November 2025 EVENTS

Bari Weiss, who is now the Editor-in-chief of CBS News, completely dismantled the Race and Culture division.

Trey Sherman, a now-former news producer who worked in the division that is now dismantled and for the now-canceled ‘CBS Evening News+’ since February, claimed on a viral video posted to his TikTok account that “every person who got let go was a person of color.” Yet, “every person who got relocated and got to stay is a white person.”

The co-hosts of “CBS Saturday Morning,” Michelle Miller (who is Black) and Dana Jacobson, were let go. And the CBS News bureau in Johannesburg, South Africa has been shut down, with coverage of Africa shifting to London.

Paramount, the parent company of CBS, was sold to David Ellison’s Skydance media back in August. Ellison, now the CEO of CBS news, is a staunch Trump supporter. 

Trump hosted a "Great Gatsby"-themed Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago just hours before millions of Americans lost their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

Guests were seen wearing 1920s attire and there were hosts in flapper attire greeting the invitees, which included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Ivanka and Tiffany Trump, and their husbands, Jared Kushner and Michael Boulos.

The trip cost taxpayers an estimated $3.4 million just for the trip, while it is unclear who paid for the party.

Steven Palmer, a top FBI official with 27 years standing has reportedly been fired after FBI director Kash Patel, became enraged by press stories revealing he had used a government jet to travel to see his girlfriend sing the national anthem at a wrestling match.

Flight logs publicly trackable on Flight Aware for Patel’s plane, N708JH, show that the jet landed at an airport near Penn State on 25 October. That evening Wilkins performed at a Real American Freestyle wrestling event, and the flight logs show Patel’s FBI plane later flying to Nashville. Patel also posted photos with his girlfriend, country singer Alexis Wilkins, on his X account.

Records for the movements of the jet N708JH were blocked on Flight Aware as of Sunday. A search for the government jet generates a message saying that it is “not available for public tracking per request from the owner/operator”.

At the end of last week, as the country braced for the first pause in food aid benefits in history, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) threatened retailers not to offer food discounts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients.

Specifically, the department directed stores to comply with the “SNAP Equal Treatment Rule,” which prohibits SNAP recipients from being discriminated against, or incentivized, through targeted sales or other benefits. If companies are found in violation of the rule, they could lose the ability to accept SNAP funds altogether.

Reports of grocery stores cancelling planned discounts were posted on X over the weekend. Instacart, however, is sticking to a plan to offer SNAP users 50 percent off their next grocery order; a spokesperson told Civil Eats that the company already has the necessary waivers in place. 

The Farm Alliance of Baltimore scrapped its plan to offer SNAP users half-off fall vegetables and local honey at its farm stand on Saturday after receiving the notice. Instead, the collective of urban farms decided to offer all shoppers 50 percent off at its market stand.

Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi was the Israeli army’s top lawyer until last week, when she admitted that she approved the leak of a surveillance video last year that shows a sexual assault by Israeli soldiers against a Palestinian detainee. The soldiers assaulted the Palestinian prisoner and sodomized him with a knife, causing multiple injuries.

By leaking the video last year, Tomer-Yerushalmi aimed to expose the seriousness of the allegations her office was investigating. She resigned under pressure last week while her critics continued to heave personal insults.

She left a cryptic note for her family and abandoned her car near a beach. That led to fears she had taken her own life and prompted an intensive search.

She was found alive at the beach Sunday night and arrested.

At a court hearing Monday, the judge said her detention would be extended until Wednesday on suspicion of committing fraud, breach of trust and obstruction of justice.

Condé Nast announced its plans to fold media brand Teen Vogue into Vogue.com earlier today.

Chloe Malle, Vogue’s head of editorial content, will now oversee Teen Vogue. Previous editor-in-chief Versha Sharma will be departing the company.

Condé Union blasted the company’s decision to lay off six employees, a majority of whom it said are employees with marginalized identities, continuing a “trend” of firing members who are women, people of color, queer and/or trans. They said that only one woman of color remains on the editorial staff.

Teen Vogue‘s politics editor was fired, leaving the publication with no political writers or editors. 

Elaine Welteroth is largely credited with spearheading the site’s foray into more in-depth political and social justice-oriented coverage when she took over as Editor in Chief in 2016.

The government shutdown is triggering a wave of closures of Head Start centers, leaving working parents scrambling for child care and shutting some of the nation’s neediest children out of preschool. Head Start centers are for students who come from low-income households, are homeless or are in foster care.

providing critical care for these children and providing their parents with the opportunity to go to work.

Centers were due to receive federal grant payments on November 1. 

Without these payments, some have closed indefinitely, while others are staying afloat with emergency funding from local governments and school districts. The closures mean Head Start students are missing out on preschool, where they are fed two meals a day and receive therapy vital to their development.

A federal lawsuit alleges the Trump Administration unlawfully deported human trafficking and domestic violence victims despite their pending applications for protective visas.

Immigration agents stopped routinely checking detainees’ visa status before deportation, abandoning decades of protections for crime victims assisting prosecutors, the lawsuit argues.

One woman listed in the lawsuit only as Carmen, fought to obtain a restraining order against her abusive husband and eventually a deportation. 

Carmen’s real name and specific details were not included in the lawsuit because her lawyers say her life is still at risk.

Carmen applied for what is known as a U-Visa. The visa provides crime victims a way to stay in the United States legally, but the Trump administration has routinely ignored pending applications.

During a regular immigration check-in in June, Carmen was detained. After two months in a family detention center with her 8-year-old son, she and her son were put on a plane back to her home country.

She and her son emerged from the plane to her husband waiting for them Having no other choice and nowhere else to go, she had to move in with him, and is now living in fear, completely under his control. 

Carmen is just one of the women listed in the lawsuit, each with their own horrific stories.

Trump’s administration said Monday that it will partially fund SNAP after two judges issued rulings requiring it to keep the nation’s largest food aid program running, saying it would give partial payments to 42 million recipients. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture planned to freeze payments to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program starting Nov. 1 claiming it could no longer fund it due to the government shutdown. The program serves about 1 in 8 Americans and is a major piece of the nation’s social safety net. It costs about $8 billion per month nationally.

