A federal judge cleared Mary Comans’ name 20 months after Elon Musk and Kristi Noem wrecked her professional reputation.

Comans had served under four presidents of both parties. She was fired as FEMA’s chief financial officer the day after Musk claimed DOGE had caught the agency sending $59 million to “luxury hotels” for migrants. The judge found that other officials had approved those payments, that Musk and Noem knew their accusations were false, and that Noem helped feed the story to far-right influencer Laura Loomer.

Comans needed a lawsuit and a rare name-clearing hearing to get back the name Donald Trump’s administration took from her. Musk, meanwhile, has spent more than a quarter billion dollars since July to help Republicans keep control of Congress.

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Donald Trump handed out two pardons onstage at a campaign rally in Alaska today.

The two Anchorage diesel mechanics pleaded guilty in 2022 to conspiring to violate the Clean Air Act after prosecutors said their shop stripped emissions controls from at least 37 trucks for about $100,000. Trump told the crowd the government wanted them jailed for 10 years "because they fixed an engine." One was sentenced to probation and a fine. The other paid a fine.

Alaska gave Trump a 13-point win in 2024, and he made the trip three weeks before the election because his party could lose its Senate seat there anyway. Then one of the pardoned men spoke from the same stage and endorsed Trump's candidates.

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Rep. Ilhan Omar says she will not be silenced after federal agents searched her home today.

Last month Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin put his hand on a MAGA influencer’s shoulder and promised that “something’s going to happen” to the Minnesota Democrat. His agents arrived before sunrise with a warrant, three weeks before she faces reelection. The Justice Department, which secured that warrant, tells its own prosecutors to hold off on steps like this so close to an election.

Omar is one of Donald Trump’s fiercest critics, and he has attacked her for years. He told reporters investigators were “looking at her very carefully,” then insisted he had “nothing to do with it.” Tonight at a rally in Ohio, he said, “I don’t know what they’re doing with it, but I can tell you this: she’s a disaster.”

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A federal judge used the Sunday of a holiday weekend to order Donald Trump’s taxpayer-funded TV ads off the air.

Trump told his budget director to find the money, and Homeland Security came up with $20 million that Congress had appropriated for border security. One spot was his 2024 campaign ad warning of a “final battle” against “globalists,” except it ended with “Paid for by the U.S. Government” instead of the call to “Join President Trump’s Fight for America.” Speaker Mike Johnson said the ads weren’t “a plea to vote for anybody.”

The administration told Judge Jennifer Rochon the ads were ending Sunday anyway, with $19 million of that $20 million already spent on airtime. She ruled that the challengers are likely to win and ordered every remaining slot canceled.

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Donald Trump’s Justice Department announced an antitrust investigation today into the TV pool networks that refused to cover for CNN.

Last month Trump banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House. ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News answered by suspending the pool coverage they share, and a federal judge restored the three outlets’ access, finding they were likely denied due process.

Now the department says the networks “proudly boycotted” White House events and may have broken the Sherman Act, the 1890 law written to stop giants like Standard Oil. The pool itself is an agreement among competitors to share footage of the president. It ran for decades without anyone calling it an illegal trust, until the networks used it to stand with a rival Trump had shut out.

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Donald Trump cleared Russia to sell diesel to the world after a call with Vladimir Putin.

With Ukrainian peace negotiators in Miami today, his Treasury Department opened the market to Russian diesel for six months, only three weeks after Trump signed a law to cut off Russia’s oil money. Last month he demanded that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia.”

Zelenskyy answered today by agreeing, with one condition. Ukraine will stop setting Russian refineries on fire if Russia stops destroying Ukraine’s power grid. “Russia will repay the diesel with further terror and perfidy,” he said.

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants Americans to watch a firing squad kill a man on a Pentagon livestream.

The execution of the Fort Hood shooter is set for 1 p.m. Central on the Thursday after Thanksgiving, the hour he opened fire in 2009. No execution in America has ever been televised, and the last public one was a hanging in Kentucky 90 years ago. Asked whether the condemned man had made any final requests, Hegseth replied, “Don’t care. We’ll see him on December 3rd.”

Donald Trump went to war with Iran and boasted in his State of the Union that he had stopped it from hanging people. Iran and Afghanistan were the only two countries that held public executions last year. In December, Trump’s Pentagon plans to join them.

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The day after Donald Trump promised to stop paying for his TV ads with tax money, a fifth one aired, ending with "Paid for by the U.S. Government."

Congress set that money aside for border security, but the White House moved $20 million of it into a fund for commemorative events. When both parties objected, he said his super PAC would cover the ads instead. The White House says the $12 million already spent won't be paid back, and the Democratic Party is suing to stop the ads.

In Florida, he's offering the government a deal of his own. His lawyer pitched his private golf club as a permanent presidential retreat in the mold of Camp David, which belongs to the government. The Trump family would still own the club.

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Federal immigration agents have jailed at least 506 American citizens since January 2025.

The Department of Homeland Security says it is "NOT arresting U.S. citizens by mistake."

ProPublica confirmed every one of them, at least 70 children among them. Thirty-six were held a day or longer without reaching a lawyer or their families, and about a dozen were forced out of their own country.

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A Nebraska crowd cheered today when Donald Trump said, "Let them take out Los Angeles."

He was talking about what the war with Iran costs Americans. He added, "Let them take out San Diego. This is a very small price to pay." More than five million people live in those two cities.

Earlier in the day, he posted that The New York Times and other outlets "should be arrested" for reporting empty upper-deck seats at his Ohio rally. He didn't name their crime.

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Air Force crews flew every American bomber out of England on Sunday, some before the tankers meant to refuel them on the way home were in the air.

Commanders ordered them back from RAF Fairford after new warnings of an Iran-backed plot against the base, a week after British police arrested five men nearby. For the first time in months, the base that launched bombing runs on Iran this year has no American bombers.

America and Israel attacked Iran on February 28 in a war Donald Trump said would take four weeks or less. Seven months later, he says America will win it "right after the election." American service members and thousands of Iranians have already died, and the crews who fly those bombers couldn't wait for November.

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Vladimir Putin pitched Donald Trump's son-in-law on a Russian oil deal at the Kremlin last month.

The Treasury Department rejected a bid for Lukoil's refineries and gas stations last November, calling the would-be buyer "the Kremlin's puppet." This time the leading bidders include an Emirati royal who is effectively Jared Kushner's business partner, and the US government would take a stake alongside them. Kushner and Steve Witkoff, peace negotiators the Senate never confirmed, helped set the government's terms.

Lukoil owns about 200 stations in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The administration says the sale will lower energy prices for everyday Americans. Diesel just hit the highest price ever recorded and is raising the cost of trucking everything to grocery shelves.

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Reporters started a private school in Arkansas with $45 and an American flag.

They aren't teachers and don't intend to run a school. ProPublica and three local newsrooms wanted to see how easily states approve new private schools and send them tax money. They tried in three states and succeeded in two. In West Virginia, they filed their paperwork by hand on notebook paper. Nobody asked about their qualifications or what they planned to teach.

Arkansas law requires schools to display an American flag, so they bought a small one at a Little Rock shop to sit on a newsroom cubicle. Then a state education employee called back with advice on how their school could start collecting $7,208 a student in tax money. They could enroll students tomorrow.

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