There may be one more big gift this holiday season for a lucky winner (or several) as the Mega Millions jackpot reaches a record-high payout of $1.15 billion. The next drawing is on Friday, December 27. Mega Millions tickets cost $2 a piece, per the Associated Press. The odds of winning the jackpot are 1 in 302,575,350, and the odds of winning any Mega Millions prize are 1 in 24, the outlet noted. Tickets are available in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The last Mega Millions jackpot win was back on September 10 when someone won $810 million in Texas. The total jackpot has been growing ever since and has become one of the largest of all time. The Christmas Eve jackpot was worth $1 billion or an estimated $448.8 million lump-sum payment after taxes, per USA Today. No one won the jackpot on Christmas Eve, but four people from CA, MO, PA, and WY won $1 million in the Match 5 lottery that night. As of now, the largest U.S. jackpots won are as follows: $2.04 billion, Powerball, Nov. 7, 2022 (one ticket, from California) $1.765 billion, Powerball, Oct. 11, 2023 (one ticket, from California) $1.602 billion, Mega Millions, Aug. 8, 2023 (one ticket, from Florida) $1.586 billion, Powerball, Jan. 13, 2016 (three tickets, from California, Florida, Tennessee) $1.537 billion, Mega Millions, Oct. 23, 2018 (one ticket, from South Carolina) $1.348 billion, Mega Millions, Jan. 13, 2023 (one ticket, from Maine) $1.337 billion, Mega Millions, July 29, 2022 (one ticket, from Illinois) $1.326 billion, Powerball, April 7, 2024 (one ticket, Oregon) $1.13 billion, Mega Millions, March 26, 2024 (one ticket, from New Jersey) $1.08 billion, Powerball, July 19, 2023 (one ticket, from California)  

In yet another attempt to impede Donald Trump from gaining the presidency, on Thursday, The Hill ran an opinion piece by two lawyers, one of whom had served as president of the New York City Bar, in which they urged Congress to reject the Electoral College vote in order to stop Donald Trump from being inaugurated as president. Evan Davis, who once served as editor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review and later served as counsel to New York Democrat governor Mario Cuomo, and David Schulte, who had served as editor-in-chief of the Yale Law Journal, later became a friend and financial supporter of Barack Obama, and is now an investment banker, quoted the 14th Amendment, which states: No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. “Disqualification is based on insurrection against the Constitution and not the government,” the authors write. “The evidence of Donald Trump’s engaging in such insurrection is overwhelming. The matter has been decided in three separate forums, two of which were fully contested with the active participation of Trump’s counsel.” The authors cite Trump’s second impeachment trial, in which Democrats sought to impeach Trump just before he left office. After the House passed the article of impeachment, citing “incitement of insurrection,” on January 13, 2021, by a 232–197 vote, with all 222 Democrats voting in favor, an argument ensued over whether the Senate, which was in pro forma sessions until January 19, could take on the matter. Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi transmitted the article of impeachment to the Senate on January 25, five days after Trump had left office. Supporters of the impeachment argued that the Constitution permitted disqualification from holding future office. Trump was acquitted by the Senate on February 13; 57 senators voted in favor of conviction and 43 voted against. The authors then cite “the Colorado five-day judicial due process hearing where the court ‘found by clear and convincing evidence that President Trump engaged in insurrection as those terms are used in Section Three.’” After the verdict was affirmed by the Colorado Supreme Court, it was sent on appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which did “not address the finding that Trump had engaged in insurrection,” the authors admitted. The authors finally cite the House Select Committee that investigated January 6. They argue that evidence from witnesses leads to “the inescapable conclusion … that Trump engaged in insurrection against the Constitution.” The authors cite the amended Electoral Act stating that one ground for objection to an electoral vote is if a vote of one or more electors was not “regularly given.” They then offer this supposition: “A vote for a candidate disqualified by the Constitution is plainly in accordance with the normal use of words ‘not regularly given.’ Disqualification for engaging in insurrection is no different from disqualification based on other constitutional requirements such as age, citizenship from birth and 14 years’ residency in the United States.” They conclude their argument by stating: To make an objection under the Count Act requires a petition signed by 20 percent of the members of each House. If the objection is sustained by majority vote in each house, the vote is not counted and the number of votes required to be elected is reduced by the number of disqualified votes. If all votes for Trump were not counted, Kamala Harris would be elected president. 

