Sean “Diddy” Combs’ trial officially kicked off today with opening statements from both the prosecution and the defense. While the rapper’s legal team painted him as a “complicated” man with an unorthodox but fully consensual sex life, prosecutors wasted no time sharing some sordid details from sexual encounters they say were coerced, per Deadline. Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Ann Johnson provided a list of “crime after crime” during opening statements in Manhattan court Monday morning, mentioning kidnapping, arson, drugs, sex crimes, and bribery allegedly committed over the past two decades. “He called himself the king, and he expected to be treated like one,” she said as a reference to the viral hotel surveillance footage showing him physically assaulting his then-girlfriend Cassie Ventura and “flinging her around like a rag doll.” The prosecutor also went into detail about one specific incident which allegedly occurred at the rapper’s notorious “freak-off” parties. Johnson alleged that a male prostitute was instructed to urinate in Ventura’s mouth, which led to har saying she “felt like she was choking.” Johnson said Combs was able to get away with it for so long thanks to his “inner circle and vast resources of his business empire.” “Her livelihood and safety depended on keeping him happy,” Johnson said of Ventura, who is slated to take the stand at a later date. Defense Attorney Tenny Geragos presented a different portrait of the Bad Boys Records founder. “Sean Combs is a complicated man, but this is not as complicated case,” Geragos said. “Sean Combs has a bad temper and sometimes he gets out of control,” the attorney added. “We take full responsibility for the domestic violence. Domestic violence is not sex trafficking.” “We will not shy away from the things Mr. Comb did,” the attorney added, saying her client “has a bit of a different sex life,” but asserting that the encounters occurred between consenting adults. Gergagos also mentioned the surveillance video, repeating the claim that it was “overwhelming evidence of domestic violence … but it is not evidence of sex trafficking.” She said the incident seen on security footage represented a “toxic relationship between two people who loved each other.” The attorney also pointed out that Ventura stayed with Combs as a romantic partner for 11 years. Combs, 44, has been charged with sex trafficking, racketeering, and transportation to engage in prostitution. He was arrested in September 2024 and has been awaiting trial behind bars after multiple attempts to be released on bail. Combs pleaded not guilty to the charges. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.

