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In a surprising turn of events, Dolton Mayor Tiffany Henyard has vetoed a unanimous board resolution aimed at investigating her use of tax funds, plunging the town into a storm of controversy. The mayor defends her veto by asserting it’s a preventative measure against potential personal attacks. Mayor Henyard’s actions have triggered public outrage, as recent revelations shed light on the alleged misuse of taxpayer money. Accusations range from indulging in lavish trips to orchestrating a $1 million giveaway and maintaining a $1 million police detail, all while drawing a hefty annual salary of $287,000.

President Joe Biden’s administration canceled a $200 million grant it previously planned to award to a Chinese Communist Party-linked lithium-ion battery maker after Republican lawmakers criticized the deal. Last year, Biden’s Department of Energy (DOE) selected Microvast to receive a $200 million federal grant from a fund created under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021. Those funds were intended to help America become less reliant on China for critical supplies like lithium-ion batteries.

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher reacted to former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s donations to Democrats by stating that the FTX situation is a case where people thought, “as long as you’re on our team, we don’t care,” and the situation “has a very Epstein feel” where the thinking was “He’s one of us, he’s on our side, he donates to our causes, we don’t need to look too hard into the fact that he’s a con man.”

President Donald Trump appears to have inflated the value of his three golf resorts in Scotland and Ireland in documents filed with the U.S. government, according to a new examination of six years of financial records in the U.S. and Europe. And the group behind the finding wants the discrepancy investigated as part of a sprawling government probe into the Trump Organization‘s finances. Trump claimed the resorts — Trump International Golf Links Aberdeen and Trump Turnberry, both in Scotland, and Trump Doonbeg in Ireland — brought in a total of about $179 million in revenue on U.S. documents where he...

Dr. Ben Carson, we're told, has been inducted into the "big leagues" of presidential front-runners, where the press is equally assiduous in vetting each candidate. Politico parsed Carson's imprecise public and written statements about receiving a full scholarship to West Point (actually his ROTC supervisors said they could get him an appointment to the school). The article's new headline no longer hits Carson with a charge of admitting to a fabrication, and it bears an editor's note sort of apologizing for its initially imprecise reporting. This week's media investigations into Carson also covered his views on Egyptian pyramids and...

Yesterday I started to delve into the Dennis Hastert case, paying particular attention to the specific crimes with which the former Speaker is being charged. But even after I finished writing about it and reading some of the comments here, I wasn’t very happy with my conclusions. There’s something very unsettling about the entire case (leaving out the obvious, horrible alleged child rape parts of it) but I felt that I wasn’t quite able to put my finger on it. Today I found someone who has done a better job of wrestling those questions to the ground and it...

Washington - In the late summer of 2010, the ATF agent leading the failed Fast and Furious gun-smuggling operation in Arizona flew to Mexico City to help coordinate cross-border investigations of U.S. weapons used by Mexican drug cartels. Hope A. MacAllister wanted access to police and military vaults for American weapons recovered by Mexican authorities in raids and at crime scenes. She especially was interested in firearms from another ATF investigation, code-named White Gun, that she was running. Now members of Congress who have spent months scrutinizing the Fast and Furious debacle are seeking to determine whether White Gun

Although Rick Perry currently remains in the lead in the RCP average for the GOP nomination, Nate Silver* is far from the only person noting that the prime beneficiary of Perry’s current slump is Herman Cain, not Mitt Romney. It appears the political discussion will continue to move back to a Romney vs Not Romney theme, although Silver adds the appropriate caveats: Mr. Romney has emerged — or re-emerged — as the favorite; I’d give him roughly even odds of winning the nomination. But it’s unlikely to be a smooth and linear path, and the alternate hypothesis that Republican voters...

An unprecedented press conference was held in Washington on Wednesday – one that should have been convened a long time ago. And no, it wasn't the one to announce publication of Barack Obama's birth certificate, but rather the first of its kind by the US Federal Reserve. Believe it or not, the Fed has never before made itself directly answerable to the fourth estate for its monetary policy decisions. Accountability and explanation have instead been pursued through official statements, speech-giving, congressional committees and selective background briefings. After nearly 100 years at the helm of the US economy, the Fed has...

Three California unions are accusing a rival labor coalition of using "shameful" tactics to win exclusive contracts for building renewable power plants — tactics they said delay new jobs and add to each project's costs. Unions representing carpenters, laborers and operating engineers criticized California Unions for Reliable Energy for challenging construction projects on environmental grounds — then dropping objections after its main affiliate, the State Building & Construction Trades Council of California, wins lucrative contracts to supply workers. Since 2000, CURE has participated in environmental hearings for all 12 renewable energy projects proposed for the Southern California desert, filing more...

