Elon Musk offered some advice to Andrew Tate following the controversial influencer being detained and questioned by Romanian police as part of a sex trafficking investigation. Tate was reportedly only questioned by police thanks to a video trolling teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Musk trolled Tate after he was only found by Romanian police when multiple pizza boxes made an appearance in his video, showing he was in the country. While getting his pizza, Tate was ranting against Thunberg.

“Sometimes it’s just better to make pizza at home,” Musk tweeted on Saturday.

The tweet followed Musk actually praising Grunberg after her spat with Tate. The bizarre feud began with 36-year-old Tate tweeting Thunberg and bragging about the damage he was doing to the environment with his dozens of cars. The influencer jokingly offered to provide Thunberg with a list of his cars, and the 19-year-old responded by telling informing Tate he has “small dick energy.”

Musk actually praised Thunberg in a Friday tweet, calling the climate activist “cool” and praising her for her “brand awareness.”

“The sheer amount of brand awareness achieved by Greta within a few years is astounding. I think she’s cool tbh,” the Twitter owner tweeted.

Musk’s praise was in response to a tweet from the right-leaning satire site Babylon Bee. Musk has been friendly with the outlet in the past, but made no apologies for his Thunberg appreciation.

Police confirmed Tate and his brother were arrested following the Thunberg spat. The pair are accused of abusing women by “forcing them to perform pornographic demonstrations,” according to reports.

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File

Former President Donald Trump took to Truth Social on New Year’s Eve to rage against Fox News, claiming the network has lost his “MAGA base” and could see a ratings boost if they mentioned Trump and his social media platform more often.

Trump also blasted MSNBC and CNN in his post, but he had more to say about Fox News, claiming the network’s numbers are “way down.”

Trump wrote:

Wow!!! So while Trump Hating CNN & MSNBC (MSDNC!) RATINGS are both at record lows, numbers that they have never seen before (“they’re toast”), Fox News Ratings are also way down because they never say “Trump” or TRUTH, never talk about the Rigged Presidential Election, and is a Fake Polling Network. Our giant MAGA base, much bigger than anyone knows, does not like watching Fox play their games. Their Ratings will continue to sink. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

Despite Trump’s claims about Fox News, the network celebrated being the most-watched cable network on television for the seventh straight year this month. Fox News shows like Gutfeld! have also stood out, seeing their numbers growing over the last year.

Trump later shared a post reacting to a New York Times report on Truth Social and the platform’s outreach. The Times report notes that the platform continues to suffer from “business problems,” but has seen its influence grow.

Trump shared the news, despite the fact that just this week he ripped the Times apart as “the enemy of the people” and completely fake.

“The Failing New York Times is Fake and Corrupt News. Their motto should be, ALL THE FAKE NEWS THAT’S UNFIT TO PRINT. They are the Enemy of the People!” Trump wrote on Friday, weeks after the Times report on Truth Social that he commented on.

Screenshot via Fox News

A woman accused of attempting to burglarize the New York home of Robert De Niro while the actor slept is offering an apology to the actor and claiming the arrest “felt like a setup” by police.

The accused burglar, identified as Shanice Aviles, spoke to the New York Post this week about her recent arrest at an Upper East Side townhouse owned by De Niro. Footage was captured of Aviles as she was being detained and taken away by police. She claimed she did nothing wrong and even declared she hadn’t murdered anybody, despite no one reportedly being harmed in the home.

Aviles, 30, claimed she did not take anything from the home while De Niro slept and didn’t know he owned the townhouse until police told her after the fact.

“I love his movies, all of them! My mother, my grandmother, my grandfather, we all used to watch them,” she said through tears, according to Post reporter Matthew Sedacca.

Aviles had numerous previous arrests for burglary before the De Niro incident and she believes the 79-year-old actor could have leveraged his influence and upped her bail this time.

“People have said he’s mean, that he’s not a nice guy, but I think he’s a good guy,” she said. “He could’ve made some calls and made my bail a lot more.”

Aviles is reportedly being held on $40,000 bail, which she told the Post is too high, claiming it’s because the judge is a “fan” of the actor. A week before the De Niro break in, however, Aviles had a $5000 bail for a number of alleged burglaries waved.

She also asked for the opportunity to apologize to the actor. Aviles claimed cops were following her and the arrest “felt like a setup.” She also claimed she should not be under arrest for burglary as she didn’t take anything.

Police, however, say they found Aviles going through items under a Christmas tree in the house at the time of her arrest. De Niro told reporters the following day that he was doing okay following the break-in.

Each summer, Europe’s Nordic countries—which consistently rank among the world’s happiest—reap the benefits of their geographic position, with daylight stretching into the night. Then, come winter, the opposite is true, and darkness creeps into daytime.

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Kirby Lee via AP

Twitter employees have reportedly had to bring in their own toilet paper after the company’s owner, Elon Musk, fired the entire janitorial staff.

