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Boston Mayor Wu’s office trip to DC hearing cost taxpayers $10k, records show

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu dropped nearly $10,000 of taxpayer funds on travel accommodations for her March trip to Washington, D.C., where she faced down a Congressional oversight committee probing the city’s sanctuary policies.

Wu brought along 11 staff members to her high-stakes D.C. appearance, at a total cost of roughly $9,909, when factoring in hotel, flight, ride-share and other accommodations, per receipts provided to the Herald after a public records request.

The mayor flew economy both ways. She spent $348.79 on her flight and $855.48 for a two-night stay at the Hampton Inn & Suites Washington DC-Navy Yard hotel, for a total of roughly $1,204, records show.

Wu arrived at her hotel Monday, March 3 and checked out on Wednesday, March 5, the date of the sanctuary city mayors Congressional hearing.

The mayor brought along 11 high-ranking staff members and cabinet chiefs. Collectively, those staffers spent about $8,704 on travel accommodations.

The staffers who tagged along were:

  • Tiffany Chu, Wu’s chief of staff: $1,142.08
  • Ricardo Patrón, deputy chief of staff: $767.95
  • Ezra Zwaeli, director of speechwriting: $348.61
  • Mariangely Solis Cervera, chief of equity and inclusion: $943.87
  • Michael Firestone, chief of policy and strategic planning: $791.64
  • Avital Robbins, deputy chief of policy: $720.49
  • Phyllis St-Hubert, director of scheduling and advance: $1,340.53
  • Louis Mandarini, senior advisor for labor: $1,136.92
  • Jessicah Pierre: chief of communications: $174.30
  • Mohammed Missouri, director of stakeholder engagement: $773.79
  • Sam Dinning, policy and strategic initiatives counsel: $564.66

Missing from the receipts were hotel costs for Zwaeli and return flight and hotel costs for Pierre. The mayor’s office reached out to the Herald to clarify that Zwaeli and Pierre stayed with friends and Pierre’s return was not at taxpayer cost.

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South Korea Gets Its Fourth President in Five Months

Education Minister Lee Ju-ho became the fourth president of South Korea since December on Friday after a turbulent 2025 that began with protests for and against the arrest of ousted former President Yoon Suk-yeol.

The South Korean government baffled international partners in the past 24 hours after acting President Han Duck-soo resigned on Thursday to prepare for a campaign in the June 3 special election to replace Yoon. Officials announced that Finance Minister Choi Sang-mok, who had already been president after Han was impeached in December, would replace Han temporarily, but Choi abruptly resigned, as well, leaving Lee as the chief executive of the country.

The wave of resignations and questions from international observers made for a confusing first day in office for Lee, the Korea JoongAng Daily reported, noting that the day began with an emergency cabinet meeting that participants were initially unsure was even legal. The various resignations meant the cabinet was too small to make quorum, raising legal questions that Seoul ultimately decided had been decided in favor of a meeting by past precedent.

The current chaos began when Yoon, elected in a deeply bitter election in 2022, announced on the night of December 3 that he would abruptly impose martial law on the country in response to the left-wing Democratic Party obstructing his agenda at the National Assembly, the federal lawmaking body. Yoon accused the Democrats of working with “North Korean communist forces” and attempting to overthrow the “constitutional order.”

The martial law decree lasted mere hours as National Assembly lawmakers stormed legislative chambers to organize an emergency vote against military rule. While lawmakers can legally vote down martial law, the martial law decree also meant that political activity, including legislative votes, was not legal, so lawmakers had to elbow past rows of heavily armed soldiers to organize the vote, the latter whom did not take much action to prevent the political figures from achieving their goal.

Following the end of martial law less than 24 hours after it was implemented, Yoon apologized, but the National Assembly voted to impeach him regardless. Han Duck-soo became acting president and was immediately impeached for allegedly taking too long to expedite Yoon’s impeachment case, leaving Choi as the acting president.

While Han defeated the case for his impeachment, Yoon did not, and was removed from the presidency. South Koreans will vote for his replacement on June 3.

