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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/23/us/politics/trump-navy-secretary.html

President Trump wanted one thing, more than anything else, from his secretary of the Navy, John Phelan: a new class of battleships.

“They’ll be the fastest, the biggest and by far — 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built,” Mr. Trump boasted at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate and resort in Florida a few days before Christmas. Mr. Phelan, a billionaire investor who has a home near the club, stood next to the president as he made the announcement.

Mr. Phelan’s job was to deliver the first of Mr. Trump’s battleships by 2028.

On Wednesday, Mr. Trump fired Mr. Phelan, who had struggled to come up with a plan to deliver the ships on the nearly impossible timeline that Mr. Trump has demanded, senior defense and administration officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters.

Mr. Phelan is the first service secretary to be forced from the Defense Department during this administration, though he is far from the only senior Pentagon official to be dismissed. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired or sidelined more than two dozen generals and admirals over the past year, including the Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, earlier this month. Mr. Hegseth has also butted heads with the secretary of the Army, Daniel P. Driscoll, over promotions and a host of other issues.

The churn of senior Pentagon officials at a time when the U.S. military is engaged in war with Iran has alarmed top Republican and Democratic members of Congress.

The Pentagon did not respond to questions regarding the circumstances surrounding Mr. Phelan’s dismissal. Mr. Phelan could not immediately be reached for comment.

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https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/23/doj-soldier-polymarket-bets-venezuela-maduro.html

A U.S. Army Special Forces master sergeant was arrested for allegedly using classified information to make extremely profitable bets on the Polymarket prediction market related to the American military mission that captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, the Department of Justice said Thursday.

The sergeant, Gannon Ken Van Dyke, “was involved in the planning and execution of Operation Absolute Resolve,” which apprehended Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, in early January, the DOJ said.

Van Dyke, 38, wagered a total of about $33,000 in 13 or so bets in the week leading up to that operation, with the knowledge that the United States was secretly planning military action against Maduro, according to an indictment unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

The bets won Van Dyke nearly $410,000, the indictment alleges.

His arrest comes as Polymarket and Kalshi have grown in popularity and as concerns have grown about people with inside information making wagers on those prediction market platforms.

Watch out for the guerrilla attacks.

A US Navy sailor, who was set for minesweeping duties in the Strait of Hormuz, was attacked by a monkey while ashore in Thailand and had to be left behind, officials said.

The Navy electronics technician, who was not publicly named, was en route to the Middle East aboard the USS Chief minesweeper vessel when he was scratched by a monkey during a stopover in the Thai city of Phuket, Axios reported.

“Weird stuff happens. This was definitely an unknown unknown,” a military official told the outlet.

Thailand is known for having mischievous macaques who go around the nation’s cities stealing food and items from bystanders, with some of the incidents even turning violent.

https://nypost.com/2026/04/23/world-news/us-sailor-prepped-for-minesweeping-in-strait-of-hormuz-sidelined-by-monkey-attack/

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https://www.reuters.com/world/trumps-doj-has-cut-thousands-law-enforcement-jobs-while-vowing-get-tough-crime-2026-04-23/
WASHINGTON, April 23 (Reuters) - The Trump administration has cut more than 4,000 employees from some of the nation’s top law-enforcement agencies, even as it vowed to crack down on crime, according to records obtained by Reuters.
The records, from the U.S. Justice Department’s management unit, show that the total number of employees at the FBI has dropped more than 7% since the government’s 2024 fiscal year, a loss of about 2,600 people. The Drug Enforcement Administration’s staff has dropped by about 6%, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives lost about 14% of its workers.
Other parts of the Justice Department shrank even more rapidly. Its National Security Division, which handles intelligence and terrorism matters, lost nearly 38% of its staff, the department’s records show. The division’s most recent budget request to Congress noted “unprecedented personnel constraints” in the unit that handles cases involving espionage and the export of sensitive military technology.
"It’s the difference between being proactive and entrepreneurial or purely reactive to the most obvious imperative of the day," Adam Hickey, a former senior official in the National Security Division, said of the loss of staff.
Those records, which Reuters obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, offer the most detailed accounting to date of the extent to which the Trump administration has downsized some of the nation’s premier law-enforcement agencies.
Those agencies have traditionally handled the government’s highest-profile criminal investigations, including efforts to combat terrorism, deter drug traffickers and keep guns away from criminals.

