte Lewis Hill, 21, was taken into custody at 6:15 a.m. in Kaufman's death.
An Associated Press investigation has identified at least six sexual misconduct allegations involving senior FBI officials over the past five years, including two new claims brought this week by women who say they were sexually assaulted by ranking agents.

Some Republican senators are using their unfounded election fraud claims as an excuse to muddy President-elect Joe Biden's transition. Biden has spent the past few weeks since the election filling out his Cabinet, hoping quick confirmations will help him get a quick start on reversing President Trump's policies. But "as long as there's litigation ongoing, and the election result is disputed, I do not think you will see the Senate act to confirm any nominee," Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told Axios.

Sen. Mike Lee blocked two proposals that would establish new Smithsonian museums for American Latino and women's history. Both bipartisan bills passed the House of Representatives earlier this year, but the Republican senator said Americans didn't need "separate but equal" museums. Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez and GOP Sen. Susan Collins both pushed back against Lee during a dramatic Senate session on Thursday.

Gordon Ramsay and Gigi Hadid share a mutual love of cooking. In a live cooking event on Saturday, December 12, at 12 p.m. EST, Ramsay will pay homage to a spicy pasta and shrimp dish he said Hadid sent him recently. The "MasterChef" judge will also make a "glamorous" banana bread pancake cereal with warm, vanilla-infused milk.

TALLAHASSEE โ Gov. Ron DeSantis lashed out Friday at a former Florida data scientist turned whistleblower whose home was raided by a state law enforcement team wielding a sledgehammer earlier this week. Just because you're a darling of some corners of the fever swamps, that does not exempt you from following the law,โ DeSantis said during an appearance in Tampa. The video of law enforcement's arrival at the Tallahassee home of Rebekah Jones has gone viral and the former health department data scientist has denied allegations that she accessed a state emergency alert system to urge former co-workers to speak out about the DeSantis administration's handling of the coronavirus.

The Republican Party of Texas decried the US Supreme Court decision to reject a bid by some states to overturn the results of the presidential election. The case, which was brought by Texas and joined by other Republican-led states, sought to overturn the results in four states won by President-elect Joe Biden. "Perhaps law-abiding states should bond together and form a Union of states that will abide by the constitution," Allen West, the Texas GOP chairman, said.

A Miami Beach woman is accused of speeding though the Florida Keys and flipping her middle fingers at a pursuing Monroe County Sheriff's Office deputy along the way. Christine Eliza Dayoub, 36, faces multiple felony charges in the incident in which deputies say she reached speeds of up to 120 mph as she crossed the iconic Seven Mile Bridge Thursday night in a Mercedes-Benz. It began around 7:40 p.m. when she passed a deputy in his patrol car heading south on U.S. 1 in the Middle Keys city of Marathon, according to the sheriff's office.

It took 51 years and a team of experts from three countries to crack the code to a cipher left by the still unidentified Zodiac Killer, who haunted northern California communities in the 1960s and 70s. โI hope you are having lots of fun in trying to catch me,โ the message, sent to the San Francisco Chronicle in November 1969 in a series of symbols, reads. The FBI confirmed that the news of the cracked code is the real deal, but said it does little to help investigators in the decades-long search for the serial killer.

The night after their immigration court hearing, Francisco Sical heldย his youngย daughter in his arms in a freezing Border Patrol cell. Melissa Sical โ second-youngest of his seven children, with long brown hair and a shy smile โ had glimpsed El Paso from the government van and wanted to see more of the houses with yards beyond the highways. Now she was trembling with cold, and Sical couldn't bear to tell her that they were detained.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is one of four candidates being considered for attorney general in President-elect Joe Biden's administration, a source toldย the Associated Press on Friday. The other three contenders include former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, outgoing Alabama Sen. Doug Jones, and Judge Merrick Garland. Cuomo has previously said he has "no interest in going to Washington" despite having previously served as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under then-President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2001.