Emergency funding is available to fund SNAP despite the government shutdown, however, the Trump administration claimed that the funding was not available, attempting to shut down the SNAP program entirely while blaming Democrats for the government shutdown, which threatens to extend to January 2026.

It’s not clear how much beneficiaries will receive, nor how quickly beneficiaries will see value show up on the debit cards they use to buy groceries. The process of loading the SNAP cards, which involves steps by state and federal government agencies and vendors, can take up to two weeks in some states. The average monthly benefit is usually about $190 per person.

According to a report released Monday by The Public Citizen, most of the publicly identified donors to Trump’s White House ballroom have high-stakes business before the administration.

More than half of the companies that donated are facing or have recently faced federal enforcement actions regarding such criminal activities as engaging in unfair labor practices, deceiving consumers or harming the environment. 

The analysis of the three-dozen corporate and individual donors the Trump administration has disclosed, plus three more that have been publicly identified found that over the past five years they have received $279 billion in government contracts over the past five years and spent $1.6 billion in political contributions and lobbying fees. The list includes Google, Comcast and Lockheed Martin.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers reportedly shot a US citizen from behind while he was driving a car, according to a report from the Los Angeles Times.

The victim was 25-year-old Carlos Jimenez, a father of three. He was shot after getting out of his car to tell ICE agents, who had pulled over a vehicle, that children would soon be gathering in that spot for the school bus, his lawyer, Cynthia Santiago, told the newspaper. The agents’ cars had blocked a southern lane on the road and jutted into a second lane, according to the LA Times. “He was telling them, ‘Excuse me. Can you guys please, you know, please wrap this up.’ And immediately, the masked agent pulls out a gun and exchanges some words,” Santiago told the newspaper.

The lawyers allege that Jimenez then got in his car, reversed because he was afraid, and was shot in the back of his right shoulder, where a bullet remains lodged. 

ICE is currently holding nearly 60,000 people in detention, the highest number in years. Most of them have no criminal record.  

2025 has been the deadliest on record for people in  immigration detention since the early 2000s, with at least 20 people  dying so far. 

In Broadview, IL, a small town with a population of about 8,000, a tense standoff between ICE and protestors has been playing out for the last month. The scenario is one that is likely to be played out in more cities across the country in the months to come as ICE continues to violently snatch people off the street and hide them away in dismal conditions in makeshift facilities.

On a typical day now, demonstrators shout through bullhorns, local police officers in bulletproof vests are positioned outside the federal facility where ICE thugs have been bringing newly arrested individuals, SUVs block intersections and keep people on the sidewalks, and TV cameras are set up in the area.

Helicopters fly overhead and the demonstrations often force traffic to come to a stop or to slow at major thoroughfares. Violent clashes have resulted in plumes of tear gas that send children and parents running inside even blocks away. 

Federal authorities have pelted protesters and the media with tear gas and pepper balls. 

Residents of the area are caught in the middle, dealing with the teargas, the violence, the noise, and the congestion on a daily basis.

ICE has prevented access to the facility, both from delegations of local faith leaders, as well as members of Illinois’ congressional delegation and attorneys.

A recent lawsuit alleges that those imprisoned in the facility languish for days in squalid conditions with little food or water, sometimes so overcrowded that there’s barely enough room to lay on the floor, according to the complaint. It also alleges officers respond with “threats, abuse, or contempt” when detainees ask for basic necessities. Some Broadview arrestees claimed in the complaint that they were ignored or belittled when they asked for water or, in one case, needed medical attention for a possible heart attack, the lawsuit alleged.

The facility is only meant to hold arrestees for a maximum of 12 hours before they’re moved to the next part of the immigration adjudication process. The building has no cots or showers. Detainees held in its four main holding cells must use toilets in plain view of everyone else, including those of the opposite gender and immigration agents — and that’s if the toilets are even working, according to the lawsuit.

Broadview is just one facility among the many that currently exist in the country, and as more are being built every day, situations like this will only increase, at least as long as there are still people outside to continue protesting.

As  Nesrine Malik writes in The Guardian, the city of El Fasher in the Darfur region of Sudan finally fell to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) last week and now mass killings are under way.

The killing spree is so severe that blood saturating the ground has been picked up by satellite. The speed and intensity of the killings in the immediate aftermath of the fall of El Fasher has already been compared to the first 24 hours of the Rwandan genocide.

This comes after a campaign that walled in the city with hundreds of thousands of people and reduced it to starvation. Anyone trying to flee the city risked death and rape, and those remaining were bombed and surviving on nothing more than animal feed.

El Fasher was the Sudanese military’s last remaining stronghold in Darfur, and this past week marks a grave turning point in Sudan’s war. Now two and a half years long, the fight for control of the country between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF has been brutal and relentless.

The two parties ruled in a tense coalition with civilians after a popular revolution overthrew president Omar al-Bashir in 2019. The parties then turned on the civilians before turning on each other - two armies, both with arsenals, income streams, thousands of troops, and external supply lines.

Since then, millions have been displaced, an estimated 150,000 have been killed, and more than 30 million people now need urgent humanitarian assistance. 

Earlier this year, in an attack on Sudan’s largest displacement camp, the RSF slaughtered hundreds of civilians along ethnic lines. There are videos emerging of locals pleading with militiamen for their lives. One was told by a commander that none will be spared, before being shot. “I will never have mercy on you,” the commander said. “Our job is only killing.”

And it was all predicted. Warnings were being issued for months about the risk of mass slaughter and atrocities. 

The RSF arsenal is sponsored by the United Arab Emirates. A staunch historical ally of the RSF (whose troops the UAE hired for its war in Yemen), the Emirates has pumped funds and weaponry into the RSF’s hands. It continues to deny its role, despite overwhelming evidence. For their support, the UAE secures a foothold in a large, strategic, resource-rich country, and already receives the majority of gold mined in RSF-controlled areas. 

No meaningful pressure is applied to these powers, including the UAE, because the UK, US and others are close allies with these states. As the RSF encircled El Fasher last year, sources told the Guardian that UK government officials were working to suppress criticism of the UAE among African diplomats. Last week it was revealed that British military equipment used by the RSF was found on the battlefields in Sudan.

