Category: Uncategorized

Justin Bieber’s making waves again … only this time, it’s literally on an Idaho lake. TMZ has obtained photos of the Biebs cruising around Lake Coeur d’Alene Sunday morning … shirtless and rocking pink swim trunks as he zipped across the water…

President Donald Trump confirmed that he asked FIFA to review U.S. soccer player Folarin Balogun’s red card suspension before the organization reversed its decision, allowing the star striker to participate in Monday night’s match.

A group of oil-exporting countries has agreed to a modest increase in oil production, though current prices are already relatively low. Seven OPEC+ nations have said they will increase their production goals by 188,000 barrels per day. The participating countries are Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iraq, Kuwait, Kazakhstan, Algeria, and Oman. Multiple nations in the Middle…

President Trump offered stark criticism from the White House on Monday of the World Cup referee who gave a red card to U.S. men’s soccer star Folarin Balogun, saying he was “a little bit suspect if you check his past.” FIFA referee Raphael Claus, who gave Balogun the red card after a video review suggested…

Ten-man England earned its greatest World Cup victory on foreign soil by defeating co-host Mexico at Estadio Azteca, banishing the ghost of Diego Maradona’s “Hand of God” in the same stadium 40 years ago.

The Supreme Court is on the verge of becoming a political football. Congress can prevent it — if both sides can trade what they want for what they need.

Jonathan Morgan says she left out detail about their relationship when speaking to her family.

A few months into Donald Trump’s second term, the president’s administration launched a task force that would, according to the Republican White House, eradicate “anti-Christian bias” within the federal government. At a launch event in April 2025, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi began by attacking Joe Biden, who Bondi said had “abused and targeted Christians.”

The slander was baseless. And a year later, when the task force tried to bolster its accusations with a lengthy written report, the allegations against the former president and his Democratic administration largely fell apart.

But more than a year after Team Trump started making a concerted effort to convince Americans that Joe Biden and his White House “abused and targeted Christians,” it’s the incumbent president and his administration that continue to clash with the faith community — up to and including a recent arrest of a nun. MS NOW reported:

The arrest of a Catholic nun from Nigeria by federal immigration officers in southern Texas [last week] made for an unlikely alliance on Capitol Hill as lawmakers from both parties demanded her release and asked the question: Why aren’t border officials focused on real threats to public safety?

Sister Leticia “Letty” Ugboaja, 56, was walking the block between her home and the Catholic Church where she attends Sunday Mass in McAllen, Texas, when she was stopped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The agents arrested her, taking her rosary, and brought her to a nearby detention facility.

For all of the president’s and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin’s chest-thumping about Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers targeting the “worst of the worst,” Ugboaja is a nun. She was wearing her habit and walking down a public sidewalk en route to Sunday Mass when she was hauled off.

The idea that she somehow represented a threat to public safety in Texas is plainly insane.

Fortunately, Ugboaja was ultimately released from federal detention after a backlash from members of Congress, but this was hardly a rare clash between the Republican administration and the faith community. In fact, this incident comes on the heels of Team Trump suing a Catholic diocese in New Mexico in order to seize 14 acres of land for additional border barriers.

There have been related controversies surrounding the Pentagon’s list of officially recognized religions, Trump picking fights with Pope Leo XIV, the administration stripping funding from Catholic charities, and instances in which federal agents have shot faith leaders with pepper balls.

If these developments unfolded during a Democratic administration, is there any doubt that Republicans and conservative media outlets would launch hysterical campaigns about the “Democratic war on religion”?

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post ICE arrest of nun adds to clashes between Team Trump and the faith community appeared first on MS NOW.

New video shows cleanup crews all over the Reflecting Pool after America’s 250th birthday celebration … and it’s clear they’ve got their work cut out for them. Crews are putting in some serious elbow grease to get the Reflecting Pool and the…

As former White House ethics lawyers who served administrations of both parties, we upheld a clear bipartisan norm: Presidents and senior officials must avoid even the appearance that their official power is entangled with personal gain. Presidents and senior officials were expected to divest conflicting assets, use blind trusts or hold broadly diversified funds — all to avoid the mingling of their public office and their private interests. 

President Donald Trump has shattered that principle.  His most recent financial disclosure reveals an extraordinary $2.2 billion in gains during his first year in office. The sheer scale of the sums — $1.4 billion in cryptocurrency alone — is unparalleled. The issue is not simply how much money Trump made or that he made it at all; it is that the money comes from industries his administration regulates, foreign relationships his administration oversees and markets that can rise or fall based on the policies, enforcement decisions, diplomatic relationships and public signals of the office he holds.

