Boeing Made Progress on Air Force One Modifications, GAO Says
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Boeing Co. reduced some of the technical challenges dogging its delayed delivery of two jets that will serve as Air Force One, according to congressional auditors.
House Democratic subcommittee report outlines web of alleged corruption, wire fraud and pay-to-play schemesDonald Trump staged a hostile takeover of the US’s 250th anniversary celebration to enrich political allies, harvest voter data and promote Christian nationalist ideology, according to a congressional investigation released on Thursday.The interim report, “From Vanity to Insanity: How the White House Cheated the American People Out of Their 250th Birthday”, outlines a web of alleged corruption, wire fraud and pay-to-play schemes orchestrated through a shadow corporation embedded within the National Park Foundation (NPF). Continue reading...
An Air Force major was arrested on the steps of the Capitol on Wednesday after calling for President Trump and Vice President Vance’s impeachments. Peaceful demonstrations are permitted on Capitol grounds, but a protester must remain alongside a member of Congress to speak openly from the steps. Originally, Air Force Maj. Jason Watson was accompanied…
According to conservative commentator Tucker Carlson — who used to be among President Donald Trump’s closest allies — the U.S. is “not a democracy,” and he’s now working to “help build a third party” that will uphold the “America first” values he says Trump has betrayed. Carlson made these assertions via an interview with the Columbia Journalism Review, which he gave following his announcement that he had left the Republican Party. While he says that he was a “consistent defender” of the party for 35 years, he now argues he can no longer support the way it has changed under Trump. Central to his criticism of both president and party was the war in the Middle East. While Carlson was instrumental to Trump’s success during the 2016 and 2024 campaigns, explains the New York Times, “he broke sharply with the president after the United States started the war with Iran in late February, declaring Mr. Trump was violating a core campaign promise to avoid foreign conflicts. By April, Mr. Carlson said he was ‘tormented’ by his past support for the president. He told the Columbia Journalism Review that he had not spoken to Mr. Trump since the start of the war.”“I’m not interested in talking to him,” said Carlson.While Carlson has in the past attempted to maintain a public perception of alliance with Trump, texts revealed in 2023 during a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion Voting Systems showed his true feelings. “I hate him passionately,” texted Carlson in 2020, just two days before Trump spurred on the January 6 insurrection. A few days later, he texted that the president was “a demonic force, a destroyer.” Trump regained Carlson’s loyalty — or at least his willingness to fake it — in time for the 2024 election, but then over the course of the following year, growing daylight could be seen between their policy positions. Then Trump launched conflict with Iran, which Carlson said betrayed the “America first” ethos as well as blatant promises to start “no new foreign wars.” Speaking with the Columbia Journalism Review, Carlson said that there was no longer any contrast between “war and finance.”“That’s not a democracy,” asserted Carlson. “That’s a one-party state posing as a democracy, and it needs to be broken, and there’s going to be a third party, and I’m going to do everything I can to bring that about.” While some have suggested that he may be preparing for a presidential run himself, Carlson has rejected this idea, saying, “I’m not a politician, that’s for sure. I’m not a rival to Trump for power. I have no power. I’m someone who knows Trump, and I know him well, and I’ve known him for a long time.” Carlson isn’t the only prominent figure from the MAGA movement to lose faith in Trump. Former Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene had her own dramatic falling out with the president, and on Wednesday announced plans to create a new political party specifically to oppose the MAGA agenda.
President Donald Trump's own government is warning residents in the Washington, D.C., Virginia, and Maryland area that the July 4 fireworks display will likely cause air quality to reach the worst safety ratings on the scale.Politico's E&E News reported on Thursday that, ahead of the "massive" fireworks display, the president's planned activities for Saturday are likely to cause “hazardous” conditions.The National Park Service included the detail in a draft analysis given to Politico, saying that the 35- to 40-minute program will deploy more than 850,000 fireworks shells. That's more than 100 times what is typically launched on Independence Day, which shoots off 17,000 to 20,000 shells, said Northern Virginia Magazine. The usual event is touted as among the largest in the country each year. This year, Trump wants to set a record for the most fireworks ever used. The current record is 810,904, held by Iglesia Ni Cristo (Church of Christ) in the Philippines. It was set on New Year's Eve in 2016, according to Guinness World Records.The “worst-case” scenario, the National Park Service estimated that the explosions that are set to go off in 10 different locations will "create more than 2,000 micrograms of fine particulate matter — PM2.5 — per cubic meter on the National Mall." It's the kind of air quality seen during the 2023 wildfires in Canada, which blew smoke into the Northeast US. Los Angeles air quality has long been the worst air quality in the U.S. and at no point in the past 20 years has it reached the level that Washington will on the 4th, the American Lung Association data shows. A similar comparison would be Loni, India, is the worst and most polluted in the world currently, the "Live Air Quality Map" shows. In their case, the micrograms of fine particulate matter reach approximately 46.6 µg/m³. On the evening of the 4th of July, the Washington metro area will be approximately 4,190 percent worse than the most polluted city in the world. "The Capital Weather Gang," the irreverent local weather outlet for the city and the immediate area of the National Mall, will be the worst of the worst as the wind blows the smoke to the east. It means that southeastern Washington will get the brunt of the blast. Dr Tracey Lynn Perez Koehlmoos commented that those wards of Washington have "the worst pediatric asthma population in the U.S." The second-worst or "very unhealthy" category level will cover the lower half of the entire district. The northern part of the district and all of the northeast Virginia suburbs and Maryland east of the district, will likely be exposed to particulate matter that could be bad for those with existing breathing problems like asthma. That part of Maryland that is farther north of D.C. will have "moderate" air quality. According to the Washington Post, neither the Interior Department nor the National Park Service responded to questions about the warnings.
President Trump bought hundreds of stocks the day before he paused tariffs and caused the stock market to rally. Trump filed his latest financial disclosure on Monday, and it shows that he made 327 individual stock purchases worth as much as $12.8 million on April 8, 2025, from companies including Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, and Alphabet (Google’s parent company), according to an analysis from investigative outlet Sludge. The next day, Trump announced that he was pausing his sweeping tariffs for 90 days, and the S&P 500 went up by nearly 10 percent, one of its largest one-day increases ever.The timing of these trades suggests he planned to cash in, realizing that markets would rally after his announcement. Those weren’t the only suspicious stock trades he made last year, either. On August 18, Trump’s accounts bought between $250,000 and $500,000 of stock in chipmaker Intel, four days before the president announced that the federal government would take a nearly $9 billion equity stake in the company. Intel’s stock price went up 6 percent after that announcement.Trump also bought stock in defense contractor Palantir Technologies throughout the year, publicly praising the company while increasing its federal contracts, particularly those with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. One of his top advisers, White House deputy chief of staff and anti-immigration hawk Stephen Miller, also owns between $100,001 and $250,000 of Palantir stock. This year, Trump singled out Palantir on Truth Social in April and sent its stock price soaring.By law, Trump and other executive branch officials are supposed to publicly disclose securities transfers, including stock purchases, over $1,000 within 45 days. Not only did Trump wait more than a year to disclose the April stock purchases, he didn’t disclose any other of the thousands of stock trades he made in 2025.In all, Trump reported $2.2 billion in income in 2025, from crypto, stock trades, foreign real estate, suing news organizations, and other grifts. His administration is openly engaging in market manipulation and insider trading without any fear of consequences.
The endorsement is the first in a contested Senate primary by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez this year, in a state that Democrats believe they must hold this fall to win a Senate majority.
Tucker Carlson said that he’s going to help build a third party, although he denied that he intends to run for president as its candidate. The conservative […]