According to The New York Times on Thursday, terminating the janitors has been part of Musk’s cost-cutting moves since taking over the company in October. Musk “has sought to save about $500 million in nonlabor costs.”

The Times reported:

Last week, Twitter got rid of the cleaning staff at its New York offices and 10 people from corporate security, signaling that it may close one of its two buildings there, said two people familiar with the move.

At Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters, where the company has missed rent payments, Mr. Musk has done the same, consolidating workers onto two floors and closing four. He also canceled janitorial services this month, after those workers went on strike for better wages.

That has left the office in disarray. With people packed into more confined spaces, the smell of leftover takeout food and body odor has lingered on the floors, according to four current and former employees. Bathrooms have grown dirty, these people said. And because janitorial services have largely been ended, some workers have resorted to bringing their own rolls of toilet paper from home.

The cost-cutting moves haven’t just affected the janitorial staff. Twitter’s computing storage facility in Sacramento was disconnected last week. Musk has fired almost two-thirds of the company’s staff. Twitter is even auctioning off some of its office items including a $10,000 meat slicer and a $17,000 industrial braising pan.

Musk last week compared Twitter to a “plane that is headed towards the ground at high speed with the engines on fire and the controls don’t work.”

Police arrested Bryan Kohberger in Pennsylvania Friday in connection with the murders of four Idaho college students.

The Associated Press first reported his identity Friday morning. According to a report by the local Moscow, Idaho NBC affiliate outlet Nonstop Local, Kohlberger was arraigned Friday morning.

The FBI and Pennsylvania State Police arrested Kohberger in Monroe County, Pennsylvania (the Poconos Mountains area between Scranton and Allentown). A SWAT Team was deployed to enter Kohberger’s location and detain him.

Very few details have been released at this point, but Kohberger is reportedly 28 years old, according to Philadelphia’s local ABC affiliate, and the judge at his arraignment ordered his extradition to Idaho.

Kaylee Goncalves, 21; Madison Mogen, 21; Xana Kernodle, 20; and Kernodle’s boyfriend, Ethan Chapin, 20 – all students at the University of Idaho — were discovered stabbed to death on Nov. 13. Authorities have said that the victims were believed to have been sleeping at the time of the attack, and the coroner’s report said that some of them showed defensive wounds.

The Moscow Police Department will hold a press conference at 1 pm PT (4 pm ET) with an update on their investigation.

This story is breaking.

There are certain kitchen staples that many people tend to buy and use without giving them much thought—including some types of cooking oils. Sure, we may pay more attention to olive oil, and whether it’s virgin or extra-virgin, or where it came from, but when it comes to vegetable and canola oils, that’s not…

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The $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill passed last week will soon be on a plane headed for the Caribbean, so that President Joe Biden can sign it without delay while on vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands, a White House official confirmed to Fox Business on Thursday.

The deadline to sign the massive spending package is Dec. 30, and the Bidens will be in St. Croix through the New Year.

Fox Business Network White House correspondent Edward Lawrence reported on Thursday that the omnibus bill will therefore “be transported to St Croix for POTUS to sign.”

The optics of a Caribbean resort signing of the massive, taxpayer-funded spending bill that contains billions in earmarks is already drawing some criticism on social media. The fact that the President was tweeting earlier about his confronting” of “the existential threat climate change poses” has added fuel to that criticism.

The First Family arrived in St. Croix on Tuesday and reportedly received a warm welcome for their return visit.

The details on when the reported omnibus jet transport will take place have not been released or reported at the time of this post.

AP Photo/Steve Helber

Sen. Ben Cardin, the Democrat serving as senior senator from Maryland and a 35-year veteran of the United States Congress, declared during a committee hearing on Wednesday that “if you espouse hate, if you espouse violence, you’re not protected under the First Amendment,” before advocating that the federal government crack down on such speech.

“I think we can be more aggressive in the way that we handle that type of use on the internet,” continued Cardin, who touted Europe’s hate speech laws and suggested that “we have to learn from each other.”

.@SenatorCardin: “If you espouse hate, if you espouse violence, you’re not protected under the First Amendment. I think we can be more aggressive in the way that we handle that type of use of the internet.” pic.twitter.com/t38Myy93ZI

— The Hill (@thehill) December 29, 2022

While Senator Cardin seems relatively well-versed in Europe’s more censorious legal framework, it seems that his three-and-a-half decades of swearing oaths to the American Constitution have not blessed him with even a working knowledge of the document.

The First Amendment reads: “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech.” Notice that there are no exceptions, exemptions, or qualifiers attached to that pronouncement. Jurisprudence around the First Amendment is no kinder to Cardin’s assertions.

Case law decrees that the government has little ability to regulate so-called hate speech, or even violent speech, be it narrowly or broadly defined. The Supreme Court has ruled that bigots reserve the right to picket outside of soldiers’ funerals with signs that read “God hates fags” and “Thank God for dead soldiers.” It’s ruled that certain laws banning cross and flag-burning are unconstitutional. And in a 2017 majority opinion observed that “speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express ‘the thought that we hate.'”

