Category: The Hill
Senate GOP passes third en bloc group of nominations
The Senate on Thursday greenlighted 97 lower-level nominees, marking the third tranche advanced by Republicans since they changed the chamber’s rules in September and one of their final acts of the year before departing for the holiday break. Senate Republicans voted 53-43 to put in place dozens of Trump administration choices to fill vacancies across various…
Trump move to dismantle climate agency blows up Senate funding deal
A potential deal to fund large swaths of the federal government, including the Departments of Defense and Health and Human Services, collapsed on Thursday night after Colorado senators demanded that Congress stop President Trump’s efforts to dismantle a key climate agency. A Democratic senator involved in the negotiations over passing a five-bill package of appropriations…
Obama shares his favorites in books, movies and music
Former President Obama on Thursday shared his yearly favorites in books, movies and music with his followers online. “As 2025 comes to a close, I’m continuing a tradition that I started during my time in the White House: sharing my annual lists of favorite books, movies, and music,” he wrote in a statement on the…
Massie: Epstein files’ release will show whether Bondi, Patel were lying
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) on Thursday released a 14-minute video explaining what Americans can expect if the Department of Justice (DOJ) does or does not disclose all of its information on the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on its Friday deadline. “Let’s start with how will you know if they have released all the materials,”…
Trump picks up where Biden left off on marijuana
Click in for more news from The Hill {beacon} Health Care Health Care The Big Story Trump picks up where Biden left off on marijuana President Trump on Thursday signed an executive order to speed up the rescheduling of marijuana from Schedule I to the less severe Schedule III, with the stated goal of…
Person of interest ID’d in deadly Brown U. shooting; warrant issued: Multiple reports
A person of interest has been identified in connection with the deadly Brown University shooting Saturday, a warrant has been issued, and authorities are investigating possible ties between the Brown shooting and the fatal shooting of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor days later, according to multiple reports.
The New York Times — citing a law enforcement official briefed on the matter who wasn’t authorized to speak about the investigation — reported Thursday that authorities have identified a person of interest in the Brown shooting and are investigating a possible connection with the MIT professor’s fatal shooting.
‘A shooting in a state where it’s so hard to even have a gun?’
Both CBS News and the Associated Press reported similarly to the Times; both CBS News and Fox News reported that a warrant has been issued.
The Times reported that the official said investigators are searching for the individual as well as a car that the person is believed to have rented — and that authorities believe the rented vehicle is the same make and model of a car identified in connection with the shooting of the MIT professor, the official said.
Authorities have not publicly identified a suspect in either case, the Times also said.
Blaze News reported that MIT professor Nuno Loureiro was fatally shot in his Brookline, Massachusetts, home Monday night and died in a hospital early Tuesday.
Brookline — a Boston suburb that’s less than a half hour from MIT — is about 90 minutes northeast of Providence, Rhode Island, where Brown University is located.
The FBI had told the AP it knew of no connection between the deadly shooting at Brown and the fatal shooting of Loureiro. However, WPRI-TV reported that multiple people familiar with the investigation said they discovered evidence showing the two crimes may be linked.
WBZ-TV said in its video report that Loureiro, 47, was shot several times in the foyer of his home; a neighbor said he lived in a first-floor apartment.
A reporter suggested to the neighbor on camera that the crime is atypical for Brookline, and the neighbor replied that it was a “surprise … and a shooting in a state where it’s so hard to even have a gun?” The neighbor also said fellow neighbors noted a nearby car was “parked in the wrong direction” and “seemed to be waiting.”
The Jerusalem Post reported that Loureiro was Jewish and a vocal pro-Israel nuclear scientist. However, the Post added that it could not confirm speculations by Jewish organizations that Loureiro was targeted for his political affiliations.
Blaze News earlier Thursday reported that Providence police said the Brown University suspected shooter’s DNA had been gathered and that images and video of a person of interest match eyewitness descriptions.
A person of interest was initially detained over the weekend before law enforcement determined they had the wrong guy.
This is a developing story and may be updated.
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RFK Jr. moves to ban transgender procedures for children: ‘This is not medicine; it is malpractice’
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is leading the charge to protect children across America from life-shattering transgender procedures.
Kennedy announced a new declaration on Thursday moving to ban sex-altering operations, hormone replacement therapy, and other irreversible medical procedures that target children suffering from gender dysphoria. Rather than affirming tragic delusions and relying on taxpayers to subsidize these experimental interventions, Kennedy’s health department is working to pull funding and impose enforcement actions on the medical institutions that profit off of vulnerable children.
‘We’re done with junk science driven by ideological pursuits.’
“The Trump administration will not stand by while ideology, misinformation, and propaganda push vulnerable young people into decisions they cannot fully understand and that they can never reverse,” Kennedy said Thursday.
“There is divine worth in every person, and it shines most brightly in our children. That worth commands us to protect them.”
RELATED: ‘This is a must-win’: These 4 Republicans voted against banning trans surgeries on children
Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Kennedy was flanked by numerous health officials in President Donald Trump’s administration, Republican lawmakers, and even Chloe Cole, a de-transitioner who described her own traumatic experience with the medical industry.
