Connect with us

NewsBeat

Rubio tells Russian counterpart time to end ‘senseless war’: US

Published

on

Rubio tells Russian counterpart time to end 'senseless war': US


The call took place before Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday offered a three-day truce to coincide with Moscow’s commemorations for the end of World War II.

Rubio said Sunday that this week will be crucial in assessing efforts to end the war, which US President Donald Trump has promised to stop on the first day of his presidency.

Advertisement

In the interview Sunday with NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” Rubio said that there were “reasons to be optimistic, but there are reasons to be realistic as well,” and that the United States could decide to focus on other priorities.



Source link

Advertisement

Politics

Elon Musk criticism of Trump tax bill spurs tension within House GOP

Published

on

Elon Musk criticism of Trump tax bill spurs tension within House GOP

Elon Musk’s criticism of House Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” has left some GOP lawmakers frustrated at the tech billionaire.

“This is why Mr. Musk has no place in Congress,” one House GOP lawmaker, granted anonymity to speak freely, told Fox News Digital. “He wants to codify discretionary cuts. He didn’t find enough waste, fraud, and abuse to fund [the Small Business Administration], let alone reduce our debt.” 

“This was a gimmick. He got used. He’s now upset. He played the game, he got what he wanted, then he ended up like everyone else who gets too close.”

Advertisement

House Republicans passed a broad-ranging bill last week advancing President Donald Trump‘s agenda on tax, immigration, defense, and energy. Congressional Republicans are hoping to pass it via the budget reconciliation process, a mechanism for passing fiscal legislation while waiving the Senate’s 60-vote threshold and sidelining the minority party.

MIKE JOHNSON, DONALD TRUMP GET ‘BIG, ‘BEAUTIFUL’ WIN AS BUDGET PASSES HOUSE

Elon Musk criticized President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill."

Elon Musk criticized President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.” (AP)

Musk told “CBS Sunday Morning” the legislation “undermines the work” done by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 

Advertisement

He called it a “massive spending bill” that “increases the budget deficit.”

However, Republican supporters of the bill have contended that the kind of spending cuts Musk is looking for, and the kind DOGE outlined, cannot be done via the reconciliation process. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., himself pledged in a public statement after Musk’s comments that House Republicans would tackle DOGE cuts – albeit in a different vehicle than the “big, beautiful bill.”

Reconciliation primarily deals with mandatory government funding that Congress must change by amending the law itself, like federal safety net programs.

Advertisement

The White House is also planning to send a package of proposed spending cuts to Congress next week, including cuts outlined by DOGE, that target discretionary government spending. Discretionary spending refers to the cash flows that Congress controls annually via the budget appropriations process.

Other supporters of the bill, like Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said its focus was on people outside of Musk’s wealth class.

“The bill strikes the proper balance between rooting out fraud to achieve savings and not impacting citizens who rely on government programs. The biggest winners for a change are not billionaires like Musk but middle-class families who will see the bulk of savings returned to them in the form of real tax relief,” Malliotakis told Fox News Digital.

Advertisement

“That’s who President Trump and House Republicans set out to help.”

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis said the legislation was aimed at helping middle and working-class families. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

A second House Republican who requested anonymity to speak freely told Fox News Digital that Musk did “put a lot of work in” with DOGE but argued he was wrong on the facts.

“I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time that he didn’t really have a handle on the process,” the House Republican said. “So, you know, we really have to bake the DOGE cuts into the budget rather than through reconciliation.”

Advertisement

Fox News Digital reached out to Musk for comment via Tesla but did not immediately hear back.

The White House pointed Fox News Digital to Trump advisor Stephen Miller’s public statement about fiscal hawks’ concerns about the bill. 

Miller said, “DOGE cuts are to discretionary spending. (Eg the federal bureaucracy). Under Senate budget rules, you cannot cut discretionary spending (only mandatory) in a reconciliation bill. So DOGE cuts would have to be done through what is known as a rescissions package or an appropriations bill. The Big Beautiful Bill is NOT an annual budget bill and does not fund the departments of government. It does not finance our agencies or federal programs. Instead, it includes the single largest welfare reform in American history.”