 Heretic Coffee Co. is a non-profit coffee shop in Portland, Oregon. On 10/27/25 they posted on social media that in response to SNAP benefits running out, they would be providing SNAP breakfast in the morning, providing food until they run out. No proof needed, no questions asked. Just ask for the "SNAP breakfast".

They also announced that they would be providing pre-made meals that people could pick up, working with Reed college students to prepare the meals, and were working with a local non-profit to provide toiletry items.

They later added free pizza slices in the afternoon until they ran out.

$184,55.19 in donations for this poured in from not just the United States, but from Australia, Ireland, Egypt, and beyond. 

On Monday, 11/3/25, 501 people received the SNAP Breakfast at Heretic Coffee. 

Approximately 37,000 US soldiers stationed in Germany face uncertainty over November salary payments during the government shutdown, with the Pentagon warning troops may not receive mid-month wages despite last-minute funding for October.

The US Army published guidance on its website directing soldiers in Germany to emergency social benefits, loans, food banks and food sharing organizations where volunteers provide leftover food through public fridges.

German social benefits remain largely unavailable to US troops.

Border Patrol arrested a United States citizen in Los Angeles on Nov. 4 and drove off with his car while his baby was still strapped in the backseat.

Video of the scene shows onlookers expressing concern as the armed and masked agents entered the car and drove off.

The baby has since been reunited with her family, but the status of the father is unknown.

Michigan State Rep. Bryan Posthumus (R), a transphobic MAGA Republican praised for his “traditional family values,” allegedly registered an account on Ashley Madison, a website for people seeking extramarital affairs, and two other websites for seeking sex. The profile associated with his data listed interests in men, women, threesomes, and group sex. Posthumus was married at the time the Ashley Madison account was allegedly active, but his lawyer called reports of the accounts “categorically false.”

The Detroit Metro Times reported that data leaks of users from Ashley Madison revealed an email address linked to Posthumus, a home address of a home that he and his then-wife purchased in 2011, and a credit card bearing his name. Data leaks also linked him to the pornographic dating site Fling.com and Adult Friend Finder, a website for finding sexual partners.

Trump, a man who has probably never stepped foot in a gas station or a grocery store, incorrectly claimed on Wednesday that Americans need to show ID when shopping at the grocery store or gas station.

He has made similar comments before as part of his push to pass voter identification laws.

"We should pass voter ID. We should pass no mail-in voting. We should pass all the things that we want to pass to make our election secure and safe. Because California is a disaster. Many of the states are disasters, but can you imagine when they vote almost unanimously against voter ID?” he said.

He then added, "All we want is voter ID. You go to a grocery store, you have to give ID. You go to a gas station, you give ID. But for voting, they want no voter ID. It’s only for one reason, because they cheat."

Tesla approved a $1 trillion deal for Elon Musk. The deal  is tied to performance and is in company shares.Boycotting can absolutely make an impact and shut this down.

The payout is tied to 12 performance goals, including the following. 

• Market Cap: At least $8.5 trillion. 
• Vehicle Deliveries: 20 million vehicles. 
• FSD Subscriptions: 10 million active subscriptions. 
• Optimus Bots: 1 million bots delivered. 
• Robotaxis: 1 million robotaxis in commercial operation. 
• Succession: Musk to develop framework for future CEO succession

The New York Times made the outrageous decision to publish Ross Douthat’s conversation for The New York Times opinion section — initially titled “Did Women Ruin the Workplace?” and quickly edited to “Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace?”.

The “Interesting Times” podcast host sat down with conservative writers and feminist critics Helen Andrews and Leah Libresco Sargeant to discuss whether "liberal women" were ruining workplace culture with “woke” ideals like the #MeToo movement, and calling women more dependent and emotional than men.

During a Thursday press conference in the Oval Office, Dr. Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, announced that the Trump administration's new deal to lower the cost of GLP-1 medications could result in massive weight loss for Americans. Oz claimed that the reduced drug costs had the potential to help Americans lose "135 billion pounds" by the midterm elections, which are just under a year away.

He apparently does not understand basic math, as there are currently an estimated 347.9 million Americans. In order to lose a collective 135 billion pounds, it would mean each American would need to lose about 388 pounds.

Federal authorities told demonstrators Friday that there would be “no more prayer” in front of or inside the Broadview ICE facility, in a violation of the First Amendment, and in opposition to the proclaimed “Christianity” of the current administration.

A federal representative delivered the news to a huddle of faith leaders and activists standing outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility Friday, speaking after faith leaders were denied entry to the building for the third time Friday.

“I’m just a messenger,” an anonymous voice stuttered over the phone to the group of faith leaders and activists outside the Broadview immigration processing facility on Friday.

During the call, which took place with a Block Club reporter present, the anonymous representative told a group of faith leaders and activists that “There is no more prayer in front of building or inside the building because this is the state and it’s not [of a] religious background.”

Military leaders are telling their troops to prepare for their on-base commissaries to close by early December if the government shutdown continues. As many as 168 locations at bases across the continental U.S. could be affected.

“Our stores will be open to serve our customers through Thanksgiving,” Kevin Robinson, a spokesperson for the Defense Commissary Agency, or DECA, told Task & Purpose.

Task & Purpose obtained two emails sent this week by leaders of two large military units that advised troops that DECA is likely to begin cutting back on restocking inventory at the military-only base grocery stores on Nov. 14, with plans to close nearly all stores in the U.S. by Dec. 3. Both emails cited updates the leaders received earlier this week from DECA.

Vice President JD Vance recently told a packed college arena that he hopes his Hindu wife would someday convert to Christianity.

Vance, who converted to Catholicism five years into his marriage with Usha Chilukuri Vance, shared his hopes for her conversion while taking questions at a Turning Point USA event at the University of Mississippi. 

“Do I hope that eventually she is somehow moved by what I was moved by in church? Yeah, honestly, I do wish that, because I believe in the Christian Gospel, and I hope eventually my wife comes to see it the same way,” the vice president said. “But if she doesn’t, then God says everybody has free will, and so that doesn’t cause a problem for me.”

U.S. airlines canceled more than 2,500 weekend flights by Saturday evening due to the Federal Aviation Administration's mandate to reduce air traffic because of the government shutdown.

