Author: Press Room

On Wednesday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power,” Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) argued that the DHS shutdown didn’t backfire because “what was really important to my constituents is that they saw us fighting to get basic, commonsense guardrails on how these reckless and lawless federal agents were behaving. And we might not be in power in Washington, but people expect to see us using our power to fight for them.” Co-host Kailey Leinz asked, “Well, when we consider the Republican reconciliation package, Senator, obviously, it would be an aim to fund ICE and CBP for three-and-a-half years. Republicans would be…

Rep. Ronny Jackson, a conservative ally of President Donald Trump, is considering jumping into the race to fill the top GOP spot on the House Armed Services Committee after the midterms. The three-term Texas Republican said Thursday he’d likely need to make a decision “soon” about joining the field — which already includes Reps. Rob Wittman (R-Va.) and Trent Kelly (R-Miss.). But he added that he won’t base his decision off other candidates or events, like this week’s Virginia redistricting referendum that threatens Wittman’s reelection. “If I do it, I’m going to do it regardless of any other factors,” Jackson…

The company has disputed the Pentagon’s statements that it can somehow still control Claude AI deployed in military networks AI developer Anthropic insists it has no backdoor or “kill switch” for its Claude AI once it is deployed in classified Pentagon military networks, according to a new court filing.The US military and the tech firm found themselves embroiled in a policy dispute earlier this year, with the Pentagon insisting on using the system for “all lawful military purposes,” while the company stood by its AI safeguards related to mass surveillance and fully autonomous weapons use.The Pentagon ultimately ended its partnership…

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a designated terrorist organization, on Thursday released a video that purportedly showed its forces seizing a civilian ship in the Strait of Hormuz. The IRGC attacked three container ships in the strait on Wednesday morning using small boats. Iranian state media said two of the ships were boarded and taken hostage by IRGC forces. The crew of the ships said they were attacked without warning, and at least one ship believed it had been granted safe passage through the strait by Iran. The IRGC video, clearly edited for dramatic effect, shows speedboats full of…

NEW YORK (AP) — HBO Max, “Harry Potter” and CNN may soon find themselves under a new roof: Paramount. That’s because shareholders of Warner Bros. Discovery on Thursday voted to sell the entire business to the company that owns CBS, along with blockbusters like “Top Gun.” Based on a preliminary vote count, Warner shareholders agreed to the proposed $81 billion buyout — valued at nearly $111 billion including debt based on Warner’s current outstanding shares. While the deal still faces regulatory review, the megamerger would vastly reshape Hollywood and the wider media landscape, further consolidating power in an industry already…

On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “The Bottom Line,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) said that he wants to continue the blockade of Iran and also would like to see President Donald Trump start hitting selected targets inside Iran intermittently to pressure them. Tuberville said, “The one thing that I’d love for him to do is take a big map and circle about 20 targets, don’t let them put people around the targets, just put 20 targets down and say, listen, we’re going to block you, we’re going to keep you from getting anything in or out, and then…

House Republican leaders want a floor vote next week on the Senate’s budget resolution, the first step in writing an immigration enforcement bill and passing it by President Donald Trump’s June 1 deadline. “It has to be clean because it has to be quick,” Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday, indicating that conservatives could not make major changes to the other chamber’s blueprint at this time. But Johnson and others still have to lock in support from conservatives who are threatening to vote against it if it doesn’t encompass more top GOP policy priorities, and it is proving to be a…

Political hit-jobs in Cyprus and Slovenia are just the tip of an election interference iceberg in Europe, involving a dark nexus of Israeli spies, defense chiefs, and tech companies. The threat is real, but the EU is staying silentTargeting the EU: Israeli spy firm’s open admissionA week after Cyprus assumed the EU’s rotating presidency in January, a video appeared on social media – from a relatively obscure account named ‘Emily Thompson – showing President Nikos Christodoulides’s brother-in-law, a former energy minister, and a major construction magnate discussing influence-peddling arrangements between Christodoulides and foreign investors. Across a series of surreptitious recordings, the…

Elon Musk’s SpaceX has secured an agreement granting it the option to acquire Cursor, a rapidly growing AI coding start-up, for $60 billion as the rocket maker pushes deeper into AI ahead of its hotly anticipated IPO. The Financial Times reports that SpaceX announced that it is collaborating with Cursor to develop what it describes as the world’s best coding and knowledge work AI, with SpaceX holding an option to purchase Anysphere, Cursor’s parent company, for $60 billion during 2025. Should SpaceX choose not to complete the acquisition, it would owe a $10 billion payment for the partnership work, a figure…

The interior minister of Pakistan, Mohsin Naqvi, held a meeting on Thursday with American Ambassador Natalie Baker to discuss attempts to continue negotiations to settle the war in Iran, expressing hope upon leaving the meeting that the rogue Iranian terror regime would return to the negotiating table. The readout and accompanying video of the meeting from the Pakistani Foreign Ministry are notable in that Islamabad applauds President Donald Trump for taking steps toward an enduring peace between the two countries and omits any mention of doing the same, as well as pressuring Iran to pursue peace. The unspoken conclusion created…