US politics

US politics

(TMZ/WCVB/Mark Schiefelbein/AP photo) A new video obtained by TMZ shows the moment Bruna Ferreira, the mother of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt's nephew. was detained by ICE agents last week. The security video, shot on November 25 and released by TMZ on Wednesday, shows Ferreira leaving her Revere, MA home before several other vehicles surround her car. Dressed in a gray hoodie, Ferreira exits the car and is promptly placed in handcuffs and led away.

More than a million ballots are in the mail. The first votes will be counted in less than a week. The Santa Clara County Assessor's runoff off election is jogging into the homestretch toward Election Day, Dec. 30. December 30? That's right. An election cycle that began more than five months ago in the bright sun of the summer solstice with the resignation/retirement of Assessor Larry Stone ends in the shadows of its winter counterpart.

It is difficult for today's youth to believe, but the snarky T-shirt is a relatively recent innovation. Though they are now everywhere, until the late 1990s one almost never saw another person wearing a shirt that read "Stop looking at my nuts" with a pair of the threaded metal hardware implements pictured, or perhaps one with a sports figure on it and "I just hope both teams have fun."

Now the Pentagon's top watchdog has concluded that the information Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared in the chat could have put the mission, U.S. personnel, and national security at risk had it fallen into the wrong hands. The information Hegseth shared included the precise times that fighter pilots would attack their targets. If Houthi militants had learned those details in advance, they might have been able to shoot down American planes or better defend their positions.

The proposal would significantly reduce fuel economy requirements, which set rules on how far new vehicles need to travel on a gallon of gasoline, through the 2031 model year, according to a White House official and several people familiar with the plan. They were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly because the proposal has not been announced and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The latest bid to squeeze a ban on states regulating AI into an annual defense bill has reportedly been rejected after facing bipartisan pushback. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) said Tuesday that Republican leaders would look for "other places" to include the measure - an effort that President Trump has supported - according to The Hill. The proposal to preempt states from enacting their own AI regulation came months after GOP lawmakers sought to include a 10-year moratorium on state AI laws in Trump's tax and spending bill earlier this year.

A federal judge late on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from making widespread immigration arrests in the nation's capital without warrants or probable cause that the person would be an imminent flight risk. The US district judge Beryl Howell in Washington granted a preliminary injunction sought by civil liberties and immigrant rights groups in a lawsuit against the US Department of Homeland Security. Officers making civil immigration arrests generally have to have an administrative warrant.

In its annual "Roadmap to Safety" report, the Advocates for Highway & Road Safety once again surveyed the patchwork of statewide regulations that governs America's roads, and found a whopping 45 states had failed to adopt sufficiently aggressive road safety laws, including restrictions on text messaging behind the wheel, permitting red light cameras, and bans on open containers of alcohol in cars.

The Trump administration is pausing all immigration applications such as requests for green cards for people from 19 countries banned from travel earlier this year, as part of sweeping immigration changes in the wake of the shooting of two National Guard troops.The changes were outlined in a policy memo posted Tuesday on the website of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency tasked with processing and approving all requests for immigration benefits.

Over what should have been a weekend of gratitude and family gatherings, our communities were confronted once again with devastating headlines of gun violence. The loss of innocent lives at a children's birthday party near Stockton is a heartbreaking reminder of how fragile safety has become in this country. How many more lives must be cut short? How much longer do children have to fear going to school or being out in their communities?

The other day we noticed that a sign installed by the Department of Transportation to herald the role then-President Joe Biden played in funding the completion of the Brooklyn Bridge bike lane (above) had been quietly taken down (below). We wondered if the sudden disappearance of Amtrak Joe was linked to the city's ongoing battles with President Trump over such near-and-dear transportation initiatives such as congestion pricing, bike lanes, the 34th Street busway and the Second Avenue Subway.

With about 96 percent of votes counted, Van Epps had 53.9 percent, while Behn had 45 percent, according to the AP. This race was bigger than just one campaign, Van Epps said in a statement. It represented a defining moment for Tennessee and for the direction of the country. He also said cost-of-living concerns would be among his top priorities a reflection of the broader focus on those issues in races this year,

But they are wrong. These arguments assume that China cannot succeed in AI without access to these advanced AI chips, which is not the case. Advanced AI chips simply reduce the cost of AI. Today's state-of-the-art AI models require a large number of AI chips to build and run. An advanced chip has higher performance; therefore, fewer are needed to achieve the same AI performance.

In a one-hour session, the mayor-elect, his Chief of Staff Elle Bisgaard Church, and First Deputy Mayor-designate Dean Fuleihan met with Mayor Adams to discuss the transition between the administrations. The Mayor-elect met with the sitting Mayor to continue the work of the transition, and ensure all city services are provided without disruption through the change in leadership on Jan. 1, Monica Klein, spokesperson for the Mamdani Transition, said in a statement.

Data disruption. For example, many of the agency IT forecasts and dashboards have been dark since March. DOGE's impact. The organization may have wound down much of its operations, but its impact will be felt for a long time. Government-wide Software-as-a-Service agreements. These are proliferating and the General Services Administration is leading here with its OneGov strategy. Artificial intelligence. These technologies are accelerating, but with few guardrails.