The Federal Aviation Administration announced on Wednesday that they would begin cutting the number of flights in the "high traffic" parts of the country as the government shutdown grinds on and local airports have reported staffing shortages.

“There is going to be a 10% reduction in capacity at 40 of our locations,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said. “This is about where’s the pressure and how do we alleviate the pressure.” 

It should be noted that private planes make up nearly 12% of all flights, however there has been no move to limit these flights.

Air Traffic Controllers have gone without paychecks for nearly a month during the shutdown, leading many to call in sick and compound previously existing staffing shortages.

Most are working mandatory overtime six days a week during without pay, and some are taking second jobs to pay their bills, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association has said. 

Masked ICE agents were caught on video violently arresting non-verbal special-needs man in Chicago, Illinois.

Because he was unable to speak he was unable to defend himself or tell them that he's an American citizen

Associated Press reports that Trump’s administration is demanding states “undo” full SNAP benefits paid out under judges’ orders last week, now that the U.S. Supreme Court has stayed those rulings.

Nonprofits and Democratic attorneys general sued to force the Trump administration to maintain the program in November despite the ongoing government shutdown. They won the favorable rulings last week, leading to the swift release of benefits to millions in several states.

On Friday night, however, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson temporarily paused the two rulings ordering the SNAP disbursement while the nation’s highest court considered the Trump administration’s appeal. That led the Department of Agriculture on Saturday to write state SNAP directors to warn them it now considers payments under the prior orders “unauthorized.”

“To the extent States sent full SNAP payment files for November 2025, this was unauthorized,” Patrick Penn, deputy undersecretary of Agriculture, wrote to state SNAP directors. “Accordingly, States must immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November 2025.”

Penn warned that states could face penalties if they did not comply. It was unclear if the directive applies to states that used their own funds to keep the program alive or to ones relying on federal money entirely. The Department of Agriculture did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

Trump has attended his second extravagant party at Mar-a-Lago in a week as tens of thousands of federal employees go without pay, as his administration fights against paying SNAP benefits, and as many Americans turn to food banks amid the longest government shutdown in history.

Images of the president were shared by guests on social media Friday at the lavish event which featured a three-course menu of beef filet, truffle dauphinoise, pan-seared scallops and a trio of desserts including “Trump chocolate cake.”

Trump was seen dining at a table surrounded by MAGA supporters, and posing next to women in ballgowns. The event also featured ice sculptures and an opera performance.

A 47-year-old anti-LGBTQ+ youth pastor in California has been arrested on charges of sexual abuse in connection with allegations that he abused a minor. He once claimed LGBTQ+ people make women feel unsafe.

Joshua David Kemper of Coarsegold, California, is accused of sexual acts that occurred between March and July 2025 with a 15-year-old girl who was a member of his church. Investigators say that the acts occurred at the church, in the victim’s home, and in Kemper’s car, and that they have evidence, including messages, pictures, and video clips that Kemper and the victim sent each other.

The Senate voted on a bipartisan deal to fund the government through January 30 in a major sign the shutdown is poised to end,  according to two people familiar with the discussions. 

A critical group  of at least eight Senate Democratic centrists agreed to vote for the  measure in exchange for a promise of a future vote on extending enhanced Affordable Care subsidies, according to two people familiar with the discussions — even as the rest of their party has openly pilloried the deal.     

The following Democratic senators caved and voted yes.

• Catherine Cortez Masto (Nevada)
• Angus King (Maine) 
• Tim Kaine (Virginia)
• John Fetterman (Pennsylvania)
• Jeanne Shaheen (New Hampshire) 
• Maggie Hassan (New Hampshire) 
• Dick Durbin (Illinois) 
• Jacky Rosen (Nevada) 

On Monday, The University of California, Berkeley hosted a Turning Point USA event. The conservative student movement started by Charlie Kirk ended its national tour with an event on the campus.

CNN reports that an unidentified officer who was slated to become the first woman in a Naval Special Warfare command overseeing Navy SEALs had her command cancelled earlier this year.

She received a Purple Heart during a combat tour in Iraq and was the first woman to serve with SEAL Team Six in the role of troop commander.

A formal ceremony was planned for July, but two weeks before the ceremony, her command was canceled with little explanation, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation. The cancellation didn’t come through formal channels but by a series of phone calls from the Pentagon, one of the sources said. 

The circumstances were unusual and seemed designed to omit a paper trail, according to multiple sources.

Under the Navy’s “up or out” policy, with no command slot to take, the officer’s more than two-decade military career was effectively over.

The impression those in the Naval Special Warfare community got from the Pentagon was that Hegseth did not want a woman overseeing the SEALs.

“They want to keep it the brotherhood and don’t like that she’s coming in and challenging the status quo,” said a Navy special operations source familiar with the situation.

“They can justify it by saying she’s not qualified because she’s not a SEAL,” said one retired SEAL. “But the SEALs thought she was qualified.”

Chicago Sun-Times reports that Chapelstreet Church, a large evangelical congregation in the far western suburbs of IL, is being sued by a man who says he was molested as a boy by Don Vanthournout, a former youth leader there.

The complaint states that Chapelstreet’s interim lead pastor, Brian Coffey, knew Vanthournout was a danger to kids but allowed him to keep playing a role within the church — which facilitated more sexual abuse.

Coffey declined to comment, except to say Vanthournout “was never a staff member at Chapelstreet.” Vanthournout couldn’t be reached for comment.

Church officials wouldn’t elaborate or say whether Coffey was being sidelined amid the review.

It’s unclear whether Chapelstreet ever reached out to police and prosecutors about the allegations made against Vanthournout. Generally, clergy are required by law to report suspicions of sexual abuse to authorities.

The alleged misconduct involving Vanthournout traces to the 1980s, when a man identified in the lawsuit as “Victim #1” was 14. Vanthournout was in his 20s, and they attended the same Baptist church in far west suburban St. Charles.

In 2007, the accuser wrote Vanthournout “expressing his pain, grief, and the desire for a genuine apology,” according to the court records, which say Vanthournout wrote him back and acknowledged the abuse.

In 2010, that accuser “became more concerned about Vanthournout’s involvement as a leader in Chapelstreet’s youth programs. Wanting to ensure Vanthournout did not have the opportunity to harm any other children, Victim #1 reached out to then Lead Pastor, Defendant Coffey.”

