Trump Jr., who is known to share GOP memes on his Instagram account and calls himself “Meme Wars General,” posted a photo from 1985 movie The Goonies, showing the characters Chunk (Jeff Cohen) and Sloth (John Matuszak) hugging, with a text reading, “Congratulations Pennsylvania!” To accompany the meme, Trump Jr. wrote: “Basically!!! Dear fact checkers it’s a parody and the guy from Goonies is not actually a candidate in PA even if the likeness is uncanny....

The eldest son of former President Donald Trump on Thursday said Fauci “never knew what was actually going on” in the early days of the COVID pandemic, and accused him of running “cover from China from day one.” He also told Republicans not interested in investigating the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director that they don’t “deserve to represent the American people anymore.” In a video message to his Rumble followers, Trump Jr....

New York state’s Supreme Court ordered Giuliani to refrain from practicing law on Thursday pending disciplinary actions brought against him by the Attorney Grievances Committee for the First Judicial Department over his involvement in legal attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in Trump’s favor. The former president quickly issued a statement decrying the court’s decision while falsely claiming the election had “already been proven” to be rife with massive fraud....

Garza, the legal representative of Sicknick’s estate, is alleging that the former president’s “campaign of lies and incendiary rhetoric” about the 2020 presidential election led his supporters to storm the Capitol building on January 6, 2021, ultimately playing a “significant role in the medical condition” that caused the officer’s death. “Many participants in the attack have since revealed that they were acting on what they believed to be Defendant Trump’s direct orders in service of their country,” the lawsuit reads....

Shanin Specter, the son of former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, who famously launched an investigation into the Spygate scandal, and Charles Robbins, the senator’s communications aide and ghostwriter, both claim to know that Trump offered money to make Specter’s investigation go away. The elder Specter, who was a staunch critic of the NFL, wanted league executives to testify under oath about why evidence of cheating had been destroyed. The investigation never made headway....

The president retweeted Ron Watkins, former administrator of the online messaging board 8kun, who is seen as a major figure in the pro-Trump conspiracy theory. Watkins tweeted praise for Deputy Attorney General Jeff Rosen, who will take over from Barr, and pointed to his comments about “malign foreign influence efforts in our elections.” Watkins and his father, Jim Watkins, have previously been accused of orchestrating the QAnon conspiracy theory through posts on 8kun, which the elder Watkins owns....

FiveThirtyEight’s rating tracker found that 43 percent of Americans approved of Trump’s performance in office as of Tuesday evening, while 52.7 percent said they disapproved. Trump’s position marked a slight improvement on Wednesday of last week, when 53.2 percent of Americans disapproved of the president and 42.3 percent approved—bringing his rating to a new post-impeachment acquittal low. President Trump has shifted his tone on the coronavirus outbreak in recent weeks, having compared it to seasonal flu at the start of March as he sought to dismiss fears about the spread of the disease....

The House ways and means committee, which managed to obtain Trump’s financial records following a yearslong battle, is said to be preparing to publicize them on December 30. Unnamed sources told media outlets such as the Associated Press and CNN that there will be a pro forma House session on Friday, during which the records will be released. It had been suggested that Trump’s tax returns could be released on December 27, but redacted versions of the records look set to be released just four days before the GOP takes control of the House on January 3....

Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump Jr. and Tiffany Ariana Trump have picked up thousands of new followers on the platform since January 20, when Joe Biden was inaugurated, with only Eric Trump appearing to be suffering through a period of sustained decline. Between January 20 and January 24, Ivanka Trump gained 54,839 followers, Trump Jr. amassed 75,946 and Tiffany Trump picked up 25,565, analytics show. Prior to a rise of 96 followers last Saturday, Eric Trump’s follower count had dropped for 16 consecutive days, plunging by more than 302,500 between January 7 and January 22 according to statistics from the social media tracking firm Social Blade....

Amid reports that the Trump administration was asking for some $5 billion from South Korea as contribution for the U.S. military’s deployment there, the two sides came together in Seoul in hopes of extending their Cold War-era partnership. After less than two hours, however, senior State Department negotiator James DeHart announced an end to the negotiations, telling reporters, “Unfortunately, the proposals that were put forward by the Korean team were not responsive to our request for fair and equitable burden-sharing....

