A Houston man was slapped with multiple charges after posting videos of himself shooting homeless people with a “high-powered motorized water gun” in a sick social media stunt.
President Donald Trump pardoned six people who he said were sentenced or in prison for “fixing their car,” a day before the US celebrates 250 years of independence on July 4.
In the wake of financial disclosures showing that President Donald Trump has profited wildly off his presidency over the past year, the Newsweek editors have published a detailed analysis in which they assert that he is “raking in eye-watering sums of money from cryptocurrency gamblers, most of whom were losers in this trade, and also his supporters.”According to Newsweek, while his supporters theoretically set out to “drain the swamp” in corrupt Washington, “The truth is, MAGA always knew Trump was like this. In fact, it’s a big part of why they backed him in the first place.”As Newsweek details, “Trump’s 2025 disclosure lists CIC Digital LLC, described as wholly owned by the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, receiving royalties from a license agreement with Celebration Coins and reports the amount as $635,068,835. The same filing reports $236.25 million in token-sale proceeds distributed by World Liberty Financial, plus $65.6 million from the sale of equity in its holding company. Those numbers are politically explosive… because they involve a sitting president, his family business network and an industry his administration is figuring out how to, and if it should, regulate.”Critics say crypto is “a haven for criminals and scammers,” and Newsweek suggests it’s the most “Trumpian” of Trump’s grifts yet. “The $TRUMP coin launched days before Trump returned to office and surged from under $10 to as high as $74.59 before falling back, with four-fifths of its supply held by CIC Digital and an entity called Fight Fight Fight,” explains Newsweek. “The coin described itself as ‘an expression of support,’ not an investment or a security — a distinction that should have cooled anyone foolish enough to be treating it as a retirement plan.”Ultimately, “there were losses, though not for Trump. Roughly two-thirds of investors in the memecoin are underwater, according to the Wall Street Journal, and the Reuters tally put buyers’ collective losses near the family’s $2.3 billion in gains.”As Newsweek notes, “No supporter deserves to be fleeced because a favorite leader put his name on a speculative asset,” but “the naivete defense has limits.” Experts and regulators have long warned not only about the “exceptionally volatile and speculative” nature of crypto, which poses a significant risk of total loss, but about the shady nature of Trump’s dealings. With that in mind, “a voter can call Trump’s crypto dealings unseemly all they like, but a speculator who bought a president-branded token after years of such warnings has a hard time arguing the house owed him a win.”According to Newsweek, “It is easy to see the new crypto numbers as a betrayal of Trump’s voters, many of whom are struggling middle-and-working class voters who can never hope to own even a tiny fraction, if that, of what these deals alone made for him. But this is the kind of transaction many Trump supporters were primed to admire… The problem was not his instinct for aggressive self-interest, in Trump’s telling, but stupid leaders who failed to turn pursuit of self-interest into national advantage.”Whether all the crypto corruption scandal will impact Trump depends on “how his voters parse it, especially those who bought the coin and experienced losses — as personal betrayal, or as the cost of playing near power. Will the Trump supporters among the two-thirds of memecoin buyers now sitting on losses begin to defect, or simply shrug and stay with him?”
Major American corporations that benefited from tax cuts enacted last year by President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans are donating to the campaigns of GOP lawmakers who made the windfall possible.A report published Friday by Unrig Our Economy spotlights seven House Republicans who voted for the sprawling and unpopular GOP budget package, which extended tax breaks for corporations and wealthy Americans while inflicting unprecedented cuts on Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance—with disastrous consequences for millions of low-income families across the country.Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), one of the lawmakers featured in the new report, has received campaign donations from corporate PACs representing 3M, Amazon, Walmart, AT&T, and other companies that collectively received billions of dollars in tax breaks from the Republican law, which restored a provision allowing businesses to immediately write off new investments.Amazon saw its US income taxes fall by more than half last year due to the GOP law, even as the company’s profits grew. Unrig Our Economy noted that Amazon, whose PAC donated thousands to the Republicans spotlighted in the new report, has an effective federal tax rate of 1.37% following enactment of the budget law.Miller-Meeks, who has received at least $57,000 in donations from the PACs of companies that benefited from the 2025 law, issued a statement Thursday bragging about supporting “the largest tax cuts in American history,” not mentioning that the benefits will disproportionately flow to profitable corporations and the richest people in the country.“Thanks to the Republican tax law, corporations are receiving tax breaks, House Republicans are getting campaign cash, and working families are getting stuck with the bill,” the report states.Another Republican lawmaker featured in the report, Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania, received $2,500 in campaign donations from the PAC of FirstEnergy, which reaped $500 million in depreciation deductions thanks to the GOP tax law.“Bresnahan voted to give FirstEnergy hundreds of millions in tax breaks even after the company raised utility prices for his constituents,” Unrig Our Economy’s report observes.The report also points out that Bresnahan “owned stock in every single one” of the companies who contributed PAC money to his campaign following passage of the Republican budget package last summer.“This comes after Bresnahan has already faced scrutiny for dumping stock in Medicaid providers and selling off bonds in Pennsylvania hospitals before voting to slash Medicaid and put rural hospitals at risk,” the report notes.Leor Tal, Unrig Our Economy’s campaign director, said in a statement that “one year ago, House Republicans ripped away healthcare and food assistance from millions of Americans, so that corporations could get massive tax breaks.”“Now, many of those companies are dishing out PAC money to the Republicans listed in this report,” said Tal. “Republicans in Congress sold out many of their own constituents to help corporations get even richer. It’s time that House Republicans step up, do the right thing, and start fighting for working Americans—not giant corporations.”
At least two Dallas police officers and members of the Egypt national soccer team’s staff were involved in a physical altercation and shouting match, according to videos.