Han resigned on Thursday to prepare a campaign to run in that election.

“Thinking of the weight of the responsibility I carry at this grave time, after thinking long and carefully about whether such a decision is in fact right and inevitable,” he declared on Thursday, “I decided that if this is the only way, I must take it.”

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They Had Water Guns! Insane Excuse Anthony Family Used for New Home Spending

Look, I’m not saying that the family of Karmelo Anthony — the notorious teenage murder suspect whose case has become a racial minefield for reasons less explicable than usual in these situations — is grifting off of the crowdfunding they’ve been getting for his defense and various costs.

All I’m saying is, if they’re not grifting, they’re going to have to get Merriam-Webster and several other reputable dictionaries to change the meaning of the verb “to grift.” To maybe, say, meaning the act of making pancakes. Or to nail a neat skateboard trick. Something like that.

In case you’ve been wondering, the family of Anthony — the 17-year-old Frisco, Texas teen facing first-degree murder charges for fatally stabbing Austin Metcalf, also 17, at a track meet — has been raising money at a surprising clip.

Surprising, given that there’s no especial reason to believe Anthony is being railroaded other than he’s black and Metcalf was white. Anthony reportedly admitted he stabbed Metcalf for trying to move him from an area where he didn’t belong, claimed self-defense even though the grounds he reportedly gave police during interviews didn’t even come close to legally viable, and has — instead of relying on canny legal strategies and keeping quiet until the trial — enlisted every two-bit race hustler in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex eager to make Anthony their 21st century version of Tawana Brawley.

What’s also surprising is the clip at which Anthony’s family seems to be spending the money, and not on high-end legal representation. As of an April 30 report in the U.K. Daily Mail, over $500,000 has been raised.

Initially, it was alleged they had bought a house in a gated community and some high-end automobiles. It was later reported that this was fake news; all of it was merely rented, because they needed security and a new location thanks to Anthony’s notoriety.

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Mexican Senator Brands President Sheinbaum as ‘Liar’ with Ties to Cartels

Mexican Senator Lilly Tellez (PAN-Sonora) blasted President Claudia Sheinbaum, demanding she “stop telling lies.” The senator accused her country’s president of having a close association with several lawyers who represent drug cartels during a fiery speech to the Mexican Senate.

The Senator representing the Mexican State of Sonora is routinely critical of President Sheinbaum’s seemingly soft approach to fighting organized crime in Mexico. Maria Lilly Del Carmen Tellez García, professionally known as “Lilly Tellez,” is a Mexican politician who was first elected as a senator in 2018 under the Morena Party. In 2019, Tellez left the Morena Party, and in 2020, she joined the National Action Party (PAN). She became an openly vocal critic of the Mexican government, often claiming with receipts that they are in bed with the cartels.

In June 2022, Breitbart Texas reported that the senator lashed out against the ruling party, saying, “How am I going to face off against the senator from Sinaloa, knowing she has all the support of the Gulf Cartel, and El Chapo’s Cartel?”

Tellez added, “How can we face off against you when you have the full support of the cartels, the mafia, knowing full well that once we get out of here we can be attacked by those criminals who are helping you to operate in the elections –this is having bravery and civic responsibility.”

Tellez stated that the decision to abandon the Morena Party was made when former President Manuel López Obrador, commonly referred to as AMLO, traveled to Badiraguato, Sinaloa, to shake hands with the mother of convicted drug trafficker Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán in 2020. Before becoming a politician, Tellez was well-known as an investigative journalist for TV Azteca, Mexico’s second-largest mass media company.

As an investigative reporter, Tellez conducted several investigations involving the Arellano-Felix Cartel. She also produced two documentaries denouncing Samuel Del Villar, a government official from Mexico City, as corrupt. On June 22, 2020, her car was shot at eight times by a group of unknown men. She survived the attack without injury. A bullet was discovered to have hit her seat belt buckle and caused the trajectory of the bullet to change course, possibly saving her life. As is often the case in Mexico, no suspects were ever arrested, and the case was closed.