After they met, the accuser “assumed Chapelstreet took appropriate measures to ensure the safety of the congregation’s children.”

But “between 2011 and 2018, Defendant Vanthournout” not only remained “a member of Defendant Chapelstreet,” the lawsuit says, he “held positions of leadership and authority within the church.”

During that same period, Vanthournout molested a boy whose parents were Christian missionaries staying with Vanthournout and attending Chapelstreet.

“Chapelstreet and Coffey were aware in 2010 that Vanthournout had sexually abused a child,” the suit states, identifying that victim as the plaintiff. “Rather than immediately removing Vanthournout from their church, Chapelstreet and Coffey continued to allow Vanthournout to serve in youth group leadership roles, and house Plaintiff during missionary trips and/or church functions.”

A written statement from Chapelstreet says, “The lawsuit centers on allegations of misconduct by an individual who, while a member of the congregation, was not acting on behalf of or under the authority of Chapelstreet Church.”

The Department of Justice is appealing a federal judge's order requiring the White House to immediately begin providing American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation at its press briefings when Trump or press secretary Karoline Leavitt are speaking.

In a court filing on Friday responding to the ruling, the DOJ said it believes the services should be limited only to regularly scheduled briefings and not events where the president takes questions from the press.

U.S. District Judge Amir Ali issued the preliminary injunction on Nov. 4 and ordered the Trump administration to update the court on compliance by last Friday.

"White House press briefings engage the American people on important issues affecting their daily lives — in recent months, war, the economy, and healthcare, and in recent years, a global pandemic," Ali wrote in the order. "The exclusion of deaf Americans from that programming, in addition to likely violating the Rehabilitation Act, is clear and present harm that the court cannot meaningfully remedy after the fact."

The White House stopped using live ASL interpreters when Trump began his second term in January.

The National Association of the Deaf (NAD) and two deaf men filed the lawsuit in May. It alleges the White House's failure to provide ASL violates Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The law prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in programs conducted by the federal government. The suit also claims the White House is in violation of the First and Fifth Amendments.

After numerous unfounded MAGA attacks against Mamdani, for example, saying that that “there will be another 9/11 in NYC”, Trump welcomed Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al Qaeda terrorist into the White House on Veteran’s Day. 

Sharaa was a former al Qaeda commander who until recently was sanctioned by Washington as a foreign terrorist and once had a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head.

Trump met with Sharaa in the first-ever visit by a Syrian president to Washington, six months after their first meeting in Saudi Arabia, where the U.S. leader announced plans to lift sanctions, and just days after the U.S. said he was no longer a "Specially Designated Global Terrorist."

Sharaa, 43, took power last year after his Islamist fighters launched a lightning offensive and overthrew longtime Syrian President Assad just days later on December 8.

Speaking to reporters, Trump praised Sharaa as a "strong leader" and voiced confidence in him. "We’ll do everything we can to make Syria successful," he said.

The Treasury Department extended its waiver on enforcement of the 2019 Caesar Act, which imposed sweeping sanctions over human rights abuses under Assad. 

The U.S. is brokering talks on a possible security pact between Syria and Israel and is planning to establish a military presence at a Damascus airbase.

The Netherlands American Cemetery near Maastricht holds the graves of 8,301 Americans who died liberating Europe from the Nazis, including 174 African Americans. 

Relatives, local communities, politicians and historians have called for a permanent memorial after it emerged that displays at the cemetery commemorating Black soldiers had been removed

The panels were removed at an unknown time earlier this year, after The Heritage Foundation accused the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC) of defying Trump’s crackdown on diversity programs.

In 2024, the American Battle Monuments Commission (ABMC), which runs the site, added the two panels in the visitor center: one on the million African Americans who enlisted but were “fighting on two fronts”, against the Nazis in Europe and against America’s racist segregation policies, the other tells the story of George H Pruitt, a 23-year-old soldier who drowned in June 1945 – a month after the war ended – while laying a telephone line across a river near Bremen, Germany, during the reconstruction.

Bas Albersen, spokesperson for the governor of Limburg, said on Monday the provincial government would be making an “urgent appeal” to the ABMC and US ambassador to return these panels. “The displayed panels represented a history that we can never forget and from which we can learn, especially now that differences in the world are ever more magnified,” he said. “They fought for a freedom that they did not have themselves.”

Korean workers detained in September during an immigration raid at a Hyundai Motor—LG Energy Solution EV battery plant in Georgia are preparing a class-action lawsuit against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), ABC News reported Monday.

Roughly 200 workers are accusing ICE of unlawful detention, racial profiling, human rights violations and excessive use of force. 

Journalist Evan Hurst, managing editor of the political website Wonkette, has been keeping an ongoing list of Christian and Republican leaders who have been caught, accused, sued, or convicted for abusing and/or exploiting kids. Hurst has identified 188 Christian and Republican leaders so far this year.

Hurst’s lists all link to local reports of church and GOP leaders being accused of abusing kids. His most recent update, published on Halloween, featured 49 new names of accused child abusers and pedophiles.

Rep. Adelita Grijalva was sworn into Congress after 50 days of waiting. She then signed the discharge petition to release the Epstein case files 

Trump administration officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy AG Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel met with Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., at the White House on Wednesday, attempting to convince her to remove her name from the Jeffrey Epstein discharge petition before it couldn’t be changed.

A discharge petition for a bill to release files related to Jeffrey Epstein got enough signatures Wednesday to force action on the matter.

Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-Ariz.) became the 218th and final signature on the discharge petition shortly after she was sworn in Wednesday. She joined all other Democrats and four Republicans: Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Lauren Boebert (Colo.) and Nancy Mace (S.C.).

Grijalva signed the petition on the House floor immediately after being sworn in as Democrats in the chamber cheered and two Epstein survivors looked on from the gallery.

“Just this morning, House Democrats released more emails showing that Trump knew more about Epstein’s abuses than he previously acknowledged. It’s about time for Congress to restore its role as a check and balance on this administration and fight for we, the American people,” she said in her first speech.

She added, “Justice cannot wait another day.”

The House Oversight Committee has released an additional 20,000 pages of documents the GOP-led panel received from the estate of Jeffrey Epstein. 