There are exceptions to the First Amendment, but they are exceedingly narrow. Government may regulate speech meant to incite imminent unlawful action, that by their very nature may induce an imminent breach of the peace, or constitutes a “true threat” to someone’s physical safety.

On Thursday, Cardin attempted to correct himself, but again failed to accurately articulate the First Amendment’s parameters.

“Although the First Amendment protects even hateful speech, if that speech motivates someone to commit a crime, engage in violence, or take action that infringes on someone else’s right, that speech is not protected under the First Amendment and there must be accountability,” wrote Cardin.

But that simply isn’t the case. In order for such speech to be unprotected, it must be made with the immediate intention of producing such acts — not just have incidentally produced them. In the landmark Brandenburg v. Ohio case, for example, a Ku Klux Klan rally advocating generalized “revengeance” against blacks and Jews was found to be constitutionally protected despite its hateful and even dangerous nature.

Perhaps after 35 years, Senator Cardin is well past due for a refresher course before deigning to legislate on these fundamental matters.

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

New testimony transcripts from the January 6 Committee show that Melania Trump’s one-time confidant testifying that the former First Lady felt hostility towards ex-Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows for fueling her husband’s belief in election conspiracy theories.

The committee released a new series of witness transcripts on Thursday, including a Q&A session with former White House Press Secretary and Melania Trump Chief of Staff Stephanie Grisham. In Grisham’s interview, she told the committee that Donald Trump’s wife “didn’t trust Mark Meadows,” and took a very dim of who he allowed to speak with the former president.

“She was very angry with him about his treatment and the things he was doing to me personally,” said Grisham. “She was very wary of [Rudy] Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Jenna Ellis, a lot of the people who were coming up into the residence and talking to the President.”

When asked to elaborate on Mrs. Trump’s “frustration” with Meadows, Grisham explained “I know she was frustrated with his treatment of me, but I also know that she felt he was letting a lot of people who were maybe being harmful to the President, giving him bad advice. He was clearing them into the residence or getting them into the Oval.”

“Mrs. Trump never liked it when people would tell Trump what he wanted to hear rather than the truth or the reality of the situation,” Grisham said. “She felt that Meadows was always just playing into his hand.”

Grisham expanded on this in another part of her testimony when she spoke of Mrs. Trump’s dislike for Trump’s election-denying conspiracy theorists having access to the White House’s residential wing. Congresswoman Liz Cheney asked Grisham if she could recall a particular instance of this, and here’s how the ex-press secretary replied:

So this is where I’m going to be the worst and most unhelpful person to you guys because I don’t have specific dates or times. But she hated when people would come to the residence. It was — that was her home, she wanted privacy.

So I do recall, towards the end, her telling me that there were constantly meetings happening in the Yellow Oval, which is the room up in the residence, with various people. And she was very upset because nobody would give her a heads-up and was she walking around in a robe, that type of a thing.

The whole concept of feeling pressured to come up with a signifiant goal or project to take on when the calendar year changes has some major flaws—many of which we’ve covered at Lifehacker over the years (including earlier this month).

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Something that’s often neglected, even by proactive folks who actually check on the heat before the first frost, is the humble thermostat. That tiny appliance on your wall—whether it’s an old-timey mechanical thermostat, a modest battery-powered programmable version, or one of those smart thermostats stealing all your…

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Republicans are “overstating” the situation at the border, ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt insisted on CNN, despite the network itself recently highlighting the massive influx of migrants in border towns just this week.

Discussing the uncertain future of Title 42, Gelernt argued the policy was not intended to be permanent and getting rid of it will not lead to even harder-to-control situations for states.

Gelernt, the lead attorney for plaintiffs in the Title 42 challenge, responded on Wednesday to a joint statement from 19 Republican-led states that argued the reversal of Title 42 would lead to increased costs in law enforcement, healthcare, and child care that they cannot swing.

According to Gelernt, critics are “overstating” the issue at the border and it’ll all “even out.”

“I also think people are overstating what’s happening at the border. If you close the border for so long, of course there’s going to be a temporary influx of people, but ultimately it’ll even out and the federal government has more than enough resources to deal with this,” he said.

Only the day prior, CNN was reporting from El Paso, Texas, just one border city the network revealed is struggling to deal with thousands of migrants stuck in the cold and in limbo as cities do not have enough resources to provide for them.

CNN’s Rosa Flores reported seeing burns on the faces of children from the unusually cold weather and reported a lack of shelter, food, and even bathrooms as hundreds sleep on the street in El Paso.

“There’s a lot of pain and desperation here,” Flores reported as Title 42 continued to be debated. The policy is remaining in place for the moment.

