Author: Press Room

NEW YORK (AP) — Hollywood writer-director Carl Rinsch was sentenced Monday to 2 1/2 years in prison after being convicted of defrauding Netflix out of $11 million for a never-finished sci-fi series. Supporters including Keanu Reeves had asked the court to show him leniency. Rinsch, best known for the 2013 samurai fantasy film “47 Ronin,” was convicted in December of federal wire fraud and other charges. According to prosecutors and trial testimony, he told Netflix he needed $11 million to finish a show called “White Horse” but diverted the money into a personal account and ultimately spent whopping sums on…

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson joined two other justices in a strong dissent to the court’s Tuesday decision that states can bar transgender athletes from girls’ sports and insisted that Title IX “cannot plausibly” mean that “sex” only refers to a student’s birth gender. Jackson joined Justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to disagree with the majority ruling that “The term ‘sex’ in Title IX, the Javits Amendment, and the Title IX regulations cannot plausibly be interpreted to refer to anything other than biological sex.” Justice Jackson was incensed by the majority opinion and insisted that Title IX absolutely…

A handful of House Republicans angry about the Senate’s failure to act on a GOP elections bill and other grievances with party leaders rejected a procedural measure Tuesday, effectively halting progress on the annual defense policy bill and other legislation. The hard-liner rebellion Tuesday at least temporarily extends a freeze on most floor business that began last week amid conservative frustrations over the stalled SAVE America Act, which President Donald Trump has called his No. 1 legislative priority. The “rule” setting up further House votes this week failed 224-198, with 14 Republicans voting with Democrats against the measure. Those Republicans…

The mayor of Froun says his village lies entirely outside the so-called Yellow Line, Israel’s self-declared buffer zone in southern Lebanon The mayor of a southern Lebanese village has questioned Israel’s reported withdrawal plan that came as part of an initial agreement reached in Washington.In an interview with RT, Hassan Adel Bazzi said that the community of Froun was designated as a pilot withdrawal zone despite never being occupied by Israeli forces.Last week, West Jerusalem and the Lebanese government signed a US-brokered deal for the gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces, pending Hezbollah’s disarmament. As part of a broader arrangement, Israel…

New IRS guidance will save many parents the hassle of filing gift tax returns merely because they contribute to Trump accounts.gettyBeginning July 4, taxpayers may begin making contributions to Trump accounts, the new child-focused savings vehicle created under Code section 530A as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). Ahead of that start date, the IRS has issued guidance to answer a question for donors: Will those contributions trigger a gift tax return filing requirement?The guidance, issued as a revenue procedure, makes clear that many individual donors will not have to file gift tax returns merely because they…

American Chemistry Council President and CEO Chris Jahn cheered the Trump administration’s work to repeal onerous regulations, stating that doing so helps American manufacturing and keeps the U.S. competitive on the global stage. Eli Nachmany, the head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), spoke at the American Chemistry Council’s conference about the Trump administration’s work to repeal onerous regulations. OIRA is the government’s central authority for reviewing Executive Branch regulations. Nachmany stated that the Trump administration has worked to repeal 10 regulations for every rule they have implemented. He emphasized that they have experienced such drastic success…

Some 34,400 asylum seekers who invoked the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to stay in the U.K. just last year alone will leave a staggering £4.9 billion (US$6.4 billion) bill to be paid by the British taxpayer over the course of their lifetimes, the Home Office acknowledged. The Daily Telegraph notes the revelation marks the first calculation of its time from the Home Office, which estimated a 141,100 pounds cost per migrant over their life time — a calculation that takes into account “the fact that they would pay taxes.” About 34,400 migrants requested asylum by means of Article 8 of…

Job openings unexpectedly rose to their highest level in two years in May, beating estimates and suggesting that high gas prices and uncertainty around the Iran war did not weigh on rising employer demand for workers. Vacant positions ticked up to 7.6 million in May. Before rounding, this was an increase to 7,594 million from the downwardly revised estimate of 7,585 million in April. Economists had forecast openings would decline to around 7.3 million. This was the second month of rising openings and the highest level of openings since May of 2024. There were strong gains in blue-collar openings. Manufacturing…

Whatever lead that little freak James “Neighbors With a Uterus” Talarico had in the Texas U.S. Senate race is now gone. That’s if he ever had a lead to begin with. A poll from the New York Times/Siena has the race all tied up at 47 percent between the Democrat Talarico and the Republican Ken Paxton. Even more revealing is the most recent poll from the University of Texas, which shows Paxton up by one point, 43 to 42 percent. What’s notable is that, back in April, this same pollster had Talarico up by eight, 34 to 42 percent. Currently, in…

Rep. Tom Kean Jr. made his first appearance on the House floor in nearly four months Tuesday and revealed a depression diagnosis led to his extended hospitalization. The New Jersey Republican’s floor remarks were his first public disclosure about the absence that went publicly unexplained for more than 100 days. His staff blamed a personal medical condition without providing other details, sparking widespread concern and speculation as they assured reporters that all would be revealed when he returned. Kean explained in the speech that his diagnosis came after medical testing and that he did not know at the outset how…