Advertisement

On the other side of the House GOP Conference, fiscal hawks who also had issues with the legislation rallied around Musk’s comments.

“I share Mr. Musk’s concerns about the short-term adverse effect on the federal deficit of the limited spending reductions in the BBB. Debt markets remain concerned about US total debt and annual deficits,” said House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md.

The Maryland Republican voted “present” on the reconciliation bill last week.

Advertisement

SCOOP: HOUSE GOP MEMO HIGHLIGHTS REPUBLICAN WINS IN TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’

Andy-Harris

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris said he shared Elon Musk’s concerns. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Hopefully the Senate will take those concerns into consideration as the legislative process moves forward,” Harris said.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

Advertisement

Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, the lone House Republican to vote against the bill, posted on X, “Hopefully, the Senate will succeed where the House missed the moment. Don’t hope someone else will cut spending someday, know it has been done this Congress.”

“Despite pleas to step back and look at the sum of the parts passed by 11 different committees, this bill was rushed to the floor when it should have been fixed,” Davidson said.

Musk announced late on Wednesday that he was stepping away from his federal government role because his “scheduled time as a Special Government Employee” was coming “to an end.”

Advertisement

Source link

Continue Reading

NewsBeat

Emergency teams searching reservoir for teenage girl believed to have fallen in | UK News

Published

on

Baitings Reservoir near Ripponden. File pic: PA



Emergency search teams are looking for a teenage girl who is believed to have fallen into a reservoir from a dam.

Emergency services were called to Baitings Dam near Ripponden at 1.17pm on Wednesday, West Yorkshire Police said.

Police, fire and ambulance crews were deployed to the scene, but the teenager was not found.

Advertisement

Underwater search teams have been continuing their attempts to locate the teenager on Thursday.

Advertisement

Read more from Sky News:
Trump reduces gang founder’s sentence after Kanye lobbying
Drought declared in North West England

A spokesperson for the force said: “Searches are continuing today after a teenage girl was reported to have fallen into water at Baitings Dam near Ripponden.

“Emergency services were called to the dam at 1.17pm yesterday afternoon.

Advertisement

“Police, fire and ambulance were initially deployed to the scene, but the girl could not be located.

“Underwater search teams are continuing with their attempts to locate her today.”

Advertisement



Source link

Continue Reading

Politics

Elon Musk officially departs White House role

Published

on

Elon Musk officially departs White House role

IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser.

  • Fewer foreign tourists visiting the U.S. could have economic impact

    03:54

  • Now Playing

    Elon Musk officially departs White House role

    01:04

  • UP NEXT

    Harvard to give 175-year-old photos of enslaved people to South Carolina museum

    01:15

  • Miami officer appears to shoot car driver through windshield while clinging to hood

    02:17

  • Former federal employees eye elected office to bounce back after government cuts

    03:51

  • California mother fights to keep daughter’s life-saving medical care amid deportation threat

    04:43

  • Artificial intelligence used to create lifelike court ‘reporters’

    02:32

  • Vance touts digital currency as Democrats criticize Trump’s crypto push

    01:56

  • Trump defends massive tax-cut and spending bill after Musk’s criticism

    02:56

  • SpaceX Starship comes apart in test flight

    01:28

  • Convicted murderer and ex-police chief remains on run three days after prison escape

    01:51

  • Lawyers question arrest timing in NYC crypto kidnapping case

    02:52

  • Kevin Costner sued by stunt double over allegedly unscripted ‘Horizon 2’ rape scene

    02:20

  • Pigeons ruffle feathers on Delta plane

    00:25

  • Judge rules against mistrial in Sean Combs sex trafficking trial

    03:13

  • Vance says crypto is ‘improving the wellbeing’ of Americans

    01:41

  • Mother and daughter graduate together after life-saving kidney donation

    03:31

  • ICE agents detain NYC student after scheduled court appearance

    01:53

  • Potential legal challenges over Trump admin effort to sever ties with Harvard

    02:51

  • Ex-assistant says Combs wanted to kill Kid Cudi over Cassie relationship

    03:10

NBC News NOW

Elon Musk has officially withdrawn from his role leading the Department of Government Efficiency to focus on his businesses. Editor-in-Chief at Investopedia, Caleb Silver, breaks down what’s next for DOGE and Musk.

