Social media users are criticizing a Democratic senator for claiming that Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth would lead a military invasion of Greenland if nominated.
A confirmation hearing for Hegseth was held by the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, where lawmakers were given the opportunity to question Trump's defense pick. One Democrat in particular, Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, caused a firestorm of social media reactions to her asking Hegseth whether he would invade Greenland or take over the Panama Canal.
"Trump never strategically tips his hand. I would never publicly state one way or another to direct the orders of the president," Hegseth responded to the question.
"Hirono was playing judge, jury, and executioner based on lies and stupidity," Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., wrote in a post on X.
Brigette Gabriel, ACT for America founder and chairman, wrote that "Mazie Hirono might be the least intelligent Member of Congress, and that's saying something."
"This line of questioning is unbecoming of her position as a United States Senator," Gabriel said on X. "I stand with Pete Hegseth."
During the hearing, Hirono claimed that President-elect Trump ordered guards to "shoot protesters in the legs" during a protest at Layfayette Square in Washington D.C. in 2020, and asked if Hegseth would carry out such an order.
"I was in the Washington, D.C. National Guard unit that was in Lafayette Square during those events, holding a riot shield on behalf of my country," Hegseth responded. "I saw 50 Secret Service agents get injured by riot agents."
Hirono also asked Hegseth about allegations of sexual assault and claims that he was drinking on the job - both of which he has repeatedly denied.
"Clown show," wrote Eric Daughtery, Assistant News Director of Florida's Voice.
"Mazie Hirono peddles the discredited anonymous sources from NBC who claimed that Pete Hegseth was constantly drunk at work," wrote Greg Price.
President Biden on Tuesday signed an ambitious executive order that he says will keep both national security and climate change in mind while fast-tracking the build out of large-scale artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure in the United States.
Biden said in a statement released by the White House that the executive order will "accelerate the speed at which we build the next generation of AI infrastructure here in America, in a way that enhances economic competitiveness, national security, AI safety, and clean energy." It directs the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy "to lease federal sites where the private sector can build frontier AI infrastructure at speed and scale."
"The United States leads the world at the frontier of artificial intelligence (AI). Cutting-edge AI will have profound implications for national security and enormous potential to improve Americans’ lives if harnessed responsibly, from helping cure disease to keeping communities safe by mitigating the effects of climate change. However, we cannot take our lead for granted," Biden said. "We will not let America be out-built when it comes to the technology that will define the future, nor should we sacrifice critical environmental standards and our shared efforts to protect clean air and clean water."
The order will "ensure that the infrastructure needed for advanced AI operations—including large-scale data centers and new clean power infrastructure—can be built with speed and scale here in the United States," Biden said, adding, "These efforts are designed to accelerate the clean energy transition in a way that is responsible and respectful to local communities, and in a way that does not impose any new costs on American families."
"Building AI infrastructure in the United States is a national security imperative," Biden said. "As AI’s capabilities grow, so do its implications for Americans’ safety and security. Domestic data centers for training and operating powerful AI models will help the United States facilitate AI’s safe and secure development, harness AI in service of national security, and prevent adversaries from accessing powerful systems to the detriment of our military and national security."
"It will also help prevent America from growing dependent on other countries to access powerful AI tools," he added.
Vice President Harris, who attended the first-ever global AI summit hosted in London in November 2023, said in a statement on Tuesday the "significant electrical power needs of large-scale AI operations also present a new opportunity for advancing American leadership in clean-energy technology, which will power our future economy." "By activating the full force of the federal government to speed up and scale AI operations here in the United States, we are securing our global leadership on AI, which will have a profound impact on our economy, society, and national security for generations to come," she added.
Under the new rules, the departments of Defense and Energy will each identify at least three sites where the private sector can build AI data centers. The agencies will run "competitive solicitations" from private companies to build AI data centers on those federal sites, senior administration officials said.
Developers building on those sites will be required, among other things, to pay for the construction of those facilities and to bring sufficient "clean power" generation to match the full capacity needs of their data centers. Although the U.S. government will be leasing land to a company, that company would own the materials it creates there, officials said.
Developers selected to build on government sites will be required to pay all costs of building and operating AI infrastructure so that development does not raise electricity prices for consumers, the administration said.
