In some years, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. does the honors. In others, it might be Justice Sonia Sotomayor or Justice Clarence Thomas presenting the squared-off hunks of marble affixed with the Supreme Court’s gilded seal. Hewed from slabs left over from the 1930s construction of the nation’s high court and handed out in its magnificent Great Hall, they are a unique status symbol in a town that craves them. And while the ideological bents of the justices bestowing them might vary, there is one constant: All the recipients have given at least $5,000 to a charity favored by the justices, and, more often than not, the donors have a significant stake in the way the court decides cases. The charity, the Supreme Court Historical Society, is ostensibly independent of the judicial branch of government, but in reality the two are inextricably intertwined. The charity’s stated mission is straightforward: to preserve the court’s history and educate the public about the court’s importance in American life. But over the years the society has also become a vehicle for those seeking access to nine of the most reclusive and powerful people in the nation. The justices attend the society’s annual black-tie dinner soirees, where they mingle with donors and thank them for their generosity, and serve as M.C.s to more regular society-sponsored lectures or re-enactments of famous cases. The society has raised more than $23 million over the last two decades. Because of its nonprofit status, it does not have to publicly disclose its donors — and declined when asked to do so. But The New York Times was able to identify the sources behind more than $10.7 million raised since 2003, the first year for which relevant records were available. At least $6.4 million — or 60 percent — came from corporations, special interest groups, or lawyers and firms that argued cases before the court, according to an analysis of archived historical society newsletters and publicly available records that detail grants given to the society by foundations. Of that, at least $4.7 million came from individuals or entities in years when they had a pending interest in a federal court case on appeal or at the high court, records show.

Don Christopher, a California farmer who turned the humble, much-maligned bulb of garlic into a staple in millions of American homes and elevated the sleepy town of Gilroy into the garlic capital of the world, died on Dec. 12 in Gilroy. He was 88. His grandson Ken Christopher, the executive vice president of Christopher Ranch, the family business, confirmed the death, at a hospital. As prevalent as garlic is in American cooking today, for much of the 20th century it was considered an exotic, even déclassé, ingredient. Often called the stinking rose, it was found occasionally in Italian restaurants and frequently in vampire-hunting kits, but rarely in home kitchens — though there might have been a dusty jar in the back of the pantry, its contents dehydrated or packed in preservatives. “It used to be that a lot of people thought only the poor ate garlic,” Mr. Christopher told The Associated Press in 1994.

What is an atmospheric river? In California, the weather phenomenon can produce enough rain and snow to replenish water supplies and even end a drought. Here's everything you need to know.

Tulsa preacher Jackson Lahmeyer is building a movement to battle “demonic” Democrats and put Donald Trump back in the White House Lahmeyer leads the newly created Pastors For Trump, a 50-state organization that aims to revive evangelical support for the disgraced, insurrectionist former president as Trump makes his bid for the 2024 GOP nomination.  Lahmeyer announced the formation of Pastors for Trump on “The Stone Zone” podcast in early December. The group is ostensibly independent of the presidential campaign, but Trump blessed Pastors for Trump — sending Lahmeyer a “THANK YOU!” note in black Sharpie, and promoting the group on Truth Social. “Our registration numbers just spiked,” Lahmeyer tells Rolling Stone, “the moment he Truthed it out.” Pastors for Trump is the brainchild of an extremist in both religion and politics — and a man who celebrates the union of the two realms: “I will embrace Christian Nationalism,” Lahmeyer declared this fall on a stop of the ReAwaken America tour, “because… we are at war in this country; it is a spiritual war between good and evil.”  The emergence of a figure like Lahmeyer at the very beginning of the 2024 election cycle underscores two key trends. First: Overt Christian Nationalism — the ideology that America was founded on, and should be governed to enforce, conservative Christian morality — is becoming central to the GOP nominating process. And second: Trump, and his brain trust, are moving to lock in evangelical voters as a tier-one priority, before they’re tempted to decamp for candidates with more authentic spiritual convictions, like former Vice President Mike Pence, or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

“Some people who aren’t familiar with AI think that the biggest drawback of AI is evil robots with red laser eyes. You know what I mean?” Obernolte said. “You get closer to it and you realize that, no, there are actually drawbacks that are even more substantial than that, but they’re also more subtle. So we want to make sure that we approach the regulation of AI in a way that’s thoughtful, that does the protection of consumers and privacy that needs to be done, but also doesn’t stifle the innovation and entrepreneurialism that has characterized the last 50 years of the technology industry in America.”

MOSCOW, Idaho – Authorities have arrested a suspect the Nov. 13 murders of four University of Idaho students, a high-ranking law enforcement source told Fox News Digital. Bryan Christopher Kohberger, 28, was taken into custody by local police and the FBI at 3 a.m. in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the law enforcement source said Friday. Kohberger was being held for extradition in Monroe County Court for first-degree murder issued by the Moscow Police Department and the Latah County Prosecutor's Office in connection to the slayings of Ethan Chapin, 20, Xana Kernodle, 20, Kaylee Goncalves, 21, and Madison Mogen, 21. The suspect is a graduate student at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, according to the college's website. Pullman is a 15-minute drive from the rental home where the four students were stabbed to death.