The former president and ex-Fox News presenter are set to appear at the Toyota Center in Houston on Saturday, December 18, followed by the American Airlines Center in Dallas on Sunday as part of their joint speaking tour. Ahead of this weekend’s events, Ticketmaster shows that there still are more than 200 tickets left for the event at the American Airlines Center, with slightly fewer tickets still available at the venue in Houston....

MORE: Which sports figure does each candidate remind us of? In the tweet, he said, “they better be careful,” but no one really knew what that meant. In an interview with The Washington Post, Trump clarified Monday why he criticized the Ricketts family for spending money against his campaign. “Look, they are spending vicious … I don’t even know these people. Those Ricketts,” he said. “I actually said they ought to focus on the Chicago Cubs and, you know, stop playing around....

The former president certainly thinks he could beat his successor in a boxing ring—and said so at a press conference on Thursday. Speaking during a promotional event ahead of this weekend’s fight between Evander Holyfield and Vitor Belfort—for which Trump is providing commentary along with his son, Donald Trump, Jr according to ESPN—he said he would knock out Biden if they ever entered the ring. “Well, if I had to pick somebody in the world, not only a professional boxer because I’ll take a pass on the professional boxers—that can be a very dangerous subject,” Trump told the audience by phone....

Fred Eshelman donated the money to True the Vote Inc., a Houston-based organization, which had promised to “investigate, litigate, and expose suspected illegal balloting and fraud in the 2020 general election,” according to Bloomberg. Eshelman, who is the founder of Eshelman Ventures LLC, now wants his money back because True the Vote did not provide him with information about their progress and he believes they can’t achieve what they claimed....

Montgomery was the first capital of the Confederacy, and an Alabama law meant to protect Confederate monuments and memorials can impose a fine for their removal. The Montgomery City Council voted Tuesday night to rename a street from Jeff Davis Avenue to Fred D. Gray Avenue. Davis, 90, is a Black attorney who grew up on the street during the Jim Crow era and represented Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks during the civil rights movement....

Christie’s is auctioning off 112 diamonds dating to the queen’s 1774-1793 reign, in their original form. The gems are set in a pair of bracelets with an estimated value between $2 million and $4 million. The young queen purchased the diamonds in 1776, the year of the American revolution, for 250,000 livres, “a huge sum at the time,” according to the auction house. The French livre, a currency in use since 781, was equivalent to the value of one pound of silver....

Against this background, it is possible that the Doomsday Clock could be set even closer to the crucial midnight point when it is reset in January 2023. The Doomsday Clock is a visual representation of how close humanity is to destroying itself based on how close its minute hand is to midnight. The clock was debuted by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a nonprofit science and security organization originally founded by former Manhattan Project scientists, in 1947....

The quarterback-turned-wide receiver was arrested early Saturday morning in Natick, Mass., after police said he hit a curb and was “unaware of his surroundings.” He’s been charged with operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol. MORE: Top college quarterbacks for 2016 | Pitt RB Conner says he’s cancer-free “I found him to be very unsteady on his feet as he veered off to his right and walked in the middle of the road,” Sgt....

NEWSWEEK: You ate seven doughnuts in two minutes. How? Andy Puefua: I’ve been training for a long time. I practiced with my cousins. I tried to beat nine. I didn’t beat nine. What do you think held you back? The politics. The politics? People were saying I couldn’t eat nine. They were just getting on me, saying I couldn’t do it. They wanted the guy representing their country to win....

Jensen, 41, was wearing a shirt adorned with the QAnon conspiracy group’s “Q” when he reportedly joined the mob that followed Goodman up two flights of stairs in the Capitol, according to the Associated Press. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly said that it was a “close case” of whether or not to release Jensen, and his involvement in the riot was “deeply concerning and quite serious.” After recognizing that Jensen was not facing any allegations of fighting, property damage or toppling barricades, Kelly released him on house arrest with electronic location monitoring and a ban from using the internet on electronic devices....