The orders also direct construction of AI data centers on federal sites to be done with public labor agreements. Some of the sites are reserved for small and medium-sized AI companies, according to government officials.
Government agencies will also complete a study on the effects of all AI data centers on electricity prices, and the Energy Department will provide technical assistance to state public utility commissions regarding electricity tariff designs that can support connecting new large customers with clean energy.
As part of the order, the Interior Department will identify lands it manages that are suitable for clean energy development and can support data centers on government sites, administration officials said.
"The volumes of computing power, electricity needed to train and operate frontier models are increasing rapidly and set to surge even more," Tarun Chhabra, deputy assistant to the president and coordinator for technology and national security, told the Associated Press. "By around 2028, we expect that leading AI developers will be seeking to operate data centers with as much as five gigawatts of capacity for training AI models."
Deploying AI systems at scale also requires a broader network of data centers across different parts of the country, he said.
The executive order comes on the heels of the Biden administration’s proposed new restrictions on exports of artificial intelligence chips, an attempt to balance national security concerns about the technology with the economic interests of producers and other countries. The Biden White House announced its "final rule" on AI diffusion Monday, receiving blow-back from chip industry executives as well as officials from the European Union over export restrictions that would affect 120 countries.
"We're trying to strike the right balance between ensuring that the frontier of AI stays in the United States of America and our close allies, while also ensuring that the rest of the world can benefit from AI and get the hardware that they need to power AI applications going forward," National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters at the White House Monday. "We think this is, in a bipartisan spirit, the way to best preserve and protect America's lead when it comes to artificial intelligence."
FIRST ON FOX NEWS DIGITAL: The state of Oklahoma is suing to hold the Biden administration accountable for unleashing "massive chaos" on the public school system in the state through four years of open border policies.
The suit, launched by the Oklahoma State Department of Education and Oklahoma Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters, targets President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. It demands the Biden administration refund Oklahoma for the approximately $470 million it had to spend on educating thousands of illegal immigrant children over the last four years.
Walters, who filed the suit in the Western District Court of Oklahoma today, told Fox News Digital that public schools are "overrun with illegal immigrants" who are stretching the system’s resources thin and limiting opportunities for the children of taxpaying citizens.
According to data gathered by the Oklahoma State Department of Education, the state spends approximately $11,000 per student annually and the number of unaccompanied migrant children placed in the state is nearly 3,000.
Walters said that Oklahoma schools are struggling to provide adequate resources for immigrant children, such as certified teachers for students with limited English proficiency, transportation and individualized education plans, and that these challenges have a long-term impact on school budgets and the quality of education for all students in the state.
"It truly is chaos in the school system. And who's suffering here? It's the students," said Walters. "Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did this intentionally and we've got students caught in the crossfire here. We have got to protect them and we've got to get our states back on track in educating our kids."
Though President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office next week he said that Oklahoma taxpayers are still being saddled with the costs of the Biden administration’s failed border policies.
"Last week we had Joe Biden's top ICE director admit that they allowed this to happen, that they allowed the law to be broken … and frankly, they're crystal clear these orders came from the top, they came from Joe Biden and the border czar Kamala Harris," he said. "We cannot just allow them to skate off into the sunset and say, ‘President Trump, here you go, states, sorry, we just caused this massive chaos across your schools, across your state, into your communities.’ Those individuals have to be held accountable for the chaos they brought to our kids and our families. And that's what this lawsuit will do."
Walters called on other states to join Oklahoma’s suit against the Biden administration, saying that "every state has to get a grasp of what illegal immigration has done to their school system, has done to their states."
"This is the future we're talking about; we're trying to get education back on track," he said.
"This is how you change this trajectory. This is how you get the Trump administration the support that they need by holding the current administration accountable, getting this data, getting this information," he went on, concluding: "In Oklahoma, we're not going to tolerate Kamala Harris and Joe Biden allowing our schools to be overrun with illegal immigrants and with this lawsuit, we will hold them accountable to the taxpayers of the state of Oklahoma."
A Los Angeles council member, whose district has been devastated by the recent historic wildfires, is demanding accountability from city and state officials after empty reservoirs hindered firefighting efforts, raising questions about how ready the city will be to host world-stage events in the next few years.