The biggest story coming out this week is that the Trump administration is preparing to accept a super-luxury Boeing 747 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar, according to ABC News. It is a $400 million gift available for use by President Trump. ABC News reported: The Trump administration is preparing to accept a super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar — a gift that is to be available for use by President Donald Trump as the new Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office, at which time ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation, sources familiar with the proposed arrangement told ABC News. The gift had been expected to be announced next week, when Trump visits Qatar on the first foreign trip of his second term, according to sources familiar with the plans. But a senior White House official said the gift will not be presented or gifted while the president is in Qatar this week. Trump posted on Truth Social:  So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane. Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!! MAGA  The arrangement itself, to use the technical term, is skeezy.  How is this good for the Trump agenda?  The answer is: it isn’t.  ABC News continued:  Sources told ABC News that lawyers for the White House counsel’s office and the Department of Justice drafted an analysis for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth concluding that is legal for the Department of Defense to accept the aircraft as a gift and later turn it over to the Trump library, and that it does not violate laws against bribery or the Constitution’s prohibition (the emoluments clause) of any U.S. government official accepting gifts “from any King, Prince or foreign State.” Sources told ABC News that Attorney General Pam Bondi and Trump’s top White House lawyer David Warrington concluded it would be “legally permissible” for the donation of the aircraft to be conditioned on transferring its ownership to Trump’s presidential library before the end of his term, according to sources familiar with their determination. The sources said Bondi provided a legal memorandum addressed to the White House counsel’s office last week after Warrington asked her for advice on the legality of the Pentagon accepting such a donation. Let’s first point out that Qatar isn’t allegedly giving President Trump a $400 million jet out of the goodness of their sweet little hearts, no matter what special envoy Steve Witkoff says. Qatar tries to stuff money in pockets in a totally bipartisan fashion. Rewind a few years: While Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State, Qatar gave $1 million to the Clinton Foundation for Bill Clinton’s birthday and didn’t even bother to inform the State Department, as they promised they would do. Qatar will court anyone they think has power. Republican or Democrat, it’s an equal opportunity influencer. As long as you can help whitewash their image or smooth over the fact that they are, in fact, the world’s largest proponents of terrorism on an international scale in terms of public relations or in terms of putting money in pockets. Qatar likes to put on a Western-friendly face while shoveling money to Islamic terrorists under the table. This is a regime that has, for decades, funneled billions of dollars into the hands of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Taliban. We’re talking about systematic, ongoing financial support that has strengthened Hamas’ grip on Gaza, provided them with resources, and enabled terrorist attacks that killed innocent civilians. Doha, Qatar’s capital, has five-star hotels that are basically retirement hotels for Hamas leaders. Qatar has been credibly accused by the Treasury Department, international watchdogs, and regional allies of the U.S. of allowing financiers of Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and the Muslim Brotherhood to operate within its borders. This is a country that has repeatedly failed to crack down on terrorist financing, even after being pressured by the United States and Qatar’s neighbors.   Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in 2017, “I don’t know instances in which Qatar aggressively goes after (terror finance) networks of Hamas, Taliban, Al-Qaeda.” Qatar has transferred almost $2 billion to Hamas over the years. The former Saudi Foreign Minister said of Qatar that it had, since the mid-1990s, “been sponsoring radicals, have been inciting people. They have become a base for the Muslim Brotherhood … which begot us al-Qaeda, which begot us al-Nusra. The Qataris allow their senior religious clerics to go on television and justify suicide bombings. That’s not acceptable. The Qataris harbor childhood terrorists.”  How does Qatar excuse all this? Simply by saying terrorists are not terrorists, as the Emir of Qatar said in 2014. Qatar essentially plays both sides of the table: they say that they should be given leeway because they’re the negotiation point for the West and terrorist groups, but it helps fund and house those terrorist groups, as well as doing the bidding of Iran.  You know who pointed out their funding of terrorists? President Trump. In June 2017, President Trump correctly stated, “The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level, and in the wake of that conference, nations came together and spoke to me about confronting Qatar over its behavior.  So we had a decision to make:  Do we take the easy road, or do we finally take a hard but necessary action?  We have to stop the funding of terrorism.” How does Qatar combat these allegations? By spreading money everywhere. According to the Network Contagion Research Institute, Qatar is by far the single largest donor to American universities since 9/11. They’re not doing that out of the goodness of their heart. Why would they? The Prime Minister of Qatar, this week, explained to the Georgetown Doha campus that service to Qatar had to be their guiding light, as part of a greater national project on behalf of Qatar. That greater national project doesn’t end at Qatar’s borders. Their influence matters. Which is why Georgetown University, which has a branch in Doha, just gave a medal to a Qatari royal who praised Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas, after October 7.  Qatar is also the home of Al Jazeera, the pro-terrorism media network that spreads anti-American and anti-Israeli bile across the Middle East.  Meanwhile, the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) controls, according to the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, between $500 billion and $1 trillion in assets — and they use those assets to put themselves in positions of influence.  So, for example, in August 2023, the Qatari sovereign wealth fund bought the Park Lane Hotel in New York for $623 million. The company was owned by Steve Witkoff’s company. The company had been in limbo for six years following the attempted seizure of the hotel by the Department of Justice, thanks to corruption charges against one of the owners, Low Taek Jho. So it’s obvious why Steve Witkoff says that he really, really likes the Qataris and has warm relations with them. Taking sacks of money from people who support Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Jazeera, etc., is not “America First.” Does “America First” mean taking sacks of cash from the Qatari royals, who are behind Al Jazeera? Back to the original question: Is this good for President Trump? Is it good for his agenda? Is it good for “draining the swamp” and getting things done? The answer is no. It isn’t.  If you want President Trump to succeed, this kind of skeezy stuff needs to stop.  And this kind of stuff is already having an impact.  Let me give you a quick example: Last week, the Senate shot down a procedural vote on the so-called GENIUS Act – an act that should have had bipartisan support. That Act helps deregulate the crypto industry, an area that is vital for America’s economic development.  As you know, I’m a fan of crypto – I own some Bitcoin and Ethereum, and if you want to watch me explain why crypto is fascinating and useful, check out my YouTube video on the subject – and I know a lot of people in the crypto industry who have been ecstatic about President Trump’s approach to crypto. But the bill was shot down, at least in part, because of Democrats who said they wouldn’t vote for the thing because of President Trump’s use of crypto himself.  You all recall President Trump launching $TRUMP crypto three days before taking office as President. Trump himself announced $TRUMP on X and TruthSocial, describing it as a memecoin. The price spiked to a trading value of nearly $13 billion, making it the 19th most valuable cryptocurrency on the planet.  It then plummeted.  The project allegedly netted people associated with it — meaning the Trump organizations associated with the crypto —  some $350 million. 80% of the outstanding supply is still held by insiders. Overall, according to data shared with CNBC, of the 2 million wallets that bought $TRUMP, 764,000 lost money, and just 58 wallets made more than $10 million.  Then, in April, $TRUMP announced that the top 220 holders of the coin would be invited to an “intimate private dinner” with President Trump at his golf club. The top 25 were invited to a VIP White House tour. According to Bloomberg News, 19 of the top 25 holders of the $TRUMP coin that have registered on the website’s leaderboard have bought the coins using foreign exchanges that claim to exclude U.S. customers.  This, of course, raised the question of influence peddling – if you basically bought a bunch of $TRUMP memecoin, thus funneling money to organizations associated with President Trump, you could have dinner with Trump. Democratic senators immediately requested an ethics probe, sending a letter reading, “This latest action raises grave ethics and legal concerns, including the severe risk that President Trump and other officials may be engaging in ‘pay to play’ corruption by selling presidential access to individuals or entities, to include foreign nationals and corporate actors with vested interests in federal action, while personally enriching the President and his family.”  Some people seem to be investing in $TRUMP for the access. Let the CEO of Freight Technologies Inc explain why they just bought a bunch of $TRUMP memecoin: “We believe that the addition of the Official Trump tokens are an excellent way to diversify our crypto treasury, and also an effective way to advocate for fair, balanced, and free trade between Mexico and the US.” Not the least skeezy thing I’ve ever heard. Now, maybe all of this is overblown. Maybe it’s nonsense.  But here’s the question again: does it help advance the President’s agenda? The agenda his voters voted for? Does this make his presidency stronger or weaker? I don’t know whether this activity is technically illegal or not, but things do not have to be criminal to hurt the agenda. If you want President Trump’s agenda to succeed, taking jets from Qatar is not the way. Taking real estate deals from Qatar is not the way. The largest obstacle to any administration is scandal. From Watergate to Whitewater, scandal-plagued administrations have a tough time gathering the political capital necessary to actually effectuate their agenda. That’s why it’s so damned important that the Trump administration avoid scandal. And that’s why I’m worried about this stuff.  Yes, I think it’s bad. Yes, if we switched the names to Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, we’d all be freaking out on the Right. Let’s just say that if Qatar was giving Joe a $400 million jet for his use at his presidential library after his presidency; or if Hunter Biden had launched a crypto firm with the son of Antony Blinken, launched a series of crypto products in which mysterious strangers including foreigners could invest, all while the crypto firm was being regulated by his father’s administration, we’d all have been upset. We might have said it was worthy of some coverage. Now, again, it could be that all of these reports are skewed. Maybe it’s all a misreading of perfectly innocent business. Sure. It’s possible.  But the point is this: President Trump has enemies all over the place. He has people seeking to take advantage of their proximity to his power. He has media outlets that would love nothing better than to set him up for another impeachment. And I promise you, if these issues begin to dog the administration, Republicans will lose Congress. And then whatever President Trump hopes to do — whatever agenda we voted for — will be DOA. The administration’s policy is too important for this sort of activity. President Trump promised to drain the swamp. This is not draining the swamp. President Trump was elected based on the American people being sick and tired of antics like those of Hunter and the Biden Crime Family. How in the world would President Trump be well-served by this sort of vulnerability?  More importantly, why would those of us who voted for him, who gave to his campaign, who stumped for him, be well-served by this? The answer is that we wouldn’t.  Which is why it needs to stop.