Not surprisingly, the White House says there are no conflicts of interest, and Trump himself claims that an independent firm handles his investments. But the truth is that Trump is financially capitalizing on the presidency in a way never before seen in American history. 

The clearest example is cryptocurrency, where his personal financial interests overlap with his administration’s regulatory decisions, market signals and foreign relationships. Since returning to office, Trump’s administration has moved toward a more permissive approach to digital assets. Meanwhile, Trump and his family maintain significant financial interests in that industry. His administration has promoted the United States as a crypto hub, supported new stablecoin rules and moved away from aggressive enforcement against major crypto firms. Through regulation, enforcement decisions, stablecoin policy and public signals from the White House, the president can influence the rules and market confidence around assets from which he personally benefits. 

Woefully inadequate regulation means he is leaving American investors exposed to crypto scams and a market of volatile speculative assets that can collapse as quickly as they surge. Trump’s own meme coin shows the danger. The president can benefit from the attention and trading activity generated by his name while retail investors are left exposed when the price falls. The official Trump meme coin ($TRUMP) is down 97.7% from its all-time high; according to one analysis, almost a million investors have lost a combined $3.8 billion on the coin. Meanwhile, Trump banked $636 million in revenue from the venture.

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Trump Is a ‘Cash Extractor,’ Not a Businessman: Inside Trump’s massive windfall

July 5, 2026 / 11:35

The foreign conflicts are just as alarming. The shadowy nature of crypto transactions makes it difficult to understand all that is happening behind the scenes. But what we are seeing is shocking enough. To pick but one example: In early 2025, World Liberty Financial, a Trump family-backed crypto venture, issued USD1, its stablecoin pegged to the dollar. Within weeks, the United Arab Emirates-owned investment fund MGX used USD1 in connection with a $2 billion investment in crypto company Binance. (The Trump family, World Liberty and Binance deny wrongdoing.) Stablecoins can generate income through the reserves that back them, meaning wider use of USD1 may benefit World Liberty.

In other words, a foreign power — a key player in an unpopular and expensive war with Iran that Trump began without the consent of Congress — is financing a business venture that is partly owned by the president and his family. Ordinary Americans pay for this war with sky-high gas prices. Unlike Trump, most Americans cannot afford to hedge their bets through the buying and selling of oil company stocks.

No president ever has had these kinds of  business dealings, let alone with foreign governments, since our nation’s founding. In fact, the founders included a clause prohibiting foreign emoluments in our original Constitution specifically to prevent this type of corruption. During Trump’s first term, we and others warned that these protections exist because financial dependence can distort judgment, compromise foreign policy and entangle the nation in decisions made for private benefit.

Congress has both the power and responsibility to act. It can pass legislation barring presidents, vice presidents, senior officials and members of Congress from trading individual stocks, holding cryptocurrency interests that overlap with official duties, or maintaining business arrangements that create conflicts while they serve. It can require meaningful divestiture, the creation of blind trusts and enforceable stricter disclosure rules.

Legislators also have the power to investigate Trump’s existing financial arrangements. They can examine the president’s crypto earnings, foreign-linked transactions, stock trades and other business interests to determine who paid, who benefited and whether official policy was affected.

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‘Stealing and bribery’: Inside Trump’s $2.2B cashout 

July 4, 2026 / 08:49

Congress must use both its lawmaking and investigative powers. That will certainly happen if the president’s party loses one or both chambers in the midterm elections this fall. But it should not wait. The president’s allies may fear his political power, his threats of primary challenges and the campaign money he can help steer against them. But their constitutional duty is to protect the presidency from corruption and the public from the abuse of power.

Americans should not have to wonder whether consumer protections are weakened because the president profits from crypto, whether foreign policy is shaped by foreign-linked business deals or whether law enforcement  decisions (such as pardoning the founder of a firm involved in that UAE deal) are influenced by the president’s private balance sheet.

The presidency is not supposed to be a profit center. Congress should stop treating Trump’s corruption as a political inconvenience and start treating it as a constitutional crisis.

The post Trump’s financial disclosure shows his corruption hitting a new low appeared first on MS NOW.

The pair braved New York’s sweltering heat for a joyride in a red-hot Ferrari. But where Rihanna dressed for the holiday weekend, A$AP Rocky kept things business as usual.

There’s an interesting flair to the work of the British documentarian Andy Mundy-Castle. In White Nanny Black Child (2023), he traces the legacy of Britain’s so-called farming experiment, where thousands of Black children from West Africa were adopted by white English families between 1955 and 1995, only to face widespread abuse and prejudice. The film […]