Advertisement

Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

NewsBeat

G7 protesters organizing, say upcoming summit fails to address real-world problems

Published

on

G7 protesters organizing, say upcoming summit fails to address real-world problems


As world leaders prepare to gather in Kananaskis for the G7 summit next month, some activist groups across Canada say they are planning protests while others say they won’t send a large presence to Alberta this year.

Environmentalists, anti-imperialist coalitions and Indigenous advocates, among many other groups, are weighing their options for this year’s summit.

Advertisement

Some say the meeting’s location in the remote wilderness destination of Kananaskis, about 90 kilometres west of Calgary, poses challenges. 

One major environmental group, Greenpeace Canada, says that’s one of the reasons it won’t send a large presence to the summit this year.

“It’s a long way to go, a lot of carbon to burn, to stand in a parking lot an hour’s drive away from where leaders are actually meeting,” said Keith Stewart, a spokesperson with Greenpeace.

Advertisement

“We’re going to be focusing our efforts on the G7 capitals and trying to make sure that the politicians remember that just because Donald Trump doesn’t believe in it doesn’t mean climate change has gone away.”

A man holds up a large banner that advocates taxing the super-rich.
Greenpeace activists show a poster during a protest at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 21, 2025. (Markus Schreiber/AP Photo)

Greenpeace is instead mulling the possibility of holding demonstrations in other cities, and will support local groups where possible.

“We’ll definitely be making some noise and … we might have some people in Alberta, but we’re not gonna have a big presence there,” Stewart said.

“This G7 meeting is likely to be dominated by what to do about Trump. But part of that is, how do we continue to make progress on things like climate change, the affordability crisis, working around Trump and the billionaires backing him?”

Advertisement

Designated protest zones

Officials say a major police presence will be in place during the summit, including officers from RCMP, Calgary Police Service and other agencies.

“Designated demonstration zones” will be set up, including in downtown Calgary. Another zone will be set up near the Calgary International Airport, at the Edward H. LaBorde Viewing Area.

“Creating these locations ensures minimal disruption to critical infrastructure such as roads or highways. These areas also ensure the safety of demonstrators, the public and law enforcement, while providing visible and accessible locations for peaceful assembly,” wrote Alberta RCMP Chief Supt. David Hall, in a statement.

Advertisement

There will also be a designated protest zone in Banff, at the Fenlands Banff Recreation Centre.

Calgary Police Service Supt. Joe Brar, the G7 event security director, told The Canadian Press that people have the right to assemble outside the demonstration zones. However, police are encouraging the public to gather in those zones for safety reasons, he added.

Some groups uncertain, others plan counter-summit

At this point, some local long-standing protest groups say they aren’t planning on attending.

Advertisement

The Lethbridge and Edmonton gaggles of the Raging Grannies, an activist group of older women who use song and humour to promote social issues, said they don’t have plans to attend yet. The Calgary Raging Grannies are more likely to have a presence.

A group of women singing are pictured.
The Raging Grannies are pictured in 2016 in Montreal. Plans for Alberta-based gaggles of Raging Grannies still have yet to nail down plans for protest during the upcoming G7 leaders’ summit in Kananaskis, Alta. (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press)

But organizing amongst other groups is underway. Shivangi Misra, chair of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) in Canada, said a coalition of groups is planning a two-day counter-summit and rally. 

“There are a couple of programs that are being put together and this is mostly led by people in Alberta,” Misra said. “It includes Indigenous groups, climate activists, people’s organizations, human rights organizations.

“[They are] coming together to say that [G7 leaders] are not welcome because the policies, the work, the effort, the agenda that the G7 countries are uniting on is not in the interest of the people.”

Advertisement
A woman is pictured wearing glasses.
Shivangi Misra, chair of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle in Canada, said the group believes the G7 agenda does not serve the interests of the common people. (Google Meet)

Misra said issues like the cost of living, the housing crisis and migrant justice — among other issues — should be at the top of the agenda for this year’s summit.