Included were numerous emails.

Many of the exchanges from the emails feature people implying Epstein had damaging information about Trump and suggesting that he go public with it.

Epstein generally didn’t engage with these suggestions. But at one point in late 2015, he told a New York Times reporter that he could produce “photos [sic] of donald and girls in bikinis in my kitchen.”

Later in the same email string, Epstein also alluded to a woman he claimed both he and Trump had dated in the 1990s.

“my 20 year old girlfriend in 1993, , that after two years i gave to donald,” Epstein said, linking to a webpage featuring the woman.

In a June 2019 email exchange with Steve Bannon, Trump’s former White House chief strategist, Jeffrey Epstein wrote, “prince andrew and trump today.. Tooo [sic] funny.” And then he added, “recall prince andrews accuser came out of mara lago [sic].”

Bannon replied, “Can’t believe nobody is making u [sic] the connective tissue.”

Bannon’s identity is redacted in the messages released Wednesday by the House Oversight Committee, but a source confirmed to CNN’s Jake Tapper that the prominent Trump ally sent them.

In an August 2018 email to Kathryn Ruemmler, a former White House counsel under President Barack Obama, Epstein wrote that, “I know how dirty Donald is,” referring to potential scandals that might come out about Donald Trump.

“VICTIM spent hours at my house with him,” Epstein said of Trump in the 2011 email.

An email exchange between Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell discussed Trump in 2011 as “the dog that hasn’t barked” because investigators hadn’t mentioned him. 

“Of course [Trump] knew about the girls,” Epstein said in another email, from January 2019, to author Michael Wolff. The email goes on to say Trump asked Maxwell “to stop” but doesn’t specify what he was referring to.

In an email to writer Michael Wolff, who interviewed Epstein numerous times for a book he was working on about Trump, Epstein denied Trump’s account of having stripped him of his membership at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club for “being a creep.”

“Trump said he asked me to resign, never a member ever,” Epstein wrote.

“Of course he knew about the girls as he asked ghislaine to stop,” the email continued.

The documents also reveal that Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell coordinated their public response to a 2015 lawsuit brought by an anonymous woman later revealed to be Virginia Roberts Giuffre. In an interview with the Justice Department this summer, Maxwell had said her relationship with Epstein was “almost nonexistent” between 2010 and 2019 outside of corresponding over legal matters.

The House of Representatives approved a bill on Wednesday that funds the government through Jan. 30, bringing a close to the longest government shutdown in history after 43 days.

Six Democrats joined their Republican colleagues in approving the bill, Adam Gray of California, Tom Suozzi of New York, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Don Davis of North Carolina, Henry Cuellar of Texas and Jared Golden of Maine. Only two Republicans voted against party lines, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Greg Steube of Florida. the final vote was 222 to 209.

Trump is expected to sign the bill on Wednesday night, paving the way for many federal workers to return to work on Thursday.

In addition to extending last year's spending levels through the end of January for most of the government, the bill provides funding for some agencies through the end of next September, including payments for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). 

The bill includes a measure to reverse layoffs the Trump administration imposed during the shutdown, provides backpay for federal employees, and institutes protections against further layoffs.

But the central issue underlying the entire shutdown — extensions on enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that expire at the end of the year — is not addressed in the bill.

Instead, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., agreed to hold a vote in mid-December on Democrat-drafted legislation aimed at extending those subsidies. Many Senate Democrats remain wary of this promise.

"A handshake deal with my Republican colleagues to reopen the government and no guarantee to actually lower costs is simply not good enough," said Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wisc., who voted against the measure.

House Democrats later put out a statement: “The American people deserve better than the chaos, cruelty and corruption that has been unleashed on the country by Donald Trump and Republicans since the beginning of his presidency.

Forty-three days ago, Donald Trump and Maga extremists shut down the government because they did not want to provide affordable healthcare to working- class Americans. During the Republican shutdown, the Trump administration and GOP enablers have visited tremendous pain on the American people, including hardworking federal employees, law enforcement personnel, air traffic controllers, Snap recipients and more – all because Republicans have no interest in stopping healthcare costs from skyrocketing …

House Democrats are in this fight until we win this fight.”

While speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on November 14, Trump was asked about recently released emails from Jeffrey Epstein which mentioned him.

Trump said he knew nothing about that and said the focus should be on other people named in those emails, including former President Bill Clinton.

After Catherine Lucey, Bloomberg’s White House correspondent tried to ask a follow-up question on Epstein, the president turned to her and said: "Quiet. Quiet, piggy."

Catherine Lucey is a seasoned Washington correspondent who joined Bloomberg News in early 2025 after previous stints at the Associated Press and The Wall Street Journal.

Italy has launched an investigation into allegations that foreigners paid to shoot at civilians during the siege of Sarajevo three decades ago.

About 11,000 civilians were killed by shelling and sniper fire from Bosnian Serb army positions on hills around the besieged city during the 1992-95 war that followed Bosnia's declaration of independence from Yugoslavia.

Milan prosecutors opened their investigation, a source said, after local journalist and novelist Ezio Gavazzeni filed a legal complaint over allegations that Italians and other foreigners had paid members of the Bosnian Serb forces to visit to shoot at civilians under what some referred to as "sniper tourism".

Without providing any firm evidence, Gavazzeni said wealthy foreigners paid large sums of money to take part in the shooting trips. He said the Italians used to meet in the city of Trieste before travelling to Belgrade, where Bosnian Serb soldiers escorted them to the hills overlooking Sarajevo.

Gavazzeni claimed “many, many, many Italians” were alleged to have been involved, without providing a figure. “There were Germans, French, English … people from all western countries who paid large sums of money to be taken there to shoot civilians.”

He added: “There were no political or religious motivations. They were rich people who went there for fun and personal satisfaction. We are talking about people who love guns who perhaps go to shooting ranges or on safari in Africa.”

WCCO reports that 16 men have been arrested after trying to solicit a minor for sex in Bloomington, Minnesota, according to Bloomington Police Chief Booker Hodges

One of the men, he said, is an employee for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who could face federal charges. Hodges said the ICE employee works as an auditor. 

"When he was arrested, he said, 'I'm ICE, boys,'" Hodges said during a press conference Tuesday. "Well, unfortunately for him, we locked him up."