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Biden Autopen Use Increased As Cognitive Decline Deepened, Analysis Finds

The Oversight Project has released a disturbing new findings showing an apparent correlation between the increased use of autopen signatures and Joe Biden’s worsening mental decline.

The group previously found that two different autopens were used, pointing out that Neera Tanden was the White House Staff Secretary when Biden autopenned pardons from a golf course in the US Virgin Islands.

The organisation released further analysis finding that Biden’s pardons for family members, Anthony Fauci, General Milley, J6 Committee members, and Gerald Lundergan were all autopenned.

Now a further analysis of Executive Order signatures shows an “increased use of the autopen as President Biden’s mental and physical decline accelerated,” according to the group.

The findings show that Biden used a wet signature on every single Executive Order during his first 18 months in office.

However, this radically changed in late Spring of 2022 when around half of the orders were autopenned. By the Summer, 100 percent of the orders were being signed by autopen.

In 2023, two thirds of the orders were autopenned, and in 2024 that figure rose to three quarters, before again hitting 100 percent in the last days of his presidency in 2025.

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‘Cannibal’ killer warning signs exposed in new report with release plan already in motion

New prison documents show that Tyree Smith, who has been dubbed the “Connecticut Cannibal,” exhibited violent behavior behind bars and was a “serious threat to life” in prison before he was granted release, according to a news report.

Smith confessed to the 2011 killing of a homeless man, Angel Gonzalez, in Connecticut, and he admitted to eating the victim’s body parts in a cemetery.

In 2013, a three-judge panel found Smith not guilty by reason of insanity in the death of Gonzalez. However, he was committed to Connecticut Valley Hospital for 60 years.

Smith was granted a conditional release by the Nutmeg State’s Psychiatric Security Review Board in February 2025, which allows him to leave Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown. However, Smith will remain under supervision and will continue to receive mental health services, according to WTNH.

For months, Smith has been staying full-time at a community facility with strict conditions, treatment and around-the-clock supervision, CBS News reported after the release from the hospital was granted.

Smith’s doctor said the cannibal killer has been rehabilitated and is taking medications to help with psychosis and voices in his head, WTNH reported.

“To quote the director there, he is a joy. He is considered a support to the other people there,” forensic psychiatrist Caren Teitelbaum said. “Once he was stable, he was a really calming presence for other patients.”

“He has maintained clinical stability. Adhered to the medications and continued to engage in group and substance abuse treatment,” Teitelbaum added. “He also denied visual hallucinations and a desire to harm others or himself.”

However, new prison documents obtained by WTNH from the Connecticut Department of Correction suggest otherwise.

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Gun Owners Group Calls for Inquiry into Firearms Industry’s Secret Sharing of Customer Data

A coalition of firearm owners is pressing federal regulators to investigate whether the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the gun industry’s chief lobbying group, covertly exploited consumer data for political purposes, despite publicly promoting itself as a defender of privacy.

In a formal appeal submitted to three federal agencies, Gun Owners for Safety is demanding accountability over a long-running data-sharing operation first exposed by a ProPublica report.

That investigation revealed that for years, the NSSF quietly received personal details from gun buyers, collected by manufacturers, without informing those individuals that their information would be funneled into a political targeting effort.

The group’s letter, sent to the FBI, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), described the practice as “underhanded” and deceptive.

Malcolm Smith, a longtime gun owner and member of the group, underscored the nonpartisan stakes of the issue. “Gun owners’ privacy is not a partisan or ideological issue,” he wrote. “No matter the industry, exploiting customers’ private data like their underwear size and children’s ages in a secret scheme is reprehensible and cannot be permitted.”

Gun Owners for Safety, backed by the gun violence prevention group Giffords, operates across nine states and is composed of firearm owners who support tighter safeguards around gun ownership, including safety measures and enhanced background checks. The organization was launched in 2019 under the leadership of former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, a gun violence survivor.

Regulatory responses to the complaint have been minimal so far. The ATF confirmed receipt of the letter but offered no additional comment. The FBI, FTC, and NSSF remained silent when approached by ProPublica for statements.