A major medical organization that accredits all graduate medical education programs, like internships and residency programs, announced Friday that it was suspending some of its “diversity” requirements. The board of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education released a statement announcing it was pausing certain “diversity” requirements due to concerns about compliance with federal law. The announcement comes after President Donald Trump called out the accreditation organization in an executive order asking the Education Department to crack down on accreditation bodies mandating universities adopt DEI programs. “The ACGME has heard significant concerns from multiple constituents in several states and from federal Sponsoring Institutions about their ability to comply with some of the ACGME requirements addressing diversity in light of state or federal laws,” the organization said Friday, noting that it was suspending multiple diversity requirements because of “uncertainty” about their legality. The organization said that it would be further addressing the requirements at its June board meeting. The diversity requirements included mandating that institutions sponsoring medical education programs implement policies to recruit a “diverse and inclusive” workforce of residents and faculty. “The Sponsoring Institution, in partnership with each of its programs, must engage in practices that focus on ongoing, mission-driven, systematic recruitment and retention of a diverse and inclusive workforce of residents/fellows, faculty members, senior administrative staff members, and other relevant members of its GME community,” the requirement reads. ACGME Institutional Requirements. The board also paused a similar policy for its residency program requirements. In an April executive order, Trump mentioned the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education as one of the accrediting bodies he said had “abused” its “enormous authority” by forcing universities to adopt DEI policies. “The Secretary of Education shall, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, hold accountable, including through denial, monitoring, suspension, or termination of accreditation recognition, accreditors who fail to meet the applicable recognition criteria or otherwise violate Federal law, including by requiring institutions seeking accreditation to engage in unlawful discrimination in accreditation-related activity under the guise of ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ initiatives,” Trump wrote. The announcement from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education earned praised from Dr. Travis Morrell, a senior fellow at Do No Harm, an organization devoted to getting politics out of medicine. “ACGME has finally cracked after three months of doubling-down on its commitment to radical identity politics. ACGME’s suspension of absurd diversity rules is an encouraging first step but now it must permanently eliminate these requirements – along with the equity in education rule it still enforces,” Morrell told The Daily Wire. “The sudden change of tune is a direct result of President Trump’s historic executive order dismantling accreditors’ ability to impose DEI requirements on schools. By prioritizing expertise over politics, we will slowly but surely restore a culture of meritocracy to American medical institutions.”

