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A senior Iranian official said Tehran privately told Vance the pair were exploiting the negotiations for financial gain. The Trump administration says it never happened.

Answers given by Jay Clayton, Donald Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, in his Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Wednesday suggest that, if confirmed, he would be a pawn in the president’s election-meddling pursuits in the vein of former DNI Tulsi Gabbard.Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff pressed Clayton about Gabbard’s presence at a February FBI raid at a Fulton County, Georgia, election facility. The operation was based on Trump’s debunked election fraud claims. And her attendance—at the president’s request, she has said—ignited a scandal, as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s role in election security is to counter foreign threats, rather than be weaponized for domestic, partisan ends.Clayton prevaricated when asked about his familiarity with the Fulton County incident, claiming, to Ossoff’s dismay, that he had only learned about the raid the day before, when he met privately with the senator.Ossoff then asked if Clayton would comply with a similar request from the president: “If the White House chief of staff or the president asks you to travel somewhere across the United States and oversee the execution of a domestic search warrant on a sensitive election facility, will you do it?” the senator asked. “Is that appropriate for the director of national intelligence?”Clayton threw his hands up. “Um … that’s a hypothetical.” Pressed further, he declined to comment on the matter.“Disqualifying,” Ossoff replied.😳 this is not going well for Clayton AT ALLOSSOFF: Are you aware that Director Gabbard was present at the Fulton County raid earlier this year?CLAYTON: ...OSSOFF: What is going on here?CLAYTON: ... ... OSSOFF: Are you aware that members of this committee are probing… pic.twitter.com/2QdWuUIHnh— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 15, 2026Moments later, Senator Mark Warner, the Democratic vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, chastised Clayton for his waffling.“It strains credibility to think that you are not aware of Director Gabbard’s intervention in the domestic election activities in Fulton County, and that that was subject of a great deal of consternation and review,” Warner told the nominee. “Even if you weren’t aware, in preparation for this hearing, I would’ve thought, ‘Hey, we gotta be ready for the Gabbard questions.’”Clayton mustered a far from reassuring response: “To be clear, the ODNI’s role is principally outside of the United States.”Also in his heated exchange with Ossoff, as well as with other senators, Clayton, like countless other Trump nominees before him, avoided saying that President Joe Biden won the 2020 election, instead opting for weasel words so as not to contradict the president’s election denialism.

ICE agents have shot and killed two people this month while conducting traffic stops and vehicle pursuits.

Tech’s ambition is to work so well that it fades into the background of our day-to-day, but removing friction in some of the most personal aspects of life may not actually improve an experience.

Outside groups have spent more than $20 million backing the corporate Democrat in Michigan’s Senate race.

At the height of the 2024–2025 El Niño-induced drought, I watched in revulsion as hundreds of emaciated cattle desperately crowded for a drink around a small muddy dam in Mutare district in eastern Zimbabwe.

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche tried to claim at his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday that he was committed to meeting with Jeffrey Epstein’s victims, but quickly backtracked. “When it comes to the victims of this horrible man, we will never, never not talk to victims. We will never not do everything we can to prosecute anybody that committed any crimes against any of these women,” Blanche told the Senate Judiciary Committee. But when pressed by Democratic Senator Richard Durbin on why he hasn’t met with Epstein survivors yet, and whether he’ll commit to doing so in the next 30 days, he struggled to answer. “If they have lawyers, as you know. I’m prohibited from meeting directly with them,” Blanche said. “I have met with counsel for survivors, as have many people in the Department of Justice. But if they are represented by counsel, we will work with their counsel.”“It can get done as soon as today. It could have gotten done last week. We remain available to meet with any victim at any time.”That’s not what Epstein’s survivors say. In May, Blanche said at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing that he had met with survivors and their lawyers, drawing an immediate statement from 18 of Epstein’s victims, who said he was lying. “Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche has not met with any of us. As survivors, we previously sought a meeting with former Attorney General Bondi and Department of Justice officials, but no meeting occurred,” the survivors said. “We should not have to be this persistent to engage with DOJ—the department responsible for handling the Epstein files, protecting their privacy, and answering for years of secrecy and failure.”Last month, 19 victims came out publicly against Blanche’s attorney general nomination after a New York Times report revealed he was among the Trump administration officials who met in the White House Situation Room to discuss how to respond to public pressure for more transparency on the government’s Epstein files.  These survivors have multiple grievances against Blanche for inconsistent redactions on the released files, which have put some of them in danger after exposing their names, personal information, and illicit photos.“We are especially concerned that Todd Blanche, the person nominated for the highest law enforcement position in the country, was at that table. Blanche has consistently minimized legitimate concerns about how the files have been handled, including problematic redactions and the exposure of survivors’ personal information. Blanche failed to deliver transparency, and he has gravely failed survivors. This is failing upward, plain and simple,” the women said last month. 

Musk gave three voters million-dollar checks, encouraging them to vote in the 2025 state Supreme Court election.