Trump threatens U.S. expansion as foreign students called back to campus: Live

The first-ever federal legislation to criminalize pornographic deepfakes was attached to a broader bipartisan government funding bill with support from both Republican and Democratic members of Congress.

Elon Musk’s X platform was even involved in lobby efforts to support the legislation, including other actions on child safety.

It was virtually guaranteed to pass Congress.

But Musk’s pressure campaign against that government funding bill prompted Republicans to strike that language from the measure altogether. Efforts to revive the spending bill did not include it.

The race to lead the Democratic Party in the wake of Kamala Harris’s election defeat expanded on Thursday as author and two-time candidate Marianne Williamson announced that she was seeking the role.

The Independent’s John Bowden has more:

Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Ainsley Earhardt are engaged.

Hannity, 62, proposed to Earhardt, 48, over Christmas at their home church after years of long-distance dating, according to an announcement by Fox News Thursday.

​​”We are overjoyed and so thankful to our families for all of their love and support during this wonderful time in our lives,” the happy couple told the network.

Some of Donald Trump’s most prominent critics are bracing for impact.

“By going after me they’re just going to give me a platform,” George Conway told The Independent.

More from The Independent’s White House correspondent Andrew Feinberg on the critics preparing for a fight:

Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley tore into her old rival Vivek Ramaswamy on Thursday, after the entrepreneur and Trump administration adviser wrote a lengthy takedown arguing mainstream U.S. culture doesn’t encourage science and technology excellence, leading companies to hire foreign-born and first-generation workers.

“There is nothing wrong with American workers or American culture,” Haley wrote in response on X. “All you have to do is look at the border and see how many want what we have. We should be investing and prioritizing in Americans, not foreign workers.”

The pair previously clashed when both were candidates during the 2024 Republican presidential primary.

Ramaswamy, who is a first-generation Indian-American, was accused in 2023 of attempting to use a racist dogwhistle by criticizing Haley using her maiden name, Nimarata Nikki Randhawa, and suggesting she was being untruthful about her own Indian family background.

Read on for all the details.

According to industry group The Toy Association, nearly 80 percent of U.S. toys are manufactured in China, one of the countries the President-elect has threatened to target with immediate charges on exports.

Trump has said he would impose a 10 percent universal tariff on foreign imports, and last month floated the idea of an additional 60 to 100 percent tariff on goods specifically from China.

But experts have warned that the tariffs are likely to have a negative effect on shoppers and the economy. Though the levy is paid by the importer, much of the tax is ultimately handed off to consumers in the form of higher prices.

A Democratic congressman is calling for the United States to decriminalize sex work nationwide in response to damning findings released by the House Ethics Committee about Matt Gaetz.

Illinois Rep. Shri Thanedar said to the government show work to “maximize sex workers’ legal protection and their ability to exercise other rights, including unionization, justice, and health care. Decriminalization and regulation would prevent trafficking and exploitation of minors.”

More from The Independent’s John Bowden:

The Trump administration is planning to jail immigrant families together in detention centers before they are removed from the country.

“We’re going to need to construct family facilities,” Tom Homan told The Washington Post in a recent interview. “How many beds we’re going to need will depend on what the data says.”

Trump and Homan have repeatedly said that even U.S. citizen children of non-citizen parents are expected to be deported along with their families.

“Here’s the issue,” Homan told The Post. “You knew you were in the country illegally and chose to have a child. So you put your family in that position.”

Trump’s inaugural fund is projected to raise more than $150 million, breaking the previous $107 million inauguration fundraising record that was set during the president-elect’s first inauguration.

Trump acolyte and self-proclaimed “proud Islamophobe” Laura Loomer is threatening to tell MAGA to “stay home” during the next midterm elections amid an escalating feud with “tech bros” Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy over Silicon Valley’s reliance on foreign-born workers.