Though the NSSF is less widely known than the National Rifle Association, its influence spans the firearms business ecosystem, representing manufacturers, shooting ranges, ammunition retailers, and industry publishers.

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Donald Trump fired national security adviser Mike Waltz for ‘plotting with Israel’s leader to bomb Iran’

President Donald Trump sacked his national security adviser Mike Waltz because he was plotting with Israel‘s leader to attack Iran, it was claimed last night.

Waltz, 51, was thought to have been fired because he accidentally added a journalist to a Signal chat about plans to attack Yemen’s Houthi terrorist group, causing global embarrassment for the Trump administration.

But last night the Washington Post reported the real reason for Trump’s ire was that Waltz huddled with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the latter’s White House visit in February and ‘appeared to share the Israeli leader’s conviction that the time was ripe to strike Iran,’ according to a source.

Trump was angered that Waltz ‘engaged in intense coordination with Netanyahu about military options against Iran ahead of an Oval Office meeting between the Israeli leader and Trump.’

The source said: ‘Waltz wanted to take US policy in a direction Trump wasn’t comfortable with because the US hadn’t attempted a diplomatic solution. 

It got back to Trump and the president wasn’t happy with it. You can’t do that. You work for the president of your country, not the president of another country.’

Waltz, a former Green Beret, was sacked from his position as head of the National Security Council (NSC) on Friday and will now become ambassador to the United Nations, a ‘massive downgrade move to save face’, according to one Trump insider.

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Maine Lawmaker Asks Supreme Court to Reverse Speech Ban

A Maine legislator has turned to the US Supreme Court after being effectively stripped of her ability to represent her constituents over a controversial social media post. Republican Rep. Laurel Libby, who serves District 90, submitted an emergency request to the high court this week, seeking to overturn a disciplinary action imposed by her fellow lawmakers that has barred her from voting or speaking on the House floor since February.

The dispute stems from a Facebook post Libby made criticizing the inclusion of a transgender athlete in a statewide girls’ pole vault competition.

The post included a mention of a Maine student and questioned the fairness of allowing biological males to compete in girls’ sports categories, a stance that ignited outrage among Democratic legislators. In response, the House voted to censure Libby and conditioned her return to full legislative participation on an apology she had refused to give.

Rather than comply, Libby launched a legal fight to restore her role, arguing the punishment amounted to unconstitutional retaliation. After lower courts refused to intervene, she is now asking the Supreme Court to address what she sees as a blatant violation of the First Amendment and a denial of her constituents’ right to representation.

We obtained a copy of the application for you here.

“For over 60 days my constituents have had no say in any actions taken by their government, actions that directly impact their lives,” she wrote in a post on X. “Every vote taken on the floor of the legislature is a vote my constituents cannot get back. The good people of our district have been silenced and disenfranchised.”

Libby emphasized that the case raises serious concerns about the limits of legislative authority when it comes to penalizing elected officials for their speech.

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The Obamas Just Made Their Biggest Cover-Up Mistake Yet

Last week, Michelle Obama offered the most ridiculous excuse for skipping Donald Trump’s inauguration, and let’s just say it didn’t do her any favors. On a podcast few people listen to—the one she does with her brother—she claimed she didn’t attend because she “had nothing to wear.” 

And the media ate it up as if that explanation made sense, completely ignoring the fact that a former first lady with unlimited resources couldn’t find a dress would be like Donald Trump claiming he doesn’t have enough ties. 

I’ve been saying for a while now that despite the media’s portrayal that she has been publicly refuting rumors of marital problems with Barack, that she’s actually been evasive whenever asked about those rumors, dodging direct questions with vague empowerment-speak instead of a clear denial.

And she’s done it again!

What’s especially telling about Michelle Obama’s latest attempt to address those persistent divorce rumors isn’t what she says — it’s what she carefully avoids saying. In a recent appearance on “The Diary of a CEO with Steven Bartlett,” with her brother, we got the same kind of non-denial denial we’ve been getting for weeks.

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