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https://apnews.com/article/trump-fake-math-drug-price-reductions-1c89714a4b60ead1485d1de31b27da92
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump, who helped push the term “ fake news ” into the mainstream, now seems to have a new favorite subject: fake math.

During a Thursday event announcing a deal with drugmaker Regeneron to lower the cost of its pharmaceutical products, Trump defended his past claims that prices on prescription medications had been cut by well over 100% — something that is mathematically impossible without manufacturers dropping prices to zero and then presumably paying consumers to use their product.

Trump acknowledged having boasted that his efforts to lower drug prices had reduced what consumers pay by “500%, 600%.” But he added, “We also sometimes say 50%, 60%” and called it a “different kind of calculation” that could go up to “70, 80 and 90%.”

“People understand that better,” Trump said. “But they’re two ways of calculating” and “either way, it doesn’t make any difference.”

There could indeed be two ways of calculating such things — but the difference is very important. One is correct. The other is nonmathematical.

It was one of several times Trump used his own — but incorrect — math during the drug pricing event. He claimed the 7 1/2-week-and-still-going Iran war actually fell within the four- to six-week timeline he predicted early on. The president also brought up the crowd size for his 2017 inauguration — a subject that led onetime top Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway to unwittingly make the phrase “ alternative facts ” famous.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdxd1v0028vo
The US justice department is dropping its investigation into the Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, over alleged building cost overruns.

US Attorney Jeanine Pirro said instead there would be an internal investigation led by the central bank's inspector general.

President Donald Trump has said the cost of the Fed's building renovations were too high, as part of a long-standing feud with Powell.

Powell's term is nearing its end and the US Senate is considering Trump's nominee for his replacement, Kevin Warsh. A key Republican, Thom Tillis, has withheld his support for Warsh unless the Trump administration would drop its investigation into Powell.

"American taxpayers deserve answers about the Federal Reserve's fiscal mismanagement, and the Office of the Inspector General's more powerful authorities best position it to get to the bottom of the matter," said White House spokesman Kush Desai in a statement.

"The White House remains as confident as before that the Senate will swiftly confirm Kevin Warsh as the next Federal Reserve Chairman to finally restore competence and confidence in Fed decision-making."

In her post on X, Pirro said she would not "hesitate to restart a criminal investigation should the facts warrant doing so".


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https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2026/04/23/eu-agrees-fresh-sanctions-on-russia-but-leaves-maritime-services-ban-on-hold

Due to Greece and Malta's concerns, the full ban on maritime services will be left on hold pending an agreement at the G7 level. The US, however, is going in the opposite direction by providing sanctions relief to Russia.

The European Union agreed on Thursday to impose a new round of sanctions against Russia after Hungary and Slovakia lifted their respective vetoes over an unrelated dispute with Ukraine involving the Druzhba oil pipeline, which is now repaired.

However, the centrepiece of the long-stalled package – a full ban on maritime services for Russian oil tankers – was left on hold pending an agreement by the G7, significantly dampening the economic impact of the bloc's latest move.

The ban is meant to prohibit EU companies from providing any type of service, such as insurance, shipping or port access, to vessels carrying Russian crude oil. In practice, it will replace the G7 price cap, which allowed servicing under certain conditions.

Sweden and Finland took the lead in pushing for the blanket prohibition, arguing it would significantly drive up material costs for Russia's oil sector, crack down on the spread of falsified documents and make transactions easier for European firms.

The European Commission took up the proposal and included it in the 20th package of sanctions, presented in early February.

But Greece and Malta soon voiced concerns. The coastal countries worry that introducing the full ban without the backing of the G7 will harm their domestic economies, boost competition from China and India, and empower Russia's "shadow fleet", the dilapidated vessels that Moscow employs to bypass Western restrictions.

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/medical-student-india-created-ai-185742864.html
https://www.wired.com/story/ai-generated-maga-girls/

A medical student who created an AI-generated conservative influencer has claimed the “dumb” MAGA crowd was easy to fool, according to a new report.

A 22-year-old medical student from northern India, identified only as Sam, told Wired he was behind a series of pro-MAGA social media accounts featuring Emily Hart, an AI-generated woman. Sam said he started posting about Emily Hart to generate some extra cash while studying, and made thousands of dollars every month.

“The MAGA crowd is made up of dumb people—like, super dumb people. And they fall for it,” he told Wired.

The Instagram and Facebook pages featuring Emily Hart appear to have been taken down. Posts, previously reviewed by Wired and the New York Post, touched on topics like immigration and abortion.