CNN This Morning co-host Kaitlan Collins pressed Gelernt on the federal government having the “federal resources” to deal with the current situation, asking if they are “prepared” to deal with it.

According to Gelernt, once Title 42 is lifted, the federal government will suddenly kick into high gear and there will be a “surging” of resources to the border, as there was for Ukraine after Russia invaded the country earlier this year.

Gelernt blasted Title 42 as a “crutch” and declared, “where there’s a will, there’s a way.”

Watch above via CNN

Manifesting is a buzzy term, especially when it comes to finding love. Search for hashtag love and manifestation on YouTube and TikTok, and you’ll discover a great many videos teaching you how to manifest love into your life. But what does it really mean to manifest love—and is it actually possible?

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Just as you’d service your car to keep it running smoothly, an annual review of your iPhone can prevent a lot of issues in the long run. Phones accumulate a ton of digital cruft, and since a more organized device works better for longer, take the start of a new year as your opportunity to clear it all out. Your iPhone…

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Fox Sports Shannon Sharpe slammed the NFL and Miami Dolphins after quarterback Tua Tagovailoa entered into concussion protocol for the second time this season.

The Dolphins announced on Monday that Tagovailoa was in concussion protocol after alerting the team’s medical staff that he felt symptoms of a concussion following the Dolphins’ game Sunday against the Green Bay Packers. Late in the first half, Tagovailoa was tackled, and the back of his head smacked against the ground. He got up, however, and played the rest of the game.

Dolphins’ head coach Mike McDaniel announced Monday at a press conference that Tagovailoa entered the NFL’s concussion protocol.

“I just want guys to really be done right, by the information we have, the science, and all the medical expertise that we rely on,” McDaniel said in a press conference Monday. “I just want him to get healthy and have peace of mind in that regard.”

On Tuesday’s Undisputed, Sharpe explained to co-host Skip Bayless that he feels the NFL and the Dolphins are to blame for Tagovailoa’s health concerns.

“They keep failing this man because he displayed no symptoms from that point on,” Sharpe said.

The Dolphins diagnosed Tagovailoa back injury in a game against the Buffalo Bills in September. Tagovailoa agreed that he suffered a back injury, not a concussion. Sharpe, however, was one of many observers who questioned the diagnosis, as Tagovailoa visibly manifested symptoms of a concussion. Just four days later, Tagovailoa permitted to play in the team’s next game, and was taken off the field on a stretcher after his head was smacked against the turf by Cincinnati Bengals defensive lineman Josh Tupou — setting off a massive backlash against the league.

The NFL has concussion spotters who watch over each game and can pull a player off the field when they feel the player might have suffered a concussion. But Sharpe feels those spotters bear responsibility for Tagovailoa’s injury — along with his team and the league at large.

“I believe the spotters, the Dolphins, and the NFL are failing Tua,” Sharpe added. “And if he’s not careful, Skip, he’s going to end his career on a football field, and that’s not a good look. That’s not good for him. That’s not a good look for the league.”

“They can say it was his back in Buffalo, but that was a concussion,” Sharpe added. “We know that, so that’s three concussions in a span of four months. I’m not a medical expert, but I just know that’s not very good. Three of anything in a small window of time is not good!”

Watch above via Fox Sports 1.

We like to think of our hair as permanently attached to our head, but that’s not exactly how it works. Each hair goes through its own cycle of growing, waiting around, and then falling out. So that explains why you’ll find hairs in your hairbrush. But how do you know how much is too much?

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Many people spent the holiday weekend binge-watching newly released shows and movies, including The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro. But his review of the new Netflix film Glass Onion has Twitter up in arms.

On Monday, Shapiro took to Twitter to share his thoughts on the long-awaited sequel to the hit 2019, Knives Out. “I regret to inform you that ‘Glass Onion’ is actively bad,” Shapiro wrote, promising criticism of both the writing of the film and its politics.

“First, the writing. The first half of the movie is a complete misdirect and a waste of time,” Shapiro said of the mystery film.

“We only find out about the actual murder we’re supposed to investigate full one hour and ten minutes into the film, as well as an entirely new backstory,” Shapiro complained. “We’re actively deceived by the writer.”

Shapiro said filmmaker Rian Johnson used “bad writing tropes” throughout the movie, claiming the “murderer is perfectly obvious from moment one.”

He turned his focus to the politics of the film, another aspect Shapiro did not care for.

“Rian Johnson’s politics is as lazy as his writing. His take on the universe is that Elon Musk is a bad and stupid man, and that anyone who likes him – in media, politics, or tech – is being paid off by him,” Shapiro wrote.

Shapiro continued to bash Johnson’s writing and took issue with a character similar to Elon Musk, named Miles Bron.

“This is an incredibly stupid theory, since Musk is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in human history (how many rockets has Johnson launched lately?), and it’s a foolish conspiracy theory to boot,” he wrote.

“But in Johnson’s bizarro-world, taking down the most powerful and rich person in the world is something nobody would consider. Weird, since he just made a $40 million movie trying to do just that,” Shapiro added.