When Kaitlyn Joshua found out she was pregnant in mid-August, she and her husband, Landon Joshua, were excited to have a second baby on the way. They have a 4-year-old daughter, and thought that was just the right age to help out with a younger sibling. At about six weeks pregnant, Joshua, 30, called a physicians' group in Baton Rouge. She wanted to make her first prenatal appointment there for around the eight-week mark, as she had in her first pregnancy. But Joshua says the woman on the line told her she was going to have to wait over a month. "They specifically said, 'We now no longer see women until they're at least 12 weeks,'" Joshua recalls. "And I said, 'Oh Lord. Is this because of what I think? And they said, 'Yes.'" She remembers the woman on the phone saying that since the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, and with what the woman called a gray area in Louisiana's law, the group was delaying the first prenatal appointment with patients. Joshua remembers her saying that many women miscarry in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, and they didn't want to be liable for an investigation.

Four people were rescued after their helicopter landed in water near Tampa, Fl. Thursday. One of the men instrumental in the rescue: Bucs QB Blaine Gabbert, who arrived on a jet ski.

Billionaire’s fortune has fallen by $200bn, roughly equivalent to the GDP of Greece

William “Rick” Singer, 62, pleaded guilty in March 2019 to running the scheme, which federal investigators dubbed Operation Varsity Blues.

The North Shore Leader was onto George Santos's lies months before he was elected, but no one paid attention.

Pearls before swine exec. Shut the fuck up.

Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan's home in Pipera was reportedly raided by Romanian police on the morning of 29 December.

SAO PAULO (AP) — Pelé, the Brazilian king of soccer who won a record three World Cups and became one of the most commanding sports figures of the last century, died Thursday. He was 82. The standard-bearer of “the beautiful game” had undergone treatment for colon cancer since 2021.

Submitting because want to start this forum in advance of Friday, just in case.

While Southwest canceled over 2,600 of its flights on Tuesday, the trouble’s expected to extend well into this week, with data from Flight Aware indicating that the airline has already called off more than 2,400 flights on Wednesday and over 1,500 on Thursday. Southwest canceled nearly 3,000 flights on Monday. Other airlines with notable flight cancellations didn’t even come close to Southwest’s total, as Spirit canceled 83 flights on Tuesday, while Alaska Airlines called off 75.

Beyond that, Tesla has little new in the immediate pipeline, announcing delays and price increases for the Cybertruck while Ford and Rivian have EV pickup trucks on the roads right now. The new Tesla Roadster concept was shown way back in 2017, and both it and Musk’s promised SpaceX rocket thruster package seem highly unlikely to make a 2023 debut. And you can be forgiven if you’ve already forgotten all about that robot.

One day in early June, a swath of Charlottesville’s history all but vanished from the internet. Thousands of stories reported by the Hook — a defunct local paper whose online archives nevertheless had continued to inform historians, residents and public officials — disappeared. Anyone trying to read old stories about the university town’s sagas, scandals and sundry crimes was greeted by the same error message: “Sorry!” In many ways, the erasure of the alternative weekly, whose print and online journalism included matters such as nightlife listings as well as deep investigative work, isn’t unusual. Historians have long warned about the decay of digital news archives, which are increasingly falling victim to mishandling, indifference, bankruptcies and technical failures. But some of the Hook’s founding journalists suspect the archive didn’t simply expire from natural causes. They think someone paid to kill it. “In 12 years, we did a lot of reporting that made a lot of people not very happy,” she said. One of those people was Curtis N. Ofori, now a D.C.-based investment banker and accountant. Ofori was a 21-year-old junior at U-Va. in 2004, when another student accused him of raping her in her room. After an investigation, an associate dean wrote that Ofori “used very bad judgment,” but said the university “was not able to conclude at the clear and convincing level” that he committed sexual assault, so it found him “not guilty,” according to a copy of a letter detailing its findings. Police investigated, but city prosecutors declined to file charges, Ofori’s lawyer would later state in a letter to the Hook.

Kankakee County Chief Judge Thomas Cunnington sided with prosecutors and sheriffs from across Illinois in ruling that the cash bail section of the legislation violates the Illinois Constitution. Attorney General Kwame Raoul has vowed to appeal.

In 2022, only three films hit the billion-dollar mark. The shortlist includes Top Gun: Maverick which reached the milestone in 31 days and Jurassic World Dominion, hitting $1 billion USD in over four months. In comparison, in 2019, nine films crossed the billion-dollar mark. Avatar 2 is currently the fastest film since 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home which only needed 12 days to surpass $1 billion USD. In the history of film, only six have hit the milestone in the first two weeks of their release.