“Trump should tell all the illegals that he will give them citizenship if they vote Republican and see how fast Democrats want them out of the country,” one post, reviewed by the New York Post reads.

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https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2026/04/22/elon-musk-tesla-optimus-factory-austin-texas.html
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-optimus-factory-site-texas/
Tesla’s Q1 2026 Update Letter, released today, confirms that first generation Optimus production lines are now well underway at its Fremont, California factory, with a pilot line targeting one million robots per year to start. Of bigger note is a shared aerial image of a large piece of land adjacent to Gigafactory Texas, that Tesla has prominently labeled “Optimus factory site preparation.”

Permit documents show Tesla is seeking to add over 5.2 million square feet of new building space to the Giga Texas North Campus by the end of 2026, at an estimated construction investment of $5 billion to $10 billion. The longer term production target for that facility is 10 million Optimus units per year. Giga Texas already sits on 2,500 acres with over 10 million square feet of existing factory floor, and the North Campus expansion is being built to support multiple projects, including the dedicated Optimus factory, the Terafab chip fabrication facility (a joint Tesla/SpaceX/xAI venture), a Cybercab test track, road infrastructure, and supporting facilities.

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https://www.reuters.com/world/white-house-accuses-china-industrial-scale-theft-ai-technology-ft-reports-2026-04-23/
The White House on Thursday accused China of stealing US AI labs' intellectual property on an industrial scale in a memo that threatens to strain relations ahead of a summit between US and Chinese leaders next month.
“The US government has information indicating that foreign entities, principally based in China, are engaged in deliberate, industrial-scale campaigns to distil US frontier AI systems,” Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, wrote in a memo on Thursday.
"Leveraging tens of thousands of proxy accounts to evade detection and using jailbreaking techniques to expose proprietary information, these coordinated campaigns systematically extract capabilities from American AI models, exploiting American expertise and innovation," he added.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington said it opposes "the baseless allegations," adding that Beijing "attaches great importance to the protection of intellectual property rights."
The memo, released just weeks before US President Donald Trump is set to visit Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, promises to raise tensions in a long-running tech war between the rival superpowers, which had been lowered by a detente brokered last October.
It also raises questions about whether Washington will allow Nvidia's AI chips to be shipped to China. The Trump administration gave a green light to the sales in January, with conditions. On Wednesday, however, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick indicated that no shipments had yet been made.
Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using the output of larger ones as part of an effort to lower the costs of training a powerful new AI tool.

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https://wjla.com/news/local/virginia-congressional-map-redistricting-referendum-vote-attorney-general-tazewell-county-court-republicans-enjoins-injuctive-relief-voters-election-democrats-house-representatives

ARLINGTON, Va. (7News) — A Virginia judge blocked the state from certifying the results of Tuesday's congressional map referendum, deeming the referendum and the bill that triggered it as unconstitutional, according to a judge's order issued Wednesday.

Virginia's current attorney general, Jay Jones, confirmed to 7News on Wednesday that his office would appeal the decision.

The order, according to officials, came from the Tazewell Circuit Court, which previously blocked the referendum after repeatedly deeming the vote and the resolution for the referendum unconstitutional, siding with Republicans who filed several suits.

Both previous attempts at blocking the referendum were struck down by the Virginia Supreme Court.

Virginia voters on Tuesday narrowly advanced legislation to redraw the states Congressional maps, a move that could give Democrats 10 out of the 11 seats in the U.S. House. Currently, there are six Democrats and five Republicans representing the state.

Democrats in the state pushed for a mid-term redistricting in response to President Donald Trump, who initially encouraged Republican states to do the same before the mid-term elections.

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https://apnews.com/article/southern-poverty-law-center-criminal-investigation-db7fdcf9baa0d1b24b8f1e1f2cebc0be

The Southern Poverty Law Center was indicted Tuesday on federal fraud charges alleging it improperly raised millions of dollars to secretly pay leaders of the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups for inside information, acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said.

The Justice Department alleges the civil rights group defrauded donors by using their money to fund the very extremism it claimed to be fighting, with more than $3 million paid to informants through a now-defunct program to infiltrate white supremacist and other extremist groups. Prosecutors allege some of the money was used by extremists to carry out other crimes, but court papers did not include specific examples.

“The SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred,” Blanche said.

The civil rights group faces charges of wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering in the case brought in the federal court in Alabama, where the organization is based.