“Which brings us to the final irony: Rian Johnson is being paid $100 million to make two of these movies. So his is a rich, famous person writing stupid mysteries pretending to be smart. HE IS MILES, not Blanc. That’s the dirty secret,” Shapiro said about the filmmaker.

It didn’t take long for Twitter users to push back on Shapiro and even roast the writing of The Daily Wire film Terror on the Prairie.

Getty Images

The White House slammed Texas Gov. Greg Abbott after busloads of migrants were dropped off near the vice president’s home in Washington, D.C. on Christmas Eve in 18-degree weather.

Abbott has been busing migrants who arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border from Texas to Democratic-controlled cities since April. The governor has criticized President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris over their handling of immigration policy and the border.

“We have a president of the United States that is not securing the border,” Abbott said in April. “And he’s violating laws passed by Congress to secure the border. Then on top of that, we have a president who is turning a blind eye to a security-based issue by allowing people on the terrorist watch lists to come into the United States of America.”

On Saturday night in freezing temperatures, more than 100 migrants arrived near the grounds of the Naval Observatory where Harris lives.

CNN reported:

An initial two busloads were taken to local shelters, according to an administration official. More buses arrived outside the vice president’s residence later Saturday evening. A CNN team saw migrants being dropped off, with some migrants wearing only T-shirts in the freezing weather. They were given blankets and put on another bus that went to a local church.

A representative for an aid group working to assist the migrants said the buses were sent by the Texas Division of Emergency Management, which takes direction from the governor’s office. The New York Times said Abbott’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Volunteers told the Times the buses were originally headed to New York, but ended up being rerouted to Washington, D.C. amid bad weather and road closures.

In a statement, the White House blasted Abbott over the Christmas Eve arrivals, calling the move a “cruel, dangerous, and shameful stunt.”

“Governor Abbott abandoned children on the side of the road in below freezing temperatures on Christmas Eve without coordinating with any Federal or local authorities,” White House spokesperson Abdullah Hasan said.

The statement added:

As we have repeatedly said, we are willing to work with anyone – Republican or Democrat alike – on real solutions, like the comprehensive immigration reform and border security measures President Biden sent to Congress on his first day in office, but these political games accomplish nothing and only put lives in danger.

It’s not the first time migrants have arrived near Harris’ residence. In September, Abbott defended sending around 100 people to the Naval Observatory.

The U.S. Military Academy at West Point has begun removing monuments and symbols memorializing the Confederacy, including renaming multiple places on campus named after Gen. Robert E. Lee, an alumnus and former superintendent of the service academy.

CNN anchor Amara Walker, filling in for Kate Bolduan, reported the latest developments on Monday, noting that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had approved the changes in October as part of a larger set of recommendations from a Congressional panel.

Pentagon correspondent Oren Liebermann noted that this was all part of a “long process” dating back to late 2020 when Congress took a bipartisan vote to override former President Donald Trump’s veto and create a naming commission to address military facilities that commemorated or memorialized the Confederacy, including military bases, ships, facilities, and monuments.

Superintendent Lt. Gen. Steve Gilland wrote a letter to the West Point community last week announcing that over the holiday break the academy would begin the process “to remove, rename or modify assets and real property at [West Point] that commemorate or memorialize the Confederacy or those who voluntarily served with the Confederacy.”

“We will conduct these actions with dignity and respect,” Gilland promised. Over the holiday break, a portrait of Lee in Confederate uniform would be revamped from a library to be placed in storage at the West Point museum, a stone bust of Lee would be removed from a plaza and placed in storage, and a bronze triptych would be removed and placed in storage. The two Lee monuments had accompanying monuments for Union general Ulysses S. Grant; these would be relocated to Grant Hall.

According to Gilland’s letter, future planned changes included selecting a new “appropriate quote about honor to to replace the quote from Robert E. Lee at Honor Plaza,” to “review the stone markers within Reconciliation Plaza” and “modify” the markers deemed to commemorate the Confederacy with “appropriate language and images…while still conveying the Plaza’s central message of reconciliation,” and to recommend new names for multiple streets, buildings, and other areas on campus that were named for Lee and others who served in the Confederacy.

The bronze triptych was especially controversial, Liebermann said, because it depicts a member of the Ku Klux Klan wearing a hooded robe.

The changes would be a “multi-phased approach,” Liebermann concluded, “so we could expect it to take a bit of time but it is all part of this process to stop the military from in any way commemorating or memorializing the Confederacy.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.

For something that most of us have to do on a daily basis, navigating workplace communication can be tricky: There’s often a fine line between being assertive and aggressive, helpful and pushy, and arrogant and credible.

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It’s Christmas weekend, so naturally, everyone wants to relax a little bit and take some time to get into the holiday spirit. For Rudy Giuliani, that apparently meant dressing up as Saint Nick for the latest installment of his podcast.