"This fire was unlike anything we have ever seen before, but there is no secret that we have chronically underinvested in critical infrastructure and public safety in Los Angeles," Council member Traci Park told Fox News Digital in a Monday interview.
"And I think there are a lot of questions about what more could have been done or could have been done differently, and what it's going to take in Los Angeles to make sure this never happens again," she said.
Following the devastating wildfires that began in the Los Angeles mountains last week, concerns arose over dysfunctional fire hydrants and significant multimillion-dollar reductions of the fire department's budget.
Gov. Gavin Newsom responded on Friday by calling for an independent review of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to investigate the water supply issues during the emergency.
"The ongoing reports of loss of water pressure to some local fire hydrants during the fires and the reported unavailability of water supplies from the Santa Ynez Reservoir are deeply troubling to me and to the community," Newsom wrote to LADWP Chief Executive Officer and Chief Engineer Janisse Quiñones and L.A. County Public Works Director Mark Pestrella in a letter.
"Obviously, I have a lot of concerns about the water," said Park, whose district encompasses the Pacific Palisades, the area which was one of the first and hardest hit by the wildfires.
"I was personally at the command post at Will Rogers as this Volcano of Fire came over our mountain, through our town, all the way to Pacific Coast Highway, and throughout those events into the night, I was anecdotally hearing about our firefighters not having enough water," she said. "And I think we all have questions about the expectations, how are our firefighters supposed to fight fire without the thing they need to do it, that's water?"
Park, who has been collecting critical aid at her Westchester neighborhood office to distribute to her constituents, said she's also concerned about disaster preparedness, as Los Angeles sets itself to host the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympic Games.
"I was concerned about our level of preparation for those events before this happened," Park said, in regard to the wildfires. "And I certainly think that over the last several days, we have seen some of those gaps on full display."
While Park expressed her gratitude for Newsom and "his support at the state level," as well as county and Cal Fire partners, "The reality is, as we are hosting millions of people in our city, and our resources are already spread so thin, it is clear that we have a lot of work to do a lot of strategic planning to continue our preparations for those big events that are coming."
In the months leading up to the wildfires, Los Angeles city officials reduced the fire department's budget by just under $18 million, according to the department.
At the state level, experts and lawmakers are pointing fingers at the top leaders' handling of the state's forestry management and a lesser-known problem: the state's outdated water reserves system. California's existing reservoirs can only hold so much water, and many were built in the mid-20th century.
In 2024, the state experienced record-breaking rainfall after an atmospheric river event, but the existing water infrastructure faced difficulties managing the sudden influx of water. A significant portion of that rainfall was dumped into the ocean.
In 2014, California voters passed Proposition 1, also known as the Water Quality, Supply and Infrastructure Improvement Act, which authorized $2.7 billion in bonds to increase the state's water storage capacity through building new reservoirs and groundwater storage facilities. Yet, no new reservoirs have been completed under Prop. 1, according to local reports.
Though there were only a handful of Super Mario games showcased during Awesome Games Done Quick 2025, his brother Luigi was everywhere — and it’s pretty clear why.
In the gaming community, Mario’s taller, greener brother is beloved in his own right, celebrated for his goofiness or memed because his genial nature apparently conceals something a bit darker. However, in light of the actions of Luigi Mangione, the man charged with the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the gaming community’s love for Luigi has taken on a different significance. That significance was on full display during AGDQ 2025 where his name popped up early and often.
During the charity speedrunning marathon, there were frequent opportunities for viewers to have their donations fund bidding wars for things like the player completing a specific task during the run or for naming rights to a character. For example, during the Pokémon: Let’s Go Eevee run, viewers could donate for the privilege of naming the trainer, and they picked Luigi. Throughout the marathon viewers submitted Luigi for almost every naming-based bid war, and it won quite often.
Luigi was the character name in Fallout: New Vegas and Skyrim. He was the name for the warrior in Guantlet IV and it was the file name in The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. And of the four named characters in Final Fantasy Legend 2, “Lugi” was three of them (as the game only supports four-letter names). Overall, all of the bids for Luigi — not just those that ultimately won — earned over $18,000.