A Brooklyn man stabbed multiple people at Grand Central Terminal on Christmas Eve, and no bystanders tried to stop him. Jason Sargeant, 28, allegedly stabbed two people in separate attacks before being stopped by police, the New York Post reported. One of the victims, a 26-year-old woman, said no one helped her when she was attacked. Sargeant has been charged with assault, reckless endangerment, menacing, criminal possession of a weapon, harassment, and disorderly conduct. He had three prior arrests, including one for assaulting a police officer, the Post reported. Imani-Ciara Pizarro, 26, was Facetiming with her neighbor as she left the 4 train around 10 p.m., the Post reported, when she saw blood on the ground near the turnstiles. A few seconds later, she was “sucker punched” in the back of the head and “blacked out,” she told the Post. Sargeant allegedly yelled, “what’s your problem?” at Pizarro multiple times before stabbing her in the throat and kicking her phone away. Witnesses told the Post that they “just froze” and that no police were around. “I wish I could be able to travel to my livelihood and not be attacked. I wish there were cops in Grand Central when I was attacked, there were none. I was running for help and there was no one there,” Pizarro told the outlet. “There are usually cops in four different spots and I ran to each one of them but none were there.” Pizarro was on her way to work at a nearby migrant shelter. Sargeant is reportedly a Brooklyn native. “No one called 911. No one in Grand Central called 911,” Pizarro told the Post. “It was my neighbor. I called my neighbor. I was on the phone with my neighbor when it happened and she called 911.” Pizarro was the second person allegedly stabbed by Sargeant. The first was a 42-year-old man who has not been identified. The attacks appear to be unprovoked. “It’s not fair. We’re getting hurt every day. And there’s nothing I can do. I can’t protect myself. I’ve almost been assaulted two other times in the last two months by mentally ill people. I try to ignore them but they don’t like being ignored either,” Pizarro told the Post. At his first court proceeding on Christmas Day, Sargeant reportedly cried for his mother as he was held on $150,000 bail, the Post reported. “Wait, mom, I didn’t know you were here! I didn’t know you were here!” Sargeant reportedly cried.

As we prepare to enter the new year, we’re taking you back to some of The Daily Wire’s best reporting from 2024. This article was originally published on October 2.  A “social justice academy” run by a California school district teaches elementary school kids to disavow “whiteness” and embrace transgender ideology, lesson plans shared with The Daily Wire show. Every summer since 2021, the New Haven Unified School District in the San Francisco Bay area has trained rising 3rd-6th graders in leftist gender and racial politics during its annual “social justice academy.” Specific details about the academy’s curriculum were revealed in documents recently obtained from the school by Parents Defending Education through a public records request. “Scholars will define and critically think about Social Justice, identify social injustices in the community, and create opportunities for activism through writing, action, art,” according to a plan from 2023 for the academy, which operates in deep blue Alameda County. The three-week academy, which costs the district around $20,000, was formed, in part, due to an Alameda County resolution that instructs educators to “help our children understand and react to racial differences, and to teach our youth how to speak up against injustice, racism and inequality.” Throughout the three-week course, students are taught the full gambit of leftist positions from “womxn rights” to Black Lives Matter and transgender ideology. The course comes as test scores show that under half of elementary students in the district are proficient in math while only half are proficient in reading. A lesson plan from week one shows that the academy focuses on issues of racial and sexual identity while reading from the book “Not My Idea: A Book About Whiteness.” The book says that “whiteness is a bad deal. It always was” and that “you can be white without signing on to whiteness.” The students are also taught that it is “white supremacy” that the 10 richest Americans are white and that governors were 96% white based on 2016-era statistics, according to planning materials for the academy from 2024. In another exercise, students were taught about stereotypes by being forced to fire people from a list of names, before gradually learning more about them, including their sexual identities and disabilities. In week two of the academy, students are taught about Black Lives Matter, defunding the police, and taught to compare former President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler. The comparison between Trump and Hitler happens during a section on “dehumanizing language,” where students are shown an image of the two men with quotes. However, the quote attributed to Trump is completely fabricated. 50% OFF ALL DAILY WIRE ANNUAL MEMBERSHIPS FOR A LIMITED TIME! Trump is quoted in the image as saying “Undocumented immigrants are not human; they are animals.” While Trump has referred to violent gang members and murderers as “animals,” he never said all illegal immigrants are animals in a blanket manner. The course also takes a pro-Palestinian bent, accusing Israel of being a colonialist power and pointing students to a video from the leftist outlet The Root called “Why Black people should care about Palestinian Liberation.” Also during the second week, students are taught about “defunding the police,” the history of the Black Lives Matter movement, and the “criminalization of BIPOC.” The course materials argue that school disciplinary practices create a “school-to-prison” pipeline that disproportionately impacts black students. During week three of the social justice academy, students read from two books pushing transgender ideology. One book, “I Am Jazz,” is based on Jazz Jennings, a man who identifies as a woman. Jennings’ parents moved him towards “gender-transition” at age 3, and he quickly became the star of a reality TV show that highlighted transgenderism. Students are taught that being “transgender is not a choice” and how to be an “LGBTQIA+ Ally.” Course materials list “transgender rights” as things like “access to medical care” and “all gender bathrooms.” Students are also taught about a Florida law that prohibited discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation for young children in classrooms. The legislation was derisively referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by the Left. New Haven Unified School District did not respond to requests for comment. Erika Sanzi, the director of outreach for Parents Defending Education, said that the academy should be shut down. “This summer program should have been advertised as an indoctrination camp where ideologues who spell the word ‘women’ with an x feed students propaganda about defunding the police, transgenderism, and oppression,” she told The Daily Wire. “At the same time that they lie to kids about book bans, the curriculum includes a children’s book that calls whiteness bad and equates it with the devil.”

'presidential term'

We might have some heat with this one

'Surprising that the White House didn’t ask'

"Oh man, he is at it again."

The suspect allegedly waved the flames with a shirt

The Post suggested Hegseth received a 'participation trophy'