USA

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Alec Baldwin didn’t have to pay anything to resolve a $25 million lawsuit filed by family members of a Marine killed in Afghanistan after the actor chastised them on social media over the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, Baldwin’s attorney said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. George Santos of New York is facing a critical vote to expel him from the House on Friday as lawmakers weigh whether his actions, fabrications and alleged lawbreaking warrant the chamber’s most severe punishment.

The first-term Republican congressman is at grave risk of becoming just the sixth member of the House to be ousted by colleagues. Expulsion requires support from two-third of the House, a purposefully high bar, but a blistering House Ethics Committee report released on Nov. 16 that accused Santos of breaking federal law may prove decisive.

WASHINGTON (AP) — All these years later, the scene still is almost too bizarre to imagine: a tearful president and his perplexed aide, neither very religious, kneeling in prayer on the floor of a White House bedroom in the waning hours of a shattered presidency.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Anthony Fauci, former chief White House medical adviser, is expected to testify before Congress early next year as part of Republicans’ yearslong investigation into the origins of COVID-19 and the U.S. response to the disease.

Fauci, who served as the nation’s top infectious disease expert before retiring last year, will sit for transcribed interviews in early January and a public hearing at a later date. It will be his first appearance before the Republican-controlled House.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal watchdog will investigate how the Biden administration chose a site for a new FBI headquarters following a contentious competition marked by allegations of conflict of interest.

The Inspector General for the General Services Administration is probing the decision to locate the facility in Greenbelt, Maryland, over a site in Virginia., according to a letter released Thursday by Virginia lawmakers. The new building would replace the FBI’s crumbling headquarters in nearby Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Someone in China created thousands of fake social media accounts designed to appear to be from Americans and used them to spread polarizing political content in an apparent effort to divide the U.S. ahead of next year’s elections, Meta said Thursday.

The network of nearly 4,800 fake accounts was attempting to build an audience when it was identified and eliminated by the tech company, which owns Facebook and Instagram. The accounts sported fake photos, names and locations as a way to appear like everyday American Facebook users weighing in on political issues.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway says the billionaire Haslam family tried to bribe at least 15 executives at the Pilot truck stop chain with millions of dollars to get them to inflate the company’s profits this year because that would force Berkshire to pay more for the Haslams’ remaining 20% stake in the company.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A defiant Rep. George Santos is refusing to resign and warned on Thursday that his expulsion from Congress before being convicted in a court of law would establish a precedent that “is going to be the undoing of a lot of members of this body.”

The first-term Republican congressman from New York could well become just the sixth member of the House to have been expelled by colleagues. Republicans and Democrats have offered resolutions to remove him, and the House is expected to vote on one of them Friday.

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York appeals court Thursday reinstated a gag order that barred Donald Trump from commenting about court personnel after he continually disparaged a law clerk in his New York civil fraud trial.

The one-sentence decision from a four-judge panel came two weeks after an individual appellate judge had put the order on hold while the appeals process played out.

Trial judge Arthur Engoron, who imposed the gag order, said he now planned to enforce it “rigorously and vigorously.”

UNITED NATIONS, November 29. /TASS/: The West is not interested in protecting the interests of the Palestinians, it considers them second-class people, Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said.

"During these weeks, an extremely unpleasant fact has become clear: the Palestinians are a second-class people for the West, which is simply not interested in protecting their interests. This is the main reason for the problems the Council faces in making decisions," the diplomat said at a UN Security Council meeting on the situation in the Middle East.