The ex-New York City mayor and former Donald Trump attorney released a video of himself on Sunday from his Uncovering the Truth studio, where he was ho ho ho-ing away while fully dressed up as Santa Claus. Thus, he treated listeners to a recap of his big night and his apparent troubles with keeping Rudolph in order.

I’m tired. Long night. Thank you very much for tuning in and joining us on our Christmas Day broadcast of Uncovering the Truth. Dr. Maria [Ryan] is with me remote from the North Pole. Actually, New Hampshire. It’s like the North Pole.

I’m still able to think in this. I don’t know. I don’t think its affecting my thinking, although I’m getting tired. It was all night. It was tough, and Rudolph kinda acted up a little. Great reindeer, but, you know. When you’re as famous as he is, he thinks he’s more famous than Santa Claus.

You know, ‘you’ll go down in history’ thing? He takes it seriously. These reindeer, you can’t count on ’em.

So, yeah. Nice to see that between his election skepticism and hearings with the District of Columbia Bar’s Board on Professional Responsibility, Giuliani can still take on a lighter note for the Christmas season.

Watch above.

Photo by Daniel Slim/AFP via Getty Images

As America’s airports contend with harsh winter storms and the holiday rush, a fire emergency forced over 160 passengers to disembark a plane at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

Fire department officials told the media that on Christmas Eve, a JetBlue flight from Barbados landed at the airport and was evacuated shortly afterward via emergency slides. One hundred and sixty-seven people were removed from the plane, including 5 with minor injuries.

The New York City Fire Department and emergency medical services were called to JFK Airport’s Terminal 5 on Saturday night, and reports indicate that the incident was caused when a customer’s electronic device malfunctioned and started to smoke. Reports varied, however, on whether the device was a laptop or a phone charger.

“On Saturday, JetBlue flight 662 with service from Bridgetown, Barbados (BGI) was evacuated shortly after landing at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) due to reports of a customer’s malfunctioning electronic device or battery,” said company spokesperson Derek Dombrowski. “Safety is always our number one priority, and we are investigating this incident in coordination with the [Federal Aviation Administration] and [National Transportation Safety Board].”

The emergency situation comes as airlines around the country have been struggling to accommodate holiday travelers despite the massive demand and the cold weather. Thousands of flights have been delayed or canceled this weekend, throwing holiday weekend plans into disarray for Americans nationwide.

After a few years of limited international travel, people are more eager than ever to take their bucket-list trips to far-flung destinations—and we’re not getting any younger.

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Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) reacted in real time on Wednesday night to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s address before Congress and, while not known for her even-handed takes, offered commentary that made her look eminently reasonable when compared to the demagoguery of Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

Boebert, a leading light among the more hard-right members of the House GOP conference, had this to say after Zelensky spoke:

I just finished attending the address by President Zelensky, and we’re going to have votes here at the Capitol for the next 4 hours or so. Here’s what was clear from tonight. The people of Ukraine are suffering. The war is deadly and horrific and the carnage has not stopped. Sadly, what I didn’t hear tonight was a clear explanation of where the first $50 billion we sent to support their efforts went. Until Congress receives a full audit on where our money has already gone. I will not support sending additional money to this war. President Zelensky is working to protect his country’s border and his people. I get it. I really just wish our commander in chief would do the same right here at home and secure our southern border and protect our people.

While sticking to her guns about not wanting to send further U.S. tax dollars to Ukraine until an audit has been done, a common talking point on the hard right of the GOP, Boebert both noted the horrors of the war and offered appreciation for the battle Zelensky is fighting – two things that Carlson simply refuses to do.

Since the beginning of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military has openly targeted both Ukrainian military targets and civilian targets. Russian missiles have rained down on apartment complexes, train stations, power stations, schools and theaters – targeted because the Russians understood they were being used as civilian shelters.

The war has so far left at least 14 million Ukrainians displaced, creating one the largest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. Reuters estimates that over 40,000 Ukrainians have been killed and some 54,000 have been injured. Ukrainian officials have also sounded the alarm on various horrific war crimes committed by Russian soldiers, from torture to rape, and have reported some 13,000 children have been abducted and taken back to Russia.

Also, it’s worth noting that the war was entirely of Vladimir Putin’s making, part of a larger desire to reclaim the territory of the Soviet Union. Putin has farcically claimed he invaded Ukraine to free its people from Nazi oppression while rewriting the history of the region and erasing Ukrainian nationalism.

Carlson omitted those atrocities entirely as he attacked Zelensky, the president of the country that has been invaded by Russia. Instead, he fixated on Zelensky’s clothing and undertook some seriously bad-faith character assassination.

Carlson’s show was already on air as Zelensky finished and here was the first thing the Fox News star said to introduce his show on Wednesday: “As far as we know, no one’s ever addressed the United States Congress in a sweatshirt before, but they love him much more than they love you. Welcome to Tucker Carlson Tonight.”