Changing protest culture

This year’s summit comes more than two decades after Kananaskis last hosted the G8 in 2002 in the wake of terrorist attacks in New York City and Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11, 2001.

Fearing a repeat of violent confrontations in Italy the year prior, the Calgary Correctional Centre was cleared out in the weeks leading up to the G8 summit to make room for detained protesters. Inmates were sent to the medium-security federal prison in Drumheller. 

That won’t be the case at this year’s summit.

Advertisement

John Kirton, director of the G7 Research Group at the University of Toronto, said the tone of protest in Alberta at the last summit was civil and friendly.

“One of the smartest things the organizers did was they kept the folks, the heavy police that looked like imperial stormtroopers — you know, with their masks and clubs — in the hotel rooms,” he said. “And put on the front lines local police officers on bicycles, wearing shorts … they gave out bottled water to the protesters for free.”

Police officers on bicycles line up on a city street.
A city police officer rides past other Calgary Police Service officers and Royal Canadian Mounted Police on bicycles before a pre-G8 summit demonstration in Calgary in 2002. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

Kirton said he expects similar dynamics this time around.

“I think the protests will be [able] to get the message through loud and clear but will not be distracted by any cars on fire the way that the Genoa Summit [in Italy in 2001] had been.”

Advertisement

Misra with the ILPS added that many formal and informal groups are still finalizing their plans, with some choosing not to go public yet for safety or security reasons. 

But she questioned the use of designated zones, calling them a barrier to free expression.

“We are exercising a constitutional right to protest. These protest zones fundamentally undermine … the civil and political rights that people have a right to exercise,” she said.

Advertisement



Source link

Continue Reading

Politics

Trump rejects $15M offer to settle ’60 Minutes’ lawsuit: report

Published

on

Trump rejects $15M offer to settle ’60 Minutes’ lawsuit: report


President Trump’s legal team reportedly rejected a $15 million offer from media conglomerate Paramount to settle a lawsuit he brought against CBS News last year. Lawyers for Paramount in recent days made the offer, according to the Wall Street Journal, which was rejected by Trump’s team as they seek more than $25 million and a…

Source link

Continue Reading

NewsBeat

Lost for seven years, Josh Holloway is back in the driver’s seat

Published

on

Washington Post


Article content

Josh Holloway was stranded in a Hollywood wasteland five years ago when the phone rang. It was J.J. Abrams, and he was offering a route out of the figurative desert – by way of a literal one.

Advertisement

Advertisement 2

Article content

Article content

Article content

Advertisement

The third and final season of the Holloway-starring series “Colony” had aired more than a year earlier. Freshly 50, Holloway accepted that the dystopian drama was probably his last leading-man gig. If the offer came to play, say, a leading man’s father? He’d be there. But that wasn’t happening, either.

“My agents were like, ‘Go take a vacation. You’re not going to work,’” recalls Holloway, best known for playing the complicated con man Sawyer on “Lost.” “And I didn’t for a long time.”

Holloway embraced life as a stay-at-home dad while spending his spare time dirt biking, fly-fishing, meditating and steering his Airstream all over. He also honed his guitar skills and learned the piano. On the work front, Holloway dabbled in writing and pitched a reality show about ranch bunkhouses. (It didn’t happen.)

Advertisement

Advertisement 3

Article content

Advertisement

So when “Lost” co-creator Abrams rang out of the blue and began hinting at a job offer, Holloway says, he agreed before hearing the pitch. As Abrams subsequently outlined an image from the 1972-set crime series “Duster” – a muscle car races to a phone in the desert, and out pops Holloway to answer the call – it dawned on the actor that one of Hollywood’s most influential creatives was, in fact, shaping a show around him.

“At this age,” Holloway says, “I really did not expect something like that.”

But that didn’t mean the lean years were over. Green lit by HBO Max during the pandemic, the pilot didn’t shoot until 2021. That pilot was shelved amid the Warner Bros. Discovery merger, then reshot two years later. And the first season was mid-production in 2023 when the Hollywood strikes halted filming for the better part of a year.