It’s a new week, and that means new baby animal content to melt your heart! Meet Obi, a spectacularly fluffy baby donkey from Franklin Park Zoo in Boston. This precious creature is so cute, he almost looks like a stuffed animal! Get ready to say, “Aww!” when you watch the footage below. @franklinparkzoo This most floofy baby has our hearts this New Year. We can’t wait to see how much Obi grows in 2025! #baby #babyanimals #poitoudonkey #FranklinParkZoo #newyear ♬ Reflections on 52nd – AGM3 “This most floofy baby has our hearts this New Year,” the zoo wrote in their caption earlier this year. “We can’t wait to see how much Obi grows in 2025!” Obi, who was born in August 2024, may be a youngster, but he’s already stealing hearts online. Commenters couldn’t get over this baby donkey’s fuzzy coat! “Welp, I have now fallen in love with ANOTHER animal — time to create a rescue farm!” wrote one user. Another added, “He looks so snuggly!” In a previous post, Franklin Park Zoo shared a bit more information about the baby donkey. For one thing, they explained where this little critter gets his voluminous hair. @franklinparkzoo FACT: Poitou donkey foals are impossibly cute and fluffy. This handsome fella was born at Franklin Park Zoo in August. While he grew stronger and more frisky, his mother’s health was declining due to serious conditions including a gastric ulceration and laminitis. Despite intensive care, Vollavon’s condition continued to worsen and the decision was made to humanely euthanize her based on the poor prognosis for her quality of life. We all miss her. So much. But even as we mourned her heartbreaking loss, the animal team jumped into action with round-the-clock feedings and monitoring of the foal, and the veterinary team provided frequent check-ins. The good news is that our little guy is doing well! Vollavon’s bestie (a Morgan horse named Betty) even stepped up, offering constant companionship and doting on the youngster like a good auntie. We can’t wait to share more about our littlest Poitou donkey (including his name!) and about this rare heritage breed. For now, please enjoy all the fluff. #FranklinParkZoo #babyanimals #donkey #Poitoudonkey #heritagebreed #fluffy ♬ Future – Official Sound Studio “FACT: Poitou donkey foals are impossibly cute and fluffy,” they stated in the caption. Sadly, the zoo also shared that Obi lost his mother, Vollavon, to illness. In her absence, the baby donkey received the care he needed from humans. “This handsome fella was born at Franklin Park Zoo in August,” they explained. “While he grew stronger and more frisky, his mother’s health was declining due to serious conditions including a gastric ulceration and laminitis. Despite intensive care, Vollavon’s condition continued to worsen and the decision was made to humanely euthanize her based on the poor prognosis for her quality of life.” They added, “But even as we mourned her heartbreaking loss, the animal team jumped into action with round-the-clock feedings and monitoring of the foal, and the veterinary team provided frequent check-ins.” Thankfully, Franklin Park Zoo also said that the baby donkey was “doing well.” Judging by some of their other posts about Obi, he’s living his best life! One absolutely adorable video shows him playfully rolling around on the ground and getting covered in dust. @franklinparkzoo When you’re so so fluffy, you tend to wear the ground after you roll around. But it’s just so much fun! #zooborn #babyanimals #FranklinParkZoo #poitou #donkey #poitoudonkey #obithepoitou ♬ Traveling On – Andy Gabrys We can’t get enough of this sweet baby donkey! He has grown this year, but he’s still up to his adorable antics! You can find the source of this story’s featured image here. The post Obi The Baby Donkey Is The Cutest And “Floofiest” Creature You’ve Ever Seen! appeared first on InspireMore.

'If bombing Iran is truly plan B, Trump would be wise to go back to the drawing board.'

'They face consequences'

His injuries are not considered life threatening

CHRIS BERMAN IS BACK

'The fate of Europe is in the hands of drugged, dependent, temporary figures'

'Fetterman is the only person that ... I'm like, F*ck you.'