“Sam Bankman-Fried showed up in Washington wearing a t- shirt and spouting nonsense, and all the self-described geniuses declared him a hero. The media, the Congress, the White House, they all love this weird little guy called Sam Bankman-Fried. Do you remember that? Somehow we were reminded of it today when the president of Ukraine arrived at the White House, dressed like the manager of a strip club and started to demand money,” Carlson continued, ignoring the substance of Zelensky’s remarks or the geopolitics surrounding the war and went straight into character assassination of the Ukrainian leader.

“Amazingly, no one threw him out, and instead they did whatever he wanted. American taxpayers declare Joe Biden will continue to give Zelensky whatever he demands for, quote, as long as it takes,” Carlson continued, referring to Zelensky as a “Ukrainian strip club manager.”

Carlson then went off on a tangent slamming Republican officials who dare support Ukraine’s fight to repel the Russian invasion.

“If you were a Republican officeholder and Zelensk came to Washington, maybe you would for a moment ask him about his current and ongoing war against Christianity in Ukraine. Especially if you were, say, Mitch McConnell or John Cornyn and a lot of your own voters go to church on Sunday. They might care about that issue,” Carlson added, repeating a blatantly false talking point attacking Ukraine’s Jewish leader.

As Matt Lewis explains in the Daily Beast, Carlson is distorting the fact that Ukraine “effectively shut down the Moscow-linked Russian Orthodox Church in the country.”

“The reason? As Christianity Today reported, Ukrainian authorities say they have ‘uncovered large amounts of cash, ‘dubious’ Russian citizens, and leaflets calling on people to join the Russian army…Other material cited as evidence included prayer texts of ROC patriarch Kirill and a video of hymn singing that celebrated Russia’s ‘awakening,’” Lewis explains.

Christianity is still widely and publicly practiced in Ukraine today.

“But McConnell and Cornyn didn’t mention it. They didn’t say a word. You will not hear a word on television tonight about the fact that Zelinski has banned an entire ancient Christian denomination in Ukraine and then seized churches and then thrown priests into jail. According to Mitch McConnell, who apparently hasn’t left his office since the mid-eighties. Anti-Christian despotism is what most Republicans want,” Carlson added.

The Fox News host went on for another few minutes bashing McConnell and at one point claimed “punishing Vladimir Putin for putting Donald Trump in office is more important than all of that, says Mitch McConnell.”

Carlson concluded his 7-minute tirade by attacking U.S. leaders for standing up against Putin and offering aid to the Ukraine:

So the leader of a foreign government dressed in a sweatshirt walks into the United States Congress. And starts demanding money. And then has the gall to tell the people sitting there who are giving him tens of billions of dollars more of your money, that is not charity. It’s an investment, really. What are the returns on that?

The Wall Street Journal made clear on Thursday what that return is, writing, “U.S. aid is helping to degrade an enemy military without the death of a single American in uniform.”

“And by the way, what’s the point of it? What is the goal here? What’s the justification for it? Do we have a historic debt to Ukraine? Do we have a historic animosity with a non-Soviet Russia?” Carlson continued, concluding:

No, no. How do we win here? What’s in it for us? Isn’t this our country? And where do you get off talking to us like that? We hate ourselves so much. We have so little respect for the United States of America that we put up with it will applaud it. Thank you, sir. May I have another? What’s wrong with us? What’s wrong with our leaders? And where is this going?

Carlson’s screed made no mention of Putin’s aggression in beginning the conflict, no mention of the suffering of the Ukrainian people, no mention of Russia’s attack on civilians or civilian infrastructure and no mention of Russia’s allegiance with China in trying to weaken the U.S. and rollback democracy internationally.

More than almost anything else in your kitchen, the cabinets can make the room feel outdated—especially if you painted them a color that was trendy one year, but not as much after that. Fortunately, giving your kitchen an updated look doesn’t necessarily mean you have to replace your cabinets completely. Instead, many…

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Soccer’s governing body, FIFA, will investigate celebrity chef Salt Bae‘s pitch intrusion after Argentina won the 2022 World Cup.

Salt Bae, whose real name is Nusret Gökçe, was shown on the field after Lionel Messi and the Argentinian soccer team beat France in the World Cup Final.

Fox Sports cameras caught the famous chef as he aimlessly walked around with the players’ and coaches’ families.

Salt Bae went up to Messi and tried to get a photo with the Argentinian star, but Messi walked away from him. He then tried to get Messi’s attention and grabbed him by the arm. Messi conceded and gave him a proper handshake.

Salt Bae turned Messi toward a person holding a phone and got a picture with him before Messi continued to walk away. He posted various photos on his Instagram of holding the FIFA World Cup trophy.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Nusr_et#Saltbae (@nusr_et)

That went against FIFA’s rules. A “very select” group is allowed to hold the World Cup trophy. Only players and coaches from the winning team can touch the trophy, and the heads of state and FIFA officials.