Games Done Quick has a reputation for its inclusiveness and social consciousness — once cancelling a live event in Florida in 2023 over the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law and lax COVID-19 policies. So while it’s impossible to know for sure whether or not the preponderance of Luigi was due to typical gamer memeing or if it represented some kind of tacit statement of support for Luigi Mangione’s actions, it’s probably easy to say it was a little bit of both.
The Biden administration finalized a new rule that would effectively ban all Chinese vehicles from the US under the auspices of blocking the “sale or import” of connected vehicle software from “countries of concern.” The rule could have wide-ranging effects on big automakers, like Ford and GM, as well as smaller manufacturers like Polestar — and even companies that don’t produce cars, like Waymo.
The rule covers everything that connects a vehicle to the outside world, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, cellular, and satellite components. It also addresses concerns that technology like cameras, sensors, and onboard computers could be exploited by foreign adversaries to collect sensitive data about US citizens and infrastructure. And it would ban China from testing its self-driving cars on US soil.
“Cars today have cameras, microphones, GPS tracking, and other technologies connected to the internet,” US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said in a statement. “It doesn’t take much imagination to understand how a foreign adversary with access to this information could pose a serious risk to both our national security and the privacy of U.S. citizens. To address these national security concerns, the Commerce Department is taking targeted, proactive steps to keep [People’s Republic of China] and Russian-manufactured technologies off American roads.”
The rules for prohibited software go into effect for model year 2027 vehicles, while the ban on hardware from China waits until model year 2030 vehicles. According to Reuters, the rules were updated from the original proposal to exempt vehicles weighing over 10,000 pounds, which would allow companies like BYD to continue to assemble electric buses in California.
The new rule is the latest escalation in the ongoing trade restrictions put in place on Chinese-made vehicles, including components like computers and batteries. It comes at a time when China is churning out more cars then ever before, earning its status as the No. 1 auto exporter in the world. The rule also covers vehicles and components made by Russia.
China’s access to vehicle software presents “a significant threat” to the US in that it would grant an adversary “unfettered access” to critical tech systems and the user data that they collect, the White House said.
“As [the People’s Republic of China] automakers aggressively seek to increase their presence in American and global automotive markets, through this final rule, President Biden is delivering on his commitment to secure critical American supply chains and protect our national security,” the administration adds.
The auto industry sought to delay the rule by a year, effectively delivering it to the incoming Trump administration to enforce but was unsuccessful. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents GM, Ford, Volkswagen, Toyota, and others, said in comments submitted last April that it supports the goal of the proposed rules but warned that the global automotive supply chain “is one of the world’s largest and most complex” and that parts could not be simply swapped out without disruptions.
Other automakers were more explicit in their criticisms. Polestar, an electric vehicle manufacturer owned by Geely, said in October that the rule “would effectively prohibit Polestar from selling its cars in the United States, including the cars it manufactures in South Carolina.”
Indeed, the White House states in its fact sheet that the rule prevents the import or sale of connected vehicles “by entities who are owned by, controlled by, or subject to the jurisdiction or direction of the PRC or Russia – even if those vehicles were made in the United States.”
Meanwhile, Waymo, which is planning on using vehicles manufactured by Geely’s Zeekr for its next-gen robotaxi, said that it takes precautions to ensure that the vehicles it purchases for its fleet arrive without any manufacturer-installed telematics systems. Still, the rule could significantly disrupt the Alphabet-owned company’s plans to expand if the government decides to ban the import of the Zeekr vehicle under the new rule.
“Waymo filed comments in support of the rule last fall,” Waymo spokesperson Ethan Teicher said in an email. “We’re reviewing the final rule, and appreciate the Department’s prompt rulemaking.”
A spokesperson for Polestar did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Update January 14th: Updated to include a comment from Waymo.
Disgruntled Heat star Jimmy Butler reiterated to team president Pat Riley in a face-to-face meeting last week that he wants to be traded, league sources told ESPN.
Following its schedule of releasing new OxygenOS updates, OnePlus is now rolling out the January 2025 update that adds a handful of new features, delivers some fixes, and more.
Apple’s Photos app employs multiple features to help you find images in your library and learn more about what’s shown in those images. One of those features is called Enhanced Visual Search. Here’s how it works and how Apple protects your privacy when you use it.
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