Wildfire response threatens to end Karen Bass' extended honeymoon  —  The Los Angeles mayor returned home from Ghana on Wednesday and said she was in “constant contact” while abroad.  —  LOS ANGELES — Karen Bass probably has second thoughts about that trip to Ghana.

Trump speaks with Justice Alito amid push to halt criminal sentencing  —  Alito spoke to Trump to recommend an ex-clerk for a job in his administration.  —  President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Mar-a-Lago, Jan. 7, 2024, in Palm Beach, Fla.

Taking Trump's imperialist trolling seriously (for a moment)  —  We've come a long way from bringing down egg prices.  —  ∙ Paid  —  Speaking as someone who's been covering Trump for nine years now, paying attention to what he's doing instead of obsessing over what he's saying is generally a good rule of thumb.

Elon Musk says DOGE probably won't find $2 trillion in federal budget cuts  —  Musk previously said his Department of Government Efficiency would be able to recommend cuts to the federal budget of “at least $2 trillion.”  —  Tech billionaire Elon Musk said Wednesday that his budget-cutting effort …

Karen Pence Snubs Donald Trump At Jimmy Carter's Funeral  —  This was the first time Mike Pence and Donald Trump have been together publicly since the insurrection.  —  LOADING  —  Former second lady Karen Pence appeared to snub President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday at former President Jimmy Carter's funeral.

The '90s weren't that great  —  Nostalgia isn't what it used to be  —  Today's guest post is from the author of Cartoons Hate Her, a Substack about social dynamics (including parenting, marriage, sex and friendship) from the hybrid mind of a terminally online sicko and a normie liberal mom.

Scoop: Trump's 100 executive orders … - Senators were given previews of some of what they were told would be 100 executive orders, two sources who were in the room told Axios.  — Stephen Miller, Trump's longtime immigration adviser, dove into how they intend to use executive power …

Ex-FBI informant behind fake Biden-Ukraine bribery allegations sentenced to 6 years in prison  —  The disgraced former FBI informant who falsely accused President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden of taking a $10 million bribe from Ukraine was sentenced Wednesday to six years in federal prison, according to court records.

Google donates $1 million to Trump's inaugural committee  —  Like other Silicon Valley behemoths, the search and advertising giant has worked to make nice with the president-elect ahead of his second term.  —  Google is donating $1 million to President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration …

'Can't Even Respond': Gavin Newsom Reacts To Trump's Los Angeles Wildfires Attack  —  The California governor wasn't having it with the president-elect blaming him for the devastating fires.  —  LOADING  —  California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) swiftly dismissed Donald Trump's efforts to …

Donald Trump Jr.'s visit was ‘staged,’ says Greenland lawmaker  —  “We know how they treat the Inuit in Alaska.  Make that great before trying to invade us,” Pipaluk Lynge tells POLITICO.  —  A senior Greenlandic politician slammed Donald Trump Jr.'s visit to the island as “staged,” …

SEIU Joins AFL-CIO to Build Unprecedented Worker Power, Win Unions for All Workers  —  Two million service and care workers to join nation's largest labor federation, bringing total membership to nearly 15 million  —  Joint commitment to long-term fight to rewrite rules to strengthen the right to organize …

Falsehoods around the L.A. fires are proliferating on the right  —  Anything to keep the realities of climate change from spreading.  —  There is nothing political about the wildfires that have annihilated thousands of buildings around Los Angeles this week, with two exceptions.

Lessons, Painful At Times, Are Only Lessons If They're Eventually Learned  —  The devastation in Southern California is almost beyond measure.  A little over half of Pacific Palisades is gone.  Most of the seaside parts of Malibu are in ruins.  There are now seven active fires in Los Angeles …

Republicans on North Carolina Supreme Court block certification of Democratic justice's election victory  —  On Monday, Congress certified the results of the 2024 presidential election in routine fashion.  Some concluded that, due to Trump's victory, there would be no attacks on the democratic process this year.

Trump Is Poised to Turn the DOJ Into His Personal Law Firm … No president has ever attempted to do what Donald Trump now proposes to do—assemble a small team of former personal attorneys and install it at the highest levels of the Department of Justice.  The president-elect first named lawyers …

The Army of God Comes Out of the Shadows … on the thursday night after Donald Trump won the presidential election, an obscure but telling celebration unfolded inside a converted barn off a highway stretching through the cornfields of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

Evangelicals loved Jimmy Carter — until his anti-racism turned them against him  —  Today's funeral for former President Jimmy Carter follows nearly two weeks of reminiscence about the legacy of the Georgia Democrat who held the White House for one term in the late '70s.

Musk to host German far-right leader on X, stirs angst about election meddling  —  Elon Musk will host the leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) on X on Thursday, stoking concerns in Berlin and Brussels about possible meddling by the U.S. billionaire in campaigning for Germany's Feb. 23 national election.

Biden Administration Announces Additional Security Assistance for Ukraine  —  Today, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced additional security assistance support to meet Ukraine's critical security and defense needs as part of the surge of security assistance the President directed to put Ukraine in the best possible position.