In a statement to BBC Sports on Thursday, FIFA admitted that there would be an investigation into Salt Bae’s unprecedented actions:

Following a review, FIFA has been establishing how individuals gained undue access to the pitch after the closing ceremony at Lusail stadium on 18 December.

On Tuesday, Salt Bae was banned from the U.S. Open Cup soccer tournament final after he intruded on the pitch in Qatar.

“Salt Bae is hereby banned from the 2023 @opencup Final,” the tweet read.

—

Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty

Trumpworld sources gave Olivia Nuzzi an absolutely brutal collection of quotes that included painting former President Donald Trump as an isolated figure who “just goes, plays golf, comes back, and fucks off.”

Nuzzi is out with a new deep-dive profile that includes an interview with Trump and a collection of quotes from figures close to him, covering the time from his much-derided campaign launch, which was followed by a much-condemned anti-Semitic dinner date and a much-derided “MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT” that turned out to be the launch of a “Digital Trading Card” NFT collection.

While Nuzzi also delves into Trump’s past and gets Trump’s reactions to his recent troubles, the quotes from Trump sources paint the vivid picture of a fading and abandoned Trump shambling through life at Mar-a-Lago like an orange Norma Desmond.

Here’s just a small sampling:

• “He just goes, plays golf, comes back, and fucks off. He has retreated to the golf course and to Mar-a-Lago… His world has gotten much smaller. His world is so, so small.” — Trump adviser
• “It seems like a joke… It feels like he’s going through the motions because he said he would.” — Ex-Trump Loyalist
• “It’s not there. In this business, you can have it and have it so hot and it can go overnight and it’s gone and you can’t get it back. I think we’re just seeing it’s gone. The magic is gone…” — Trump adviser
• “He doesn’t have anything else to do… What else can he do? Why did he see Kanye? He wants to be relevant and wants the limelight. He’s thirsty.” — Trump adviser

There’s much more where that came from.

Nuzzi is just the latest recipient of devastating quotes from Trump sources who are increasingly willing to speak to reporters — from The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman to correspondents from the dreaded (in Trump circles) CNN — about the former president.

Between ongoing product shortages, supply chain issues, and stores left with excess inventory, 2022 has been unpredictable when it comes to retail. So what does that mean for the traditionally deep discounts offered at the end of the year? Here’s what to know about 2022's after-Christmas sales, including when they…

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Keeping your home clean and welcoming for other people is all fine and well, but doesn’t really matter much if your house isn’t safe. From burglars to fires, there are safety threats all around our homes, and this year, we worked hard to help you identify and avoid them. Here are our best home safety tips from 2022.

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Newly revealed testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson asserts that former President Donald Trump fought against the 2020 election despite knowing that he lost to Joe Biden.

The former aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows became a star witness months ago when she appeared before the Jan. 6 Committee at a public hearing, producing numerous bombshells about Trump’s conduct surrounding the Capitol riot. On Thursday, the committee released a transcript of their interviews with Hutchinson in which she goes into detail on how former Trump ethics attorney Stefan Passantino allegedly told her to mislead the committee by withholding details of what she knew.

In the Q&A portion of Hutchinson’s testimony, she describes how Meadows told her of Trump’s recurring flashes of anger whenever talking about his post-presidential future.

I think Mark felt pressure to make him happy in this moment. But in this conversation, it was the fact that he had said “I can’t talk to him about anything post-White House without him getting mad that we didn’t win.” Because, before that, we had had conversations about this and he hadn’t said the “didn’t win” portion. Before this, he had said he didn’t want to think about anything post-White House because he’s not gonna have to leave.

Page 129 shows Hutchinson speaking about what Meadows told her after Trump’s call with Georgia state legislators. According to Hutchinson, it was in this conversation that Meadows told her that Trump knew he lost, and there was no way he was going to successfully dispute the election results.

I remember, first thing, I went in there, and Mark had his phone stretched, and he just had it on mute. So he was using his desk line; he had the physical phone on his thing here, and he wasn’t really speaking at this point. And when the call was wrapping, he was like, “Can you hang up the phone?” He, like, was just too exasperated to even, like, get up and hang it up.

And I saw kind of — because I had heard a lot of the call, and I remember looking at Mark, and I said, “Mark, he can’t possibly think we’re going to pull this off. Like, that call was crazy.” And he looked at me and just started shaking his head, and he’s like, “No, Cass, you know, he knows it’s over. He knows he lost. But we’re gonna keep trying. There are some good options out there still. We’re gonna keep trying.”

Sorry. I put the paraphrased quote down here. He said something to the effect of, “He knows it’s over. He knows he lost. But we’re going to keep trying. There’s a chance he didn’t lose. I want to pull this off for him.”

Q: And you said that happened right after — or, was that — let me clarify. Was that right after you were hanging up the phone for Mr. Meadows?

A: Yes.