The indictment came shortly after the SPLC revealed the existence of a criminal investigation into its disbanded informant program to gather intelligence on extremist group activities. The group said the program was used to monitor threats of violence and the information was often shared with local and federal law enforcement.

The SPLC said it “will vigorously defend ourselves, our staff, and our work” against what it described as false allegations. The group said its informant program saved lives.

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Another victory for the good guys as they use the ballot to initiate change, unlike the fascist republicans who rig their states with zero input.

And before the fascist try to rewrite history, again
trump started this with Texas. Ohio, North Carolina and other far right Republican states quickly followed.
However, California and Virginia did it through the ballot box. And both of those states revert back to independent/nonpartisan commissions after 2030.

https://apnews.com/article/virginia-redistricting-election-congress-trump-78e0e68100119011b1b439634f6b6fa1

Virginia voters approved a mid-decade redistricting plan Tuesday that could boost Democrats’ chances of winning four additional U.S. House seats in November’s midterm elections that will decide control of the closely divided Congress.

The constitutional amendment narrowly backed by voters bypasses a bipartisan redistricting commission to allow the use of new districts drawn by Virginia’s Democratic-led General Assembly. But the public vote may not be the final word. The state Supreme Court is considering whether the plan is illegal in a case that could make the referendum results meaningless.

The Virginia redistricting referendum marked a setback for President Donald Trump, who kicked off a national redistricting battle last year by urging Republican officials in Texas to redraw districts. The goal was to help Republicans win more seats in the November elections and hold on to a narrow House majority in the face of political headwinds that typically favor the party out of power during midterm elections.

But the Virginia redistricting referendum could help nullify Republican gains elsewhere.

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https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/three-vessels-hit-by-gunfire-strait-hormuz-crews-safe-2026-04-22/
DUBAI/ATHENS, April 22 (Reuters) - Iran said it had captured two container ships seeking to exit the Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday after firing on them and another vessel, its first seizures since its war with the United States and Israel began in February.
Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency reported the seizures, adding that its Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy had warned that any disruption to order and safety in the strait would be considered a "red line."
The country's actions to bottleneck the strait, used to transit about one-fifth of the world's daily oil and gas supply, have caused the worst disruption in energy supplies in history. The strait usually sees about 130 vessels a day enter and exit the Gulf, but that has dwindled to just a few ships passing through every day.
After several weeks, the U.S. began a blockade of Iranian ships as well. With peace talks currently on hold, the fate of shipping through the vital artery remains up in the air.
"The latest seizures make clear, even an ‘open’ Strait of Hormuz is not a safe Strait of Hormuz for seafarers, ships and cargo,” said Peter Sand, chief analyst at ocean and air freight intelligence platform Xeneta.
The seizure of one of the ships, the Panama-flagged MSC Francesca, was confirmed by Montenegro's minister of maritime affairs, who said four Montenegrin seafarers were on board and that they and the rest of the crew were safe.
"Negotiations between the shipping company and the Iranian side are ongoing, and the relevant state authorities are in constant contact with the crew," the minister, Filip Radulovic, said on X.

The IRGC accused the MSC Francesca and the Liberia-flagged Epaminondas of operating without required permits and tampering with their navigation systems.

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https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-house-oversight-chair-says-some-panel-members-open-ghislaine-maxwell-pardon-2026-04-22/
WASHINGTON, April 22 (Reuters) - Some members of the U.S. House Oversight Committee are open to the possibility of a presidential pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell if it would enable her to share information with the panel for its probe into Jeffrey Epstein, committee chairman James Comer told Politico on Wednesday.
Maxwell, 64, was invited to testify before the committee but refused to answer any substantive questions in February, invoking her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
Maxwell was an associate of Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex offender whose death in custody in 2019 was ruled a suicide. She was found guilty in 2021 for her role in helping Epstein sexually abuse teenage girls and is currently serving a 20-year prison sentence.
Comer, a Republican, said committee members were divided on whether Maxwell should receive a pardon, which can only be conferred by President Donald Trump.
Trump left the door open in October to possibly pardoning Maxwell, saying he would speak to the U.S. Justice Department. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
U.S. Representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the committee, later wrote on X: "@OversightDems are united in opposing a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell. It’s outrageous that any Republicans on our committee would consider this."
Comer said he remains opposed to the idea.
The lack of agreement reduces the likelihood of a pardon-for-testimony deal.