Trump attends UFC championship fight in New York, taking a break from Cabinet picks
NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump walked out to a roaring standing ovation just ahead of the start of the UFC pay-per-view card at Madison Square Garden on Saturday night, combining two things close to his heart: fierce battles inside the octagon and New York City.
Trump was accompanied by UFC President Dana White and the pair headed to their cageside seats to Kid Rock's “American Bad Ass."
UFC aired a video package of Trump's road to reclaiming the White House, calling it, “The great comeback in American History," while fans stood and applauded. Trump, wearing a red tie, pumped his fist toward the crowd when the video ended.
The president-elect also had his clenched fists pumping back and forth and briefly danced to the Village People’s “YMCA” just outside the cage. He later again thrust his fist skyward as “Takin’ Care of Business” played.
Elon Musk, picked by Trump to lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., joined the president-elect and White at the Garden, as did Robert Kennedy Jr., Trump’s choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services in his incoming administration.
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From New Jersey to Hawaii, Trump made inroads in surprising places in his path to the White House
TOTOWA, N.J. (AP) — Patrons at Murph's Tavern are toasting not just Donald Trump's return to the presidency but the fact that he carried their northern New Jersey county, a longtime Democratic stronghold in the shadow of New York City.
To Maria Russo, the woman pouring the drinks, the reasons behind Trump's win were as clear in the runup to the election as the shot glasses lined up on the high-top tables. A mother raising two kids on her own in Passaic County on a barkeep's income, she saw it not just in light of her own situation but those of the people around her.
“Anybody can see what’s going on, you know? The prices of everything. And me being a single mom?” she said. “I notice that when I go shopping – just like everybody else does.”
Although Trump's win once again reflected a deep political divide across the United States, he made inroads in surprising places. From the suburbs of New Jersey to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s New York City congressional district to reliably liberal Hawaii, Trump gained ground even as support for Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, dropped off.
AP VoteCast, a far-reaching survey of more than 120,000 voters nationwide, found that Trump made substantial gains among Black and Latino men, younger voters, and nonwhite voters without a college degree, compared with his 2020 performance.
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Anxiety and dismay inside the Justice Department after Trump taps Gaetz as attorney general
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump's choice of Matt Gaetz to be attorney general has many Justice Department employees reeling, worried not only about their own jobs but the future of the agency that the Trump loyalist has railed against.
The president-elect's pick of the Florida Republican sent a shock throughout the Cabinet department, considering Gaetz's lack of experience in law enforcement and the fact that he was once the subject of a federal sex trafficking investigation. The names of well-regarded veteran lawyers had circulated as possible contenders for the job, but Gaetz's selection was broadly interpreted as an indication of the premium that Trump places on personal loyalty and Trump's desire to have a disruptor lead a department that for years investigated and ultimately indicted him.
Career lawyers at the department interviewed by The Associated Press, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share their feelings publicly, described a widespread sense of being stunned by the nomination — even outrage. They spoke of being flooded with calls and messages from colleagues as soon as the news broke.
Some inside the department were not immediately sure that Gaetz, who graduated law school in 2007 but has spent most of his career as a lawmaker, including in Congress, was even a lawyer. And some are already looking for new jobs as concerns grow over Gaetz’s rhetoric about going after the “deep state."
Gaetz has claimed the department is “corrupt and highly political,” and strongly criticized the federal prosecutions of Trump and the Jan. 6 rioters. He also has suggested abolishing two agencies he would oversee as attorney general, the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. He would arrive in the job without the legal experience of his predecessors, including the current attorney general, Merrick Garland, who as a high-ranking Justice Department official supervised the prosecution of the Oklahoma City bombing case before becoming a federal appeals court judge.
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Operation False Target: How Russia plotted to mix a deadly new weapon among decoy drones in Ukraine
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — At a secretive factory in Russia's central grasslands, engineers are manufacturing hundreds of decoy drones meant to overwhelm Ukrainian defenses as they try to protect against a horrific new weapon, an Associated Press investigation has found.
The plant at Russia’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone recently started churning out thermobaric drones alongside the decoys, the investigation found. The thermobaric warheads create a vortex of high pressure and heat that can penetrate thick walls. They suck out all the oxygen in their path, and have a fearsome reputation because of the injuries inflicted even outside the initial blast site: Collapsed lungs, crushed eyeballs, brain damage.
Russia came up with the plan for decoys in late 2022 and codenamed it Operation False Target, according to a person familiar with Russia’s drone production who spoke on condition of anonymity because the industry is highly sensitive. The idea was to launch armed drones along with dozens of decoys, sometimes stuffed with rags or foam, and indistinguishable on radar from those carrying real bombs. Ukrainian forces must make split-second decisions about how to expend scarce resources to save lives and preserve critical infrastructure.
“The idea was to make a drone which would create a feeling of complete uncertainty for the enemy. So he doesn’t know whether it’s really a deadly weapon ... or essentially a foam toy,” the person said. With the thermobarics, there is now a “huge risk” an armed drone could deviate from its course and end up in a residential area where the “damage will be simply terrifying,” he said.
In recent weeks, decoys have filled Ukraine’s skies by the dozens, each one appearing as an indistinguishable blip on military radar screens. During the first weekend of November, the Kyiv region spent 20 hours under air alert, and the sound of buzzing drones mingled with the boom of air defenses and rifle shots.
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The family of Israeli-American hostage pleads with Biden and Trump to bring hostages home
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Over the past two weeks, the political landscape around the negotiations for a cease-fire in Gaza have undergone a dramatic transformation.