Advertisement

Article content

Advertisement 4

Article content

By the time “Duster” premiered in May on Max, seven years had passed since Holloway last headlined a series. In the meantime, the 55-year-old’s only jobs have been a recurring role as a duplicitous hedge fund manager on “Yellowstone” and one episode of the anthology “Amazing Stories.”

“With actors, if you don’t see them for a while, you think that they’re hiding in a closet or something,” his “Duster” co-star Keith David says. “People work. You don’t see them, but they do work. So it’s really wonderful to see him in a leading part. He’s the kind of guy who can carry that.”

Advertisement
Rachel Hilson plays an FBI agent who recruits Holloway's Jim Ellis as an informant.
Rachel Hilson plays an FBI agent who recruits Holloway’s Jim Ellis as an informant. Photo by Ursula Coyote/Max

Sure enough, Holloway still seizes the screen as if he never left it. As Jim Ellis, the rakish driver for a Southwestern organized crime kingpin (David) and an informant for an upstart FBI agent (Rachel Hilson), Holloway is parked right in his wheelhouse. With a sigh or a smile, Jim shakes off life-and-death developments as another day at the office. His shoulder-length locks flow in the desert breeze. Sarcastic quips roll off his tongue, and he throws around nicknames in decidedly Sawyer-like fashion. Yet there’s torment and tenderness behind eyes that’ll smolder one moment and flicker with sorrow the next.

Advertisement 5

Article content

Advertisement

It’s a classic performance from a dying breed of actor: the career television star. Co-created by Abrams and LaToya Morgan, “Duster” is a throwback to a forgone era of episodic storytelling, built around charismatic characters and pulpy thrills rather than A-list star power and prestige TV sheen. Driving it all is Holloway, a slick performer with an affinity for fueling his hard-knock characters with hard-knock life experience.

“He’s added this quality of having lived a complicated life that is now embedded in his performance, along with his incredible good looks and his soulfulness and his charm,” says Carlton Cuse, a showrunner on “Lost” and the co-creator of “Colony.” “It’s just another weapon in his actor’s arsenal.”

Advertisement 6

Advertisement

Article content

If Holloway resents the myriad movie stars and Oscar winners who have found refuge on the small screen over the past decade – making it all the harder for TV veterans to book rich roles – he hides it well. “It makes sense to me,” he muses, “just because that’s where the creativity went. I mean, it’s the golden age of TV.”

Advertisement
Josh Holloway
“I’m super sappy and goofy, but people have an image of me as, like, this cool guy,” Holloway says. “I can lean into that cliché, but who I am is actually the other guy.” Photo by James Van Evers/Max

Toning down the swagger and ramping up the silliness during a mid-May video chat from a New York hotel, the bespectacled actor is an easy laugh with a grin that persists through touchy topics. Far from tech savvy, he cautions people that he leaves his phone at home and might take 48 hours to respond to a text. (“It drives my friends and family crazy,” he concedes. “I’m not of this era.”) Raising an 11-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter with his wife, Yessica, in Southern California, he gleefully rattles off his responsibilities in the Holloway household – “the Uber service, the cook, the maid, the freaking laundry guy” – and asserts that being a present father is his most cherished role.

Advertisement 7

Article content

Advertisement

“I’m super sappy and goofy, but people have an image of me as, like, this cool guy,” Holloway says. “I can lean into that cliché, but who I am is actually the other guy.”

His “Duster” co-star Hilson confirms as much. “If you meet Josh, you’ll probably within the first five minutes hear him talk about his kids and his wife,” she says. “That’s just who he is. I think we find ourselves drawn to this edgy character because he just brings to it this natural softness.”

Holloway’s Jim has been a mafia wheelman for decades when we meet him in “Duster,” whose eight-episode first season runs through July 3. Bloody and breezy, raunchy and groovy – the series traverses tones while serving as a 1970s travelogue with pit stops involving Elvis Presley, Howard Hughes, Watergate and other period-appropriate touchstones. Whether he’s chauffeuring goons, procuring blackmail material or trafficking illicit goods, Jim rarely sheds his devil-may-care mantra. But the character remains haunted by his brother’s death years earlier and the discovery that their boss may have been responsible for the hit.