Not all of the men have been charged.

Hodges added that he knew "ICE took custody of a few of them but we don't have a way to verify someone's status here at the Bloomington Police Department."

Several months ago, police conducted a similar sting that led to the arrest of ex-State Sen. Justin Eichorn, who is currently facing federal solicitation charges.

Elon Musk’s online encyclopedia, Grokipedia, cites the neo-Nazi website Stormfront as a source 42 times and relies on other websites that experts have shunned as unreliable or hate-filled, according to an analysis by two researchers at Cornell University.

Grokipedia, which Musk launched last month as a competitor to what he called the “woke” Wikipedia, also cites the conspiracy theory website Infowars as a source 34 times and the white nationalist website VDare 107 times, the researchers found.

The Department of Education said it would no longer classify these credentials as professional degrees: education (including teaching master’s degrees), nursing (MSN, DNP), social work (MSW, DSW), public health (MPH, DrPH), physician assistant, occupational therapy, physical therapy, audiology, speech-language pathology and counseling and therapy degrees.

It should be noted that almost all of these of these are careers where women are dominant:

• Women make up over 77% of teachers in K-12 public schools, 89% in elementary schools, and 54% in higher education
• 85% of registered nurses are women
• 80.5% of all social workers are women
• 71.6% of PAs are women
• 83.2% of occupational therapists are women
• 66.2% of physical therapists are women
• 76.8% of audiologists are women
• 91.1% of all speech language pathologists are women
• 61.5% of counselors are women
• 75.6% of therapists are women

The change comes about as the department sets about implementing various measures regarding student loans laid out in Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill."

In the bill, the Grad PLUS program, designed to help graduate and professional students cover educational expenses, is being eliminated, while Parent PLUS loans, student loans available for parents of dependent undergraduate students, are being capped.

These measures were brought in with the intention of creating a "new and simplified" Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP)—whereby annual loans for new borrowers were capped at $20,500 for graduate students and $50,000 for professional students.

As part of this implementation process, the Department of Education decided to change the definition of what counted as a professional program, and therefore eligible for the $200,000 aggregate limit available for professional students.

The department determined that the following programs were professional: medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, optometry, law, veterinary medicine, osteopathic medicine, podiatry, CHIROPRACTIC, THEOLOGY and clinical psychology.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the ranking Democrat on the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, which oversees public buildings, is investigating leadership at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for what he says are "millions in lost revenue, luxury spending, and preferential treatment for Trump allies."

Whitehouse sent a letter outlining the claims to Kennedy Center president, Richard Grenell. Grenell denied the allegations in a letter that was posted to the Kennedy Center's social media.

The Kennedy Center's building is maintained by the federal government, though its programming and staff are supported by a combination of private and federal funds.

Whitehouse's letter and documentation show the following: 

• Free and exclusive use of the Kennedy Center for FIFA. Internal estimates show that this giveaway will cost the Center $5,038,444 in direct rental and programming rescheduling losses, internal production labor, contracted services, food & beverage, and equipment rentals. 
• Contracts for personal friends. On April 14, 2025, the Center entered into a $15,000-per-month contract with a former colleague from Richard Grenell’s tenure as U.S. Ambassador to Germany, to perform “policy research and speechwriting” on his behalf. In May 2025, the Center entered into another $10,833.33- per-month contract with Jeff Halperin, Kari Lake’s husband, for “social media capture/ editing” services. Mrs. Lake serves as a Trump-appointed senior advisor at the U.S. Agency for Global Media and is a staunch Trump ally. 
• Lavish meals and entertainment. Between April 17 and July 2, 2025, Richard Grenell’s team charged the Center $10,773.19 for private lunches, dinners, and alcohol purchases unrelated to fundraising or development purposes. The team charged the Center for “Champagne Service,” multi-bottle wine orders, “VIP Gold Card” privileges, and a multi-hundred-dollar meals at the Center’s restaurant. 
• Luxury hotel accommodations for friends and staff. Between April 21 and July 16, 2025, his team charged the Center $27,185 for Watergate Hotel rooms for new hires and his associates.
• Discounted rentals to political allies. Contracts show that the Center extended steep rental discounts to organizations politically aligned with Trump, including a $19,820 discount for a NewsNation town hall and a $21,982.60 discount to the American Conservative Union Foundation for a CPAC summit entitled “The Christian Persecution Summit,” with “waived costs from OOP” (the Office of the President) noted in the contract file.

In his response to Whitehouse, Grenell wrote that he is "concerned about your careless attacks on me and my team" and that the Senator's letter is "filled with partisan attacks and false accusations." Grenell denied Whitehouse's claims and alleged financial mismanagement by the center's previous leadership, including "a bloated staff" and "deferred maintenance" that "was quite literally making the building fall apart."

Whitehouse is requesting the Kennedy Center supply him with "documents and information about the Center's financial management practices, expenditures, donors, and contracts under Grenell's leadership by December 4, 2025."

Dozens of people who communicated with Jeffrey Epstein over the years are now being scrutinized for their relationship based on recently released emails.

These email exchanges took place years after Epstein became a registered sex offender in 2008. 

Larry Summers - Former Treasury secretary and ex-president of Harvard University, appeared to seek advice from Epstein about a romantic relationship he was interested in initiating with a female economist he described as a "mentee." Summers' email correspondence lasted from November 2018 through July 5, 2019, according to The Harvard Crimson. Larry Summers will leave his role as instructor at Harvard immediately amid Epstein probe.

Elisa New - Summers wife since 2005, sent Epstein a copy of an invitation to an unnamed event on Nov. 25, 2018. She is an American literature professor at Harvard and discussed literature regarding underage girls with him.

Lawrence Krauss - The physicist who wrote "The Physics of Star Trek," messaged Epstein in 2017 to ask for advice when a reporter with BuzzFeed News contacted him about sexual harassment allegations he was facing. Versions of these allegations were later published.

Steve Bannon - Top White House aide during Trump's first term, sent many emails back and forth throughout 2018, some simply sharing news articles. Records also show Epstein scheduled a 7 a.m. breakfast with Bannon on Feb. 16, 2019. By that time, Epstein knew he was under federal investigation.