“It’s not too late to accept the beautiful way God has created you,” Cole said during her remarks.
Kennedy went on to describe the predatory nature of the medical institutions that convince American youth that sex is malleable and that a life-altering, irreversible medical procedure is a one-size-fits-all solution to the mental health struggles for these children.
RELATED: ‘Send in the next guy’: Nicki Minaj savages Newsom over his desire to ‘see trans kids’
Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
“They betray the estimated 300,000 American youth ages 13 to 17 conditioned to believe that sex can be changed,” Kennedy said. “They betrayed their Hippocratic Oath to ‘do no harm.’ So-called gender affirming care has inflicted lasting physical and psychological damage on vulnerable young people. This is not medicine; it is malpractice.”
“We’re done with junk science driven by ideological pursuits, not the well-being of children.”
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Trump administration orders more foreign-born Americans to be stripped of citizenship over fraud: NYT
The Trump administration is taking aim at some naturalized Americans who committed fraud, according to a New York Times report.
The report says new guidance was sent to the field offices of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Tuesday ordering them to “supply Office of Immigration Litigation with 100-200 denaturalization cases per month.” The report says that in the last eight years, only about 120 such cases have been filed.
‘I don’t think we’re anywhere close to denaturalizing too many people.’
Legally, naturalized immigrants can have their citizenship taken away if they commit fraud, though the report suggests that the Trump administration could clamp down on other cases that include applicants making mistakes on their paperwork.
“It’s no secret that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ war on fraud includes prioritizing those who’ve unlawfully obtained U.S. citizenship — especially under the previous administration,” said USCIS spokesperson Matthew Tragesser, according to the Times.
“We will pursue denaturalization proceedings for those individuals lying or misrepresenting themselves during the naturalization process,” he added. “We look forward to continuing to work with the Department of Justice to restore integrity to America’s immigration system.”
Amanda Baran, a former USCIS senior official in the Biden administration, criticized the order.
“The Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that citizenship and naturalization are too precious and fundamental to our democracy for the government to take it away on their whim,” she said. “Instead of wasting resources digging through Americans’ files, USCIS should do its job of processing applications, as Congress mandated.”
RELATED: AOC claims ICE targets 6-year-olds in her district during crazed speech on immigration
Others who support further restrictions on immigration say the order isn’t enough.
“I don’t think we’re anywhere close to denaturalizing too many people,” said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies.
About 800,000 people are naturalized every year, according to the report. Those who have their citizenship stripped usually become permanent legal residents.
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Putting God back in ‘degraded’ US Chaplain Corps: Hegseth axes pagan codes and New Age guides
Earlier this week, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced that he would be overhauling yet another aspect of the military: the Chaplain Corps.
On Tuesday, Hegseth explained a directive that will effectively overhaul the United States Chaplain Corps, “the spiritual and moral backbone of our nation’s forces” that, for hundreds of years, “ministered” to the “souls” of American servicemen and women, as he explained in the video.
‘In an atmosphere of political correctness and secular humanism, chaplains have been minimized, viewed by many as therapists instead of ministers.’
Hegseth recounted the long history of the Chaplain Corps, which dates back to 1775, when George Washington himself established it. The “weakening” of this important institution has become “a real problem for our nation’s military,” Hegseth said.
“Sadly, as part of the ongoing war on warriors, in recent decades its role has been degraded,” Hegseth said in the video. “In an atmosphere of political correctness and secular humanism, chaplains have been minimized, viewed by many as therapists instead of ministers. Faith and virtue were traded for self-help and self-care.”
Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/For The Washington Post via Getty Images
As evidence of the New Age influence in the military, Hegseth referred to the United States Army’s Spiritual Fitness Guide, which mentions “God” only once and “virtue” not at all, even as 82% of the military identify as “religious.”
Hegseth ordered the elimination of this “unacceptable and unserious” Spiritual Fitness Guide and the simplification of the Faith and Belief Coding System, an “overly complex” classification system of over 200 different beliefs.
The Faith and Belief Code was apparently expanded in March 2017. The expansion went into more detailed distinctions among Protestant denominations, and it included alternate belief systems like “Magick and Spiritualist,” “Wicca,” “Pagan,” “New Age Churches,” “Humanist,” and “Heathen.”
Hegseth promised more changes in the near future, saying that there will be a “top-down cultural shift” in the military that puts “spiritual well-being on the same footing as mental and physical health.”
“We are going to make the Chaplain Corps great again,” he posted on X.
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Stacey Abrams’s Climate Group Banked $5M in Taxpayer Funds Before Trump Admin Axed the Grant, Tax Docs Show
Rewiring America, the climate group where Democratic activist Stacey Abrams served as senior counsel, quietly banked more than $5 million in federal climate funding shortly before the Trump administration axed the Biden-era grant earlier this year, according to tax documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. They suggest that Abrams played a larger role in obtaining the grant than she claimed.
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