With the distribution of a COVID-19 vaccine seemingly days away, President Donald Trump has been stewing over what he perceives to be a lack of credit that he is getting for the breakthrough. The outgoing president recently ranted to several advisers and associates about how vaccine manufacturers were possibly working to deny him the chance to declare victory in the pandemic, according to three people familiar with his private grumblings. One adviser told The Daily Beast that this month, the president asked if the heads of Pfizer, one of the main vaccine manufacturers, were โDemocrats.โ

In the hands of Pierre Yovanovitch, the Paris apartment that iconic designer Jean-Michel Frank once called home gets a spectacular new lease on life Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest

The mayor of Columbus, Ohio, criticized a U.S. Marshal on Friday for providing an "inappropriate, uninformed" statement about the death of 23-year-old Casey Goodson Jr. Soon after Goodson was fatally shot by a sheriff's deputy last Friday, U.S. Marshal Peter Tobin made multiple claims that have been disputed by Goodson's family and have not been repeated by authorities investigating the shooting. He has since said his comments were "premature." In the aftermath of the December 4 shooting, Tobin told reporters on the scene that the victim "was seen driving down the street waving a gun" before he was confronted by the deputy, who was later identified as Franklin County Sheriff's Deputy Jason M...

"Since Election Night, a lot of people have been confusing voters by spinning Kenyan Birther-type, 'Chavez rigged the election from the grave' conspiracy theories," Sen. Ben Sasse said. Sasse's support for the Supreme Court's decision makes him one of the few Republicans to speak out so far. Republican Sen. Ben Sasse, of Nebraska, released a statement Friday which was highly supportive of the Supreme Court's decision to throw out the Texas Attorney General's baseless lawsuit attempting to overturn election results in favor of President Donald Trump.

of voters think Trump will be viewed as one of the worst presidents ever, according to a new Fox News poll. The majority of voters hold an unfavorable view of Trump and disapprove of how he has handled major political issues during his presidency. There are major partisan divides surrounding questions of the legitimacy of the 2020 Election.

A couple wearing protective masks take a selfie with the Rockefeller Christmas Tree in the background on Dec. 6, 2020 in New York City. With the U.S. setting a new, devastating record of more than 3,000 people dead from COVID-19 in a single day this week, American women say they're planning on social distancing this holiday season. One in four Americans has plans to travel for Christmas, and one in five is traveling for New Year'sโchoices that in this horrific year have the potential to exacerbate an outbreak already spreading out of control in much of the country.

Former members of the celebrity megachurch Hillsong recently came forward to Insider with multiple accusations of racism, anti-LGBTQ behavior, and exploitation after pastor Carl Lentz was fired for infidelity last month. After celebrity pastor of Hillsong NYC Carl Lentz was fired for cheating on his wife in November, sources told Insider that the issues at Hillsong run much deeper than one affair. Several former volunteers said top pastors regularly took advantage of free and underpaid labor, and in some cases paid little or no money for volunteers to babysit their children.

WASHINGTON โ President Donald Trump shows no sign of ending his assault on the results of the November presidential election, even with his legal options dwindling and the Electoral College just days away from sealing his fate. In yet another move aimed at overturning a democratically held election he lost, Trump blasted out a barrage of messages on Twitter on Friday calling into question the election results and urging the Supreme Court to throw out millions of votes in four battleground states โ a move the court rejected Friday evening. Follow the Constitution and do what everybody knows has to be done,โ Trump implored justices on the nation's highest court.

On Thursday, a committee of 22 experts recommended that the FDA should authorize Pfizer's COVID-19 shots for emergency use. Four committee members voted 'no,' and one abstained. On Thursday, a committee of leading experts voted 17-4 (with one abstention), urging the US Food and Drug Administration to authorize Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use in the US.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accused Republicans of effectively defunding the police by opposing sending federal aid to states and cities as part of Congress' COVID-19 relief package. "Because Republicans are trying to block state and local funding so that those budgets dry up." By turning "defund the police" back on Republicans, Ocasio-Cortez, who has embraced the left-wing calls, appeared to concede that the slogan is unpopular and controversial, even among Democrats.

Sandra Denton aka Pepa from Salt-N-Pepa is taking legal action against a doctor she said left her botched. According to TMZ, Pep is suing Dr. David Sayah after he convinced her to get multiple surgeries to repair the damage done to her body after being in a car accident. She claims the doctor scarred her for life, and she now has to undergo more surgery.


โThe prospect of a 2024 run is politically significant. Itโs also a complete fiction.โ
โHis flirtation with a 2024 bid ensures heโll remain the dominant force in the Republican Party.โ
โHe shouldnโt run for president again. Thereโs a better job and life for him on the horizon.โ
โTrump is in for years of scandals and humiliationsโฆHeโll have to devote much of his energy to trying to stay out of prison.โ
โIf Trump himself passes on the opportunity, his two very political children could also potentially pick up the mantle.โ