Goldman noted that the transaction has received heavy media attention in recent days and said "in light of this intense media coverage, Goldman Sachs has decided to proceed only with the offer to investors outside the US." "Goldman Sachs concluded that the level of media attention might not be consistent with the proper completion of a US private placement under US law," it said. US securities law bars public promotion of private offerings and the Facebook deal has already reportedly attracted the attention of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Goldman stressed that the decision to limit the offering...

Two Navy helicopters from North Island Naval Air Station were damaged, and their pilots are now grounded, after some bizarre flying over Lake Tahoe last week. A Navy spokesman confirmed Thursday that a video posted on YouTube is genuine footage of two MH-60 Romeo helicopters from North Island’s Helicopter Maritime Strike 41 squadron. The video shows the $33 million helicopters flying low over the lake. One seems to lose control, spinning and crashing into the water. The pilot then regains control and pulls the craft back into the air. The Navy wouldn’t identify the pilots or say whether the...

Jeff Johnson knows how to make his audiences squirm. The young, black radio and TV political commentator waits for the discussion to turn to the topic being talked about ceaselessly, incessantly, ad nauseam: the meaning of the barrier-breaking election of Barack Obama. Then, in his laid-back style, he says, "The real issue for me is that history is not enough." That's when the mood becomes tense. "Black folks, in particular, get irritated," says Johnson, who travels the lecture circuit, hosts a half-hour show on Black Entertainment Television and has a weekly spot for social criticism on a radio program popular...

Reporting from Washington -- Rep. Pete Stark (D-Fremont), dean of the California congressional delegation, has claimed his Maryland home as his principal residence to qualify for a $3,770 tax break, even though it is thousands of miles from the Northern California district he represents -- and where he is registered to vote. A senior member of the House's tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, Stark said he was unaware that he might not be eligible for the tax break. Asked whether it was questionable for him to receive it, he said, "I guess it is." To qualify, a property must be...

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Following the passage of the economic bailout bill Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said congressional hearings are planned to find the causes of the crisis and to determine "where we go from here." "We were dealt a bad hand; we made the most of it," Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said Friday. She said Congress will shine a new "light of scrutiny and accountability" on the nation's financial system to try to prevent a replay of the problems that plunged the nation into an financial crisis. Reps. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, and Henry Waxman, D-California, plan to...

What an amazing escapade in broadcast journalism. In his exclusive one-on-one interview with Governor Sarah Palin, the Republican Vice Presidential nominee, Charlie Gibson of ABC News began with what he characterized as “the central question:” “Governor, let me start by asking you a question that I asked John McCain about you, and it is really the central question” he stated. “Can you look the country in the eye and say ‘I have the experience and I have the ability to be not just vice president, but perhaps president of the United States of America?’" Great question, Charlie. And it should...

WASHINGTON - Note to Rudy Giuliani: Say goodbye to the honeymoon and hello to presidential politics. In recent weeks, the former New York City mayor has taken heat for his abortion rights stance, links to ex-police commissioner Bernard Kerik who is enmeshed in legal woes, business ties and personal life. Giuliani's ascent in national popularity polls has stalled. And the Republican front-runner came in second in first-quarter fundraising among Republicans. "I'm very happy with where we are," the GOP presidential contender said last week despite the rough patch. After months of playing coy, Giuliani made clear he was a candidate...

NAIROBI, Kenya - Ethiopia was under pressure Thursday to release details on detainees from 19 countries held at secret prisons in the country where U.S. agents have carried out interrogations in the hunt for al-Qaida in the Horn of Africa. Canada, Eritrea and Sweden were lobbying for information about their citizens. Human rights groups say hundreds of prisoners, including women and children, have been transferred secretly and illegally to the prisons in Ethiopia. An investigation by The Associated Press found that CIA and FBI agents have been interrogating the detainees. Officials from Ethiopia were not immediately available for comment, but...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The death penalty is under what may be an unprecedented review in the United States, mostly involving questions about lethal injection, by far the most common method of execution. "Although many of the stays of exeecutions are due to the lethal injection process, the openness of courts, of governors and legislators to reconsider issues that were thought to be settled is a sign of broad discomfort with the death penalty," said Richard Dieter, head of the Death Penalty Information Center, which works against capital punishment. About one-third of the 38 states that allow capital punishment have halted...

Former NYC Police Commissioner Bernard B. Kerik is under federal investigation for possible financial improprieties .....focused on a foundation affiliated with the city’s Department of Correction during Mr. Kerik’s tenure.....Last month, Kerik pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors....Under an agreement that allowed him to avoid jail time and a felony conviction, he admitted accepting $165,000 in apartment renovations from a company accused of having ties to organized crime...... The foundation....came under scrutiny in early 2003..... a former high-ranking Correction Department official was arrested and later pleaded guilty to mail fraud charges, admitting that he stole more than $137,000 from the fund....