Advertisement

Advertisement 8

Article content

Advertisement

“Even though he is obviously an incredibly handsome guy, there is a kind of sadness and anger under the wry and comedic surface,” Abrams says over email. “[Jim] has to be carefree and cool and funny and daring, but he also needs to be broken: someone who stopped evolving at a certain point, someone who is being challenged to wake up, reflect and be held accountable in his life.”

Despite that heavy backstory, Holloway assures that playing Jim is mostly a blast – starting with the stunts. After attending Rick Seaman’s stunt-driving school, Holloway shifted to lessons with driver Chris Peterson and learned “every stunt in the book.” Asked whether he’s taken those skills out in public, Holloways chuckles. “I’d be doing that every day,” he says, “but the computers are, like, anti-skid and this and that, and they just won’t let you do it.”

Advertisement 9

Advertisement

Article content

Then there’s the opportunity to deploy his innate allure. Take a scene in “Duster” in which Jim heads to a hospital and asks for the status of a gravely wounded patient he would rather not see pull through. Told by a female employee that such information is confidential, Jim flicks his hair, tilts his head and coolly replies, “Then just give it to me confidentially.” Informed the man’s outlook is dire, Jim smirks. “Darling,” he says, “you just made my day.”

Advertisement

It’s an ominous scene that, in Holloway’s hands, plays as effortlessly suave. “I grew up in a time where if you wanted to date, you had to flirt,” he explains through sheepish laughter. “It wasn’t on a gadget. You had to go out there and ask out girls and have some game.”

Advertisement 10

Article content

As showrunner Morgan puts it, Holloway constantly “borrows from himself” on screen. Referencing Steve McQueen in “Bullitt” and Walter Matthau in “The Bad News Bears,” Morgan says she and Abrams leaned into Holloway’s inherent appeal when writing Jim. “We thought about characters that you want to spend a lot of time with,” Morgan says. “Josh just brings that warmth.”

Holloway acknowledges that every character he plays is a color from his kaleidoscopic persona. Raised in rural Georgia, he tried a slew of professions – construction, restaurateuring and modeling, among them – before giving acting a whirl. When he took a class from Corey Allen and the “Rebel Without a Cause” actor preached the perks of channeling such experiences on screen, Holloway lit up. “I’d just had a lot of life experience already to draw on,” he says. “That’s what it was: I want to do everything, so I’m an actor.”

Advertisement

Advertisement 11

Article content

Advertisement

Although “Lost’s” Sawyer was deemed one of the show’s least popular characters in audience testing, Cuse says the actor’s deep-seated pathos led the writers to reimagine him as a reluctant hero. By the time the mystery-box series concluded in 2010, Sawyer was a fan favourite. “That was a really satisfying arc,” Cuse says, “that was only made possible because of what Josh had inside.”

Riding the wave of “Lost’s” success, Holloway turned down a slew of network TV procedurals in hopes that a movie career would take off. After booking minor roles in the 2011 blockbuster “Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol,” the 2013 thriller “Paranoia” and the 2014 action flick “Sabotage,” Holloway grew impatient with big-budget film shoots and longed for television’s expediency.

Advertisement 12

Advertisement

Article content

“I always had two or three jobs at once since I was 11 years old,” Holloway says. “I did a couple of movies, and I was so bored because you’d sit around so long. On TV, you just go to your trailer to change and that is it – you’re back on set, and they’re busting your butt.”

Advertisement

That’s not to say Holloway is done with film: He recently shot supporting roles in the musical “Reimagined” and the crime drama “He Bled Neon” and will topline an indie adaptation of the Louis L’Amour novel “Flint” that shoots this summer. But after spending a decade between movie gigs, Holloway acknowledges that he’s built more for the TV grind than the big-screen machine. After biding his time before “Duster,” Holloway is relishing one more spin in the driver’s seat.

“I’m a workhorse,” he says with a shrug. “That’s my character.”

Article content

Advertisement



Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Trending