Jonathan Farkas - Scion of the Alexander's department store family and the husband of Trump’s ambassador to Malta, emailed Epstein on May 8, 2017. He asks what Epstein thinks of a woman he was having an affair with. 

Michael Wolff - The journalist emailed Epstein on Oct. 29, 2016, days before Trump was first elected president. He was writing a book about Trump's 2016 campaign. On Feb. 1, 2019, Epstein sent Wolff a 5 a.m. typo-ridden email about the federal investigation into his conduct. He describes some activity that lines up with what his accusers have said they were forced to do for money but downplays other allegations.

Boris Nikolic - Epstein emailed biotech venture capitalist Boris Nikolic in January 2010 to ask about a conference in Switzerland, according to PBS. Nikolic writes in the email chain that he met Epstein's friends, former President Bill Clinton and then-Prince Andrew. Later, he writes that he is getting sick of meetings, and, “it would be blast that you are here.” He also emailed him about flirting with a younger married woman, saying :anything good is rented;)"

Elon Musk - Epstein's schedule for Dec. 6, 2014, says: "Reminder: Elon Musk to island Dec. 6 (is this still happening?)" After Forbes covered the purported island trip in September 2025, Musk posted a response on social media: "This is false." Musk told Vanity Fair in 2019 that he visited Epstein at his house in Manhattan years before "for about 30 minutes."

Kathryn Ruemmler - The Goldman Sachs executive and former White House counsel to President Barack Obama made disparaging comments about people in New Jersey in an email with Epstein. On March 24, 2018, she shared an article called, “How close is Donald Trump to a psychiatric breakdown?” They also made plans to meet up for sushi. Goldman Sachs spokesman Tony Fratto, told CNBC: “These emails were private correspondence well before Kathy Ruemmler joined Goldman Sachs."

Deepak Chopra – The wellness entrepreneur and author had several email exchanges with Epstein from 2016 to 2018.

On Nov. 16, Mercedes Wells and her husband, Leon, arrived at the Franciscan Health Crown Point hospital after calling to give a heads up the day prior. However, when they arrived, Wells said hospital staff told them to go home and wait for her labor to progress, ABC affiliate WLS previously reported.

Cell phone video footage showed Wells, now a mother of four, breathing heavily in a wheelchair inside of the hospital before she was escorted out by security.

In an on-camera interview with CBS News Chicago, she said when she first arrived, she “was met with really stern faces. No welcoming faces as I usually would get when I go to a hospital, or a place of care.”

She added that despite being in "excruciating pain” and “agony,” the nurse who checked on her said she was not far enough along to be admitted. 

Wells gave birth to her daughter, Alena, just eight minutes later in her husband’s car on the side of the road.

The doctor and nurse involved have since been terminated, Franciscan Health Crown Point President and CEO Raymond Grady told PEOPLE

“Compassionate concern is absent when a caregiver fails to listen to a patient who is clearly in pain and vulnerable,” he says. “We failed to listen to Mrs. Wells’ concerns. As an experienced mother who publicly acknowledged having previously given birth at our hospital with a positive experience, she knew something was not right.”

After being turned away, the Wells family retained a lawyer, alleging that they were treated unfairly because they are Black, Fox affiliate WFLD reported.

In addition to the doctor and nurse involved being terminated, Grady has “mandated cultural competency training for all labor and delivery staff,” and mandated that “all pregnant patients leaving the Labor and Delivery unit will be examined by a physician before they leave the hospital.”

After delivering Alena in her husband’s vehicle, Wells was taken to Community Hospital in Munster to receive care, CBS News reported.

Germany plans to treat the use of date rape drugs like the use of weapons in prosecutions as part of measures to ensure justice for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

“We classify date rape drugs, which are increasingly used as a widespread tool in crimes, as weapons. This creates the basis for significantly stricter prosecutions,” Alexander Dobrindt, the interior minister, said on Friday. “We are committed to clear consequences and consistent enforcement. Women should feel safe and be able to move freely everywhere.”

The German government this week also approved a draft law allowing the use of electronic ankle monitors to track perpetrators of domestic violence. Victims can also request a separate device to warn them when the perpetrator is nearby.

Dobrindt said the government had also secured funding for the national rollout of an app allowing domestic abuse victims to secretly document abuse incidents to be used later in court.

The Trump administration is advancing its plan to dismantle the Department of Education and is using non-disclosure agreements to shield official discussions with the administration, according ​to four people familiar with the changes.

Education Secretary Linda McMahon this week announced plans for most federal education ‌programs and staff to relocate to six other federal agencies, like the Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services.

Non-disclosure agreements are unusual for a department with no national security role.

BBC reports that dozens of high-engagement accounts on X have been accused of misleading users following the roll-out of a new transparency feature that shows user locations.

The location data is visible in a new "about this account" tab which appears on every profile. According to X's head of product, Nikita Bier, the information is 99% accurate.

On 11/22, Trump shared a screenshot of a post from an X account called "TRUMP_ARMY_" celebrating a Supreme Court ruling it says will allow the president to deport criminals to El Salvador on Truth Social.

This account has gathered more than half a million followers, including a senior Republican senator.

But X's data has revealed the account is based in India and the username changed four times since March 2022, the last of which was in July 2022.

The account profile has now been changed to "an Indian who loves America, President Trump, Musk!"

Another, account called "IvankaNews_", which describes itself as a fan account for Trump's daughter, has gathered more than one million followers and has previously posted about voting for the president last year.

However, the account is based in Nigeria and its username has changed 11 times since 2010, according to X.

After its location was revealed, the account posted that "some of us living outside the USA genuinely support President Trump's movement".

X now appears to have suspended "IvankaNews_", but the reason is unclear.

Most of these accounts have held blue ticks. This means they subscribe to X's Premium feature and could potentially earn money from their posts depending on their engagement rates.

Darren Linvill from Clemson University's Media Forensics Hub is an expert in misinformation

"There are accounts that are run by troll farms, that are run by nation states, and then there are accounts that are just trying to make a buck by pretending to be American."

Mantzarlis agrees that money is often a factor.

"There is always some money to be made from fanning America's culture wars on social media.

"That said, organized state actors and political parties have been shown to leverage sockpuppet accounts over and over again, so it's probably a bit of both."