The American elections, the firing of Israel’s popular defense minister, Qatar’s decision to suspend its mediation, and the ongoing war in Lebanon all seem to have pushed the possibility for a cease-fire in Gaza further away than it has been in more than a year of conflict.
Still, some families of the dozens of hostages who remain captive in Gaza are desperately hoping the changes will reignite momentum to bring their loved ones home — though the impact of Donald Trump returning to the White House and a hard-line new defense minister in Israel remains unknown.
“I think maybe there is new hope,” said Varda Ben Baruch, the grandmother of Israeli-American hostage Edan Alexander, 20, a soldier kidnapped from his base on the Gaza border during the Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
Alexander’s parents, Adi and Yael Alexander, who live in New Jersey, met this week with Trump and President Joe Biden in Washington and pleaded with them to work together to bring all the hostages home in a single deal.
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Israeli troops reach deepest point in Lebanon since Oct. 1 invasion, Lebanese media say
BEIRUT (AP) — Israeli ground forces reached their deepest point in Lebanon since they invaded six weeks ago before pulling back Saturday after battles with Hezbollah militants, Lebanese state media reported.
The clashes and further Israeli bombardment came as Lebanese and Hezbollah officials study a draft proposal presented by the U.S. on ending the war.
Israeli troops briefly captured a strategic hill in the southern village of Chamaa, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the border, the state-run National News Agency reported. It said Israeli troops blew up the Shrine of Shimon the Prophet in Chamaa as well as several homes, but that could not be verified.
Israel's military did not respond to requests for comment but said in a statement its troops continue “limited, localized” operations in southern Lebanon.
Israeli warplanes pounded Beirut’s southern suburbs known as Dahiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold, and several other areas including the port city of Tyre. An airstrike on the northeastern village of Khraibeh killed a couple and their four children, the National News Agency said.
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An Indian family froze to death crossing the Canada-US border, a perilous trip becoming more common
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — On the last night of their lives, Jagdish Patel, his wife and their two young children tried to slip into the U.S. across a near-empty stretch of the Canadian border.
Wind chills reached minus 36 Fahrenheit (minus 38 Celsius) that night in January 2022 as the family from India set out on foot to meet a waiting van. They walked amid vast farm fields and bulky snowdrifts, navigating in the black of an almost-moonless night.
The driver, waiting in northern Minnesota, messaged his boss: “Make sure everyone is dressed for the blizzard conditions, please.”
Coordinating things in Canada, federal prosecutors say, was Harshkumar Patel, an experienced smuggler nicknamed “Dirty Harry.” On the U.S. side was Steve Shand, the driver recently recruited by Patel at a casino near their Florida homes, prosecutors say.
The two men, whose trial is scheduled to start Monday, are accused of being part of a sophisticated human smuggling operation feeding a fast-growing population of Indians living illegally in the U.S. Both have pleaded not guilty.
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From 'The Exorcist' to 'Heretic,' why holy horror can be a hit with moviegoers
In the new horror movie, “Heretic,” Hugh Grant plays a diabolical religious skeptic who traps two scared missionaries in his house and tries to violently shake their faith.
What starts more as a religious studies lecture slowly morphs into a gory escape room for the two door-knocking members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, underscoring just how well-suited religion can be for terrifying and entertaining thrill-seeking moviegoers.
“I think it is a fascinating religion-related horror as it raises questions about the institution of religion, the patriarchy of religion,” said Stacey Abbott, a film professor at Northumbria University in Newcastle, England, whose research interests include horror, vampires and zombies.
“But it also questions the nature of faith and confronts the audience with a debate about choice, faith and free will.”
Horror has had a decades-long attraction to religion, Christianity especially in the U.S., with the 1970s “The Exorcist” and “The Omen” being prime examples. Beyond the jump scares, the supernatural elements of horror and its sublime nature pair easily with belief and spirituality — and religion’s exploration of big existential questions, Abbott said. Horror is subversive. Real-life taboo topics and cultural anxieties are fair game.
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NYC politicians call on Whoopi Goldberg to apologize for saying bakery denied order over politics
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City politicians are calling on Whoopi Goldberg to apologize for suggesting on air that a local bakery had declined to make “The View” co-host a batch of desserts for her birthday because of her political beliefs.
Staten Island Borough President Vito Fossella was among the local leaders and supporters who joined Holtermann’s Bakery owner Jill Holtermann at a news conference Friday in front of the 145-year-old institution in the city borough of Staten Island.
The Republican said the actor and comedian had “besmirched and defamed” the bakery by “making stuff up to suit their needs."
“Not everybody wakes up everyday thinking about politics,” he said. “A good business person doesn’t care about anyone’s politics.”
Fossella explained that the bakery's decades-old boiler had malfunctioned and had to be replaced, so the store didn't want to commit to making a large order it couldn't fulfill.
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Jake Paul believes he can fight for a title, but Mike Tyson might be done in the ring at 58
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Jake Paul believes he can fight for a championship belt within two years.
Mike Tyson might be finished in the ring after the 58-year-old former heavyweight champion's first sanctioned pro bout since 2005.
An event hyped like a prize fight turned into a glorified sparring session, the eight-round bout won by Paul in a lopsided unanimous decision at the home of the NFL's Dallas Cowboys on Friday night.
There will continue to be questions for Paul over when he will fight a contender in his prime, as opposed to aging former champs, mixed martial artists or journeymen boxers.
The 27-year-old YouTuber-turned-boxer's answers have been consistent, and now he has a timeline.
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